Plantronics was kind enough to send over their GameCom X95 wireless gaming headset and we put it through its paces for an entire month. We’ve delved into games like the Gears of War 3 beta, Call of Duty Black Ops and others, read more below to read about our impressions of this hefty headset.

Plantronics X95 gaming headset provides gamers with a full surround sound experience whether you gaming on your  Xbox 360. We decided to take a look into what makes this headset work through extensive gaming sessions through many games including the recent Gears of War 3 beta and other titles with heavy use of surround sound quality. Plantronics has been in the business since the 1960s and over time have managed to make headsets comfortable and more affordable for the everyday gamer. Over the years, Plantronics have expanded to provide headsets for office, mobile and now gaming uses. We now take a look into the gaming world and they have provided us with a sample of their GameCom X95 headset for Xbox 360.

As a headset, the X95 is sturdily built and structurally sound. The first thing you notice when you take it out of the box is it’s padding underneath the headrest to provide comfort for those long gaming hours. This is Plantronics highest quality headset around in the business. Inside the box you’ll find the GameCom X95, wireless adapter and components, 2 AAA batteries, and the adapter that connects your headset to your controller. You’ll also find a “Get Started” pamphlet to help you set up everything to get up and running. Once putting on the headset, it felt comfortable thanks to the soft cushioned material from the top of my head to my ears on both sides.

The right and left ear pods have two separate controls for volume and a button for use of the microphone. Speaking of, the microphone sits folded inside the headset hiding from being a distraction if your not playing online. However, once in use the microphone is of much better quality then the one provided by your Xbox 360 system. I have been playing the Gears of War 3 beta, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Mass Effect and other titles and each time every game left me completely immersed in the experiences. Despite all my gaming time with Microsoft’s wired headset, I never noticed the incredible detailed sounds my game provided through the main TV speakers. The GameCom X95 headset provides 44 mm speaker surround sound and that means you hear everything. From the sound of birds chirping in the background or the sounds of gunfire in the distance in Gears of War or Black Ops. It’s very easy to get lost in the world of any specific game your playing, as that is how good the quality is of this product.

Finally, one thing you’ll notice is that you could go on for hours on end without the headset becoming a nuisance. I never felt as if I needed to take a break because of the headset becoming caught up in my hair or otherwise. It’s a unique upgrade that you should certainly consider in your gaming budget. It’s is a great piece of wireless gaming equipment. Be sure to check out Plantronics.com to purchase your own pair of GameCom 95 headsets for $99.99. You’ll also find headsets available for Playstation 3 owners as well.

Much has been said about Sony’s first party PS3 games. Some have been a bit hit and miss, while others have emulated the company’s success from the PS2 era. Increasingly, their new efforts seem to be falling in the latter category and gamers are profiting from delightful experiences that push what the system can offer. Even though the majority of them are sequels (at the moment), they are performing well at retail and through critical reception.

This new era (if you like) started back when Sony lifted the lid on Killzone 2. It looked and played the part; a full “next-gen” title with the velocity that gamers want nowadays. The game turned out great, if a little congested with dodgy controls and an endless supply of enemies. We had the opportunity to pick up Killzone 3 (in 3D!) at the Eurogamer Expo to see how the sequel’s turning out.

Well, we’re happy to report that Killzone 3 is every bit as fun as its predecessor and seems to fix most of the series’ problems. Guns no longer feel loose thanks to some solid controls and the amount of enemies has been better moulded to the level design. It isn’t particularly easier, just a bit more refined in its execution. The gameplay feels as sharp as ever, with movement and POV issues from 2 fixed. The protagonist is no longer ridiculously short compared to everything else in the game-world. He has grown to the size of regular folk in the space of one game.

However, it doesn’t really feel like a sequel. The weapons (at least in our demo) were exactly the same, and some weird gadgets have been introduced just to give the game another bullet point on the back of the box. This is most prudent with the jetpack which is not only unintuitive to control, but it’s just not particularly fun. It’s essentially a device to achieve longer/higher jumps. We hate to make comparisons to seemingly unlinked games in previews, but if this jetpack followed the fine balance achieved by Halo: Reach’s variant it could be a bit more entertaining. Regardless, it has a lovely built-in gun that fires off rounds at a pleasantly rapid speed.

Now, let’s talk about 3D. The code we played was a bit picky about where we sat for the 3D effects to work. We had to sit directly in front of the game, in the middle of the screen. Whether or not this is entirely the game’s fault remains to be seen, but the TVs at the expo were some expensive Sony models that we’re guessing they actually want to work as advertised. The 3D glasses provided were some basic non-powered hard-plastic devices so the fault could possibly be with them too.

Anyways, the game was a bit weird in 3D if we’re being honest. It feels like you’re playing through it all constantly zoomed in. This effect might’ve been caused by us being a bit too close to the screen, but it’s worrying that a game like this can’t demo effectively when the elements needed to run it at home can quickly clock up to over £3000. However, it’s worth noting that the build we played was “pre-alpha”, so we have to reserve real judgement on such matters until we see a later build.

Killzone 3 is shaping up well, but it seems slightly uninspired at the moment. There doesn’t seem to be much new stuff to play around with, but it’s a tighter experience that’s still fun to play. Hopefully Guerrilla can add some more diverse elements throughout the game to warrant a sequel. We already know they’re not very strong story-tellers, so they need to up their game in their other areas to deliver something that doesn’t just feel like an expansion pack.

The Metroid series has always been one of Nintendo’s major hardcore gaming pillars. It has followed the company from platform to platform, stopping off on the GBA for a few titles and really came into its own during the Prime saga on the GameCube. Prime was my first entry into the series, and it was perfect to introduce new players such as myself. Retro Studios understood our mindset and made the Prime series immersive and fun to play.

So, imagine the world’s surprise at last year’s E3 when Nintendo announced that Retro will be stepping aside for Team Ninja to take up the reigns for the next title in the series: Metroid Other M. It was the only hardcore title announced at that particular conference, but it split fans. Could Team Ninja really deliver something comparable to the epics Retro treated us to?

Well, I got to have a play on the game behind closed doors, and the answer is still not clear. We sat down on an obscure “minimalist” stool with no prior knowledge of the controls and a misplaced sensor bar. Once everything was fixed and we got comfortable, we settled in to what we assumed would be a slice of gaming excellence. What we got was far from it.

As shown by the game’s videos and screenshots across the web, Other M is back to third person with an awkward camera. For the most part, it controls fine, but the third person viewpoint doesn’t seem that conductive to the Metroid experience. Navigation is a touch annoying and the attempt at a mini-map doesn’t help with anything. If you try to go to a place you’re not supposed to go too early, nothing will happen and you will be left wondering what on Earth you have to do.

This isn’t helped by some weird menus and the scan ability being hidden behind some weird fiddly visor control system. Talking of the visor, it is technically not that difficult to use but complicates itself by overloading you with features. To use it, you have to move the Wii-mote so it faces the sensor bar and then you need to select what you want to do. It leaves you vulnerable as Samus anchors to the ground whenever you use the visor.

Frustratingly, you can now only fire missiles through using the visor and you will get attacked a fair bit as you fuss about the visor. Normal gun operations are fine in third-person, so it just makes the missile experience even more bizarre. Furthermore, there are some dull sections where you have to use missiles to blow up enemy spawning locations. If you don’t do it, they will carry on spawning when you try to kill them. It’s age old design and it just doesn’t seem as well thought out as Prime.

However, the melee system added a bit of depth to the combat. Dodging enemies and launching counter attacks not only looked cool, it played well. The morph ball segments were also good. In the demo we played, there wasn’t much ball action but it did serve as an entertaining distraction. There wasn’t any Prime-esque timing bomb awkwardness and it just felt right to roll around causing trouble.

In conclusion, there technically isn’t much wrong with Other M. It has everything you want from a Metroid game, but it’s weighted down with some atrocious fiddly elements that bring the experience down. The gameplay is too linear and the cutscenes add nothing to the game at all. The whole point of the Metroid series is for Samus to be all alone as she potters about trying to stop some evil folk by herself and it seems Nintendo has no idea what direction it wants to take this series any more. Metroid fans will probably be able to find something they like in here, as will a lot of other people, but it just doesn’t feel like the real McCoy.

This time, Massive J Productions and Homez Industries are granted access to a super top secret hands on viewing of the Nintendo 3DS, and thus feel rather special.

Furthermore, the crew take it upon themselves to rage, shortly after offering insightful converse on such topics as Kirby’s Epic Yarn and Donkey Kong Country Returns.

Don’t forget to enter Ramblings of a Madman in a comment below.

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Duration: 37:56

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Non Playable is co-hosted by Joe Sayer and Chris Holmes. Produced by Joe Sayer.

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As you may know already, we’ve visited Nintendo this week and now have a great deal of content to give to you. We’re trickling some hands-on reports throughout the week (news is a bit average this week to be honest) for your reading pleasure. Now, let’s talk about something that’s dear to all our hearts: Super Scribblenauts. Sat alone at its own DSi XL unit at the Nintendo event like a forgotten GameBoy, Super Scribblenauts quietly got on with basking in its glory.

You see, there’s something quite obvious with this game that should’ve got you excited. It has “Scribblenauts” in the title. The predecessor was an entertaining journey through our inner psyche via our imaginations, a complete “err why hasn’t this been done before” game made of win. If you need a brief recap, here it is: you control Maxwell, a dude who can summon cool stuff to help him with puzzles thanks to a fancy dictionary. You type in the word, it comes to life. Bingo. The sequel is the same really. Whilst there hasn’t been many gameplay tweaks aside from some actually useful controls (the original was a bit fiddly; this has d-pad and face button support), the stuff on offer here is compelling.

The game now supports adjectives (cleverly alluded to by the title); ten thousand of them to be exact. On top of that, there are some new words to muck about with. We didn’t come across many in the brief demo we experienced (our imaginations were drained by a long train journey), but adjectives definitely add a bit extra to the game. You can now spawn things like a “Firey Vampire” and a “Wet Computer”, amongst others. It adds an extra dimension to the gameplay, even if some of them are mainly aesthetic effects stuck on to pre-existing sprites. Things such as robot dinosaurs are still included, as are wings to go with it so the old-school crowd should still be happy.

We only had time to play one puzzle level, and down to peer pressure I ended up electrifying a Platypus with a toaster. Don’t ask. Early puzzles seemed to be a bit complex compared to the original, so we hope youngsters will be brainy enough to get it done. There was a new hint system though, and it should help out younger folk if they can afford it. Basically, the game will sell you information (for in-game currency), with the cost decreasing over time (shown on-screen by a handy hourglass). Joe couldn’t resist the age-old favourite of “Nuke”. Next time, we’ll be sure to try “Mega Nuke” and the surely most ultimate prize of them all: “Invisible Nuke”.

Our dear Jereme has already previewed Epic Mickey but when Nintendo invited us to go and play lots of cool stuff with them, we were able to get our hands on the game itself for a much longer time period. After a mammoth talk and introduction from a designer on the game (whom was a rather nice chap), we managed to get Mickey under our control.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first. Platformers are not easy to demo at any event, especially one where you have to stand to play. They usually have intricate designs and bizarre objective placement to encourage exploration, but that takes time. Time events don’t have. Epic Mickey was a keen demonstration of this.

The demo focused on three levels from the full game. In the first, Mickey has to retrieve some bits and pieces for Smee in order to get Steamboat Willy up and running. This involves running around and helping other Peter Pan pirates and a shop owner out with their problems. One pirate wants to get off with a woman so wants something to woo her, one wants his missing treasure and the shop owner wants three masks. To get them, we had to do a bit of exploring.

This is where the game’s paint and thinner mechanic came in useful. We could thin out the back of a shop and have a nose about, and find some hidden game currency in a rock. The paint mechanic mainly came into play when we had to fix roofs and other broken things. A subtle shadow envelopes the area you can paint, which we believe is a nice addition for younger players whom might not have the gaming experiences of their older counterparts. However, acting like a kid and spraying thinner in all conceivable directions is a fun distraction, just like the age-old pastime of pissing about with paint in real life.

The gameplay seemed to be a bit too simplistic, with some artificial difficulty chucked in through hiding some objectives in pointlessly weird places. It seems the game wants to mainly trade on its design and looks. The animated cutscenes were solid (albeit without voice acting, and when quizzed about this, our host dodged a question about this being because of the Wii’s limited technical ability), as were the character designs. The environment in the first level was a bit cramped, but it was a solid introduction to the game. When we moved on to the Steamboat Willy level, though, our eyes did a double take.

It just looked amazing, completely like the old black and white Mickey cartoon. It was very short but served its purpose as a smile-raising distraction before the next level. The design, animation and music really came together here to offer something truly unique. Even something inconsequential like the random cow platforms brought a reminiscent tear to our old, world weary eyes. We hope the other intermediate “travel” levels in the game are this good.

The next level was interesting in that you get to decide the fate of the aforementioned pirates. You could either let them continue to be made into robots, shut down the machine (and let the pirates be turned back into normal pirate gits) or blow it up (and keep the pirates as robots). We liked that the game didn’t pressure us into doing anything here and being pressed for time, we pushed on for the main objective of getting out of dodge. That meant releasing the anchors of a ship, which had become stranded on the island.

A brief bit of exploration led to the discovery of the anchors and getting rid of them required a bit of thinner. There were some interesting uses of the thinner in other places too: using it on lookout towers at the top of a ship’s mast allowed them to become handy platforms. It’s worth noting that the sea in this part of the game was polluted with thinner, which can hurt Mickey and enemies.

Talking of which, this was the first environment to contain enemies. We were told that as with everything else throughout the game, Mickey would come up against enemies from all different Disney properties. The ones in this level mainly consisted of those tall gits from Fantasia, and some short stocky things from something we have no idea about. What’s interesting about the fight mechanics in this game though are how you can deal with your combatants. You can use thinner on them to destroy them, or use paint on them to make them become allies. If you do that latter, they stay in their small area and fight for you. There’s also a Mario-esque spinning move, activated through waggle.

To conclude then, Epic Mickey is shaping up fine. There needs to be a bit more challenge in the gameplay to make it rewarding for adults, but kids should love it. The Warren Spector factor is apparent with some of the choices you can make in-game and with the overall presentation, but it seems Disney are restraining his vision. Hopefully the full game will have more epic segments and set-pieces.

Nintendo invited the UK’s media to come and play lots of exciting things yesterday. We were invited, and to kick off our coverage of what we got to have a look at is the Nintendo 3DS.  When Nintendo first announced the device, people were left scratching their heads. A 3D based gaming system that didn’t require glasses was too much for some to take, with most people wondering if they were in the future and stuff.

I’m happy to report we are in the future. Nintendo took us to what can only be described as a flock of gorgeous women with 3DS’ everywhere and told us to have fun. We obliged. Some of us obliged a little too much (they tried some outrageous geek flirting, which didn’t go down too well. If anyone from Nintendo is reading this, I apologise profusely for their unprofessional behaviour and their bizarre understanding of physics). Now that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the Nintendo 3DS hardware.

The units we got to play with were jet black, with a solid metallic feel. As you may know by now, the device has two cameras on the lid with another on the inside. There’s also a new analogue slider alongside the DS Lite style D-Pad, with the traditional DS touch screen and button arrangement. The face buttons had a glossy look, but felt responsive enough and easy to use. The shoulder buttons were more interesting though. They were smaller (thinner) and made out of a harder metallic material. The back side of the 3DS has a bigger cartridge slot, but old DS cartridges should fit in there just fine. Next to that is an infra-red connector.

Around the other side is the SD card housing, with the stylus slot taking up the spot directly opposite. It’s worth noting that the top lid had a slight over-hang to the bottom, but this is still prototype hardware and susceptible to a redesign. The 3DS top screen is just like what you’ve heard about everywhere else: a nice sizeable widescreen. The 3D slider worked well, but it’s interesting to note that when we took the screen to 3D, the image lost a bit of sharpness but worked exactly as advertised. We were playing in 3D and enjoying it.

Let’s talk about what we got to play with on the console: Pilotwings Resort, Nintendogs + Cats and Hollywood 61.

Pilotwings Resort

This was our first playable title on the Nintendo 3DS. The demo had two modes, one with a traditional bi-plane and another with jetpack. The objective for the jetpack mission was to fly around and pop balloons, with the bi-plane mission being to fly through some rings. You get to play as your Mii in this one, which was quite interesting. It used the typical “Wii Sports” look for the UI. Having a flying game in 3D is a good way to show off the technology, and Pilotwings doesn’t disappoint. It looks just like a Wii game, and the 3D really helped with navigation.

However, it became a bit too easy to focus on nearby buildings instead of the protagonist and it wasn’t always easy to determine how close we were to the objective. Other than that, the controls were fairly solid and the analogue slider was intuitive. It is much better than the PSP one and should be just fine with prolonged use. However, while we liked Pilotwings, it was a bit boring and the objectives seemed overly simple to get to. Hopefully they’ll be able to shape a whole game round the premise rather than do consecutive simple challenges.

Nintendogs + Cats

This was our next playable game in the long tour of upcoming stuff for the 3DS. The demo was distinctly lacking in cats for our liking, but it did have plenty of dogs. To be precise, there was a beagle, a golden Labrador and a terrier. They all behaved very Nintendogs-like and it seemed very natural to pick up and play, just like the prequel. What’s interesting about this one is that it has facial recognition. When I put my beautiful face towards the camera, my beagle came up and tried to lick me. It’s a fun touch but I’ve never seen this dog before in my life, so how does it know who I am? We’re not sure if the camera is advanced enough to tell owners apart from other humans and no one at the show seemed to know.

Regardless, the 3D effect was really entertaining here. It adds to the whole effect of owning and playing with your virtual dog. Throwing things like boomerangs and Frisbees looked amazing, and even though the demo only had an indoor location, there was plenty of space to muck about with. When the camera went to a semi-isometric viewpoint, the 3D effect was stunning. The dog’s home looked like a fully realised place. However, using the 2D touch screen to interact within a 3D space can feel a bit weird. That wears off fairly quickly though and we enjoyed it. Disappointingly, we haven’t seen anything to differentiate it from the original yet.

Hollywood 61

This was our first ever playable third party 3DS game. It’s a Hotel Dusk-esque game from Ubisoft, focusing on a detective going after a serial killer. The demo took place at a theatre, and included a cut-scene, a quick puzzle and an interesting brief ending segment. The cardboard cut-out style character design was competent enough, but the 3D element was surplus to requirements here really. The puzzle was a short “reflect the light with mirrors to the ending” one, and seemed to be very easy.

However, the ending of the demo really saved it. The protagonist moved to the middle of the theatre and we got to control his viewpoint of the stage with the analogue slider. When looking at it from the left, the message “YOU’RE” was viewable on the stage curtain, and when looking at it from the right, the message “NEXT!” was viewable. This used 3D strangely well, and we thought it was a highly entertaining way to try to scare us. Hollywood 61 has a lot of potential, but we’re not sure who exactly it’s appealing to. Hotel Dusk didn’t sell a massive amount and the puzzles on offer here don’t look to be as complex as those in the Professor Layton series. If they manage to frame it as a book-style adventure, it could do well.

Camera

Nintendo also showed us a 3D camera application. They didn’t confirm if this was the exact one that will be included with the 3DS, but it seemed adequate enough. Interestingly, the 3D depth slider didn’t work with this demo. Instead, you could change the focus of the 3D image on the bottom screen with a slider.  There was no ability to save or transfer photos in the demo. Pictures taken with it use a low resolution, but it seemed to work as advertised. The two front cameras on the lid do their job well. However, we were in a well-lit environment so we’re not sure how well it’ll do in the dark. There’s no flash on the device.

If Nintendo can get the pricing for the device right, this could be the first “cheap” mainstream 3D device with a 3D camera. It can push the format forward on mobile platforms and could lead to even bigger things in the future.

Everything else and conclusion

After playing with those, we were treated to the same trailers and videos that were at E3. There was a 3D film trailer about some owl film coming out soon (can’t remember the name), Mario Kart, Resident Evil Redemption, Metal Gear Solid 3D Naked Sample and a few others floating about (including Kid Icarus). Mario Kart looked like a cross between the Wii and DS version, and there wasn’t a massive opportunity for any 3D effects in the demo. Resident Evil Redemption looked very good, albeit a bit bland. We couldn’t follow the plot but if games really do look this good on the 3DS then we’re in for a treat.

Metal Gear Solid 3D Naked Sample (or something to that effect) was also highly entertaining. It follows either Snake or Big Boss (probably the latter) in a first person crawl through a forest. The camera then zooms out to show our protagonist, as he has an entertaining moment with a guard and a packet of cigarettes. He then runs across a bridge and fights the female Boss (we’re guessing she’s Big Momma). There are some beautiful flower effects and other various 3D elements as all this is going on, with the graphics looking better than the recently released PSP title Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker. Needless to say, we were very happy with it and we hope it will be released.

In conclusion, the Nintendo 3DS is an exciting step in the right direction for 3D. While many seem to be ringing the format’s death knell at the cinema, the 3DS can stand up to the plate thanks to the device not needing those Joe 90-style 3D glasses. People won’t be able to look over your shoulder to watch you play in 3D unless they get close enough to breathe their cancerous germs all over you, but you will be safe in the knowledge that they will be jealous. The system just needs one killer app and it could be epic. We’re not sure if Kid Icarus will be it, but this is Nintendo we’re talking about here. A new Mario or Zelda will come along and sweep everyone off their feet. The world will go mad with fanboyism and the 3DS will rule all. Sony really needs to come up with something mind-bending to trump this.