There’s something rather unusual appearing in the latest Gears of War game: women. More specifically, Gears of War 3 is the first game in the series to feature female characters who aren’t simply NPCs. Kotaku was quick to point out that, according to the universe’s lore, women have been primarily required to pump out babies in order to replace those lost in the Locust invasions (those women that do take part in any fighting tend to only do so as they can’t have kids); nice. Gears of War 3, however, is to feature Anya Stroud, daughter of Major Helena Stroud. Raised by her mother, Anya is, sure enough, one of the aforementioned women who is unable to have kids and…

Tired of all your Rock Band and gaming controllers messing up your bedroom or living room? Well you no longer have to worry about tripping over your drum kit and guitars with one of LevelUp’s gaming ottomans. The gaming storage boxes help you organize all of your controllers and games while still looking stylish wherever you put it in your house. Each ottoman is built with a solid wood frame while featuring a durable leather style PVC exterior. Inside the storage container itself, there are various pockets and velcro straps to make sure all of your gaming gear is tucked aware safe and secure. In terms of what it can carry, on the LevelUp website, they say that it can hold:…

Some eager Xbox 360 Kinect owners that have already got their hands on the controller-less gaming have discovered a great feature of the new accessory for the Xbox 360. When you buy the Kinect system, not only do you get controller-less gaming, but you also get an amazing light show. Admittedly, you need some night vision goggles to view this amazing scene, but it’s still pretty awesome. When viewing the room you’ve got Kinect set up in using a set of night vision goggles, the ones bundled with the Modern Warfare 2 Prestige Edition will work a treat, you get an amazing light show of pinpoint sensors created by the Kinect’s obsidian eye. You’ve finally got a good use for those…

To match the upcoming release of Kinect for the Xbox 360, Microsoft’s controller-less gaming, the Xbox Live website has been given a complete face lift, bringing it into the age of Kinect. The new, clean, design is a massive improvement on what they had in the past, which had been becoming increasingly clunky. I for one believe this should have happened a long time ago. The new site features Microsoft’s Silverlight, which is sort of MS’s answer to Flash or HTML 5, it allows them to create rich graphical experiences for the user. The way they’ve used in on the new site allows you to view your most recently active Xbox Live friends, along with how many are online, how…

Bungies second Halo: Reach weekly update has brought more astounding stats plus some more news about the upcoming October updates. In their first weekly update, Bungie announced that over 950 years had been spent playing the online matchmaking modes and over 1360 years had been spent on the single player campaign missions. Although they haven’t given a single player update, Bungie have announced that in just two weeks of the game’s release, over 5900 years have been spent playing the online matchmaking modes, amazing! Alongside the stats announced, Bungie also spoke more about the October updates which mainly consist of bug fixes and tweaks to the system, however, they also mentioned there will be a few extra game modes being…

Halo: Reach has been out for just under 1 week now and in that short time, some crazy statistics have been released by Bungie in their first weekly update. As of last Friday, over8 million daily challenges have been completed and over 78 billion credits have been earned. These two statistics are pretty impressive, however, my personal favourites are that over 950 years have been spent in matchmaking, and over an absolutely massive 1360 years have been spent playing the campaign. You’ll notice that these statistics were as of Friday 17th, so you can expect these to have rose drastically over the weekend, being the first weekend after release. In Bungie’s first weekly update they also announced that they will…

When it comes to installing a game to your Xbox 360 hard drive, it’s always a bit hit and miss as to whether it will actually speed up the game, or just slow it down. For example, many gamers found that installing Halo 3 to their consoles actually slowed the load times down. So with the release of Halo: Reach, is it safe to install or not? Well, Examiner.com have conducted some tests and they’ve found that installing the game onto your hard drive will save you valuable seconds when it comes to load times, giving you more time to shoot and less time staring at a dark screen. The tests found that when loading a standard mission on an…

Bungie have released a complete version of their “Deliver Hope” live-action trailer which features an epic battle. It looks like Bungie are once again trying to wet our appetites prior to their latest Halo game release next week, and my appetite is soaking. It’s a real shame that they never released a Halo move as if it was up to the same quality as the “Deliver Hope” trailer, I would be absolutely blown away. Unfortunately for the time being us gamers will have to settle for the awesome looking Halo: Reach which is being released on September 14th (next Tuesday). Enjoy.

Microsoft have announced today that they are releasing a brand new Xbox 360 controller. The new controller is going to be released in a matt silver with with grey buttons, rather than the original green, red, yellow and blue. The analogue sticks have also changed, each having a more exaggerated concave shape. That’s not all the changes though. The biggest changes come to the D-pad which transforms from the existing d-pad, which is more of a flush disc, to a popped out plus sign. To make this simple change, all you have to do is rotate the d-pad clockwise 90 degrees. You may wonder, what’s the point, it just does the same thing. However, Microsoft have a few suggestions on…

Microsoft have announced today, via Major Nelson, that the prices for the Xbox Live service will be going up on 1st November 2010.  The price updates are going to take effect in the United States, United Kingdom, Mexico and Canada. The biggest rises go to the United States where all their subscriptions are being increased. The one month subscription will go from $7.99 to $9.99, the 3 month subscription will go from $19.99 to $24.99. The biggest rise comes to the annual subscription which is increasing by $10, making the new price (as of November 1st) $59.99. The United Kingdom, Mexico and Canada have got off pretty lightly, only the 1 month subscription price will be increasing. In the United…