Phillips SHG 8050 is gaming headphones which are foldable with explosive sound effect on the gaming device to add sonic vibes. These headphones are used with popular gaming consoles and portable devices. As the Phillips SHG8050 have foldable headband, it can be used during traveling. The lightweight head band improves comfort and long lasting. These are perfect portable gaming devices. These headphones stand out from the rest because of the sonic vibes system which gives the feeling that the player is actually a part of the game. Through these headphones the user can experience the blow, knock or tremor through the motion vibrators fixed independently of the speaker element. So the user can feel the vibrations apart from the sound. This facility makes the action games more exciting.

The headphones will make the user to completely engross in the game as the power speaker drivers produce ultra-realistic sound. The 1.8m extension cable which is fitted with a standard 3.5mm socket on one end and on the other end a standard 3.5mm plug which gives a liberty of movement. The product can be used directly as it contains battery. It can be used in PCs and play stations.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/gadgets-and-gizmos-articles/phillips-shg8050-381596.html

Released in November of 2005, Mario Kart DS was the first game to use the Nintendo WiFi Connection, Nintendo’s first foray into wireless gaming.

Gameplay

Controls

In Mario Kart DS, the directional pad is used for steering your cart and navigating through menus, though the latter may also be done with the stylus/touch screen. The A button is used for accelerating, B for braking, R for hopping and turbosliding, and L / Y for using any item you may have at the time.
Single Player

Mario Kart DS has all the modes you’d expect from a Mario Kart game, Grand Prix, Vs. , Time Trial, and Battle. New to the series is Mission Mode, 6 groups of a boss battle and 8 mini-challenges, such as: Get all the item boxes, hit 5 enemies with the green shell, and so on. On the whole, single player mode is the best mode in the game in terms of depth and variation.

Multi Player

The multiplayer mode is split into two pieces. First is the local mode, where you can hook up with people within 50 feet of yourself, and share and play the game. Second is the Nintendo WiFi Connection. With this free service, you can play with anyone in the world at random, or, if you have their friend code (your game and system’s unique ID number), you can play with specific friends. However, you can only play with 3 other people, and only on 24 out of 32 courses in the game. The overall time to wait for a race to be setup can go upwards of 5 minutes, but the end result is well worth the wait (unless you lose of course). Finally, based on your wins and losses, there is a “Rivals” mode, where you are paired up with people of similar winning percentage.

Graphics

The game looks beautiful, at a level far above the N64, but still worse than that of the Gamecube. The game runs extremely smooth throughout single player, and is still very good in the multiplayer mode. Barely any attention to detail is missed, and the end result is a fine looking game, one of the best on the DS.

Replayability

In all, Mario Kart DS has too many modes for you to ever get bored with the game. Even if you beat the game and unlock every unlockable, you can use that dust gathering DS (it’s waiting for Zelda, of course) to play a quick race or beat your friends on WiFi. No matter how hard you may try to avoid it, Mario Kart DS will never get old.

Gameplay — 10/10

Graphics — 9/10

Replayability — 10/10

Total - 29/30
Excellent!

[image courtesy IGN]

With five games and innumerable expansion packs, the Heroes franchise is one of the older PC strategy game series. All the games have revolved around a fairly simple formula. The player builds structures in his towns, hires the inhabitants every week, groups his army under the command of a hired hero, and marches out to crush enemies. Heroes I, II, and III (and their respective expansions) all followed that same formula. Unfortunately, Heroes IV faltered somewhat, with new features that did not quite match the spirit of the game (heroes, for instance, could now die in combat), which annoyed many fans. When 3DO, the games’ producer, went out of business in 2003, the Heroes franchise seemed dead. But Ubisoft purchased the rights to the series, and after something of a rocky development cycle, Heroes of Might and Magic V came out in May of 2006.

So, to the gist of the matter: does Heroes V suck or not?

Heroes V seems a lot like Heroes III dressed up in spiffy new graphics, which I expect will please a lot of people (and annoy a small but vocal minority). The graphics themselves are nothing short of gorgeous. The terrain is rendered in splendid detail, and the town controls screens are fantastic. The Haven town, in particular, looks like Minas Tirith on crystal meth, and the Academy town looks like a fantastical version of A Thousand and One Nights. The creatures and heroes themselves look superb.

The towns are divided into six factions: Haven (knights), Inferno (devils), Sylvan (elves), Dungeon (dark elves), Necropolis (necromancers), and Academy (wizards). The hero system is mostly similar to that of Heroes III, while retaining some of Heroes IV’s better ideas. The magic system has been divided into four schools: Dark, Light, Destructive, and Summoning, and heroes can learn a wide variety of other secondary skills.

The game’s campaigns also have a new level of complexity. In previous Heroes game, each campaign mission tended to have a very specific goal; defeat all enemies, conquer a specific town, kill a specific hero etc. Now a mission will have multiple objectives, and often the objectives will change, expand, or become irrelevant during the course of a particular mission. For instance, the objective in one mission starts as a simple rescue mission, then to take a town, then to hold that town against all attacks, and finally to find the Ultimate Artifact (in Heroes V, called the Tears of Asha). Unlike the earlier Heroes campaigns, where you could choose to fight for Good or Evil, the Heroes V campaign follow a sort of interactive storyline, where you control one side in one campaign, and then gain control of another side for the next campaign. The storyline itself is mostly traditional fantasy tropes, though compelling enough to hold interest.

Combat has been improved, and works rather well. Unlike Heroes IV, heroes cannot be killed in battle. They can, however, participate, with both ranged and melee attacks, special abilities, and the traditional spellcasting. Battles remained turn-based, but have abandoned creature “speed” in favor of initiative. It’s possible for a creature with high initiative to get in an extra action a round, while a creature with low initiative will get only one.

The soundtrack itself is quite rousing, a mixture of operatic and symphonic elements. Opera isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, of course, but it works quite well for Heroes V. The various town leitmotifs are a neat touch; a town’s theme carries over into the terrain and combat scores.

The game is not without flaw. The grammar and spelling throughout the game are quite poor, with numerous typos. The voice-acting is so-so, and one character, Agrael, sounds like an adolescent script kiddie in a Demon Lord suit. The game is also afflicted with long startup and loading times, and sometimes locks up after exactly two hours of play. (Perhaps Ubisoft can spin that as a “parental control” feature.) The game will only work on a rather narrow range of video cards. The 1.1 and 1.2 patches addressed that to some extent, but the game still runs best on a few video cards.

The beautiful graphics come with a price. The game maps are much smaller than previous Heroes games. A gold mine, for instance, might take up twice as much space on the map, due to the high level of detail. The end result is that an Extra Large Heroes V map is only about the size of a Medium Heroes III map. Furthermore, there are only a small number of single-player maps (albeit with cut scenes, like the campaigns), and no map editor. Ubisoft has promised to provided a map editor in a later patch, but it has yet to be forthcoming.

Despite its flaws, Heroes V is a good game. It’s like Heroes III, only better. Definitely worth playing.

-JM