Gamers Evolved

Microsoft is working together with Companions in Courage Foundation (CiC) to help deliver hundreds of the Xbox 360 consoles to children’s hospitals all over the country. The first set of consoles were released in late April at the Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital in New York, the Children’s Hospital & Regional Medical Center in Seattle, Washington, and the Children’s Hospital in Orange Country, California.

In a CiC press release Microsoft President of Entertainment and Devices Division, Robbie Bach, said:

I think it’s safe to say that Steven Spielberg has enough experience when it comes to developing action games. He helped put together the entire Medal of Honor series –which were based off of the film Saving Private Ryan (which was his film). He stated this week that he is on the second round of studying and playing through his new game for PC – Crysis.

We imagined that his first time being a true videogame creative director would include war, guns, and blazing glory. Instead we find out that the game is a cross between Jenga and Tetris. Apparently Spielberg is separating himself from the action games and movies that he is so well known for and getting in touch with his childhood memories.

Mario is a game that has been around for years and years. Eventually we assumed that it would fade out – but Nintendo keeps finding a way to recycle it back into the industry and in the process make it bigger and better than before. In fact Nintendo is taking advantage of the Wii’s motion sensor controls and has created Mario Kart on a whole new level.

Grand Theft Auto IV has sold an amazing 6009,000 copies in the UK on its first day of release. The anticipated game has even become more popular then Halo 3 (if that’s possible).

That’s right! They managed to sell over 335,000 units on the Xbox 360 on the first day – which beat out Halo 3’s number of 266,000. Sales on PS3 for GTA IV were 274,000 units day one, easily making GTA IV the top selling PS3 debut in the UK. The previous record for an opening day debut was 501,000 units in the UK, held by Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

Atari has stated this week that they will be releasing Smash Court Tennis 3 onto the Xbox 360 during August of this year. The newest game in the installment will have brand new stars, the ability to play Xbox Live online, and brand new customization options.

The new entry will include a total of 16 tennis pros, including Roger Federer, Maria Sharapova, Rafael Nadal and Martina Hingis. The game engine is said to include improved animations, realistic shadows, skin shaders, and high dynamic range rendering.