I’ve seen the first of the Project Natal in action and I’ve got to say, it’s looking rather impressive. Microsoft’s purchase of the motion sensing company last year really must have helped with the production of Project Natal. It looks not only more accurate than the Wii’s motion sensing gameplay, but it also looks to be more advanced. You can get your equipment in the game. Playing Tony Hawk? Scan your real skateboard into the game.

If you haven’t gotten the chance to check out the video for Project Natal check out this brief video showing some gameplay and different features it has. What do you think about it? Do you think this will be more powerful and accurate than the Wii’s? Do you think a successful release of this will make the Nintendo Wii virtually useless?

Project Natal, the greatly anticipated addition to the Xbox 360 that was announced not to long ago at E3 is finally going to be shown to us in action. At the Casual Connect Seattle 2009 Conference sometime from 8:00 AM – 6:30 PM on July 21-23 we will get the chance to see and use the Project Natal at it’s current stage. It will be on one day for a limited time so you’ll have to be on the ball when it’s brought out if you happen to be there the day it’s been tested. If you’re interested in going there it’s going to cost you $450 per day that you plan on attending.

This is by far the biggest exhibit at the upcoming conference. There isn’t going to be anything else that is really jaw dropping (that we know of at least) besides this. We don’t even know which games we’ll get to use in the demo. Are they going to be the same ones we saw at E3 or some new ones? Expect to hear more about Project Natal and possibly more specifics about the exhibit as we near the date of the 2009 conference.

The original thoughts were that the arcade game 1 vs 100 would be free to Xbox Live Gold members. The beta was free to all users who had an Xbox Live Gold account, and those who had silver even got a chance to play it for a weekend. The arcade game was a hit (aren’t all free arcade games hits?) among all types of gamers. There was a pretty big audience for the game and it was oddly entertaining to all ages.

Microsoft spokesmen won’t comment on the games full versions pricing. They won’t confirm a free arcade game or if they’ll charge for it. They keep saying they don’t want to commit to anything at the current time and that they hope the game will be a great success.

I think the game will end up costing us a few hundred Microsoft Points. If it were going to be free, they’d get the hype starting now. Why they don’t just do advertising like they did in the beta and give the game to us for free, I’m not sure. Are you willing to pay even $5 for this game though? I don’t think I’d download it if it cost me money, but I’d be more than okay with a few ads being thrown at me in a sort of midgame style like they currently are.

Is the future of music video games not going to be with consoles? It is no secret that the console creators get a pretty large sum of the money for games that are sold, but is it really worth the money these companies may have to spend in development of the hardware to make them run separately and then the loss of sales due to the large price increase worth it?

Harmonix’s Josh Randall thinks so. He thinks that the instruments contain plenty of space to store all the needed components to make the games work, and that they could plug in to the tv just like a console or similar standalone games. What would be missing if they were to rid themselves of the console? The online play would be nearly impossible as a standalone. Users would have to resort to playing with their friends at their houses or not at all. What would it mean for upgrades? Could they plug into the computer and be able to add new songs? What about a new game altogether? Would we need to buy more instruments?

I think that most gamers would prefer that the game remains on consoles, but there is some obvious benefit and profit in creating a standalone music game. Don’t expect a standalone until 2011 or later if they are going to happen at all.

I’ve been a bit busy lately between posting on some other blogs of mine, gaming in call of duty 5, and just being lazy. I’ll try to keep posting daily, but you’ll have to forgive me if I miss a few days here and there. The blog is steadily staying the same in terms of traffic, a majority of it going to a few posts. Not the steady growth I’d have hoped for, but at least it’s retaining a decent level of daily traffic.

If you’d like to publish articles on this blog leave a comment with a valid email address and I’ll get back to you about setting up an account for you.

NHL 2010 has just released their newest trailer for the NHL 2010 game. They have announced things like adding women to the crowd, improving the fighting to a first person view, being able to shoot from your knees, and that all of your actions effect how you play in the game. They have made it even more real than the previous versions. It is the most real sports gaming experience out there.

Check out the latest trailer.

Six Flags has announced that they plan to expand their partnership with Nintendo in order to provide their theme park guests with a sneak preview of Wii Sports Resort game before the game even hits retail stores. It will be placed in nine different theme parks across America for this weekend until the launch. The following theme parks will contain the game.

• Six Flags Magic Mountain; Valencia, CA
• Six Flags Discovery Kingdom; Vallejo, CA
• Six Flags Great America; Gurnee, IL
• Six Flags Over Texas; Arlington, TX
• Six Flags Fiesta Texas; San Antonio, TX
• Six Flags Over Georgia; Austell, GA
• Six Flags New England; Agawam, MA
• Six Flags America; Largo, MD
• Six Flags St. Louis; Eureka, MO

The game launches July 26th for everybody who isn’t fortunate enough to live near enough to get a crack at this special offer. If you’re unfamiliar with Wii Sports Resort it is similar to Wii Sports with different games such as archery, basketball, and table tennis.The game also contains the new motion plus feature which is designed to make the activities of gamers more precise.

This game won’t cause as much of a stir as the original Wii Sports game, but it is sure to sell a few consoles. Hopefully, Sony and Microsoft are watching this and can learn from the motion plus that is used in the new game. Both companies will have a lot of catching up to do. Nintendo is so far ahead. The only problem Nintendo may encounter is the lack of power in the Wii.

Either Microsoft mad a mistake, or this was their way of telling us the release date of the full version of 1 vs 100. When you go into the beta of the game it shows the upcoming times for which you can play the game. The beta ends July 10th so one would assume the scheduled times would end at that date. Well it continues and gives time on August 30th. That’s nearly 50 days later. Plenty of time for them to finish and tweak any changes they needed to make from the beta. They wouldn’t release two beta’s.

So if you’ve been dying to play the full version of the game because of the actual physical prize incentives, your time is coming. When the full version comes out, gamers in certain countries are eligible to win some prizes. Whether you have to be really good at the game, or just play it a lot to win, I’m not sure. What do you guys think? August 30th definitely the release date or is this a mistake?

MSNBC has some footage of the upcoming Halo title, Halo: ODST. This was the first footage of the game I’ve seen, and while I didn’t see anything that was too amazing in the multiplayer form, the missions were looking pretty awesome. Check out the video for yourself and tell me what you think.

Halo: ODST Footage

Are you going to be buying this game at midnight? How about the first week? I think I’ll be waiting until after the initial responses to the game before purchasing it, and even then I’ll have to see after the damage Call of Duty 6 and Assassins Creed 2 does to my wallet.

Good news for any of your Call of Duty 5 gamers out there. I am happy to announce that we have yet another double experience weekend in Call of Duty 5. For those of you unfamiliar with the significance of this, it’s pretty big. You receive twice the experience for everything you do (with the exception of match bonuses) making it so much quicker to level up, especially in the higher slower levels that take 5,000 experience to level up.

The higher the level, the more guns and perks you receive. If you want to take full advantage of this weekend you should focus on games like headquarters and search and destroy. In search and destroy you get 100 points per kill, 50 per assist, and 200 for either arming or disarming the bomb! In headquarters you’ll get 500 for holding the headquarter for 250 seconds, plus another 10 per kill, and 40 for either capturing or destroying the headquarter.

Focus your time on these two gametypes and you should be able to finish your current prestige and move on to the next one. For those of you already in 10th prestige, sorry to say they are only making it easier for those lower than you to catch up to you. Take advantage of this weekend, I’ll be trying to hit my second prestige.