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SmashMuck Champions! The game that let players come up with the idea of a “transforming robot shark with lasers” and “Platimus, the half-unicorn, half-platypus, completely awesome Champion.” To say they’re open to suggestion over at TriplePoint client Kiz Studios is to master the concept of understatement. So, we should perhaps not be surprised that the [...] Related posts: SmashMuck SteamPAX BetaLunacy Castle Champions Sallies Forth Tiny Tower Tyrant: Castle Champions Coming Soon

If you had asked me last week to pick a single device that embodied everything Microsoft was trying to accomplish in 2013 and beyond, I’d instantly point to its Surface tablets. After yesterday’s Xbox One reveal, though, the answer is no longer as clear-cut. Building on its experience with the original Xbox and Xbox 360 (and to a certain extent, its work on the Windows CE operating system for the Sega Dreamcast), Microsoft has fashioned a powerful gaming system in the Xbox One that will also serve as a media hub for the entire family. The Xbox One can integrate with your TV service, multitask like a computer, and give you instant access to media in the cloud. It’s more a powerful home theater PC than it is a game console, making it a great tool for bringing Microsoft’s services into your living room. More so than the Xbox 360 — which started out as a simple gaming machine but evolved into an entertainment powerhouse thanks to a slew of regular software updates — the Xbox One is built to take advantage of Microsoft’s web services right from the start. And it’ll only become more integrated over time. Skype becomes a living room staple While rumors have swirled for a while that Skype would eventually head to the Xbox 360, it turns out that the service is actually making its console debut on the Xbox One. You can thank the revamped Kinect sensor for that — it’ll be packed in with every Xbox One, and it also sports a much higher resolution camera than the initial Kinect (which essential for getting decent video from wide living room shots). It’s not the first time Skype has hit the living room. The video chat app is also available on Google TV devices (with a special Logitech camera) and some smart TVs. But launching on the Xbox One will give Skype its largest living room audience yet, and it’s something no other video chat service will be able to easily match. You’ll be able to participate in Skype group video chats on the Xbox One, and since the console supports true multitasking, you’ll also be able to jump into video calls while playing a game or watching a video. And of course, the Skype integration will let you easily chat with your friends using Skype on other platforms, like PCs and smartphones. After two years, it seems like Microsoft’s $8.5 billion Skype acquisition will finally pay off with the Xbox One. Azure brings console gaming to the cloud Even though it was a fairly minor bit of the Xbox One’s announcement yesterday, the console’s integration with Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform has far-reaching potential over the next few years. It could be used to scale Microsoft’s Xbox Live service (the company is already adding 300,000 servers to power Live for the Xbox One, while it’s only running on 15,000 servers right now) and store your games and saves. Most intriguingly, Microsoft also mentioned that it could be used for offloading computational tasks to the cloud. With Azure’s infrastructure, “Xbox Infinity” may have been a better name for the Xbox One. The promise of cloud computation means that games on the console will only become more complex over time — imagine better in-game physics when you’re connected to the web or seamless loading for maps for massively multiplayer games. Console developers typically manage to eke out better performance from systems as they age, but with Azure’s cloud computing capabilities, Xbox One games could conceivably keep getting better indefinitely. The only limit will be our Internet connections. Xbox with a touch of Windows A simplified version of Windows is one of three operating systems powering the Xbox One, which means Microsoft’s new Windows platform now lives on your television in addition to tablets, PCs, and smartphones (Windows Phone 8 has a big chunk of Windows 8′s kernel, the main component of the

Gamezebo Rating: In the beginning, there was a vast wasteland of interactive nothingness. And so Man created the video game. Man then got tired of playing space shooters and sword-wielding heroes, so he created the god game. One in-game, all-powerful planet spirit got tired of running everything, so he created the Reus: the eponymous Giant designed to do the bidding of the planet through manual labor and you, the player whose not-so-distant ancestor invented the video game.

or more on the Xbox One reveal, check out our complete coverage. Microsoft’s new Kinect motion-sensing system for the Xbox One game console is so good that it’s creepy. Using its sensors, the Kinect can detect your heartbeat, simply by perceiving the pulsing of your skin. That’s one of the cool — and scary — technologies that Microsoft’s new Xbox One, announced yesterday at a press event I attended in Redmond, Wash., can do. It is one of things that could move Kinect from a novelty to a necessary part of next-generation gaming and entertainment. It’s no longer a science project. Welcome to the age when your game console — and Microsoft — knows if you’ve been bad or good. It knows more about you than you know about you. Games can use it to process physical feedback from you, increasing or decreasing the difficulty as needed. And you can use Kinect’s gesture and voice commands to control TV functions and navigate menus. The new Kinect is a superbly upgraded version compared to the original Kinect launched in 2010. That system couldn’t detect a lot of things like your finger movements, and it was limited to viewing movements about 10 feet away or so. The new Kinect is accurate down to millimeter measurements. The new Kinect has a 60 percent wider field of view so it can see most of a room. Kinect can now detect six skeletons, compared to two before. That means as many as six players can participate in a game at the same time. Phil Harrison, corporate vice president at Microsoft, said in an interview with GamesBeat that it is up to developers as to what they do with such technology. The new system also has a color high-definition camera that can capture your image in a recording for Skype calls. The ultra-wide angle allowed it to pick up a bunch of people sitting in a faux living room that I visited in a lab on Microsoft’s campus on Tuesday. “Xbox One demonstrations were impressive, particularly the improvements to Kinect for greater detail and higher sensitivity that have potential to add to the hardcore game experience,” said Billy Pidgeon, a longtime industry analyst. And Kinect can see you in the dark because it has an infrared sensor that detects things alongside the primary camera. While Kinect previously relied on the system’s main processing chips, the new Kinect has its own dedicated silicon. Those custom chips (located in the Xbox One) handle audio processing for better voice recognition and image processing for visuals. In the past, Kinect used “structured light,” or dots of light, to detect motion in a room. The new technology uses “time of flight,” or sending out light and detecting how long it takes for it to bounce back to the source. Now Kinect has enough fidelity to correctly model your skeleton, capturing details such as whether your limbs are rotated. It can see how many fingers you are holding up and whether you are smiling or not. I stood in front of it and could clearly see from the image map that Kinect could see that my thumb was pointing up. You can see the shrug of the shoulders and other subtle movements that can be interpreted into responses to game situations. The physics of your body is also recorded. Kinect sees which muscles you are using and how much pressure you are putting on them. If you jump, for instance, the muscle map of your body shows the parts that are stressed — your legs — in bright red, while the parts that aren’t show up in green. If you move your hand forward, Kinect can detect how much force you are using. If you punch forward at the camera, a big white circle shows up on the image map, indicating you are using a lot of force. All of this data could overwhelm a lesser system. But Kinect is designed to capture several times more data in an area that is several times larger than before. It then sends that data to the Xbox One for game developers to

Once again, it’s time to get some all-in-one analysis with our second-hand panel of experts! Surprise! Microsoft’s launching a new hardware console … who knew? And inside a giant circus tent full of magic and dreams, we got our first look at the best fee-charging-for-used-games, not-backwards-compatible, Internet-mandatory, groovy-retro-design game console ever made: the Xbox One! It won’t be long before this hardware masterpiece matches up against Sony’s PlayStation 4, but why wait to make crucial judgments? A 60-minute event with no Q&A session is plenty of time! What say you, panel of experts? The Xbox One: bringer of world peace or red ring of death? Launch the gallery below to learn the language of love! Filed under: Games GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here! .blurb-cat-games hr { margin: 10px 0 10px 0; }

A long time ago (2003) in a galaxy far far away (their studio was in Edmonton), BioWare released what many consider to be the finest Star Wars experience to date: Knights of the Old Republic. If you haven’t played it, don’t worry – there’s a new hope on the horizon.

Sneak peek of the upcoming FarmVille The May Fun Fair quests coming to FarmVille next week! FarmVille The May Fun Fair quests arrived on Thursday, May 23rd, 2013 and end Thursday, June 6th, 2013. Use this guide to speed through your questing and be sure to share it with all your farmin’ friends! Please note, the information in this guide is accurate at time of publishing, but is subject to change without prior notice by Zynga. See an error? Kindly report any findings to farmgoddess@farmvillefreak.com or leave a comment on this post. FarmVille The May Fun Fair Quest 1:  Better Brittle Requirements: Get 7 Brittle Bars, Harvest 60 Wheat & Craft any 1 Trowel Recipe in Hanging Gardens Rewards: Spring Antelope FarmVille The May Fun Fair Quest 2: Sounds of May Requirements: Get 8 Fair Songbooks, Harvest 90 Peanuts & Craft any 10 Creamer Goods in Dairy Rewards: x2 Unwithers FarmVille The May Fun Fair Quest 3: Grand Strands Requirements: Get 9 May Ribbon Strands, Harvest 120 Red Tulips & Harvest Spring Antelope 2 Times Rewards: May Streamer Tree FarmVille The May Fun Fair Quest 4: Truffles and Trowels Requirements: Get 10 Spring Truffles, Harvest 150 Rye & Master Spring Antelope to 1-Star Rewards: Baby Spring Boar FarmVille The May Fun Fair Quest 5: Happy Hedges Requirements: Get 10 Garden Trimmers, Harvest 180 Chickpeas & Harvest Baby Spring Boar Twice Rewards: May Pole Maze FarmVille The May Fun Fair Quest 6: Sprung in Spring Requirements: Get 10 Lute Strings, Harvest 180 Peppers & Craft 1 Farmhand Rewards: Book of XP FarmVille The May Fun Fair Quest 7: Faes in May Requirements: Get 11 Spring Crumbs, Harvest 180 Daffodils & Master Baby Spring Boar to 1-Star Rewards: May Forest Retreat FarmVille The May Fun Fair Quest 8: Perfect May Ponds Requirements: Get 12 Pond Lanterns, Harvest 180 Sunflowers & Craft 1 Fertlize All Rewards: Mystery Game Dart FarmVille The May Fun Fair Quest 9: Ending with Oats Requirements: Get 14 Acorn Oats, Harvest 240 Squash & Craft 1 Shovel Set Rewards: May Forest Pegacorn Will you be working on this series of FarmVille The May Fun Fair quests or skipping?

FarmVille Chicory Fest FarmVille Get Crafty FarmVille Yarn Order Fest You can compete with your FarmVille neighbors on these three challenges for the next week or seven days until they are replaced with new challenges next Wednesday. FarmVille Leaderboard Challenges (Released: May 22, 2013) Chicory Fest – Harvest the Chicory Crop to get to the top of the list. Get Crafty – Craft goods to get to the top of the list. Yarn Order Fest – Fill Orders in your Yarn Barn to get to the top of the list. Will you compete with your neighbors in any of this week’s FarmVille Leaderboard Challenges?

FarmVille Chicory Crop FarmVille Chicory Bushel FarmVille Chicory Mastery FarmVille Chicory Crop

In the future, man will return to the moon. He will build bases there, and colonies. He will claim it for his own. And, as sure as night follows day because that's just how humanity rolls, pretty soon some other jerk will do exactly the same thing: and the next thing you know, it's a fight. So goes the setup in Moon Rising, a game described as "in the mold of" classics like Advanced Wars and Laser Squad, but with a few interesting twists of its own.