Hasta La Gadget!

The dreams of millions of high school students came true this week, with the release of what may well be the first-ever video adaptation of a work of F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby game is a Flash title that allows the player to assume the role of Nick Carraway, off in search of the titular character.

The game is a pretty faithful homage to 8-bit NES games–and, most shockingly of all, is pretty damn fun. A couple of screens, after the jump.

EA Sports isn’t one to give things away, but that’s exactly what it’s doing on RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook. We still haven’t heard a concrete ship date for this thing, but EA swears up and down that these two titles will be finalized by the time it goes to market. Both Tetris and Need For Speed: Undercover will come pre-loaded on the device, with both being full, unabridged versions; in fact, NFS will feature a new mode specifically designed for getting into the game quickly on this very tablet. Smartly, there’s even a “slo mo” mode which slows everything down to enable accurate control even during hectic rides on the subway. We’ve lauded the PlayBook before, but we were duly impressed with just how well this thing handled multitasking. Even with NFS running in the background, we were able to play back a video in the foreground with nary a bit of lag during the transition. Tetris was predictably Tetris, and it only works when holding the slate vertically. We’ve got to confess that the inclusion of these two titles is quite the gesture, and considering the first four letters of this product’s name, we’d say it’s more than fitting. Hop on down to see a demonstration video of both, showcased here at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Continue reading BlackBerry PlayBook to ship with full versions of Tetris and Need For Speed: Undercover (video)

BlackBerry PlayBook to ship with full versions of Tetris and Need For Speed: Undercover (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 12:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BARCELONA, Spain — Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Play is the phone we have wanted ever since Sony’s PSP was invented. It is, in any meaningful way, the first official PSP phone, and we got to play with it at the Mobile World Congress. How does it do?

Pretty well. With the gamepad tucked out of the way, the Play is a fairly humdrum Android phone, running 2.3 Gingerbread on a Snapdragon processor and equipped with a 5-MP camera. As a phone, it is perfectly fine.

But slide that pad out, and things get fun, fast. You get a D-pad, the four familiar PlayStation “shape” buttons, start and select buttons, and a home button that mimics the regular one next to the screen. There are also two touchpads and a pair of shoulder buttons — around back, behind the screen.

To drive the graphics, the Play has its own GPU, the 1-GHz Adreno 205. This allows the phone to push the polygons around and display them at 60 fps. Here you can see it in action, along with me getting my ass kicked in the preinstalled Bruce Lee game:

Holding it like this, you forget immediately that it is a phone. The buttons are fine, although if you were playing a Streetfighter-style game, those D-pad rolling special moves would be a little tricky. The shoulder buttons are easy to reach, even for my big hands, and the screen hinge is solid enough that things don’t flop around whilst playing.

Games will come from the Android Market, and there will be a separate PlayStation Store for buying old PS1 games, which will run on the Play.

It’s impressive, but I’m worried that it will be too expensive to be successful. Amazon.de lists it at 650 euro, which converts to $880. That’s a lot of cash, and even Sony Ericsson’s promise of 50 launch titles might not be enough to distract you from the sticker price. The launch date has yet to be announced, but could be as early as March.

See Also:

• Rumor: Sony Ericsson Plans Android 3 PlayStation Phone
• Leaked Photo: Is This the Sony Ericsson PlayStation Phone?

Guitar Hero had its time in the sun as one of the most successful franchises in musical gaming. Still, it’s been no secret that the once-respected brand, owned by Activision, has experienced pretty steep declines in the past few years, especially on the lackluster Guitar Hero 5. So, surprising or not, the announcement today that Activision would disband the Guitar Hero team and kill off development of the next title in the series is a sad bit of news to hear (though in fact, not as sad as hearing, say, Chinese Democracy). This announcement comes on the heels of larger-scaled layoffs at Activision, and more cuts are rumored in the DJ Hero division, as well. At least we still have Rock Band, right?

Activision kills Guitar Hero division to the consternation of fake musicians everywhere originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Feb 2011 21:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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At long, long last the iControlPad – a hardware gamepad for the iPhone – can be bought. Well, almost. You can order today for a delivery next week, whereupon you can slot in your iPhone, iPod Touch or any other phone that will fit in the slot and play button-bashing titles like Street Fighter 4 as God intended.

We have followed the on-again-off-again history of the iControlPad here at Gadget Lab, right up until the last setback which saw the iControlpad team pulling the almost-ready design due to cold feet. The fear was that Apple wouldn’t approve of an accessory that hooked directly up to its phone, and would kill the project. The result was a switch to Bluetooth, which has the happy side-effect of making the gamepad compatible with any phone, console or computer that works with it.

The unit has its own 1500mAH battery, which can also charge your phone via USB should you decide that making a phone call is more important than a quick blast on Sonic the Hedgehog. It is also customizable. The main unit is flanked by two “side clamps”. These are plastic bars that clip on and provide a snug case for the following phones, pasted right in from the iControlPad product page:

iPhone 3, iPhone 3G, iPhone, iPhone 3GS, iPhone4, iPod touch (some require padding), Motorola Backflip (needs padding), LG Optimus S, LG Ally, Blackberry Touch (Torch?), Samsung Intercept (may require adjustment), HTC Dream, T-Mobile G1, Era G1

While you’ll need to jailbreak your iPhone to get the most from the controller, it “does work on un-[jailbroken] iPhones in keyboard mode.” So you’ll have to wait for

The price? Well, you’d better be pretty serious about your gaming, as it’s $75 with sides, plus $15 for extra sides, or $60 naked. available “now”.

iControlPad product page [iControlPad]

See Also:

• Real Gaming Control Pad Planned for IPhone
• Belkin Readying iPhone Joypad?
• GPad: Another iPhone Gamepad Case
• Stick-On Buttons Turn Smartphones into Game-Pads