It always seems that once Halloween has passed, Christmas decorations immediately start going up. These days, Thanksgiving seems to only serve as a reminder that Christmas is right around the corner. Hell, the day right after good ol’ Turkey Day, people camp out in front of stores, looking to get the best deals for their Christmas purchases. So, with Thanksgiving and Black Friday just around the corner, what do you by for that geek in your life, hmmm?

$5-10: FTW! Mug (Thinkgeek.com) – $6.99

I don’t think you can get any geekier than a FTW Mug (For the Win for those of you who don’t speak geek). This mug is made of win, and any computer geek would probably be proud to own something like that. I know I will.

$10-20: Xbox LIVE/Playstation Network/Nintendo Points Cards – $19.99

With more DLC packs and online arcade games available than ever before, gamers need their e-wallets filled with enough currency to purchase the latest and greatest things out there. With games like ‘Splosion Man on Xbox LIVE, Trine on PSN, or several classic Nintendo games on the Wii Shop Channel, gamers need their point cards.

$20-30: Gaming Evolution T-Shirt (Cafepress.com) – $22.00

Forget about Darwin and his theories and forget about Creationism. The truth about evolution is spelled out in this awesome Cafe Press shirt. Who cares about human evolution when Gaming Evolution is just much more interesting?

$30-40: LittleBigPlanet PSP – $39.99

Little Big Planet is an awesome game. Just like the PS3 version, the PSP spin-off allows users to create their own custom levels and share them with others. And, well, Sackboy is just adorable, so what’s not to love about the game? The PSP owner in your life will probably get a big kick out of it.

$50-??: Activision/Blizzard – Several Million Dollars

Who wouldn’t want to own their own video game company? Many gamers are starting to grow tired of Bobby Kotick and his exploiting of franchises. So what better gift to give a gamer than Activision? That way, they can have the pleasure of firing Bobby Kotick all they want.

The machinima team over at the Sims team have recreated the latest Twilight: New Moon trailer using The Sims 3. For machinima I’ve seen around the net, this looks really good. I mean, the lead actress has more different facial expressions and better acting skills than Kristen Stewart. (boom. face.)

It’s that time again, time to review some of my cherry picked smaller stories of the week for those that might have missed them. This time round we’ve got an Adobe Flash update that doesn’t suck. OK, sucks a little less. Flash 10.1 beta was unleashed to the willing public with GPU video acceleration for certain Nvidia cards on Windows, but perhaps more importantly reduced CPU usage across all platforms. What does this mean? YouTube that doesn’t make your Mac or PC red-line that’s what. A step in the right direction Adobe, maybe Flash isn’t a lost cause after all. I’ve certainly seen some improvements on my netbook and Mac.

Talking of YouTube, Google introduced skippable pre-roll adverts this week to YouTube in an effort to finally make some meaningful money from its enormous purchase. It’s not the first time Google’s tried pre-roll adverts however, with previous efforts seeing a 70% bail rate before the video actually starts. Google’s hoping with skippable 15 second ads it will be able to see which ads fit and are acceptable with which content. Google also started the roll out of 1080p video for all the content that’s been uploaded in full HD. Couple this with the improvements Adobe is making to Flash and you might even be able to watch them without having to pack a Core i7!

Swindon is set to become the UK’s first free Wifi town rocking free WiFi across the entire city. Dubbed the ‘Swindon Mesh’, the £1 million wireless network will allow all residents completely free access to the internet. Residents who want greater speed, ‘up to 20Mbits’, will be able to pay Digital City UK for higher bandwidth, but a vast majority should be set with the free service. Those passing through will also be able to hook up via a PAYG scheme in which prices have yet to be set, let’s hope they’re at least competitive. Work starts December and Digital City UK is expecting to roll out the service to all Swindon residents come April 2010. Great, but sorry Swindon I still don’t want to live there, do you?

Talking of Wifi towns, the MPAA shut one down. Yes that’s right, the MPAA shut down a whole town’s municipal wifi after it detected a single copyright infringement. That’s what happens when you give companies the power to crush the little guy without due process or trial. So, if you’re expecting to connect for free in Coshocton, Ohio, sorry you’re out of luck for the foreseeable future just like the 100 or so active residents.

So we’ve seen the Beatles unleash music on apple shaped USB drives, but how about movies on flash drives? OK, you’ve got the odd movie distribution service via SD card, but I think novalty shaped flash drives with your favourite movies on them tops a lowly SD card. Yes that’s right, I’m talking about JJ Abram’s Star Trek hitting the small screen courtesy of some fancy flash drives. The movie comes pre-loaded onto a flash drive shaped like the new Star Trek logo so once you’re done watching the movie you can proudly display it as a piece of Star Trek memorabilia next to your model of the Enterprise and Warf’s head. Michael Bay fans haven’t been left out either with Transformers 2 set to follow soon on appropriately shaped flash drives. Yours for the bargain of £17.99 a pop. Think I’ll stick with the Blu-Ray but maybe that’s just me.

This week has also seen the shuttering of the Pirate Bay torrent tracker. Now it’s not all bad news for those amongst you who use BitTorrent as they’ve set up a Magnet link repository. For those uninitiated, BitTorrent has evolved to support a decentralised structure using the DHT and PEX protocols. Now what that means for you and your, umm, linux downloading friends is that you no longer need a .torrent location file to find and download files over the p2p network. In fact if you’re running one of the more up-to-date clients such as uTorrent or Azureus, you’ve had the magnet-link capability for a while and probably didn’t even know about it. The Pirate Bay is so certain that it’s search engine and magnet-link repository is the way forward for BitTorrent that it’s been canvassing other torrent trackers in an effort to get everyone to move over to the decentralised system. Whether this is a sinister plot by the Pirate Bay’s new owners or an honest to goodness evolution of piracy (and legal p2p) is unclear at this stage. What is clear is that this is an end of an era for BitTorrent and I don’t see it going away anytime soon.

Facebook, everyone’s favourite stalker hangout has made yet another move to conquer your life away from the computer this week. The PS3 saw an update that includes a somewhat weak browser based Facebook integration a rather rushed effort on Sony’s part to match the Xbox 360 which has proper Facebook and Twitter integration. OK, you might want to brag about your Achievements or Trophies to your mates on Stalkerbook or Twatter, but seriously, who is going to sit in front of their TV and use this on an 8-foot interface? I mean the Xbox doesn’t even have a web browser so how are you going to check out the links and pics that your friends send out via TwitFace?

Talking of Facebook, if the fuzz ever comes a knocking, your inane status updates could count as an alibi. Yes, you heard right, a 19-year old Harlem resident was cleared of charges resulting from a mugging in Brooklyn by an alibi provided a status update made on Facebook from his Dad’s house at the time of the crime. Am I the only one who could see this as being really easy to fake? You could just automate a status update, VNC into your computer or just get someone else to update on your profile for you from your computer. Still the courts subpoenaed Facebook for the IP address of the computer that made the status update, which of course pointed to his Father’s house where he claimed to be at the time of the mugging.

Last but not least from my picks of the week, Google Chrome OS. OK, it’s basically an OS built inside Chrome browser. I’m not surprised, that’s exactly what I thought it was going to be. What I am surprised about is that it won’t run on everything, Google doesn’t even support HDDs! I get that it’s meant to totally rely on the cloud for all data and applications, but not even supporting HDDs for local storage? Let’s just say it’s probably not aimed at me, or you reading this for that matter, but perhaps, maybe those non-tech-savvy buying netbooks might get used to it, I’m not sure though.

Santa has finally got around to creating his own Twitter account. But, it seems as though he is truly micro-blogging all his most inner thoughts and feelings this season. Apparently, he doesn’t give a flying fuck if you get coal or nothing at all. If you’ve asked for anything nice this year and you’ve done your very best to be a good person, you’re still screwed because Santa could care less about the list.

[via Twitter]

The creative LEGO minds over at Brickforge are auctioning off a full set of custom Halo LEGO minifigs for the Toys for Tots charity. These minifigs are custom made meaning LEGO doesn’t make these.  (But they should!) As of this posting, the auction the bidding is at $150 with 1 day and 4 hours left. If you want you own custom made full set of these bad boys, head on over to the auction page.

[via model building secrets via Bricklink]

Genres: Adventure, Fantasy, Supernatural

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AmberGround exists in eternal twilight, lit only by its artificial sun and its inhabitants scattered cities. In this darkness roam countless mechanical insects, named Gaichuu, keeping the population imprisoned and isolated within the safe confines of the cities. There are a few brave souls that will venture into these wastelands; chief among them, the Letter Bees. A Letter Bee is a mixture of adventurer, cartographer and postman. their duty is to deliver letters between cities in AmberGround, as well as map out new routes in attempts to reconnect cities.

Gauche Suede is our first introduction to a Letter Bee in this series. His first “letter” to be delivered is actually a young boy named Lag Seeing. Lag is quite hesitant to be shipped off to his aunt’s home in the far off city of Cambel Litus. His mother was taken from him and sent into Akatsuki, the capital city of AmberGround, which is off limits to anyone not invited to enter. Gauche’s sidekick, called a Dingo in this world, is named Roda. Roda is some doglike creature and serves and a decoy and early warning system for Gauche versus the Gaichuu.

Gauche explains his weapon of choice against the Gaichuu, a Shindanjuu or “heart gun.” This gun amplifies the users will into a powerful bullet that will destroy the mechanical beasts. While holding the gun Lag accidently activates it, due to his special gemstone eye (hidden under his hair 99% of the time) and nearly dies from the effort. This in turn draws more Gaichuu to them, leaving Gauche and Roda to battle for hours on end. At one point soon after, Lag steals Gauche’s Shindanjuu and strikes off to find his lost mother, nearly getting Gauche killed in the process of saving him from a rather crafty Gaichuu.

Lag drags the nearly dead Gauche through the gates of Cambel Litus and after getting to know him as a friend, decides that he too will become a Letter Bee. He does this in hopes of gaining access to Akatsuki and finding his mother again. At this point the series fast-forwards 5 years to Lag at 12 years old, ready to start his journey.

This series has a bit of a slow start, but due to seeing a few clips ahead in the series, I can say that there is a LOT of great stuff coming! They took two episodes to complete the back-story and I feel they did it more than sufficient justice. This would have easily earned an A if they would have gotten to the point faster. The concept is solid and there are enough mysteries to keep me coming back.

Overall Hook Rating: B

Watch episode one via Crunchyroll after the break!

Well it’s certainly a chilly evening here in San Diego. Though everyone’s out in full force for New Moon!! My Wife, myself, Nelson and Jessica are currently waiting in line for the 12:01am showing. Well we have plenty of pictures to show the fans support for the latest addition to the Twilight Saga. Be sure to check out the gallery after the break.

Battlecry prizes have arrived, and rather swiftly after we “exposed” their failure to remit any type of information.  I guess even your large gaming corporations just need a kick in the pants every now and then!  Above is the license plate holder, properly sporting the Horde emblem upon it, as well as the allusion that my other ride is, in fact, quite sweeter and faster than the one this will be strapped to…  Also arriving in the prize package was…

This lovely Horde J!NX tshirt. I must say, one of the most beautiful shirts I’ve seen them produce, I’ll wear it to Blizzcon next year with great pride.  Again, thank you to ALL the folks who helped us get the word out about the contest, and of course, thank you Blizzard for the lovely prizes! =D

Oh, and there was one last thing in the prize pack.  An autographed picture of the Worgen development team leader!

LOL JUST A LITTEL MOAR WAREWOLFZ PLZ

You’re the proud owner of an Original or iPhone 3G, but you just can’t help but ogle your mates 3GS ever since he got it. With it’s fancy new compass, voice recognition and video recording, your Original/3G is starting to look a bit tired. Problem is, you’ve got at least another couple of months on your contract left and the networks are charging extortionate amounts for early upgrade. You could try buying a PAYG iPhone 3GS and sell your old and busted iPhone taking the hit on the difference, but that’s probably just as much as the early termination/upgrade fee O2/AT&T wants from you. So for the time being you’re stuck with an iPhone 3G.

OK, it’s not like that’s the end of the world, it’s still an incredibly capable device, plays some great games and can use almost all the apps that the 3GS can. But what about those features that set the 3GS apart? Well with a few apps and tweaks you too can get your 3G to do almost all of the new tricks the 3GS has and give your old trusty an extra burst of life.

First up, voice control. There’s not much in the new 3GS has that means it’s the only iPhone capable of using voice control, it’s just that Apple wanted to really set the 3GS apart from the 3G and Original iPhone with some unique features, voice control being one of them. Never fear though, because through the magic of the App Store your 3G or Original can also rock voice control. Vocalia, an app that essentially replicates the control and voice search functions built into the 3GS, is available for the pultry sum of £2.39. Featuring a HAL type eye which acts as your input button and indicator, the app translates your garbled speech into contact names, music tracks or even bookmarks. You can even use it just by lifting the phone to your ear just like the Google search app. With a quick vocalisation you can be calling your mate’s phone, playing an album, individual track or artist or browsing your favourite Geek site, at least that’s the premise.

Does it work? Yes, it does and pretty well. With a bit of prompting you can get it to narrow down and play whatever track you can remember, or pick any contact in your address book and call them. Is it useful? Simply put, No. I’ll elaborate on that a little, it’s as useful as any other speech recognition app for controlling computers or devices. Nine times out of ten, it’s easier and quicker just to reach over and hit a button. The voice control is the same on the 3GS, most people don’t use it because it’s not as quick as using your fingers and therefore is resigned to the ‘gimick’ side of things rather than being a real feature. The only exception I’ve found to the rule is the Google Voice search app, which normally saves me time, but even that I don’t use very often.

So don’t get me wrong, if you’re a fan of voice control then Vocalia works admirably, but I just don’t think it’s useful.

On to the second feature to replicate, Video recording. Now this one’s not quite as simple as just downloading an app. It’s not that it’s hard, but it certainly takes a little longer because to get video recording on your 3G or Original iPhone you have to jailbreak it. OK, before we start on this one, I have to admit I’m a huge fan of quite a few jailbreak only apps and features that Apple simply wouldn’t allow in the App Store. Whilst it is true that jailbreaking makes App Store piracy possible, it’s by no means the sole reason one would jailbreak their iPhone and so it’s unfair to label it with that moniker. With that bit of spiel out the way, I’d like to introduce you to Cycorder. Jay Freeman, the man behind many of the best jailbreak features and functions including Cydia, has authored a nice, free, ad-supported (pretty unobtrusively I might add) video recorder for the Original and 3G. While the quality of the recording is fairly limited by the relatively weak hardware available on the non-3GS iPhones, Cycorder makes the best out of it and in decent lighting you can get pretty good 15fps mobile phone videos out of your iPhone for free. We’re not talking movie quality here, but who really uses their phone for anything more than short clips of your mate bladdered out of his mind with a marker pen all over his face after an epic night out?

There are of course alternatives for pretty much everything on the iPhone and it would be unfair to talk about video recording and not mention Video Recorder for 3G. It’s billed as ‘a powerful iPhone orientated video recorder’ that can record to .mov and upload it to YouTube. Sounds great, but there’s a snag and it’s a pretty hefty $19.95 price tag. For the kind of videos you can actually get out of your iPhone I think $20 is pretty steep, especially when Cycorder gets the job done in a very Apple like, minimal fuss, maximum enjoyment kind of way.

So we come to the final feature that really stands out as being different between the iPhone 3G and the 3GS, the compass. OK, you’ve got a faster processor and slightly (and I mean slightly) better battery life, but the compass is truly something different. Unfortunately this is where software alone cannot make any difference. The onboard compass allows you to know which direction your facing (when it works) in the maps app and here’s where a little dosh can help iPhone 3G users out (sorry Original users I’m afraid the lack of GPS kind of rules you out of this one, mind you I understand raw skyhook isn’t all that bad if you can read road names). For the cost of a cheap cup of coffee, you can purchase yourself a handy dandy Pocket Compass, which combined with the Google Maps app should see you to your destination no problem.

OK, that doesn’t help you out with augmented reality apps I admit, but if you sense of direction is as shocking as mine, a pocket compass can really come in handy for a 3G user like myself. You’ll probably find that a decent pocket compass is going to work better than a magnetometer anyway.

So that’s it, now your iPhone 3G, and to some extent your Original iPhone, has almost feature parity with Apple’s latest and greatest. At least it should help some people stave off the massive upgrade charges that networks are asking for and give your portable friend of choice some extra longevity. Myself, I’m going to hold out till the 4th Gen iPhone gets released because for me, the 3GS was just a spec bump. I’m expecting something bigger out of Apple this time round.

American fans of the Monster Hunter franchise will soon be once again turned loose upon an unsuspecting population of exotic prey.

Capcom previewed its new soon-to-be-imported Monster Hunter Tri on Tuesday, November 17^th. Pheonix Wright: Ace Attourney for the Wii was also on display, as was Monster Hunter Freedom Unite. The event was set up like a mock class/school, and allowed attendees to test the battle demo with a series of pre-generated characters.  It was well-attended, although for the most part the development team of the game could not attend.

The latest entry in the popular hack-’n-slash knows where the bread and butter of its gameplay remains: beating the life out of powerful quarries with a variety of interesting weapons. This hearty fare is garnished with a wide range of new additions, from online and split-screen multiplayer to what producer Ryozo Tsujimoto, who spoke at the press event, promises is the franchise’s most robust single-player story system to date, accompanied by an NPC companion named “Cha-Cha.”

Admittedly, that doesn’t say much, since Monster Hunter Tri remains fundamentally a casual experience.  Each hunt the battle demo included posed a similar scenario: choose a monster to hunt down, pursue them through a narrow but beautiful series of wild canyons, and once brought to bay, harry them to their death with repeated attacks within the time limit. Each beast has specific weaknesses, quirks and attacks, and they will flee to other areas of the map if pressed.

The game is more about choreographing your party’s assault than solitary heroics, since each weapon is fairly simple to wield. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to tell how hurt your prey is, so players are never certain whether they are about to win or barely scratching the beast. Slain monsters, whether your quarry or other creatures randomly encountered in the field, in turn drop body parts that can be combined to produce new weapons and armor, much of which has an intriguingly barbaric, animalistic appearance.

Of the new features, the weapons and stages were the ones most on display in the demo. Our old friend the sword is present in one-handed, two-handed, and katana variations, all ready allies in a fight. The exotic switchaxe, a weapon morphing from axe to two-handed sword, is conceptually interesting and flexible but sluggish, while the various bowguns were potentially devastating but required strong tactical awareness. Most weapons are designed for specialized tactics, and some monsters have specific vulnerabilities to particular weaponry. Underwater combat was also on display in the form of a mighty leviathan that switched between aquatic and terrestrial environments; this was, as in many games, competently handled but still far more disorienting than battle on land.

On the whole, Monster Hunter Tri’s battle demo seems solid enough, but without access to the promised new single-player or online hub, and thus the ability to test out its crafting system, promised “Cha-Cha” companion, or advancement, it felt like a very incomplete look at the game. After all, half the fun of the series seems to revolve around gradual advancement and bashing together new and ever-more-imposing-looking weapons and armor. We’ll have to wait for that until the game makes its way to the States in spring, when it’ll be sold for around $50.