Brain Hood

Yes, we’re back to Counter Strike once again. After all, any video gamer can hardly expect any video game blog that takes itself seriously to desist from the game for too long. It is perhaps the one video game that very few from the post-80s generation can claim to not have played.

Those of you who’ve been following the Counter-Strike tips on this video game blog would be pleased to note that we’ve finally come up with the long-promised advanced tips and tricks for Counter-Strike, a video game that very few people belonging to the post-80s generation can claim to not playing. So now that you have mastered the basics, we bring you the real-deal tips that you expect from any respectable video game blog.

Video Game Blog: Compensate for Recoil

One of the major attractions of Counter-Strike has always been the realism of its weapon physics opposed to a video game such as, say Unreal Tournament. Weapon recoil makes your aiming reticule/weapon sight jumps rather quickly. If you’re not compensating for it, your aim will be badly thrown off. Once again, it’s hard to compensate on full auto, so use this with the burst fire technique already described. Any video game blog will tell you this.

Keep Secondary Weapon Ready

Counter-Strike is one video game that gives you a specific control to switch between any two weapons and that makes it much easier to switch to your pistol when you’re under fire than it is to reload your primary weapon. It might not always be a case of ammo either; a handgun is often more suitable for close-quarters combat if your aim is top-notch.

Video Game Blog: Use the Good Old Tap-Double Tap

For those who like to lean on the left-mouse button and just sweep through enemies ala Serious Sam, however, it also has two unfortunate side-effects: the realistic recoil of the weapons would mean that you end up hitting very little that’s worth hitting and secondly, you run out of ammo very quickly, exposing yourself to certain ‘death’. Unless you’re at point-blank range, in which case you may by all means let loose the full-auto, you must fire in short bursts of three-four rounds; this is particularly effective when using the SMG. With an assault rifle like the M-4, you could also use a technique that real-life military operatives call the tap-double tap. As the name suggests, you tap the trigger once, followed by two quick squeezes. Result: three precisely aimed shots.

Use Grenades to Good Effect

Any video game blog would tell you that grenades, in the right hands, are effective for softening up large groups of enemies. There are three types of grenades: frag grenades can injure or kill a number of enemies, depending on how many are in proximity to the blast (and how close) while a flash grenade temporarily blinds and disorients those caught in the blast radius, rendering them open to attack. Flash grenades have to be used with particular care, as one can end up blinding their own team: this happens even if friendly fire is off. Smoke grenades are used to form a smoke screen; this may come in handy to block the vision of enemy snipers so they have to move in closer, as a cover for retreat or even as a distraction.

Have a Weapon Specialty

By that, we mean a particular class of weapon. Once you’ve had a go with all weapons used by either side, you’ll have a better feel for what suits you best. Remember that you fight as part of the team, so it would serve you and the team better if members each have a specialty that serves to add diversity to the firepower. For instance, the point man in a rush would do well to have mastered the shotgun or the AK-47, while other assault rifles (including the AK) also do well over a medium range. A sniper covering team members, and staking out known movement routes of the opponents can swing the odds in the team’s favor heavily.

The machine gun, though it may seem unwieldy, can be great to provide covering fire or a diversion for your team mates. However, in seasoned hands, short bursts from this weapon can work better than most assault rifles for fending off a group attack when outnumbered, given the high ammo capacity.

Also, no matter what your choice of primary weapon, do take time to practice with the secondary weapon too, as quickly switching to your pistol when you’re dry and shooting accurately can see you through most close quarter situations.

So do you have any gaming tips and tricks to share with the readers of our video game blog?

Okay, let is start this video gaming review with a little confession, which isn’t so much a confession as a confirmation of a known fact. All us video gaming news bloggers are Valve and id fanboys almost without exception

A Video Gaming Legacy to Live Up To

Valve’s Half-Life, despite its shitty graphics (by today’s standards), was the first video gaming storyline that really hooked us, back in the day when Hollywood scriptwriters weren’t writing for games yet. Half-life drew you in and kept you there. “There’ll never be another video gaming experience like this,” we all said. And felt vindicated when, even until years later, none of the games, with their graphical and gameplay improvements could make up for the void that Half-Life left.

Then they went and released Half-life 2, and we fell in love all over again. Then they frustrated the world with the long waits for Half-life 2: Episode 1 and 2, and we’d all but lost hope for video gaming nirvana when Portal came out.

The video gaming sequel to Valve’s Portal had to be very special indeed, precisely because that first game was a revelation. It was immersive, funny and was an FPS video gaming experience that had no “shooting” to speak of. Oh wait, I forgot that turrets can shoot at you… anyway, Portal was unique, and quirky, and we loved it more than a lot of other games we’ve played, simply for its defiance of norms.

When Portal 2 released, we had mixed emotions: excitement and skepticism. It was, after all the freshness of the concept that made Portal the iconic video gaming experience it was, but now the concept was old… Could they pull off another HL2 with Portal 2?

Video Gaming that Leaves Your Breathless

Perhaps the biggest compliment we can pay this game, one we cannot quantify on a scale of 10, is that it is unputdownable. It just reels you in, takes you breath away and leaves your craving for more after the 8-odd hours that you spent playing it — on the trot. It is the video gaming equivalent of a best-selling page turner.

Comparisons to Portal may prove odious; its not necessarily a better or more iconic, but its a longer and the video gaming is much more fulfilling for some reason we cannot put a finger on.

Portal 2 begins with you waking up somewhere in the testing facility, and meeting Wheatley, a robot that looks like one of GLaDOS’ cores that you destroyed in Portal. Very quickly you realise that Wheatley, is, well, special, and is British, apparently. He’s funny though, and you can’t help but laugh at his dialogues. He’s also irritating enough to make you start thinking that this is just a poor substitute to GLaDOS, and not really as funny as the original. Then BAM! You’re quickly brought back to the fun of Portal, as GLaDOS is resurrected just as you were getting bored.

Very quickly, the video gaming seems to come to an end, and you start thinking, waitaminnit, this is even shorter than the first one, isn’t it? Then several plot twists later you begin to realize that this game has been plotted to perfection. Just when you think you’re about to start missing something from Portal, Portal 2 throws a curve ball at you to make you sit up and pay attention.

What’s Great About Portal 2

The world map is huge compared to the first part, and the puzzles are a little more challenging. There are also quite a few new props added into the puzzles, which bring a lot of freshness into the video gaming. Along the way you also figure out that you’re still playing as Chell herself, and not just a clone or someone who looks like her.

The dialogue is scripted immaculately as expected, but what’s new here is actual conversations between two bots, instead of just one way traffic.

What’s also new is that you actually get a true sense of how huge the facility really is, and the attention to detail – especially when you see some of the facility in disrepair – is pretty impressive.

Physics has always been what Portal is all about, and instead of just stuff that’s going through portals, Valve shows off the eye candy by making things collide and break apart very realistically. Some of the liquid effects are quite silly though, but seem to add some comic value rather than subtract from the immersiveness of the video gaming.

The main video gaming USP of Portal 2, however, is always going to be the puzzle solving, and just as you did in the first one, you will struggle at some points, die a few times, and finally figure out the solution that makes you want to face-palm, because it’s always obvious once you’ve finished it.

A must buy, must play experience that will keep you smiling for up to a week later, and chuckling when you remember a joke from the game. Do yourself a favor, try out this superb video gaming offering from Valve, and recommend it to your friends too.

The gaming multimedia industry is all set to infect everyone with a serious case of ‘sequelitis’ this year. Major gaming franchises make their mandatory yearly appearance, some return after a couple of years, while others, long-forgotten, attempt to make a dramatic return to the world of video games. Then there’s Grand Theft Auto V. Enough said.

Season for Seconds: Video Gaming Fun

Serving its way to the top of this article is EA Canada’s Grand Slam Tennis 2. Hoping to capitalise on everyone’s Australian Open fever

Grand Slam Tennis 2 is one of a long list of sequels that are expected to brighten 2012 u for video gaiming fans

(or hangover, as the case may be), EA’s first foray into the next-gen world of the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 (the previous version was a Wii-only title) promises licensed players in the form of current ATP regulars such as Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Andy Murray as well as legends, including Pete Sampras, Bjorn Borg and Boris Becker. WTA players are included as well, so don’t fret. The game’s features include a career mode that spans ten years, fully licensed Grand Slams, classic matches and Playstation Move support on the PS3. You can enjoy all of this and more on February 10.

Also out in February is the highly anticipated launch title for the Playstation Vita, Uncharted: Golden Abyss, a game that is set before the events of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, where everyone’s favourite bounty hunter Nathan Drake is looking for the truth behind the massacre of a Spanish expedition. Golden Abyss promises great locales, treasure and lots more of the same action that garnered the Uncharted series’ critical acclaim and made it a hit with the gamers, while incorporating the PS Vita’s dual touch controls, accelerometer, hopefully delivering an unparalleled hand-held adventure gaming experience.

In early March, the next chapter of Bioware’s space opera will unfold through Mass Effect 3, a follow-up (which will offer closure, hopefully) to 2010′s critically acclaimed Mass Effect 2. ME3 will be back, bigger than ever before, sporting overhauled combat mechanics, an improved cover system, co-operative multiplayer and for Xbox 360 players, Kinect support with voice recognition which allows for commanding your squad of virtual human and/or turian and other alien squad mates (Garrus, flank left!).

If ordering your Xbox to do some killing on your behalf isn’t enough for you, you can take matters into your own hands in three action sequels that are set to invade your living room: Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto V, Max Payne 3 and Square Enix/IO Interactive’s Hitman Absolution. The GTA series returns after a three year hiatus, taking us back to the state of San Andreas, last seen in the Grand Theft Auto game of the same name in 2004. The fifth episode will be set primarily in the city of Los Santos (based on Los Angeles and regions of Southern California), and is sure to feature some of the spectacular writing and open-world gameplay, the series is famous for.

Penning both GTA V and Max Payne 3 for Rockstar Games is Mr. Vice President himself, Dan Houser, arguably one of the best writers in gaming. He showed us he could do gritty (Red Dead Redemption) just as well as the satire and humour that we see in GTA; something a character of incredible depth like Max Payne is sure to benefit from. On the opposite end of the spectrum, stone-cold killer Agent 47 will shoot bullet holes in television sets later this year, going toe to toe with brand new arch-nemesis Blake Dexter in a series of stealth/action gaming missions sure to be set in all corners of the world.

Normally covers the items of information are a bit of a strain, but two things on a recent launched an impassioned personal appeal: I rely on playing the Civilization series and I rarely bother to read the user manual. These do not necessarily resemble topics that could be solved by computer science, but some researchers have decided to let a computer itself learn to play Freeciv and in the process, even learning to read the game manual. Simply by establishing if the movements that it was ultimately a success, not just software researchers was to better play the game, but figured out much of the manual as well.

Civilization is not the first game to capture the attention for computer scientists. The new paper, “The authors, who are based at MIT and University College London, Cité past literature, where computers have been able to teach them the Go, Poker, Scrabble, multi-player card games, and real-time strategy games. The method is used in all these is called the search in Monte Carlo.

In each possible move, the game runs a series of simulation games, which is used to evaluate the potential usefulness of the different movements. He uses it to update a utility function that estimates the value of a given movement in a specific state of the game. After several iterations, the utility function should improve the identification of the best move, although the algorithm will occasionally insert a random motion, just to keep trying new opportunities.

All this seems simple enough, but the challenges are big enough computer. The author’s estimate that the average player in general, will have 18 units in the game and each of these can be one of the 15 actions. This creates what is called an “action space” of about 1021 possible moves. To evaluate the usefulness of one of them, things were 20 moves and then check the game score (or if you won or lost before that date). It took 200 hours to generate these numbers yield.

For the tests, the Monte Carlo search was set to play Freeciv AI is based on a one-on-one game in a network of 1,000 chips. A single turn 100 game took about 1.5 hours to complete a Core i7, so all this time, the simulation is not trivial. But in general, the algorithm worked quite well, being able to win in this short time of about 17 percent of the time (from left to play a game until the end, the search for Monte Carlo won a little less than half the time).

However, the authors questioned whether the algorithm can make better decisions more consistent if he had access to the owner’s manual, which contains several bits of advice on the strengths and weaknesses of different units, as well as some general tips on how to build an empire (cities near post near a river, for example). So they decided to make your program RTFM.

“Reading” was held using a neural network that takes the game state, a proposed move, and the owner’s manual input. A set of neurons in the network analysis to find the manual condition / action pair. These pairs are things like “active” or “full path” (he says) and “improve the ground” or “strengthen unity,” such as stocks. A neural network separate to understand if one of the points identified for the first applied to the current situation. These are then combined to find relevant advice in the manual, which is then incorporated into the utility function.

The key to this process is that the neural network does not even know if it is correct to identify the pair status / action when it starts, it does not know how to “read” much less whether it has correctly interpreted the advice , the intermediary (if you choose to build near a river, or you have never built a river?). Everything must go on what the impact of his performance on the match result. In short, he must find a way to read the instruction book just by trying different interpretations and see if they improve the game.

Despite the difficulties, it works. When analyzing text were included, the success of software authors have taken so far won over half his games in 100 moves, and hit the game’s AI nearly 80 percent of the time when games were played at the end.

To test how well the software, the authors, is powered by a mixture of phrases owner’s manual, and took the Wall Street Journal site. The software used phrases correctly more than 90 percent of the time early in the game. However, as the game progressed, the manual has become a less useful guide, and the ability to withdraw her hand fell to about 60 percent of the End Game. At the same time, the software has begun to rely on less tangible, and the gaming experience.

This does not mean that the Journal was useless, however. Feeding the complete software package random text instead of an instruction also strengthened their algorithm is winning percentage; it increases by 40 percent in the 100-Move games. It is not as good as 54 percent obtained with the manual, but it is much better than the rate of 17 percent to win the algorithm alone.

What is happening here? The document does not say, but more importantly to note is that the neural network is just to try to identify rules that work (ie, built near a river). No matter how these rules will be transmitted only the text associated with a random action and determines whether the results are good. If you’re lucky, you can end combination of a useful rule with random text. He has a better chance than with non-random bits of text as the owner’s manual, but can still provide useful information, no matter what it takes to work.

The authors note that the software successfully learned to build its presence in the rich language of the game manual to perform better, learn to interpret the language as it went along. This is certainly true, the best software hoitaisi when he received the user manual as it was fed with a random text, and the difference was statistically significant. But simply providing a text resulted in a higher relative speed. This means that it is better to have some rules to work, no matter how they are derived, which have no instructions at all.

U.S. retail video game hardware, software and accessories fell 10 percent last month, U.S. $ 995 million (1.18 billion dollars) over the same month last year.

The second consecutive month of decline in industry sales was due primarily to a list of mediocre game releases.

NPD Group market research, said in its monthly report yesterday that sales of video game hardware fell 9 percent to U.S. $ 366.6 million. These include portable game systems and game consoles like the Wii.

Software sales, the games themselves, fell 12 percent to U.S. $ 469.5 million. When including PC games, total sales of software fell 10 percent to U.S. $ 508.9million.

Doug Creutz, an analyst at Cowen & Co., planned June sales disappoint, although he said several titles for hardcore gamers did worse than expected.

These include Duke Nukem Forever by Take-Two Interactive Software and Red Faction: Armageddon by THQ. Both the negative reviews hurt, he said.

Sales of game accessories, meanwhile, fell 11 percent to U.S. $ 158.9 million.

Month two best-selling game was LA Noire, which is also published by Take-Two, Sony and Duke Nukem Infamous seconds.

The iPad will not need to play to help in one way: the game IOS is a thousand times and is selling like hotcakes, which makes the tablet from Apple already rich platform for games of all kinds. Yet I (and many others) had a dream: if you could add a Bluetooth controller and play for real, PC / console quality games on the iPad? Would it be a game changer?

Short answer: Yes, it could be, especially if those games, he said, are still stored in the device. OnLive, we’ve written about many times, is a service of cloud-based games in the U.S. transmitting saved PC games, while the local user controls the game via keyboard or controller. Sounds like magic, but OnLive actually works, creating a viable option for laptop owners that low-power Netbooks, or through the TV connected to MicroConsole last year, an alternate console. Games are saved in the cloud, and titles can be played through a subscription or individual purchase of a license.

Now, here’s the long answer.

OnLive published an IPAD application last year which enabled the visualization of OnLive games played, but could not activate the gameplay. IPads support OnLive and tablets Android was announced at E3, but I finally had the chance to play with the service at the CEA Line Show in New York. And thanks to our brief encounter, you can certainly color us daunted.

The beta demo didn’t have physical controller support, but when OnLive’s tablet service goes live in the fall, a Bluetooth controller will be available for both iPad and some Android tablets (the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 was OnLive’s onsite tablet of choice, but the device’s charger was unfortunately misplaced). I had to use the onscreen virtual control pad, which provided a pretty acceptable alternative in one game I played, Virtua Tennis.

OnLive games can be browsed via a store portal or one’s own game library (if you’re curious which games are available on OnLive, check here). The game started and loaded just like a PC title, complete with launch animations and start screen. I virtual D-padded our way to the one-player game and started a match. Streaming onto the iPad, the game resolution was definitely lower than a locally stored-and-played game, but the stream stayed continuous and didn’t break up. More importantly, I could read screen text and identify player details and ball icons.

After the first serve, control had a slight lag but be completely playable. I won my first point after a heated volley back-and-forth. I could chase the ball and lob or slam my shot. After a while, I forgot the game was streaming remotely. I also saw Red Faction: Guerrilla playing, and I could control the character and move around, with some difficulty using the virtual pad. Still, the game was definitely running on the iPad.

One problem I had was the bandwidth needed to play OnLive success. OnLive requirements, you will need a minimum of 3 Mbps downstream, the demo was played on a wireless connection with other computers 5MBps two, after the person I spoke. However, the games could get risky during “crunch” hours. If your Netflix slows to a crawl in the night, your ISP will not like OnLive.

We have tons more questions, including the price of stand-alone controller, how many controllers iPad / Android tablet configuration will be supported and will support HDMI or if OnLive AirPlay mirror of the game on a widescreen TV. If so, and you can use a controller that could also OnLive + iPad just a killer PC / console? Let us know what you think, but from what I saw, it’s certainly something to be reckoned with.

Each gamer who has always selecting controller has heard about the exceedingly popular Halo series.  Here are entire discussion group who are still going over whether or not the video game series wen this the right direction

One game that set Halo on its path but is still a little less well know is the game that laid the groundwork.  Shooter games have always been pretty popular.  Shooter games on the console have become so popular that Xbox users are even getting carried away with the controllers such as replacing some of the control buttons with actual bullets.  Of course at some point people need to get a little classier than that and bringing a great shooter game to the iPad is one way to do that.

With the upcoming arrival of the Amazon tablet, the iPad needs to find new ways to make sure they keep the entirety of their popularity and one of the ways to do that is to bring some games that were pretty darn popular even when they were getting played on the old school format such as the personal computer.  The game “Marathon” is getting set to launch on the iPad and is apparently going to bring everything that avid gamers using Macs and PC have fallen in love with.

Marathon is actually well known among those who are avid Halo players because it takes place in the same universe and for that matter is a direct prequel to what happens in that particular story line.  This means that those that feel as though the Halo storyline went off the rails a little bit, or who are looking for another, interesting chapter to the series can find it with Marathon.  Of course the characters won’t be the same, but is that ever really needed when you sink your teeth into a great game?

Of course the really good news is that apparently the game will actually be a free app, something a little surprising when you think about the money making possibilities of another angle to the Halo universe.

Analysts at DFC Intelligence estimates that revenues for the online gaming market worldwide will reach $ 29 billion in 2016, up 84 percent from $ 15.7 billion reported in 2010.

His final report on the online games market estimates, the majority of revenues ($ 23 billion in 2016, or 88 percent) remains to be PC games online. About $ 17 billion coming from subscriptions, online, and the use of virtual goods, with consumer acceptance of the latter is said to be increasingly “fast”.

The firm has raised its overall online game industry forecast slightly, though it has lowered its console forecast in the process. While dedicated game consoles are expected to embrace online business models more in the coming years, growth in this sector is slower than the firm expected.

“The Wii U is the only new console system on the horizon and Nintendo has never had a major focus on online games,” said DFC analyst David Cole. “More importantly the short lifecycle and fragmented nature of console hardware can make it hard for companies to try creative new business models.”

The recent attacks on the PlayStation Network from Sony can also be caused by console manufacturers to “take a more conservative attitude” towards online gaming, according to DFC.

With the license to make a game in hand Jurassic Park, Telltale Games had to find the ideal starting point for a story that appears in the canon of the film without disturbing or recreate the events of the first film.

They found it in a can of shaving cream, lost for nearly 20 years.

The Barbasol remember? In 1993, the summer blockbuster, the unfortunate Nedry turned to get the plan embryos of dinosaurs on a shaving cream is false bottom which releases the dinosaurs and highlights the survivors frantically trying to flee the island.

Nedry never made it to the handoff, of course. During a torrential downpour his jeep bogged down and he was devoured by dilophosaurs, whose iconic (if scientifically unsupported) neck fans and poison spit made them about as memorable as the nasty velociraptors. But after Nedry croaks, that’s it. We don’t know what happened to the canister, nor do we know what his handlers did when Nedry didn’t show. For something worth $1.5 million, surely they would have gone looking for it, right?

That loose end provided Telltale the perfect entry to a story contained entirely within the time of the first film—much more memorable and enjoyable than its two underwhelming sequels—without repeating or adapting its events for a game, much less retconning anything.

At E3 2011 last week, Telltale showed off what creative director Dave Grossman called the studio’s “most cinematic game to date.” It’ll arrive later this year on PC/Mac and on the PlayStation Network, in an episodic form similar to the rollout of Back to the Future. The Xbox 360 will see a retail release containing all of the game’s chapters on a single disc.

It’s a Telltale Game, so this isn’t a third-person action game or, heaven forbid, a shooter. It’s very story-driven, focused more on puzzle solving, paying attention and advancing the story than it is action. It does have some faster-paced sequences, navigated entirely by timed button presses within Quicktime events.

In conversations, a Mass Effect-style dialogue wheel allows some role-playing choice, but the discussions don’t truly branch and all arrive at the same conclusion.

Spoiler Alert: As it’s a narrative game, to discuss what Jurassic Park does, we’ve got to talk about the story it’s telling. Fans of the first film looking forward to this new chapter of its story should consider whether they want to read further.

Alright? We’re cool now? Good. Back to what I saw.

In the sequence I was shown, you’ll be playing as one of the two people assigned to meet Nedry. You control Nima, who is a profit-motivated mercenary but certainly not a stooge, nor particularly evil. Miles, her companion, is a backstabber, which is why you don’t control him. While all the characters you play in Jurassic Park will have their own agenda, for some that will mean cooperating with others.

Nima and Miles encounter Nedry’s jeep and his chewed-up remains during a clue-finding investigative sequence. At this point they’re not aware of the bizarre danger surrounding them; the writing and the acting in Jurassic Park the game portrays the dinosaurs the way the film did: not as monsters but as animals, albeit extremely threatening ones.

Nima, in a sequence initiated by the player, figures out that Nedry must have dropped the Barbasol can and uses an object of similar weight to simulate where it may have rolled. She and Miles are then set upon by dilophosaurs. Miles sacrifices Nima as bait to make his own escape, but he meets the requisite grisly end. Nima avoids the creatures (entirely by Quicktime event) and makes it into the jeep and ultimately to safety, ending the scene.

Telltale said this will be the first game it’s done where a player can fail in a way that gets his character killed, and we saw Nima buy the farm once, just to prove that point. Dinosaur types will appear and reappear throughout the game, rather than turning the entire tale into a case of “Here’s the dilophosaurus level; here’s the velociraptor level,” etc.

The way the film foreshadowed the threat before losing the dinosaurs is something Telltale wants to honor, too, Grossman said, and Jurassic Park will offer its own prehistoric adversaries. “There is also a mysterious new threat that even the chief veterinarian doesn’t know about,” Grossman said.

The pre-alpha version of the game we saw had yet to refine the facial movements in the dialogue scenes and some details, like gunfire muzzle flashes, needed to be added. Environmentally, it was richly illustrated and the visual style is realistic, not cartoony.

Reveal believe with some reason, it did not contain the best of all games maker, and most importantly, there will be reason to pick up the game. It is much more interactive than a story, but it will not be rapid contraction of entertainment by any stretch. Jurassic Park is the target audience will be those who liked the first movie and want to explore the island, not to visit old haunts in another environment.

Gamers, start saving your shekels. If the preview of this week’s upcoming game is any indication, there is much enthusiasm in the months and years ahead.

About 45,000 members of the interactive entertainment industry have made the annual pilgrimage to Los Angeles this week at E3 – the Electronic Entertainment Expo aka – to catch a glimpse of tomorrow today titles.

And so, for three days of grueling trek through the largest exhibition of video games, the following are some key points.

Hot hardware

Nintendo unveiled its next-generation video game console, Wii U, slated for a late 2012 launch.

Gamers will use a 6.2-inch wireless touch screen to control the action – be it swiping or tapping fingers, using the buttons and analog sticks or taking advantage of the builtin gyroscope to tilt the controller around. Think of it as an iPad meets a Nintendo Wii (but with high-definition graphics, too).

If someone in the family wants to watch TV, you can keep playing your Wii U game on the tablet. The console will also play older Nintendo Wii games.

The tablet – which also includes a camera, microphone and speaker – is lightweight and comfortable, and the half-dozen games and other demos were a blast.

Sony also unveiled new hardware at the show. The PlayStation Vita will soon replace the Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP), bringing console-like graphics to a hand-held system for the first time. Be sure to check out Uncharted: Golden Abyss on YouTube.

You can play games in one of four ways: via the 5-inch OLED touch screen, the back touch panel, various buttons and dual analog sticks, and a built-in gyroscope. The “PS-Vita” also boasts dual cameras, Internet connectivity, customizable apps, and the ability to chat with friends while playing online.

Shoot now, ask questions later

Action games were all the rage at this year’s E3, including a number of firstand third-person shooters. Amassing much of the buzz at the show were sequels with a “3″ in their name: Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Electronic Arts’ Battlefield 3, Ubisoft’s Far Cry 3, EA/BioWare’s Mass Effect 3 (see below), Sony’s Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception and Microsoft Game Studios’ Gears of War 3. Whew. One of the most impressive shooters was 2K Games’ BioShock Infinite – which is also the third game in the popular franchise – and the behind-closed-doors demo had game journalists, like yours truly, in a word, breathless.

The wildly strange and imaginative action sequel takes place on a floating air city in an alternate 1912, as you attempt to rescue a mysterious young woman with uncontrollable powers. The stunningly detailed world, memorable characters and intense action sequences – including the ability to hop on a roller-coaster-like rail system to get around – all adds to the immersive experience.

Keep it Canadian

Canadian-made games were well represented – and received – at E3 2011.

EA/BioWare’s Mass Effect 3, for example, is an actionheavy role-playing game that had the crowds buzzing over its epic storyline (featuring hundreds of thousands of lines of dialogue), vast areas to explore and intense tactical combat. Picking up where its award-winning predecessor left off, you’ll once again step into the shoes of Commander Shepard, who must protect the human civilization from an ominous force.

While the game also will be available for PlayStation 3 and Windows when it debuts next March, the Xbox 360 version support the Kinect peripheral, allowing gamers to give verbal commands to their computer-controlled squadmates, as well as converse with characters in the game.

Other impressive Canadian games include EA Canada’s new SSX (an over-thetop snowboarding title out in 2012), Eidos Montreal’s Deus Ex: Human Revolution (a futuristic role-playing game) and Ubisoft Montreal’s Assassin’s Creed: Revelations (the latest chapter in the celebrated franchise).

For the kiddies

Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 might get all the press, but the California-based publisher likely has another monster hit on their hands – for younger gamers. Out this holiday season for all major consoles and the PC, Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure is part toy, part video game. Players get three small action figures that, when placed on the “Portal of Power” – a small disc that plugs into the video game machine’s USB port – unlocks that character inside the action role-playing game. There are roughly 30 action figures to collect in total, each with their own unique skills and abilities, and you can “level up” the in-game character over time. When you bring your Skylanders figurine to someone else’s Portal of Power – even if it’s on another console – your character and all of its powers are teleported into the game.

Microsoft has also impressed the participants with the next set of games that use the popular Kinect Xbox 360 peripherals. Children will fall in the charm of Kinect Disneyland Adventures, where you can walk in the park, take virtual images of Disney characters and start over a dozen motion-sensing games (with a friend by your side, if you like). Coming this fall in love Kinect is Warner Bros. ‘Sesame Street: Once upon Monster, that uses Kinect camera so that the children play with Elmo, Cookie Monster and other Sesame Street characters.