Hasta La Gadget!

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to land a rover on the surface of Mars, you’re in luck. To celebrate NASA’s Curiosity rover upcoming landing on Mars, the agency teamed up with Microsoft to create a game called “Mars Rover Landing”. Available on the Xbox 360, it lets gamers experience what it’s like to land such an important device on the red planet. Gamers make use of the Kinect to steer Curiosity with their bodies.

Gamers will have to enter the planet’s atmosphere, avoid obstacles, release parachutes, perform balancing acts and more. It definitely sounds pretty interesting, and judging from the demonstration video – a whole lot of fun too. However, I don’t see people coming back to the game over and over again just to play the same mission. Fortunately Mars Rover Landing is a free game and is available now from the Xbox LIVE Marketplace and Kinect Central. Do check it out and let us know what you think.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: $99 Xbox 360 with Kinect bundle now available, Microsoft unveils Union Jack themed Xbox 360 bundle,

NASA has already made it clear that the Curiosity’s touchdown on Mars is a nerve-wracking experience, what with the seven minutes of radio silence, zero margin of error and all. To drive that point home, the organization partnered with Microsoft to offer Xbox Live players the experience of controlling the nerve-wracking descent. Starting Monday, you’ll be able to download the free Mars Rover Landing, NASA’s first Xbox Live game. The title uses the Kinect motion controller to simulate the many phases of landing, including dropping the heat shield and deploying the supersonic parachute, with players’ movements controlling the speed and direction of the craft as it approaches the Red Planet. You’ll get three scores — one for each of the landing process — not to mention some newfound appreciation for what employees at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory will be going through on August 5th.

Filed under: Science

Mars Rover game hits Xbox Live, tasks you with safely landing the Curiosity with Kinect originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Jul 2012 03:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Those looking to hone their own olympian body in preparation for this year’s Games can grab Adidas’ miCoach title for both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Tapping into both consoles’ respective motion-sensing cameras (and Adidas’ own sensors and units), there are six sports to dabble in, with over 400 different exercises that can be synced with existing miCoach accounts. There’s also a raft of Adidas-emblazoned athletes to take you through those motions. The games are priced up at £21 (around $32) a piece in the UK, but American indoor athletes can expect their version to arrive around July 24.

Adidas miCoach out now on European Xbox 360s and PS3s, connects to cameras and own hardware originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 15 Jul 2012 04:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you love playing games on the Xbox 360 with your Kinect and you’ve always wondered about how many calories you’re actually burning every time you complete a gaming session, you’re in luck. Today, Microsoft announced the launch of Kinect PlayFit – a new fitness dashboard that aggregates and tracks the calories you burn as you play a variety of Kinect games such as Dance Central 2 to Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012 to Kinect Star Wars.

Kinect PlayFit is touted as the first ever fitness tracking app on a video game console, and features leaderboards and integration with the Xbox LIVE community so you can see who’s been working the hardest amongst you and your friends. Sounds like a pretty good way to motivate you and your friends into keeping fit when gaming at the same time. Download Kinect PlayFit from Xbox LIVE today (folks outside of the US will get it later this week).

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Kinect Star Wars bundle arriving on April 3rd, Apps on next Xbox required to have Kinect support (updated),

Fans of the Steel Battalion series will remember fondly showing off that massive, 40 button controller to their friends and, for a time, feeling like the most hardcore gamer on the planet. Those days are sadly gone, that amazing controller not compatible with the Xbox 360, but of course these days you are the controller. Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor is the latest, Kinect-powered entry to the series and if you look around you’ll find the above, your very own Engadget logo that you can plaster all over your Vertical Tank. While we’ve had limited time with the game, we have to echo the sentiment of our friends over at Joystiq who conclude that the controls are, well, broken to put it mildly. But hey, dig that logo!

Engadget emblem in Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor makes uncontrollable VTs more stylish originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 07 Jul 2012 10:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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