Review of Sony PS3 Hardware 160GB Core

Customer Ratings:

The PS3 is a great system. Easy to use, futuristic on-screen interface, quality sleek hardware, awesome graphics, lots of benefits. But should you get a PS3 or Xbox 360? And what about the Wii?

Note: I own all three devices, and I appreciate all of them. I don't have any bias to one system or the other, just my personal experience and opinion...

PS3============================================

What I like MOST about the PS3:

1) Future proof Blu-ray player (Sony updates the player over the Internet for free; it now supports 3D movies/TVs)

2) Clean, more futuristic on-screen interface (feels more mature then Xbox 360)

3) Better/Smoother/Faster graphics (in the 10+ games I own on a 60" 1080p HDTV)

4) Free online multiplayer gaming (no monthly/yearly fees like Xbox 360; which I hate about Xbox)

5) Watch your online netflix shows on PS3 for free (Xbox requires Xbox live account to use your netflix account; another thing I hate about Xbox)

6) Exterior: More futuristic, luxurious, mature "look". Looks more like a sleek Home Theater appliance. (Xbox 360 more oriented to youthful crowd; Xbox looks more like an 'entertainment' device)

7) Lighter, slimmer, smaller controller. Built-in longer lasting rechargeable battery. (the Xbox controller does not come with a standard rechargeable battery, and it feels heavier and more bloated then the PS3 controller).

8) Built-in wireless connectivity. (an option on the Xbox)

9) Built-in optical/toslink connectivity for home theatre audio connection. (an option on the Xbox)

10) I can use my (or any) wireless blue-tooth cell phone headset for voice/chat enabled games. (The Xbox cannot)

What I like LEAST about the PS3:

1) My first PS3 (the 'fat' one) had a disc drive failure after 13 months of ownership; 1 month beyond its warranty. The PS3 still works, I just cant use discs. That means I cant watch blu-ray discs on it and I cant play disc based games on it. I can still play games through the PlayStation store (demos, etc), I still can watch netflix on it, and I still can watch movies from my PCs over the network on it. The fact that my PS3 disc drive died after about 1 year of limited delicate usage really concerns me about the quality of the hardware and customer support/treatment. I paid over $400 for my first PS3, and I used it maybe twice a week. After searching the web about my problem, I found this was a rampant problem with the fat PS3. Did they fix this problem with the slim PS3? Time will tell; I sure hope so. I just wish Sony would have fixed my problem for free (as I feel it was shoddy hardware or poor engineering that resulted in this problem, not me).

2) Games (new and used) are generally more expensive then the Xbox 360.

3) I liked the glossy look of the first generation PS3. The new PS3 slim looks a little flimsier/cheaper. It is smaller though, and that's a plus.

4) The rechargeable battery in the PS3 controller is not swappable. That means if your controller dies mid-game, you have to plug it in to use it. (The Xbox controller has swappable batteries)

5) When I download a game (full or demo), I can't play it immediately. After the download (which could take over an hour), I have to install the game (which could take another 10-30+ minutes), at which time my PS3 is unusable until it completes. The Xbox downloads in the background and plays immediately without having to install the game. Also, if I turn off the PS3, the download stops (the Xbox finishes the download even when turned off).

Xbox 360============================================

What I like MOST about the Xbox 360:

1) More people have it. In other words, all my friends, family and coworkers have Xbox 360s. Which also means if I want to play online with them, I have to use my Xbox, which is also a con for me. (I'd rather use my PS3 because of the better graphics and lighter/smaller controller).

2) I can download games, updates and demos in the background, even with the Xbox turned off. So I can start a download and go to bed without leaving the box on all night. (The PS3 cant do this)

3) When I download a game (full or demo), I can play it immediately. On the PS3, you have to download it (which could take over an hour), then install it (which could take another 10-30+ minutes), at which time your PS3 is unusable until it completes.

4) My late generation Xbox elite has lasted longer then my first generation PS3 (surprisingly)

5) It doubles as a Media Center extender. I have a PC that records shows for me in Media Center (like a Tivo but no monthly fees). I can access these shows and watch live TV over the network via my Xbox. This is a VERY cool and under-talked about feature. And most people with a Windows PC can do this; look it up.

6) The console and games (new and used) are cheaper then the PS3.

What I like LEAST about the Xbox 360:

1) Still no blu-ray player. This is a major con compared to the PS3. It WILL play regular DVDs, however.

2) In my experience, graphics are a little lower quality then my PS3. In Grand Theft Auto IV, I can see farther and more objects at a time on my PS3. The PS3 has a faster frame rate, where the Xbox feels almost blurry. The colors are more crisp on the PS3, the Xbox is more washed out, like water colors. Some may not even notice this, I do.

3) No built-in wireless connectivity. You have to buy a very expensive adapter to have wireless connectivity.

4) No built-in optical/toslink connectivity for home theatre audio connection. You have to buy an adapter to do this.

5) No rechargeable battery. You have to buy a rechargeable battery and kit to do this.

6) Not a major deal, but the on-screen interface is more kid-feeling then the PS3. I'm an adult and the PS3 feels more like its targeted to adults then children/teenagers.

7) YOU HAVE TO PAY TO PLAY ONLINE. I don't understand this. It's ridiculous to me. It's way overpriced. I can't play online with my friends unless I buy a monthly or yearly Xbox live pass. I hate this about the Xbox. I HATE THIS. I already gave them hundreds of dollars in the console, games and accessories; stop asking me to pay to play. As you can see, this is a major con to me. I also cant watch my Netflix account without paying for an Xbox live account. Boo!

8) The Xbox has a pretty bad reliability record. I believe they have eliminated most of the issues that plagued the earlier consoles, however. My neighbor has replaced his Xbox 4 times; FOUR TIMES! I have not. He plays his every day all day though; I play once or twice a week for less then an hour.

Wii============================================

I bought the Wii after playing it at a friends house. I was blown away by the idea and experience of motion based controllers. We played golf, boxing, tennis, ping pong; it was an amazing experience for the first time.

After I had the Wii, I quickly lost interest.

Here's why:

1) Horrible graphics. I paid a lot of money to have a 60" High Definition full 1080p home theatre. The Wii graphics look like absolute kiddy crap on my TV. The Wii has no high def. Its like playing a first generation Nintendo NES on a HDTV. Its horrible, and for this 1 reason I can no longer enjoy my Wii. Nintendo is way behind the modern day high end graphics of today.

2) The motion controller novelty has worn off. Its fun on a few games, horrible on others. I don't know, the novelty of the Wii has just worn off for me; and several of my friends.

3) It just doesn't feel like a modern quality device. While I'm sure its reliable, it just feels like a child's toy; the exterior, the interface, the games, etc. Sorry, I guess I've just grown up.

Conclusion============================================

In conclusion, I would say the Wii is more suited to young children. The Xbox is a great device, and so is the PS3. I can live without my Wii; but I would have a hard time choosing between the Xbox and PS3. For that reason, I choose to have both. If Xbox made online multiplayer free (eliminated the Xbox live cost), and included a blu-ray player, I would choose the Xbox over a PS3 (even with the better graphics on the PS3). But for now, I say buy both. By the Xbox as a gaming device, and justify the PS3 as blu-ray player with benefits.

If your a parent shopping for a teenager and only want to buy 1 device, go for the Xbox 360. Chances are, most of your child's friends will already have one, and they can all play online.

If your an adult that demands the best and has little time to play games (like myself), get a PS3. Its sleek, its got better graphics, its wireless, and it has a blu-ray player.

I hope this review gives you some insight and help with your choice, and a little knowledge of all the systems from an experienced and unbiased owner.

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I just bought the PS3 slim a week before posting this review and I'm extremely happy with it. To be honest, I'm not a gamer and may never buy a game for the PS3, I bought it strictly for its streaming video and blu-ray playback capabilities, in my opinion it is the best.

My first blu-ray player was an early Panasonic 1.0 blu-ray player, it played blu-rays beautifully, when researching it they said it was almost as good as the PS3, at the time the PS3 was the gold standard. I didn't buy a PS3 then because of its price and its original bulk, it would not fit in well into my AV setup. Also, you needed a separate remote for blu-ray/DVD playback if you didn't want to use the controller, the PS3 is not IR capable. I then traded "up" to a Samsung blu-ray player because it offered streaming Netflix capability, I really enjoyed the streaming Netflix, but I noticed that my blu-ray disks didn't look as good as on my old Panasonic and DVD upscaling on the Samsung blu-ray was no where near as good as my old Panasonic, but I really wanted the Neftlix streaming service so I stuck with it.

Since my initial look at the PS3, a lot has changed, first the new slim model, it fits perfectly in my AV setup. Also, Netflix streaming finally came to the PS3, first via software on a disk, now it is totally integrated into the PS3 OS via a firmware update.

I primarily bought my Samsung blu-ray player for its Netflix streaming capability, but I was getting frustrated with the Netflix interface on the Samsung, you could not search or add movies to your Netflix queue directly from the player, plus loading titles from your queue took almost a minute to launch.

Several friends at work have had the PS3 from its beginning and they were always taunting me when new features arrived to the PS3, when they told me about the new Netflix features available on the PS3 I decided to take the plunge. The PS3 was the first platform to get 5.1 surround sound from Netflix streaming, and to date, the only platform to have full 1080p movies via streaming, plus I can search and add movies to my queue directly from the PS3. Moving through my queue on the PS3 is a breeze, on my Samsung, the interface displayed the movies from right to left and left to right. I currently have over 360 movies in my queue, it can take a long time to maneuver through this many titles going left to right or right to left. On the PS3, the titles are tiled 5 or 6 wide, you can move up, down, left or right, when you finally launch a title it is up and playing within a matter of seconds!

What about blu-ray playback on the PS3 slim? It is awesome (video and audio), as good or better than my old Panasonic player I loved so much! DVD up-scaling is also excellent. The thing that really sold me on the PS3 is Sony's commitment to continually improve it and keep it current. Firmware updates over the years have kept PS3 up to date in every respect. One of my co-workers bought the original PS3 the day it was released, it is still going strong 5 years later, actually better and has more features than when he bought it!

Last, but not least, the remote control issue. A few years ago I moved to using Harmony remotes to control all my AV equipment. I have a drawer in my coffee table that has 8 different remotes for all my various equipment, on top of my coffee table I have one Harmony remote that controls all of my equipment perfectly. The new PS3 is still not IR capable, but I bought the Harmony PS3 adapter, this is a bluetooth/IR device that accept commands from your Harmony remote to control the PS3, it took about 10 minutes to set up and works perfectly!

Oh yeah, I hear that the PS3 really does play games, maybe one day?

Best Deals for Sony PS3 Hardware 160GB Core

Let me give a little bit of background before diving into a review. When the original NES came out, I was hooked. I didn't think anything could be better than Super Mario Bros. Then there was the Sega Genesis...and as I entered college, the original Playstation. Wow!

After college I settled down, got married, had children, and stopped playing games for a while. Just 2 years ago I picked up a wii "for the family" and have enjoyed it since. Mario Galaxy 2 looks great and is a great deal of fun to play...and there are other great games on the wii as well. For the record, I'd never played a PS2, PS3 or Xbox.

Don't get me wrong, the wii is great. There are a number of wii exclusives that I love. But I was still wanting something with some better graphics/games and thus began my research between xbox and ps3. Both are great systems! This was going to be harder than I thought. In the end, I felt like the game selection for the PS3 slightly outweighed that of the xbox for the family. The PS3 has LittleBigPlanet and Ratchet and Clank, as well as Uncharted/Metal Gear/etc. And while the xbox has some great exclusives as well, I was leaning toward the PS3.

When I saw that the PS3 slim increased the hard drive from 120gb to 160gb I finally bit the bullet. I was wanting to get a blu-ray player sometime so I figured I'd just get the ps3. Just set it up last night. Set-up was a breeze and the graphics, wow, they truly are stunning. As I said, the wii is great and I'll continue to play and enjoy wii-exclusive games, but compared to xbox/ps3 graphics, there really is no comparison. I'm really looking forward to NHL 11 and Gran Turismo 5 (as the wii is lacking in these types of games).

Overall, I'm thrilled with the PS3. I'm looking forward to getting my music and other media files loaded onto it and finally beginning the world of blu-ray movies and advanced gaming. While I do wish I could load files to it from a device formatted to something other than FAT, it's certainly not a deal-breaker. The PS3 works as it should, set-up is simple, has free online, great exclusive games, and so much more. Whether or not it's the right choice for you is up for you to decide. The Xbox is also a great system, but I'm happy with my final decision.

Note: Extras you may need:

Extra controller, PS3 blu-ray remote control, and an hdmi or set of component cables depending on your video capabilities.

Honest reviews on Sony PS3 Hardware 160GB Core

I recently purchased my first Play Station 3 last week on Saturday, February 12, 2011, and I have loved having it. I primarily purchased the PS3 for its DVD, Blu Ray, and Online Media capabilities like streaming movies from Netflix and Hulu Plus because I wanted an all-in-one device than can do pretty much everything I want, and the PS3 has lived up to my expectations, thus far. Here are the best and worst features that I have found about my PS3:

PROS:

1). NETFLIX CAPABILITIES The Netflix user interface is FANTASTIC! The Netflix application on my PS3 allows me to manually search for ALL streaming movies and TV shows, add movies/shows to my instant queue, browse for movies/shows by genre, watch movies/shows based on Netflix's suggestions for me, and rate the movies right from the PS3 itself. The only bad part about the Netflix app on my PS3 is that I cannot add DVDs to my DVD queue through it, so I still have to go onto the Netflix website via my computer and add DVDs to my DVD queue, but I am still glad to be able to search and browse for my all of my streaming movies on the PS3, so the DVD issue is not so bad. Overall, the Netflix application on my PS3 is so much better than Netflix on my TiVo box because Netflix on TiVo does not even allow searching, browsing or adding movies to my instant queue AT ALL I can only watch the movies in my instant queue on the TiVo box, so I will stick to watching movies and TV shows from Netflix on the PS3 from now on.

2). HULU PLUS CAPABILITIES I love Hulu Plus on this PS3, as its user interface also allows ALL of the same functions that Netflix does, and even more. Additionally, Hulu Plus allows me to view any TV movies or shows in my history, and play them. It's a shame that some other devices that have Hulu Plus don't even allow searching, browsing, or looking at the user's viewing history.

3). DVD, CD, & BLU RAY DISC PLAYBACK The playback of these discs is great, too. I love the fact that I can play DVDs, Blu Ray discs, and just regular CD's on the PS3. The playback and quality of Blu Ray discs on the PS3 is also visually stunning.

4). EASE OF SETUP Even though it took me over an hour to set up the PS3 and get everything running (including connecting to the machine the Internet, setting up my account on the PlayStation network, updating the PS3 with the new software, connecting to Netflix and Hulu Plus, etc) the set up flowed smoothly, and was very simple. Basically, I definitely did not need any assistance from customer support to set up the PS3 because the set up was easy and simple.

5). BUILT-IN WIFI This is a great feature because it has eliminated me from having to use an Ethernet cable to connect my PS3 to my router or having to buy an external adapter to connect to the router. The Wi-Fi connection has worked great for me, and the PS3 instantly connected to my wireless network once I entered in the Passcode to connect to the network. Also, I have NO lags or dropped connections when I play movies from Netflix and/or Hulu Plus. My internet connection on the PS3 seemingly works even faster than the internet connection to my TiVo box, as all of my movies from either Netflix or Hulu Plus just instantly begin playing, yet the movies take more time to play on the TiVo.

6). ONLINE MEDIA CONTENT The PS3 also allows me to watch YouTube, and surf the web, which are both great factors.

7). PLAYSTATION NETWORK The PlayStation Network is great, as it allows for many downloads and there are tons of free games and movie content that can be downloaded right from the PlayStation Network to my PS3.

CONS:

1). COST OF DEVICE The only real con that I have noticed about the PS3 is the high cost of $300.00 for the device itself, but it was well worth the price for me because I now have an all-in-one device that does practically everything that I want and need for it to do.

2). NO DVR CAPABILITIES Another con is that the PS3 isn't a DVR and it cannot record TV shows like a TiVo, Moxi, or cable DVR can do. I only wish that Play Station will add DVR features to their next generation of Play Stations that will come out sometime in the future. If Play Station will add DVR functions and capabilities to their PlayStation 4, then I will throw away my own TiVo DVR.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

I highly recommend the PS3 to any and everyone out there who may want an all-in-one device. Also, I recommend the Harmony One Remote and Harmony adapter for PS3 users who want to control their PS3 with just one remote instead of using the wireless controller. For excellent wireless networking, the NetGear N600 DualBand Gigabit router is great, too, as this is the same router that I currently use for my wireless network. Overall, I am definitely NOT disappointed with my PS3!

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In this review I am going to cover the Play Station 3, the Xbox 360, and the Nintendo Wii. Hopefully by the end of this review you have a pretty good though on which console is the right one for you. Without further hesitation, here is the main review...

Play Station 3 (PS3) by Sony:

The sony PS3 has two prices. The first price being $250 (Retail) for the 160 GB version and the second being $300 for the 320 GB version. Now obviously if you have the extra $50 to spare go for the 320 GB Version as it is double the amount of storage as the other. Both are exactly the same except for the difference in memory

Now, when you first buy a PS3 it comes with the console, one wireless controller that works with bluetooth technology, the necessary cables, and a Free Play Station Network membership (PSN). An HDMI cable is NOT Included with the purchase, so if you are planning to connect it to a HDTV I would go on ahead and buy an HDMI cable as well to get the full experience of the PS3.

Now, Motion Gaming is available on all 3 systems; however, the only one that comes ready to motion game out of the box is the Nintendo Wii. The PS3 and the Xbox 360 require additional purchases in order to use motion gaming.

The PS3 and the Xbox are only available in black, while the Nintendo Wii has the option in between white & black; however, both the PS3 and Xbox look really nice in black.

Now the PS3 has a big advantage when it comes to what it can actually do. The PS3 can read Games, CDs, DVDs, and Blu-Ray Discs. Unlike the other two consoles, the PS3 definitely has an advantage here.

This version of the PS3, Ps3 Slim, is not backwards compatible with the PS2 games; however, it is compatible with most PS1 games. It would be great if it could read PS2 games, but unfortunately it can't.

The PS3 has a full 1080P Resolution! With an HDMI cable of course, so if you are thinking about getting a PS3 I wouldn't hesitate on getting an HDMI cable as well

So Who is the PS3 for ? It can be for almost anyone. Lots of teenagers enjoy the PS3 as it is free to play online games and Adults tend to go for the PS3 as well since it has a Blu-Ray Player unlike the other two. I own a PS3 System and I use mainly for Listening to Music, Netflix, and watching Blu-Ray movies. The games on the PS3 has some really nice graphics as does the Xbox 360.

Overall: I would rate the PS3 a perfect 5 out of 5 stars.

Xbox 360 by Microsoft:

The Xbox 360 is also available in two prices. The first being $200 for the 4GB model and the other being $300 for the 250 GB model. As you can see there is a major storage difference in between the PS3 and the Xbox. If memory is not that much of an issue for you then the Xbox might be the one for you.

When you first get the Xbox you get the console, one wireless controller, the standard definition cables, and a month Free Xbox LIVE Gold Membership. As with the PS3 you will have to buy an HDMI cable in order to get the full resolution display of the Xbox. As for the Gold membership... After your first month of a free membership you will be required to pay for additional online services like playing games online. A 12 month membership will cost around $50-$60. This is one of the main reasons as to why some people would prefer one of the other two consoles, but some people claim that the online experience is better on the Xbox.

The Xbox 360 can play games, CDs, and DVDs. It cannot play Blu-Ray discs like the PS3. All (3) consoles are capable of online streaming with services like Netflix.

On the Xbox 360 you can play kinect games, Xbox 360 games, and the original Xbox games. This is good as you can still play your old Xbox games on this console whenever you get the urge to do so.

Who is the Xbox 360 for ?

The Xbox 360 is for everyone. From kids who will enjoy playing games in 1080P Resolution and Kinect if you purcahse it. To Teenagers who will enjoy playing games online with their friends. To even Adults who want to play games once in a while or just simply stream content from Netflix.

I would rate this 4 stars out of 5.

Nintendo Wii by Nintendo:

The Nintendo Wii is available in one price for $149 with the Mario Kart Wii. Unlike the PS3 and the Xbox the Wii comes with a very low 512 megabytes of internal flash memory. This is expandable with an SD card. This is a negative on the Wii as you will have to purchase an SD card to get better memory on it.

When you open the Nintendo Wii box you will get the console, the Wii Mario Kart game, One Wii Remote Plus Controller, one Nunchuk controller, the sensor bar to play motion gaming, and the standard cables. The graphic quality on the Wii is a lot lower than the Xbox and the PS3. With a 480P Resolution graphics are no where comparable to the PS3 graphics or the Xbox Graphics.

Unlike the Xbox or the PS3 the Nintendo Wii comes ready to motion game right out of the box! Although it has a lower resolution display motion gaming is definitely a plus for the Wii.

The only thing the Nintendo Wii will read is games; however, you can add music onto an SD Card and then play music on the Wii as well. Movies and Tv Shows are also available on the Nintendo Wii if you have a Netflix Membership!

The Nintendo Wii can also Read your Game cube games! Bring back some classics whenever you want with the Wii!

Who is the Wii for ?

The Nintendo Wii is mostly for kids and Family Fun. I would recommend buying a PS3 or an Xbox if you are looking for something for your teenager. With most of the Wii's games being based on family fun and party games it is fun for a family night.

I would rate this 4 stars out of 5.

Overall: The Nintendo Wii is the least expensive out of the (3) consoles. It is aimed mainly for small kids & Family Fun. The Xbox 360 & the PS3 are aimed for everyone else. From Teenagers to even some Adults. There are many disputes on which is better in between these (2) consoles, but that is up to you guys!

I hope this review gave you some better knowledge and/or information as to which system is the right one for you!

HDE Power Supply Cable for Kinect Reviews

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List Price: $29.99
Sale Price: $7.49
Today's Bonus: 75% Off

I recently purchased a used Kinect bar to use with my old (white) Xbox 360. Unfortunately, I did not realize that the accessory does not work without an additional power cord/USB plug. As I said, I bought the Kinect used, and the seller originally had it as part of the Xbox 360 Kinect bundle which does not include the power cord. (The stand-alone Kinect has it, the bundle package doesn't)

Quick fix to the problem: Purchase this cable through Amazon (+free Prime shipping).

As you can see in the picture, the power cable splits into a female plug (for the Kinect cord) and a USB end (to plug into the Xbox).

Everything runs great and does exactly what it is supposed to.

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Product arrived quickly due to Amazon Prime and came in a labeled plastic bag as packaging.

It works perfectly for my purpose of 3D motion capture on the PC after I got my drivers working properly.

In order for the Kinnect to work on the PC it require additional power that adapters like this provide. Cable was much longer than expected but that suited my needs fine.

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I bought it to connect my Kinect to laptop. Got it in 5 days. Works as described. Cable is pretty long. Much cheaper than one sold by XBox store. Highly recommended.

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I'm surprised by the previous review stating that it failed to work with his older 360. My 360 is from launch day and is somehow still running but I had a power surge that apparently damaged the Kinect power supply as it would no longer boot up (orange light and error message stating not enough power). I replaced the original cable with this one and everything is back up and running. No complaints

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We have three 360's in the house, two of the new Slim/Black Kinect bundles and an older Falcon HDMI (White) 360. I bought this cable so that we can use the 2nd Kinect in the room where the older 360 is being played. Unfortunately even with the wall wart plugged directly into an outlet and the USB plugged into the back of my 360, I still am getting a "Not enough power" message.

I tried this cable with both of our Kinect sensors, one with the twin USB block and the other model that just has a flat jack, neither of them worked with my older 360. Both of them worked on either new Slim 360.

Reviews of Rocksmith Guitar And Bass

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List Price: $59.99
Sale Price: $49.99
Today's Bonus: 17% Off

(Edit update: Steam is required for this game to run. If you don't already have Steam installed on your computer I recommend you INSTALL Steam FIRST. Get your account setup and working. THEN install this game.) Also, in the folder where Rocksmith installs in Steam is a PDF, RocksmithConfiguration. This goes into great detail on how to tell if the cable and everything is setup properly. Highly recommended reading. Installation does take a while.

I have taught myself many things over the decades so I know it takes time and dedication to start out slow and build skill over time. But for whatever reason I find traditional methods (buying a lesson book or DVD) of learning the guitar too boring for me.

With Rocksmith I don't feel that way. The very first song we start with is "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" by The Stones. I was playing with a band from the get go and I feel that's important for me to maintain interest. It started me off with very simple notes too. I haven't noticed any lag or have had any problems so far.

Rocksmith also has drills called Guitarcade that are unlocked by playing the game. The first Guitarcade unlock is Ducks. Shoot ducks by playing notes. It takes something that could be potentially boring (it would be for me, lol) and makes it fun. There is also a section called Techniques. The first suggested technique is called shifting. Teaching the player how to move up and down the neck. Associated Techniques are the techniques used in the song selected. So with this you can practice the techniques specifically for that song.

If you have had lessons in the past and was bored by it or lost interest in it this could be really great for you too.

Update: The Riff Repeater, allows practicing selected sections of the songs. You can choose from three different ways to practice the section. The sections are shown as a graphic at the top of the page plus the audio is played for each section.

10/31/2012: As songs are becoming harder to play I find myself going to the Riff Repeater much more often. The thing is when you practice the song itself it plays from start to finish., no pausing. Sometimes its easy to get lost. I can use the Riff Repeater to practice the section(s) I'm having trouble with. The cool thing about the Riff Repeater is I'm still playing with the band. I also use Guitarcade and Techniques much more now too.

11/12/2012: When I first started playing Ducks, a Guitarcade game, I played the wrong notes a lot of the time. But as time has went on I have noticed Ducks telling me I'm playing the wrong note, when in fact I'm playing the right note. Its always on the twelfth fret or higher and game shows me as playing one fret higher than I actually am. So I checked my intonation with my TU-15 meter and sure enough the guitar was sharp.

One minor criticism is the interface. I don't know if it was designed this way to accommodate consoles or what, but its a little clunky. For instance, from the Main Menu / Songs. Click on the left arrow next to first album and there are three options. Events, Filter, and Sort. Now I don't know if I'd call finding them an Easter Egg but it sure wasn't readily apparent that there was anything to the left, I just happened to click it (I thought it would just wrap around and I'd go to the last song). What else is hidden I haven't found yet?

01/11/2013: I was having problems with a song that has power cords. I wasn't playing them correctly but I wasn't sure what I was doing wrong. When you play something correctly it (the note or chord) lights up on the games fretboard. If you don't play it correctly it doesn't light up. At the end of the song the game recommended I go to Techniques and practice power chords. When practicing a technique it plays through and doesn't allow for pausing, just like when playing a song. So when having a problem trying to figure out whats going on it's easy to get lost. That's when I switch to my trusty Riff Repeater.

To get to the Riff Repeater its, main menu/songs. Select the song that you want to practice. Choose whether it's single note, combo, or chords and then go across to the Riff Repeater. Then choose the section of the song to practice. After that there are three choices: free speed, leveler, or accelerator. Choosing free speed will stop the song when making a mistake. This has been really great for me. It wont move on until I play the note or chord correctly. It would be very nice if in Techniques there was a free speed choice as well.

01/20/2013: A cool feature is you can adjust the Riff Repeater (Click Pause opens the adjustments menu. Click after tuning up). When selecting accelerator, for instance, you can set mastery and set speed. Set Mastery at 100% and you get all the notes, as you slide the scale back notes are removed to make song easier to play. Set Speed, 100% for songs normal speed and that can be reduced all the way down to 25% speed. So you can really customize how you want to practice the riff.

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I. DVD Installation short guide:

1. The DVD does contain the necessary files for installation. However it requires that the Steam program be installed first to activate your copy (see below). What you gain from that is that the game will be re-installable on any other computer you have, even if you've lost/destroyed the installation disk.

2. On the negative side, it seems that if you don't already have Steam installed on your computer, the installation process will take you to the steam page for the game, which as mentioned above allows you to download it from the internet. Don't do that. If necessary, just run the installation disk again.

3. The game officially requires Microsoft's DirectX 10 (although some people have reported that the game will work on Windows XP running DirectX 9.0c with DX9.0c-class hardware), which most graphic cards have been supporting for the past 5 years. The case with chipsets is a little iffier, especially for Intel ones. If you have a laptop boasting Intel integrated graphics, especially from the 2006-2008 era, (you can verify the model of your graphics chip in Control Panel->System->Device Manager->Display adapters), you should research whether others have had luck running the game.

4. Console gamers have been complaining about the latency introduced by HDMI in the game. Try other solutions first if you can. In my case, with USB in (the Real Tone cable) and USB out (my sound interface) I didn't hear any noticeable latency. If you do, you can play with the value in Options->Sound & Display->Audio Engine: the default of 4 is to prevent audio problems on weaker PCs, but with a resonable config you can lower it to 2. Conversely, if you hear audio crackling, increase the value. The PC config thread in the game forums has more info.

Now, this game requires Steam. Steam requires internet. The game's use of steam is actually Ubisoft trying to accommodate the gaming community, which was complaining about the more invasive DRM tools that their games were installing before. While Steam is not perfect, I think Ubisoft should be commended for at least (and at last) trying something else. Whether any sort of DRM, Steam or other, is a sensible approach to piracy or not is best left for another discussion.

As a positive point for Steam, they regularly run heavy discounts on games and DLC. I look forward to adding quite a few DLC songs around the end of the year.

II. My take on the game after 2 hours of playing with it:

While I've been playing guitar for many years as a hobby, I am really not good at it. Being self-taught as a teenager to save money, I only realized last year that the way I had been fretting strings all along was completely wrong! A teacher could have told me that the first week, had I ever taken lessons.

And that's something that Rocksmith will not be able to do for you. It doesn't care if your sound is bad, as long as the pitch is correct and the picking timely. What it is though, is a fun way to rehearse songs and practice exercises, if you already know the basics. With a steadily increasing library of songs and recently added support for bass, there's no denying its value.

I would rate Rocksmith 4 ½ stars, rounded to 5 to counter all the low ratings caused by installation issues for some people.

Update Nov 1, 2012: Reached Rank 3 after 5-6 hours of playing the game.

Two good things, one bad, that I've noticed

+ Rocksmith forces me to look at the screen. If I look at my fingers, like I always do, I'll miss the next note. Of course, once you know a song by Heart, you can go back to looking at your neck I suppose.

+ With tabs, I'm used to unwittingly slowing down when playing tricky sections of a song. The game lets you work on riffs at your speed but, when playing the whole song, you have to respect the tempo.

Because Rocksmith lets you be creative between the marked notes to play (wanna solo during that silent section? Go for it), it means you can cheat when playing a note too early by then playing it again.

Update Nov 5, 2012: Reached rank 5, more feedback.

+ Rocksmith taught me something! I would constantly fail the palm mute technique until I started to reposition my right hand when playing different strings. I can definitely hear that I sound better now when playing muted strings.

The game is way too forgiving. I've mastered sections of songs (speed 100%, mastery level 100%) only to play on my own later without the background music and noticing sound artifacts in my playing. The good news is that it only took me a couple of tries each time to get a much cleaner sound.

+ The guitarcade games, however, are quite hard, at least if you want to get the achievements.

Also, I've updated Installation step 3 to reflect the comment I've received that the game does work on Windows XP with DX9.0c.

Update Jan 13, 2013: Today, I mastered Soundgarden's Outshined solo (as a side note, with practice I've now reached a level where I'm good enough to unlock master mode for most songs).

Having attempted to play difficult solos in the past, with only tabs as my guide, I can only remember how incompetent I felt each time. Without Rocksmith, I know Outshined's solo would still be among them.

Until recently, I had assumed Rocksmith was simply a more fun way to rehearse songs but, over the past few days, using the Riff Repeater's Accelerator (more of a decelerator, really) to learn the timings and Free Speed to pinpoint where exactly my playing was off, I've managed to accomplish what I never could. And I could hear it sounded good too :)

Thank you Rocksmith!

PS: Some will think that the solo is not *that* hard. More power to them! As far as I am concerned, it was beyond my skills. Not anymore.

Best Deals for Rocksmith Guitar And Bass

Rocksmith is NOT a game! It's much more. As a struggling bass player, I had learned some of the fundamentals and techniques (not all by far), but I had yet to find a practical way to put those into actual music. I own several DVDs and 3-4 books, and had went through most of them, learning the "basics" but for some reason couldn't transfer those exercises and practices into making music. Rocksmith is bridging that gap. Let me be clear. I do not believe you can use Rocksmith to go from Zero to Hero because there's much more to playing bass (in a band) than it can teach. What it CAN do is transfer techniques into music, help you learn songs, improve those techniques you have learned and give you confidence to maybe join a band. It's also a lot more fun than playing 30 seconds of music to canned backing tracks. If you're just wanting a game, I suggest Guitar Hero or Rock Band. They're easier and less expensive than buying an actual guitar or bass. If you've always wanted to make REAL music on a real instrument, THIS is what you've been looking for.

Honest reviews on Rocksmith Guitar And Bass

This is an invaluable guitar AND bass learning tool in the first place and less so a game. There's nothing comparable to it on the market and the price is right for the very high value you'll get. You'll need the extra tone cable to play it, though.

I've been using the Xbox 360 version of Rocksmith since Oct 2011. If you just want to know how good the PC version is in comparison, you only need to know that I sold my Xbox about 1 week after I started using Rocksmith for the PC.

If you complain about Rocksmith PC being distributed via Steam, you're missing the point: you pay once for the right to install the game on any computer you own or will own, _without_ losing your saved progress (Steam cloud sync) and downloaded content (DLCs).

The first thing I noticed when using the PC version is that it is FAST. The loading times are massively better than on the Xbox and rightly so (DVD vs hard drive transfer rate). I don't have numbers for you, just that when I decide to practice or learn a song, it loads the song before I make myself comfortable with the guitar on the sofa.

PS: If you don't have a guitar yet, go with the Rocksmith bundle for $199. I now have 4 guitars, but that Epiphone Les Paul Jr from the bundle I rate very highly. That guitar has on online price of $110-120, the tone cable is $30 and the game is $60. Do the math.

PS2: My computer is your average modern desktop (custom built AMD 4100 Quad, Radeon HD 4850, 8 GB RAM, Windows 7 64 bit, non-SSD HDD for Steam and Rocksmith).

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This review is for the PC DVD version only. I'm a fairly experienced but rusty guitar and bass player so I thought this game looked like a fun chance to tighten some rhythm skills and generally make some noise. Be aware that it does require an internet connection and possibly some patience to install; I had some difficulty getting it installed due to their unfortunate use of the Steam client which has never once failed to cause me headaches when installing and launching games however, once running, I was quite impressed with overall sophistication of the game and overall playability. It quickly ramped up from very basic one string parts to more difficult combo riffs and incorporates more advanced techniques such as string slides, bends, hammer-ons, etc. Rocksmith seems to be balanced and adaptive enough to make it a fun and effective learning tool for both total beginners as well as more experienced players. I wish this game had been around 20 years ago. I'm quite happy with my purchase and I'm sure I'll be putting alot of time into this game especially if they add more indie and country-influenced tracks. If it were not for their use of Steam, I'd give it 5 stars.

Some points worth knowing:

1) This PC version does come with the required guitar-to-usb cable (1) in the box you can buy a second to play in tandem but I haven't tried this yet.

2) I had to run the sound out of my computer via analog line since the HDMI audio de facto causes too much latency, which they do a good job of documenting solutions for. HDMI video looks awesome though on the HD TV.

3) The data files are installed from the DVD but the installer client (Steam) requires an internet connection for account setup and whatever else it's quietly and often failing to do in the background. Plan on spending some time to get it installed since it still took about 25 minutes to complete once I got past the Steam issues.

Discount Rock Band 2 - Xbox 360 (Game only)

Customer Ratings:

The prime difference between what the folks at Harmonix and the people at Neversoft/RedOctane are doing with their perspective games comes down to very important semantics. Neversoft's Guitar Hero series is a franchise. Harmonix's Rock Band is a platform. It's a huge distinction and the truth is that Rock Band's method benefits the consumers a lot more.

So when you're purchasing Rock Band 2, you'll getting a lot more value than you can imagine. Sure there's the 84 song (all master cuts) list and the 20 additional free bonus songs coming really soon, but what's important to note is the promise that Harmonix is keeping with: Rock Band is a platform, meaning every song under the Rock Band umbrella (with a few unfortunate nixes) will work with their games. So not only do all the songs you've been downloading for a year work, but also all but three songs in Rock Band 1 can be ripped to your hard drive (for a nominal $5 for licensing fees). This is a phenomenal value that values the customer more than paying for individual "expansion" packs that have no connectivity to one another. Platform versus franchise.

Alright, so there's a huge value here. But once you dig into the actual game, there's some good and some blah. Harmonix revamped the touring mode so that, regardless of playing single or multi, you have one World Tour. Previously, songs unlocked in solo play would show up in the multiplayer; here, though, regardless of whether you're playing by yourself or with friends, you're unlocking songs as you travel throughout the world. It's a lot more fun and emphasizes group play.

One of the issues I've run into is that the people I play Rock Band with aren't the best of players. We do it for fun and we'd invariably run into a brick wall in the tour where they'd have to move up to the next difficulty and couldn't. So far, we haven't run into that situation and have gotten a lot more out of touring that we used to. I hope this continues as this is the most exciting and fun aspect of the game.

Other game types have been included, as well. Your band can do the "Tour Challenge," which basically throws various set lists at you to get through. These set lists can be songs from a specific band or songs difficult on a certain instrument or songs of a certain theme, etc. A second game type is "Battle of the Bands" and puts your band against another band virtually, with a leaderboard to track your progress.

If you're looking for more character customization options, you'll probably be disappointed. There's a few more new hair types and a couple more faces, but for the most part it feels like the first Rock Band. This is a common thread throughout Rock Band 2: it feels a lot like the first Rock Band. It's more of a slow evolution. By far the best changes are ones that should have been in place the first time around, namely the fact you don't need a band leader and that you can have one character play any of the instruments. This is probably my favorite part of the new game (minus the songs).

But the songs are the real showcase. There's a lot of diversity here with a lot of new bands, some oldies and everything in between. But most of the songs are a ton of fun to play, which is the most important part. If you have Rock Band, this is a no brainer as the gameplay modes are more fun and you're not losing songs. If you're new, this is a terrific place to start. Many many hours have been logged so far and I can't wait for more.

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vs. Rock Band 1:

Rock Band 2 doesn't add too many features, but the new challenges and especially the drum trainer are great. In the first Rock Band game I constantly ran into patterns on songs I was completely unfamiliar with. I could either fail the song over and over, or hit practice mode. But either way, I'd likely be ill-prepared for the next song. The drum trainer lets you practice pure rudiments, basics that many patterns in the songs are built from. Plus, you get to feel like you are actually learning how to play an instrument (and unlike guitar, you are).

However, my favorite feature is the new World Tour mode, despite having only minor changes from Rock Band 1. Now you can use any members for a band at any time, which actually was the reason my wife stopped playing and I just played on the solo mode (which is now gone unfortuantely). Aside from the missing solo mode, a minor difference (and not so practical now that I have a couple hundred songs), Rock Band 2 really does a great job of upgrading and adding new features.

Songs:

The library of songs added in Rock Band 2 is great. I think just about anybody could find 20 songs on the list they like, probably many more. The list is pretty ecclectic, so I doubt anybody will be a fan of each and every song, but it's definitely a solid list with all master recordings and mainly big names. Of course the sheer volume, 104 songs (including those yet to be released) plus all the downloadable songs you can buy and those in Rock Band 1 are the biggest draw.

Overall:

Rock Band 2 doesn't mess with what Rock Band 1 did right and simply refines the experience and beefs up the content. Harmonix did a great job with this game and I only wish that the bundle had come out as early, as the prices for everything individually is much higher, (not that I need a new mic). If you don't have any fake guitars or drum sets cluttering up your TV area, well, maybe you should hold out for the bundle and save some $$$. Or who knows, maybe the Guitar Hero World Tour instruments will be superior anyway? But if you do have the Rock Band 1 bundle, or even an old guitar hero guitar, Rock Band 2 is a must have.

Best Deals for Rock Band 2 - Xbox 360 (Game only)

So if you've even heard the words "video" and "game" put together outside of Fox News' patented Chicken Little hysteria over violence and such, you're well aware of just what Rock Band and Guitar Hero are all about. Good. That'll make this easy. "Rock Band 2" Takes every single little thing every living breathing gaming entity on the planet loved about the first one and added every little thing that was lacking and then some. Seriously, some may call this a full-priced expansion pack, but for what you're getting here you'd be an idiot not to buy this game if you already have the original pack. And if you missed out then there is no reason not to start here with the Special Edition's new and improved peripherals. I called the battle between RB and GH a draw before since GH had such a cooler over-the-top style, better translation of music-to-game and better songs to boot. No more. Rock band is the top of the music game hill right now and Guitar Hero World Tour is going to have to rock some serious socks off if it hopes to surpass this one.

First off, the most important part of the game: the music. Like Alice in Chains, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam? Sure you do. How about Bob Dylan, Blondie, and The Go-Go's? Darn skippy. Not hard enough? How about freakin' Testament, Mastodon, Megadeth, and System of a Down? My head is banging just thinking about it. Not legendary enough? The Who, Bad Company, Journey, AC/DC, and Fleetwood Mac do anything for you? Heard it all before? Well then check out the brand new never before heard new Guns n Roses song. Favorite band still not here, you say? Lacuna Coil, Sonic Youth, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and two different D's ( Social AND Tenacious) wish to make the pain go away. That's just a few of the EIGHTY FOUR master recordings you will jam out to. Not enough? How about a free code to download TWENTY MORE FOR FREE when they become available? And endless downloadable content including entire albums from Megadeth, Judas Priest, Boston, and an ever-growing list of many mucho more is an even bigger clincher. Plus, for a $5 fee you can import your entire Rock Band 1 library. If you love any sort of rock music, you will love this game.

Okay, the new additions. There is no reinventing of the wheel here, but the road is much smoother. The useless solo mode has been eliminated and instead solo play is integrated into the awesomely awesome world tour mode. I have not the time or the Rock Band-playing friends with too much time on their hands to embark on a lengthy multiplayer campaign so this is a dream come true. The best aspects of the original was saved for the multiplayer. That's no longer the case. You can also choose to play bass when going solo now so three cheers for that. The basslines are translated much better than the guitar parts anyhow. This time around you aren't tied down to any instrument at all going it solo; you can switch freely among them as you progress through the game. You can pass on the songs you don't like (or that kick your rear end) whereas in the original's solo mode you'd have to slog through every single song. Even the Flyleaf and Jet ones. Torturous!

Using the barely upgraded create-a-rocker feature I recreated my original RB band Midget Apartheid's lineup to a T and now I can play with all of my custom thrashers onstage at once when playing alone instead of having a bunch of lame stock-rockers filling out the ranks. I love this. Sadly, my band name was deemed "not classy" by the fascists at MTV Games and I'm barred from online play until I change it. I'm not changing it. It rules. Anywho, the online component is brilliantly integrated into the tour mode with optional battles and challenges where you can compete against other online bands that pop up as you travel. "Sage Tellah and the Spoony Bard Band" is sounding like a cool band name at this point (if you get that reference, you are now my friend). It's not selling out or caving in if I pretend it was my idea, right? I wanna try this new component out!

This is the simply the coolest music game ever put together from top to bottom. The only problem that remains is that a few of the songs are duds ("So Whatcha Want" is awful on guitar) and there are still times when you don't feel like you're controlling the music so much as you're just pressing combinations of buttons because the game says so. Guitar hero always makes you feel like you rule the guitar track. At times in Rock Band you are obviously playing a drum or bass part on the guitar and hearing something you aren't playing and vice-versa. There were also drum parts where all I heard was the bass drum and yet they still had me flailing away. This throws me off to no end because I listen to the music intensely and take rhythmic cues from it. It pulls me right out of the game when I'm hearing one thing and playing something else entirely. I can forgive this because it isn;t always flagrant and everything else is so heavenly. But no excuses, Harmonix. Fix this and you've got a contender the best game of any genre ever. Maybe it already is.

Bon Scott was a prophet. This I know to be true. He hath spake the blessed verse that hath come to be many a decade ago when he bequeathed unto us these words that best describe the experience that is Rock Band 2.

"Let there be sound", there was sound

"Let there be light", there was light

"Let there be drums", there was drums

"Let there be guitar", there was guitar

"Let there be rock"

And so on this day it has come to pass that (ramma lamma lamma lamma) Rock Band 2 is king. It's got the drums, it's got the singing, it's got the guitar/bass, it's got the songs, it's got more songs if you don't like those songs, and it's got a much better interface than any of it's predecessors. You like music? Got an up-to-date video game system? Beg, borrow, steal, or sell your family members' organs if you have to; but buy this game.

Honest reviews on Rock Band 2 - Xbox 360 (Game only)

RB2 doesn't stray too far from the formula that made RB1 so fun and successful. So for the sake of brevity I'm only going to focus on what has been changed.

There are of course many new songs which keeps this game fresh, that is easily the most obvious change from RB1 to RB2. Besides that some of the gameplay modes have been tweaked and some new elements added.

World tour mode can now be played any way you like it. You can play solo, local with buddies, or on Live. To make this new freedom functional the band leader restriction has been removed, so you can play with whoever is around with whichever band you like. No need to go creating new bands when dongman420[this is a fake name ... I hope] isn't available for a gaming session. The inclusion of online world tour is easily the biggest draw, and it's one of those features that really makes you wonder how you ever lived without it in RB1. Too much fun.

There is also a battle of the bands mode, which is exactly what it sounds like [band vs. band], and something called tour challenges. Tour challenges generate random setlists from your library of "hard" songs, although they may not actually be all that tough. The setlists are culled from all of your content, including downloaded songs and imported RB1 tracks, which is a nice treat. It's a neat little feature that keeps gameplay fresh.

As a side note the track select screen is nearly identical to RB1's store screen, which is cool because you can see at a glance the difficulty of song per instrument. I also like that you get album info on each track in the form of a little cover art icon as well as the publishing year. A small change but a really nice touch.

The drum trainer is, for me, the coolest new feature aside from online world tour. I'm an RB drummer and I've sort of hit a wall with my drum skill. The trainer lets you select from songs, beats that are rated in difficulty, and even a bunch of drum fills to help your fills not suck. I've been playing on expert since RB1 launched, but since I've been playing the trainer my scores have become even higher. A great inclusion if you dig the drums.

All the other changes are pretty much cosmetic. The note and multiplier graphics are slightly different, and there are new band animations, background effects, and over drive effects. It's a good looking game but not drastically different from RB1.

Taken as a sequel RB2 does everything right, it takes the gameplay that made RB1 addicting and ratchets it up a few notches. (I will avoid the spinal tap pun ... you're welcome) Harmonix hasn't reinvented the wheel with this installment in the series, but really why would they? They've taken an "if it ain't broke don't fix it attitude" towards RB, and made a ton of little improvements that make the RB2 experience more seamless and more fun. If you loved the first one you'll love this one ... pick it up.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Rock Band 2 - Xbox 360 (Game only)

If you liked Guitar Hero or the original Rock Band, then this game is a must buy. And if you have never tried it, you owe it to yourself to unleash your inner rock star.

Mainly this game offers a ton of new music. It comes with 85 songs on the disc and a code to download 20 more. Plus for about $5 you can copy all the songs from Rock Band 1 over to play! They have plans to offer 500 songs for this game by the end of 2008. And the cost for downloading new songs is way cheaper than Guitar Hero.

It's a fun game to play alone, but it is a really fun game to play with friends or at parties. They have also added a no fail mode so you can get through songs no matter how bad one person might be!

Reviews of Lord of the Rings: War in the North - Xbox 360

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $19.99
Sale Price: $15.36
Today's Bonus: 23% Off

I have just finished my first play through of this in solo mode and it's a pretty solid game. It's a linear hack 'n' slash that is done pretty well. The mechanics are simple enough, no big combo buttons to hit. I played as the Ranger and he ended up pretty well balanced as we killed our way through Aganduar's minions.

The Graphics are pretty darn good and the atmospheric music works well.

Contrary to many reports, you do need to think a bit in combat as just charging in will have you down and out pretty quick.

There is plenty of loot to sell and swap around your team and it's easy to manage that part.

For those of you who are looking for RPG elements, then this really doesn't contain them, the plot is linear and the interaction with the NPC's either furthers this plot or provides background info on LoTR, but does not allow you to change the storyline.

Neither is this a 'free world' roam, you go in a line as guided by the game.

There has been a lot of concern about the AI not levelling the other characters. It actually does so automatically, neither it, nor you need to apply the points they gain unless you wish to switch to that character, I found my companions quite smart and capable of looking after themselves and me. The AI is also smart enough to gather it's own loot for these characters and equips the best equipment for them, so if you can't remember what they have and give them an inferior 'gift' the AI won't equip it :-)

Overall, I enjoyed my 14 hours in Middle Earth (familiar characters and the law made it quite plausible).

This is not and never was intended to be a 'Skyrim', but it is, none the less fun.

Once you 'beat' the game, you can play through again with the same character and continue levelling on the next difficulty or select a new character and start again, or even select a new character and start again with all their equipment they had as AI in the first play through.

If you like a simple game, that passes the time, come wage 'War in the North'.

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Hello and thanks for checking out my review of this game by Snowblind Studios.. This game has people split down the middle. Is it worth a play through if you are on the fence about this game? Maybe this will help a bit. Think Baldurs gate (with bigger enemies of course) mixed with some dynasty warriors, then throw in a little horde mode (ala GOW) for the challenge missions (which you try to last through multiple waves of enemies including boss characters.

The Lord of the Rings : War in the North is set as a companion piece beside the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It overlaps the plot of the movies at many points and allows you to mingle with most of the main characters from the movies and books. This is an UNTOLD story within the LOTR universe and as such should have a special attraction to those who are big fans of the original story. You will choose between 3 playable characters, a dwarf, a magician elf, or a Ranger (archer). Each character has their own skill tree associated with building up special skills and or improving base ones. All three of your characters are participating in the loot gathering and leveling process. You can ONLY play with one of them at any given time and are NOT allowed to switch between them throughout the levels. Therefore you will have to wait until the end of each level to assign points and to decide which character to use. This can be a bad mix as you will have to take EACH CHARACTER INDIVIDUALLY to the shops to sell, and buy new items. The same poor design applys to the skill tree. You would have thought the developers would have allowed for an easier way to manage the party. It is important that you continue to develop these secondary characters even if you focus on one (as I did with the Ranger). The reason is that you will need the powers of the other characters beefed up for specific boss fights. So this is A MAJOR deduction for me. You will be wizzing along with the story and then realize that it's time to take care of the party which slows the pacing down. But I did like the skill trees as well as the loot options found throughout the towns you visit.

I thought the character development was important as this may be a game saver to those who care (like i do) but for those who don't care about the story.. and are looking for the next technological marvel... Pass on this game like the black plague. It is buggy and you will likely get ticked off at your party members as they are not the best teammates in terms of strategy or efficiency you will scream for them to get out of your way at least 10 times). But the game is not apologetic about what it is or what it attempts to do. If it was released 5 years ago it would be considered a top tier title but is shadowed by some pretty impressive competition this holiday. And despite its rather poor technology it is a fun and satisfying dungeon crawler. But it is far from perfect. I liked the damage system which allows you to see the combos you are pulling off and rewards you for stringing more of them together. I also felt that the combat was simple AND YET SATISFYING. I disagree with the reviews on acuracy of hits. It is accurate enough for this type of game.

Graphics in the game are good.. NOt great. But you will enjoy the larger Boss battles as well as some of the extremely satisfying environments. There will be some points you will be impressed and others you will feel like a different development team was subbing in at some point. But the title is one of VERY FEW LICENSED LOTR GAMES THAT SUCCEEDS IN MAKING THE GAME FUN AND WORTHWHILE. I am 10 hours in already and have opened up several towns as well as some challenges that change up the flavor. I found myself playing these "challenges" several times and was having fun. It reminded me of some of the Borderlands DLC maxies

*****It is a violent game and the action can offer decapitations as well as arms and legs being serated.. I would not allow a child to play the game if you want to avoid this.. BUT IF YOU CHANGE OPTIONS SETTINGS YOU CAN TURN OFF THE GORE and there are little other concerns from a language/conceptual angle *****

So to summarize... I am not verified because I rented it.. And am keeping it out for an exptended time. I feel it is worthy of a purchase but not at it's current price. Maybe on the first couple of price drops snag it or do as I have and try it out first. I think it's dated feel hurts it as a top tier title worthy of release date spending. The game is worth a playthrough for ANYONE looking for a good CO OP dungeon crawler. It does the license justice and stays true to the LOTR mythos. It is a blast to combo up 5 or 6 enemies (think batman arkham) and then use a quick finishing move to finish off an orc. AS A CO OP GAME THIS GAME IS FANTASTIC TO PLAY WITH FRIENDS!!!!! That should be enough for some to try it out as the co op is done very well indeed. I would bump up the fun factor a ton when playing with buddies.

best LOTR property I can remember on a CONSOLE.. Enjoy!

Best Deals for Lord of the Rings: War in the North - Xbox 360

This is a pretty basic game, it's a hack and slash RPG. It's fun, challenging and the loot keeps things pretty interesting. I bought this specifically for the co-op option, there is a good chance I won't be playing this at all on single layer (not to say that wouldn't be fun). My wife and I had a blast with Baulder's Gate on the PS2 and we've never really been able to find anything that was close enough to that game since then (well, SHE hasn't).

The fighting is quick and fluid, the conversations with the villagers are not tedious. Getting in and out of the leveling menus is easy and.from what I can tell the re-playability on this will be decent because the skill tree looks like it can't be filled in one game. The game is not an open world style, but there are side quests that you can pick up in the towns you visit and you'll find these items along your path.

The game is challenging as well, despite my protests we are playing this first round on easy and I've still died a few times. But still, I'm not exactly sweating the battles with the big guys either.

If I were rating this for a single player I'd probably put it at 4 stars, still a great game but I'd want a little more depth in a single player campaign.

Oddly enough the cut scenes remind me of last gen graphics but the game play graphics are beautiful. One of the first times I've seen something like that happen.

I'm actually thinking about getting this game as a gift for someone for Christmas so we can play the three player co-op.

Honest reviews on Lord of the Rings: War in the North - Xbox 360

First off i do not for the life of me know what the reviewers of this game were playin when they reviewed this game. This is some of the most fun me and my brother have had in a while. The review complains of dying to much, ok that is true if you just charge in and start swingin a la Dynasty Warrior but as for my game i used the ranger, my brother used the Mage and the AI the warrior and the (AI does a pretty good job i might add). Anyway the dwarf would tank while i hung back in the corner and sniped while the mage split time between throughin a healing shield on the dwarf and backing away to use spells. It promoted an tactical battle that wasn't just a free for all brawl. Also the reviews complain of your abilities taking to much mana, well as for me that also promoted a tactical edge because you can't just run into a battle spam'n special moves. You must pick when and where to throw out an ability and our mage had a ton of will enhancing runes on the equipment so my brothers mage had an healthy mana pool. It just seems the more i play the more baseless the reviews i have read are. I'm having a hell of a time and if anybody has any friends or family that likes these sort of games, it is some of the best co-op i have played since baldurs gate: dark alliance for ps2. This is why i base my opionion on my experience and not critics. You are doing yourself an injustice if you do not give this game a shot.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Lord of the Rings: War in the North - Xbox 360

As a Lord of the Rings fan, I pretty much assumed that most games would be movie spin off rubbish or past it's prime MMO games. So, I was a little hesitant about picking up LOTR: War in the North. After spending a solid night playing the game, the following are my initial impressions on the game.

For starters, the game is mature in nature, which is awesome. You hack and slash enemies arms off their bodies and blood is spilling everywhere. You can turn this off, but in a universe that this rarely occurs in, I love it. This isn't a movie rehash where everything is toned down to get a certain rating, you'll see blood in your travels, and that's a good thing in a world that is certainly violent by design.

At the onset of the game, you'll be tasked with picking one of three characters. A human Ranger, Elf caster, and a dwarf axe wielder. Each class is similar in that they can do melee and range but they all have their own specialties. I chose to go with the ranger. While the game gives you a default look for your character, you can change it early in the game when you are in Bree. I really liked this addition to the game since you can make the character your own. My ranger has jet black hair and a square jaw. Kind of reminds me Madmartigan from Willow (props if you remember that classic movie.)

The gameplay in War in the North is typical hack and slash. On medium difficulty, enemies take a good deal to bring down early in the game but after each level you will be putting points into stats that will help you bring down enemies faster (or to complement whatever play style you have. The gameplay is indeed fun but by the end of the night I was getting a little tired of it. There wasn't much in the way of variety to change things up. But, I'm still very early in the game and this shouldn't be a huge criticism against it since the world is still being fleshed out and the characters introduced.

If you are a Lord of the Rings fan, you'll really enjoy this game. Being able to play as someone besides the main characters from the books/movies is a welcome way to enjoy the universe and you'll see things happening in the world from a different perspective. New enemies I've never heard of pop up and all are involved in the story we all know and love in same way. If you aren't too hot on the LOTR series though, your mileage may vary with this game. Hack and slash fans will enjoy it but there are certainly better games out there to play. Being a fan of LOTR gives the game the extra "oomph" needed to push the player along in the world.

So, final though Lord of the Rings: War in the North really good game that can get tiring if you aren't a LOTR fan. Hack and Slash fans will enjoy the game, but their mileage will vary depending on interest in this beloved series.

Reviews of Limited Edition Xbox 360 Wireless Controller wtih Play & Charge Kit

Customer Ratings:

This controller is awesome! A very unique controller for people who want to stand out! There's no losing or confusing this bad boy as the bright red radiation symbol is plastered across the face plate. Not shown in detail is the carbon-fiber-esc print on the black areas, giving it just the perfect subtlety.

In the past I had purchased the limited edition red controller, and had to return it because the triggers would squeak, very annoying, and not normal for a brand new controller. I was hesitant at first, fearing that this one would have the same problem, but it doesn't!! No annoying squeak = Happy gamer. Hope this helps someone, Enjoy!

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

This controller runs a little cheaper than the standard microsoft Xbox 360 controllers with the play and charge kits. I wasn't really a fan of the design on the controller, but for the price, I was willing to overlook the design, especially since this was bought as an extra for other people to use when they come over to play! Since this controller is made by Microsoft, you really do know what to expect, and your expectations are met! Other than the design that I wasn't a fan of, this product is great!

Best Elgato Game Capture HD PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 Recorder for Mac Deals

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $179.95
Sale Price: $154.99
Today's Bonus: 14% Off

When it comes to capturing gameplay from your consoles, you want as good quality as you can get so you can show your friends or the world those amazing moments in detail.

The problem is there are so many different game captures to choose from these days such as Roxio, AverMedia, Hauppauge +more, that it can be a daunting task to choose the right one.

Whilst I can't comment on the others being bad or good due to the fact I haven't personally tried them myself, I can safely say that 'Elgato Game Capture HD' offers simple connectivity, ease of use and very high quality.

So what's in the box?:

Game Capture Device | AV Cable(PS3) | Unencrypted HDMI Cable(Xbox or use as pass-through) | Component Cable | Mini USB USB cable.

Minimum system requirements:

* Mac: Mac OS X 10.7, 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU.

* PC: Windows 7, 2.0 GHz dual core CPU.

* Sound card | 4 GB RAM | Built-in USB 2.0 port | You will also need an internet connection to download the software from Elgato's official website as there is no software disk included.

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Setting everything up was extremely simple:

Step 1) Download the game captures software.

Step 2) Connect your console to the 'Game Capture HD' using the appropriate cable:

PS3: You need to use the AV cable rather than HDMI cable, this is because the PS3's HDMI port is encrypted (You can still get 1080i quality).

Xbox: Use the HDMI cable provided.

Step 3) Link the 'Game Capture HD' and HDTV together via HDMI cable.

Step 4) Insert the USB cable included to both your computer and 'Game Capture HD'.

Step 5) Load up the software.

Step 6) Turn on your console.

IMPORTANT PS3 Information: PS3 users will need to go to their PS3 "Settings" "Display Settings" "Video Output Settings" "Components / D-Terminal" When selecting resolution, make sure "1080p" is NOT selected, only go up to "1080i".

The PS3 auto-detects when an HDMI cable is used, but it doesn't auto-detects the AV input. The way I got around this was hooking the PS3 up directly to the TV(whilst AV cables were also connected to the game capture), I then went to the display settings and clicked on "Component / D-Terminal", once selected I had quickly removed the HDMI from the PS3 and connected it to the 'Game Capture HD', this solved the problem and took only 30 seconds for me to do.

Step 7) If there is no picture displayed on the game capture software, go to the 'Game Capture HD Settings' which can be located within the "Device" box under the "Capture" tab. The setting button is to the right-hand side and looks like a hammer and spanner crossed over. It is important to have the "Input Device" on the right settings, after selecting the right option, you should have your gaming consoles screen displayed on the software. *Note*; the software has a few seconds delay on game footage, so use your TV to play games.

Step 8) Tweak other settings if necessary, then your done!

Set-up took barely 5 minutes overall, I was very pleased with how easy it was to set-up. :)

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The computer specs I used whilst using the 'Game Capture HD' software were:

* Windows 7 64-bit Operating System | Intel i7 960 3.2 GHz Processor | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 Graphics Card | 12GB RAM.

First of all, the installation process was error free(always a good start), the program loads up promptly and so far I have yet to see it crash.

The layout is basic in a good way and is very easy to navigate, you have simple settings to choose from such as where you would like the gameplay recordings to be saved, the quality of the video files(which will impact the file size) and adjustments in the picture output.

As for recording gameplay, couldn't be any simpler, just press the big red button to start the recording process and press it again to stop.

To the right of the record button you have a "time-shift" bar, this is probably the best feature I have ever seen. Lets say you decided to stop recording because the game your playing is not going in your favour, then out of the blue you do the most epic thing you have every done in gaming history, which of course could not be re-created even with the highest bit of luck... well don't despair, the software keeps an ongoing backup for a certain period of time, which by using the "time-shift", you can go back in time to record that epic moment.

There is also an edit tab available, however it is very basic. Tools available are 'trim' & 'delete', it basically lets you keep the good parts and throw the bad out. For those wanting that extra editing experience, I would suggest something like Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 11 (other software's available).

The final part of the edit section is a quick share where you can click on lets say "YouTube", then all you have to do is type in your account details and it uploads the video for you.

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Overall I think this is a completely solid package, and whilst it may seem a tad expensive, I do feel you get your monies worth and would highly recommend!

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♦ UPDATE: 29th December 2012 ♦

Since the review had initially been published, there have been several significant updates for the software:

1) Now supports 1080p.

2) Live Commentary: This is my most favourite update for the software, it lets you capture your voice by using a microphone that's connected to your computer, results are fantastic and I use it all the time.

To use, you have to enable the microphone icon and then select the microphone from the "Audio In", there is also an option which when checked, reduces the game volume as when your talking through the microphone which delivers a fantastic balance between game & microphone audio.

When you decide to stop recording using this feature, as you would before, give it 5-10 seconds after you have finished your gaming before you click to stop recording, this will ensure nothing is cut off.

3) Stream live gameplay onto websites such as Twitch.

4) You can now record from your standard definition retro gaming consoles.

5) Now confirmed it works with Nintendo Wii U via HDMI!

♦ Current software available is 'Version 1.2'. ♦ -

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program Hello gamers if you're reading this review you most likely want to capture game content and upload your footage to YouTube well I hope you find this review useful. I'm going to be comparing the Elgato Game Capture HD to the Hauppauge HD PVR and the Elgato Eye TV. And my goal is to give you direction as to which one you should buy based on my experience as a regular uploader of gaming footage to YouTube.

The straight dope: IF YOU JUST WANT TO RECORD GAMEPLAY BUY THIS OVER A PVR IT IS THE PERFECT DEVICE.

To watch Drift0r do a video review search this code on YouTube: 1RXqiyQetiA

Here is Drift0rs how to live stream video on YouTube: dTsBQeoy-nA

This short and sweet review of this device is: Buy this over the Happauge HD-PVR or Eye TV I feel it's just a superior unit for capturing gameplay no extra pieces of equipment are required like with the other products that I mentioned. It's compact and just simply passes your signal directly to your TV and allows you to capture all your gameplay and just jump back simply if you need to grab a clip. I feel that Elgato has been paying attention the gaming community on YouTube and is bought out one of the better products for us to use. The price at the time of this review is $190 about on par with HD PVR's you might be considering and this works seamlessly with Mac and PC as the software is provided for both so to me it's a no-brainer.

Another very cool feature is that it does HDMI recording on the Xbox on the PS3 you need to use a special cable they provide. But I'll discuss that more below.

My only complaint (and it's not really a complaint) is that it doesn't capture 1080p and only 1080i. Not a big deal because I think it's 720p is perfect and when you get into 1080p video files they get ridiculously huge and add to render times. Just an FYI 1080i is 30 frames per second and is interlaced whereas 1080p would be a full 60 frames per second. But then again the files would be ridiculously huge and I feel 720p is great for YouTube.

***UPDATE 1***

The super benefit of this unit is it is bus powered (9aka draws it's power from the usb port) so no wall ac adapter (wall wart) needed! I feel if you want to go places and get gameplay (i.e. a gaming convention/a companies offices/a friends house) all you need is the Game Capture and a laptop. This thing is waaaaay better than an HD-PVR

The meaty review The Elgato Game Capture HD vs HD-PVRs FIGHT!

So most likely your gamer and you have awesome gameplay that you want to put out there on the YouTubes or you've been doing it for a while and maybe your HD PVR finally took a fatal head shot and you might want to get something new. I feel that this device is much better than HD PVR and here is why.

When you're dealing with HD PVR's if you're unfamiliar you have to use YpbPr composite cables (it's 5 cables that are like RCA cables that used to connect your console to your HD PVR) now these composite cables require that you purchase the correct one for your PlayStation or Xbox they cost around $10-$20. And the bundle of cables is a huge mess to deal with and kind of a general PITA. But just to get an idea the general layout is like this.

Console (connects to) HD-PVR (connects to both) your TV and your computer and or having to deal with composite cables when connecting your console to your PVR and then from the PVR to the TV. It is generally a major pain in the butt.

And if you were thinking about getting the EyeTV from Elgato it requires that you purchase a $70-$90 signal splitter to use that as a capture device for the Mac.

On a side note I believe that HD PVR's can be used to record television and such (not a feature I ever used but if you're interested in using them for that as the only scenario where they have an edge over the Elgato Game Capture)

So now on to the game capture and why I think this device is awesome. 1st off you can run HDMI directly from your Xbox into the game capture and then out your TV just plain awesome one cable very simple. Now for the PS3 since Sony are such sticklers for copy protection you need to use a special cable that thankfully Elgato provides. But again its only one cable and not a bundle of 5 cables that you have to deal with when you're using composite cabling. but the beauty of this device plain and simple is that it runs on both Mac and PC and its small and easy to take with you. It really is an amazing thing and beat HD PVR's hands down.

Now the software: Elgato software is amazing I personally use an Happauge HD-PVR for my Mac and use their Eye software so that I can use my Hauppage with my Mac because it only ships with software for Windows (and the Windows software for the Happauge sucks big time). But the software that comes with the game capture is awesome the cool thing is it allows you to not have to constantly be recording your gameplay but if you get a clip that you want to savor game is use the jump that feature and recorded when you're ready. And another awesome feature is that like their EyeTV software you can export and encode in many different formats. I have always and think I will always love the way Elgato gives its users options when it comes to transcoding to different formats. So the software apartment again another win for the game capture HD

The way I look at it if you want to capture game content this is the device that buy I think the day and age of the HD PVRs being used for game capture is over. This thing is awesome!

If you want to check out another cool review of the software by Tejbz search on YouTube for this video: fX5YGLyiUWc

So thank you for reading I hope you found this useful and easy to understand my recommendation is by this device plain and simple. Thank you for reading this please like if you found this review helpful.

Chuck the Capper

Best Deals for Elgato Game Capture HD PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 Recorder for Mac

New Edit: Elgato is continually updating their software, so I've updated my review below with important points (and noted where things no longer apply, marked with three asterisks ***).

As the title says, ***this appears to be the opposite of the HD-PVR 2 in almost every regard***. -Since Hauppauge has now released their own capture software for their HD-PVR devices, and I have not used said software, I can't really compare the software.

Physical ease of use the pass-through just plain works. The HD-PVR 2 required the PC to be powered on and the software opened before anything was passed through. The Elgato, I didn't even have the drivers installed yet and the pass-through worked. Definitely a plus.

Video quality the 1080p bitrate on the Elgato is over twice the HD-PVR 2 (30 Mbps vs 14 Mbps). It's not a big deal for just uploading clips to YouTube (since they compress 1080p to the 2-6 Mbps range anyway) but for a filmmaker like me, quality is the number one priority, so the Elgato won out on this alone.

Software the Elgato approach is both good and bad. For filmmaking, HD-PVR 2 is preferred because you hit record, you made a file, and you stopped recording. Then you have a file. That's it. With Elgato, it starts recording as soon as you open the program and doesn't stop until (presumably) you run out of disk space. This is a plus for gameplay footage there's no need to record all the time and then go back later with a different program to cut up your footage, all this is built-in. You scroll back to before that big play happened, hit record, then edit it and export it. In-program cutting with no re-encode is definitely a plus.

***HOWEVER file management definitely needs work. As soon as you hit record, the ENTIRE FILE that it has been recording is saved. So if you open the program for 10 minutes, scroll back 5 minutes and hit record, it shows the latter 5 minutes in the program, but the entire 10 minute file is actually saved. And there's no way to get that first 5 minutes back unless you go get the raw TS file and cut it with a different program. You could have the program open for 45 minutes, hit record on only the last 2 minutes, and you'd have a 2-minute file in the software but a 45-minute file on disk.***

The previous behavior no longer exists during Timeshift recording, the program actually makes multiple smaller files, and then only saves the files it needs to depending on where you scrolled back and hit record. So it will have a small part of the "unrecorded" footage, but when you stop recording, it cuts the file down to exactly where you scrolled back to.

***So to save disk space, I would cut the clip I want and do the "MP4 Original" export, which cuts and remuxes the video into an MP4 format (which jives with Media Player Classic and Premiere Pro CS5 with no problems awesome). And then, after exporting the clip, I delete the original file, and the software DELETES THE EXPORTED FILE TOO. Unless you move the exported MP4 from the default folder, the program deletes it when you delete the source clip, which to me, doesn't make any sense and is why I only gave 3/5 stars. I lost ALL of my first-day test footage because of this bug. (and none of the files were recoverable because I kept playing after exporting and deleting, and recording the new file overwrote all the old ones).***

The above point has been fixed exported clips are no longer deleted when you delete the footage entry.

The "Input Device" selection is also very strange to me. As far as I can tell, it has a huge impact on picture quality. Even with an Xbox 360 plugged in, the "Other" option looks much better than the "Xbox 360" option (deeper blacks, better contrast, etc). So I leave it on "Other". However, when the software is not open, it appears that the option defaults to "Xbox 360" (even when a non-Xbox device is plugged in) so the picture looks worse when the software is closed than when it is open (and thus, recording). I removed the Elgato from the equation and plugged my device directly into the TV, and it looked as good as it did with the "Other" option checked and the software running. So the Elgato is doing some sort of processing on the signal, meaning the pass-through is not a bit-for-bit pass-through of the source material, which is a bit unsettling. But hopefully that's just a bug that can be fixed.

Overall, the hardware is amazing, but the software needs ***a lot of work*** (not as much anymore). It's definitely geared towards the less-technical user (the quality slider is just "good" to "best" and only recently did they add an indicator of what "good" or "best" means in terms of Mbps), so I'd like to see some more advanced options available, and maybe more explanation on what "Input Device" really does (and an option to turn off whatever processing it's doing).

But the bottom line is, it records 1080p at 30 Mbps, which is a better bitrate than even my professional video camera. So this device beats out the HD-PVR 2 (which is 14 Mbps) on that alone.

P.S. I tested setting my Xbox 360 to 1080p output using the component cables, and the Elgato read it and recorded from it just fine (albeit not as good quality as HDMI), but I'm assuming that means you PS3 users can record at 1080p.

*** Some other notes that still apply as of July 2013:

Flashback (timeshift) recording can be disabled, but when it is, you cannot pause the preview in any way.

Streaming to both twitch.tv and YouTube has been added, and works wonderfully

They added in-program commentary recording from any microphone on your computer

Dolby Digital will not pass-through the Elgato downmixes it to stereo for both recording and the pass-through

In conclusion, this is the best high-definition USB capture device on the market right now. The only better devices would be ones that don't have real-time compression (i.e. Blackmagic)

Honest reviews on Elgato Game Capture HD PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 Recorder for Mac

Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program I have to admit that although I have been an avid gamer back in the college days, I don't spend any more than an hour or two per week playing video games. I don't own a PS3 so I didn't test it for PS3. For Xbox 360, it works right out of the box!

I found this device can capture pretty much any (unprotected) video source. I think Elgato should read this review and advertise this as a general HD video capture device not just a game capture device for Xbox 360 and PS3.

The best part about this device (as others have mentioned it), is that it uses one USB cable for both power and data you don't have to deal with separate power cable to hook up to an AC outlet.

Another thing that I like about this is that this device is so light and so small that you can take it with you anywhere in your bag. This is about the same size as the popular external hard drives only lighter!

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*** Xbox 360 ***

After hooking up the HDMI cables from this little device to my Xbox 360 and then back to my LED TV, I tested by recording Gears of War 3, Kinect Sports and Kinect Adventures. The software worked flawlessly with Windows 7. The captured video was HD-quality. The software allows me to do basic video editing and directly share it with my social network or post it on YouTube. Right from the provided software, I can also export it into Windows Movie Maker if I want to do more video editing.

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*** HD TV capture ***

I am into capturing live TV events for personal use. Though this was not advertised as a TV capture device, I couldn't see why it won't be able capture video and audio feed from my Comcast Motorola digital TV set-top box. So when I hooked up the HDMI cable to the digital cable box, the device's software quickly identified it as "Protected HDCP". But to overcome this, I instead hooked up an AV to component adapter cable and connected to my digital TV box using component cables for video and audio. Viola! I can now capture live HD TV!!

Here's why I would get this over instead of Elgato EyeTV even if I am only capturing live TV:

1. Both are similarly priced (~$180)

2. EyeTV appears to only work with Mac not PC. Game Capture works with PCs and Macs.

3. EyeTV does not support connection out to your HD TV since it has no HDMI out ports. Game Capture includes a HDMI out port.

In short, with Game Capture device, you can capture Xbox 360, PS3 as well as digital TV on both Windows and Macs, but with EyeTV device you are very limited in your choices. The only downside that I can see is that EyeTV allows you to schedule recording while this device's software doesn't have that feature. If you don't care about using this for DVR, this would be a better solution than EyeTV to capture digital TV (in my opinion).

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*** Screen capture from Windows and Macs ***

I've found some additional uses for this device that I'm sure other geeks must find useful. I tested it to capture the screen output from my MacBook Air by connecting a Thunderbolt to HDMI converter cable into the HDMI in port and It worked without a glitch with the highest video quality settings. Likewise, my Dell Studio laptop has an HDMI out cable so it works with that too. So not only can I use this little magical device to capture games, digital TV, but I can also use it to record training sessions on computer if I wanted to by capturing the screen output from my computer to another computer. This essentially provides the same functionality that you'd get if you used one of the software-based screen capturing applications such as Camtasia Studio that retails for $300.

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In conclusion, not only do I recommend this device to the avid gamers out there who want to capture their gaming feats but I also recommend this to people who are considering other HD TV capturing devices to capture HD TV and to people who want to just capture just about any unprotected HDMI source.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Elgato Game Capture HD PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 Recorder for Mac

From Matrox Mini, to miscellaneous PVRs, to Roxio's (anemic SD) offering, the gadget landscape is littered with "not quite there" products for game capture. Let's get this out of the way: I SUCK AT GAMES-I am a n00b in perpetuity. Yet I play them obsessively. But as a video editor by trade, I have been interested for a while in dipping my hand in Machinima. The Elgato unit is just what the doctor ordered! It is, pardon my French, pretty much "retard proof". The UI is super simple, clean and elegant. (I can't speak to the editor as I use Media Composer or Adobe Premiere to edit.) Not only can I use this baby for Xbox and PS3 captures, but for PC to PC captures. For folks playing GTA 4 (or Crysis) with GPU-heavy mods (like iceenhancer for GTA), here's a way to get your (near) photo-realistic Liberty City stories made! I have successfully tested the capture on 4 different Windows 7 machines: 2 laptops, 2 desktops. Yes, like all other game capture files, there is a bit of image softening, but nothing a simple sharpen filter can't fix. The image and audio pre-capture tweaks are a nice touch. And the longer mini-USB to USB cable is much appreciated. Even with the included short HDMI cable and the aforementioned USB cable, you can set your capture laptop on the sofa next to you while fragging a swath through Halo.

(For all those who offer up FRAPS as a cheap alternative for PC gaming capture, have you actually checked your frame rate while using it? On a 3+Ghz quad-core/Sandy Bridge rig with 24 gb RAM, my fps in games like GTA -even without iceenhancer modrarely stays at 30 or even gets to thirty. The same goes for Crysis, Dead Space, Deus Ex Human Revolution and a whole bunch of others.) The icing on the cake? IT'S BUS POWERED!!! No lugging around wall warts with this baby. All you also-rans trying to make these devices, surrender now. Game over. (I don't give out five stars easily.)