Pure are known for their music players and digital radios, well now they have entered the digital TV set-top-box market with the Pure Avalon 300R Connect, and here is our review.
Avalon 300R Connect is a high-performance, easy-to-use Freeview+ HD digital TV recorder with a unique, state-of-the-art user interface, the most advanced versions of BBC iPlayer and YouTube and full integration with Pure Connect for all the music you’ll ever want.
Avalon brings you all the Freeview standard definition and HD TV and radio channels. While you watch you can view a full 8-day on-screen programme guide, a pop-up info bar with ‘picture in picture’ preview, and customisable channel lists. If you’re interrupted you can pause live TV or rewind for up to 2 hours to see something again. With Dolby Digital Plus and digital audio outputs, you can also enjoy amazing sound quality through a home cinema system, with up to 7.1 channels.
Avalon’s large hard disk (1TB or 500GB) means you don’t need to worry about storage space. It’s easy to record a single programme or a whole series, from the 8-day on-screen guide, instantly with one-touch record or even using the Green button on a programme trailer. Dual tuners let you watch one channel and record another or record two programmes simultaneously. Avalon’s intelligent record scheduling detects clashes and will let you know if an HD version is available instead.
Connect Avalon to the internet using the built-in Wi-Fi or Ethernet connection and you can watch on-demand programmes from BBC iPlayer in standard and high quality*, browse videos from YouTube and login to access your saved favourites. More on-demand services are expected to be added soon via a free software update.
Connecting Avalon to your network lets you access Pure Connect for thousands of live internet radio stations from all around the world, play listen again programmes and podcasts. Subscribe to our Pure Music subscription service and you can stream millions of music tracks from one of the biggest cloud-based catalogues covering almost every conceivable artist and genre.
Avalon lets you customise a number of features to make it easier, more convenient or more fun to use. Choose from a number of smooth transitions used when you change channel. Enjoy your own content by streaming pictures, music and videos from your PC, Mac or other media streaming device or plug in a USB stick or USB hard drive. Rename the four HDMI inputs to match your connected devices. Create your own personalised channel lists for quick access to your favourites.
From their website:
Pure is the world’s leading manufacturer of wireless music and internet radio systems, the number one supplier of digital radios in Europe and Australia, and the creator of the Evoke-1S, the world’s most popular and iconic digital radio. Pure leads the way in wireless music systems and cloud services with the Pure Connect portal.
Pure radios support all the broadcast standards in the DAB family used across all key markets in Europe and beyond. Designed and engineered in the UK, all of Pure’s products are manufactured with the environment in mind and at ethically audited facilities. Pure is a division of Imagination Technologies Group plc.
Tuners: dual digital TV (Freeview HD) tuners
Frequency range: 470Mhz to 860MHz
Network connection: Wi-Fi 802.11n a/b/g, 2×2 MIMO supporting both 2.4GHz and 5GHz, or Ethernet
Disk storage: 1TB and 500GB models available
Display resolutions: 1080p, 1080i, 720p, 576p
Display formats: 4:3, 16:9
Power supply: 240V AC @ 50/60Hz, 1.2A
Power input: 12V DC (via supplied adapter)
Batteries (remote control): 2 x AAA
Media container formats: AVI, MPEG-TS, ASF, MKV, MOV, MP4, M4A, Ogg, 3gp,WAV
Video codecs: MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 (e.g DivX) , H-264, VC-1
Audio codecs: PCM, MP2, MP3, AAC, AC3, FLAC, Vorbis, WMA
Audio formats: Stereo, Dolby
The box contains the Avalon 300R Connect, a manual, power supply, remote control and an HDMI cable.
The power button is located on the front left of the Avalon Connect 300R:
There is a USB port on the front which is hidden under a flap on the right hand side.
There are also a number of connections on the rear of the Avalon 300R Connect:
The remote control is fairly standard and is easy to use. The buttons are well placed and I didn’t have any problems using it and it felt fine in my hand. There are also a number of shortcut buttons which are very useful and save a lot of time when navigating the menus.
Once you have connected an aerial to the Avalon 300R Connect, performing the initial setup is simple. You just press a couple of buttons and sit back while it scans for channels and pretty much does everything for you.
The EPG is large and clear with all the information you would expect from an EPG. You can also instant record anything straight from the EPG. My only criticism of the EPG is that there isn’t enough channels displayed at one time as a large portion of the screen is taken up with information and PIP.
You can also watch a program, whilst moving through the channel selection and viewing another channel in the PIP (Picture in Picture) window. This is a useful function.
You can select your own transitions when changing channels if you like too!
You can easily see what you have recorded, how much space is available, delete something and so on.
And viewing Scheduled recordings is very simple too – its nice to see just a list rather than the full EPG with a notification.
The menus are very clear and when you select left or right there is a slick transition.
There is an On Demand menu which gives you access to the HTML5 based versions of BBC iPlayer and YouTube.
Pure Connect enables you to connect to the Pure Music subscription service and listen to internet radio, on-demand content and podcasts. You need a subscription though, but its a nice added feature.
To see the Avalon 300R Connect in action, check out the video below:
Freeview+ HD recorders are nothing new, there are a few out there and you might think that Pure are a little late to the party. However that would be wrong! The Avalon 300R Connect isn’t just a normal Freeview+ HD recorder – it’s so much more and has a very good interface to boot. And the fact you can get a 1TB version and 4 HDMI inputs also makes it stand out from the rest.
The Avalon 300R Connect itself looks like a normal piece of AV kit – it looks a lot like a DVD player but without the DVD drawer. It’s fairly slim (considering it’s got a Wi-Fi adaptor and 1TB of storage inside, along with all the other electronics and parts). Everything you want to do to control the Avalon 300R Connect is done using the remote control.
I was happy that Pure had included an HDMI cable in the box. I know it may not sound like much but the number of devices that I have either reviewed or purchased that didn’t come with a cable is high, so well done there Pure!
There are a number of connections on the Avalon 300R Connect, pretty much everything you need. It’s great to see multiple pass-through HDMI ports as well, which will be very useful for some people.
One thing that really impressed me was the inclusion of Wi-Fi built into the Avalon 300R Connect. Normally these sorts of devices will only work on Wi-Fi if you have a dongle, most of the time which you have to buy separately, so well done for not only providing Wi-Fi out of the box, but for including it inside the device and not using a precious USB port. Oh, and did I mention the Wi-Fi works on the 5GHz range?
The initial setup of the Avalon 300R Connect was very simple and very quick. In fact this was probably the fastest setup I have seen so far.
There is also a hidden feature that most people don’t yet know about, and it’s called “stick PIP”. Basically when you see the picture in picture when scrolling through the channels you can now move the picture in picture around the screen and watch two channels at the same time. If you select ‘ok’ you then tune to the second channel. A new remote control will be introduced with a special picture in picture button and customers who do not have this remote control will be made aware of this hidden feature.
If you want to listen to your own music or look at some pictures, you only have to plug in a USB stick and that works well too!
Streaming is another feature that works very well. Any networked DLNA device on your network automatically appears in the Media section on the main menu. Depending on how well Wi-Fi works in your home you may want to connect up the Avalon 300R Connect via Ethernet if streaming is something you are going to do a lot of.
One really nice feature is recommendations. What this does is tell you if there is an HD equivalent channel when you select an SD channel. So for example, on a Saturday night, if you are going to watch Doctor Who on BBC 1, the Avalon 300R Connect will recommend you watch it on BBC HD. The same goes for recording content. This is a really great feature and means you always have the option to watch and record content at the best available quality.
And talking of quality, the Avalon 300R Connect has amazing picture quality. It even upscales SD content very well. Obviously it’s never going to be perfect, but it does an excellent job none the less.
While both BBC iPlayer and YouTube work well on the Avalon 300R Connect, it’s a little disappointing that these are the only two services offered given the large pool of possible On Demand services. Hopefully Pure will rectify this quickly.
All in all this is a fantastic box that enables you to watch, record, stream and do all sort of cool and clever things with your content with amazing picture quality. The only downsides at the moment are the lack of On Demand content and the price, but hopefully both will change soon enough.
The Pure Avalon 300R Connect 1TB retails for £349.99 and 500GB for £299.99. Our advice would be to pay the £50 extra and go for the 1TB model as it doubles your storage capability. And as usual, check around for the best deals as these prices are the suggested retail price.
There is a new trailer available for Dark Souls II called Despair. Currently in development at FromSoftware in Tokyo, Japan, for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC. Dark Souls II will continue a legacy of presenting its passionate fans with the kind of unrelenting challenges that have become a hallmark of the series, while presenting devilish new obstacles for players to overcome.
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Built upon the foundation established by Souls series creator and Dark Souls II Supervisor, Hidetaka Miyazaki, with development helmed by FromSoftware Director Tomohiro Shibuya, Dark Souls II will feature a new hero, a new storyline, and an unfamiliar world for players to survive in, while delivering the uncompromising challenge and ultimate sense of empowerment that players hunger for. Epic battles with gruesome enemies and blood-thirsty bosses await adventurers as they traverse and conquer a devastated world filled with death and despair. Players will also discover a revamped server based multiplayer experience that will put a distinct Dark Souls II twist on the concept of playing and sharing with others. For those with enough tenacity and sheer force of will, great rewards await.
Here is the trailer:
And here are some new screenshots:
More details surrounding Dark Souls II will become available in the months leading to its release. Begin your Dark Souls II journey at www.DarkSoulsII.com or join the Dark Souls II conversation on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/DARKSOULS.
Are you interested in Dark Souls II? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
In this post, I walk through the PowerDVD Mobile app from CyberLink for Windows RT. Read on for details.
CyberLink recently released PowerDVD version 13, and with this release they added the PowerDVD Mobile app. In this short video, I do a quick demo of PowerDVD Mobile on my Surface RT, which by the way badly needs to be cleaned! Anyway, enjoy the video, and keep watching for a full review of PowerDVD version 13.
Microsoft has updated its Xbox SmartGlass application for Android devices. Microsoft has added support for 10-inch tablets, an activity browser link, expanded messaging, an awake state and streamlined design to the second-screen application.
SmartGlass provides second screen support for a variety of games, entertainment services and movies, as well as providing new control options for Internet Explorer, Bing and the Xbox 360 dashboard.
Games that feature SmartGlass functionality include Dance Central 3, Forza Horizon, Halo Waypoint and Ascend: New Gods.
Android users must be running the 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich version of the operating system or above to download SmartGlass.
Xbox SmartGlass is also available for iOS and Windows Phone 8 devices.
We just reviewed Terraria and we loved it – would you like to play it? If so you could win a copy of Terraria on the Xbox 360, in fact, we have two copies to give away!
This is how Terraria is described, and the game is pretty much what it says on the tin:
Welcome to the world of Terraria! DIG, FIGHT, EXPLORE, BUILD! Nothing is impossible in the special edition version of this action-packed sandbox adventure! Over a dozen environments and hundreds of items to craft and enemies to defeat! The world is your canvas – make it your own.
Originally released in 2011 for the PC by creator/developer Andrew Spinks’ Re-logic studio, Terraria has received universal, critical acclaim and over 2 million “Terrarians” have struck out on their own adventures and fallen for its mix of side-scrolling, action-adventure gaming and emphasis on crafting and exploration.
So we have two XBLA codes for Terraria to give away – and all you have to do is go check out our review of Terraria, and tell us what score we gave it. Then just click on the Contact Us link at the top of the page and tell us your answer. Make sure you use a valid email address when submitting your entry otherwise we can’t contact you. You can enter as many times as you like, but only one entry per day will be accepted.
Usual contest rules apply, and the winners will be selected at random. This contest is only available to those people in the UK because of the XBLA code – sorry!
The contest closes Saturday 20th April, so good luck.
Good luck and thanks to our friends at 505 Games for the codes.
Developed by Engine Software and published by 505 Games, Terraria is available now for 1,200 MS Points on the Xbox 360.
If you like Minecraft then you may be interested in playing Terraria, so here is our review.
This is how Terraria is described, and the game is pretty much what it says on the tin:
Welcome to the world of Terraria! DIG, FIGHT, EXPLORE, BUILD! Nothing is impossible in the special edition version of this action-packed sandbox adventure! Over a dozen environments and hundreds of items to craft and enemies to defeat! The world is your canvas – make it your own.
Originally released in 2011 for the PC by creator/developer Andrew Spinks’ Re-logic studio, Terraria has received universal, critical acclaim and over 2 million “Terrarians” have struck out on their own adventures and fallen for its mix of side-scrolling, action-adventure gaming and emphasis on crafting and exploration.
Now it has been released on the console, and for those who played it on the PC it has also been updated. What the PC version was sorely lacking was a tutorial, you just got thrown in to the world and left to it, where as the console version finally has that tutorial and if you are new to Terraria I highly recommend that you take the time to play through it. It doesn’t take very long and it introduces you to the basics, including building, gathering and crafting, all skills you will need to play the game. You could figure it all out on your own but why when you can have it explained to you!
The other major new feature is the world map. This can be used to see just how much of the world you have explored and it gives you a sense of achievement, and purpose to carry on exploring.
If you are a fan of Terraria on the PC, you will also notice there are a lot of new pets, items, enemies and music, so it’s certainly worth playing Terraria on a console to have even more fun.
Terraria is a side scrolling game that looks like a 2D version of Minecraft. And that isn’t a bad thing at all. It looks and feels very retro, the sort of game you may have played when you were a kid if you are my age (and that’s pretty old, so don’t ask).
After creating your character you are dropped into a randomly generated world and the first thing you have to do is collect some resources and build your shelter.
The whole point to the game is to explore the world, find and collect resources and craft things – and that’s exactly what you do. It can take a little while to get used to some of the controls if you are not used to these sorts of games, but before you know if you are digging, collecting and fighting off monsters. Occasionally there are some issues with exactly where you want to craft something, and even though you have selected the exact spot you want to craft it just won’t do it. But try not to get too frustrated as it doesn’t happen too often!
Crafting is relatively easy – combine that resource with this resource and build that. A lot of resources of readily available, such as wood, sand, stone, even spider webs, but some of the rarer resources you will need later in the game can only be found underground, so you have to dig down to find them. The further down you go, the more monsters you will encounter and you dig far enough you will end up in Hell!
Time does pass in your world – there is a separate day and night. In the day you can explore and collect and a lot of the monsters you come across can be defeated fairly easily, but at night, well, that is a completely different story. If you are out and about at night, the game changes from one of exploration and collection to one of survival. My advice, keep an eye on the sun in the background as it does move and will go down and just make sure that by the time night comes you are safely tucked away in your shelter.
As you get further into the game and you create more things, you will eventually interact with various non player characters, or NPCs. Some of them are there to help you, offering to heal you when needed and also trade items with you, but they all want something so make sure you keep them happy.
If you don’t want to play on your own there are two multiplayer modes in Terraria. The first is local multiplayer which enables up to 4 players to play. This is done by splitting the screen into 4 equal parts so make sure you are playing on a large enough monitor or TV or it will be a little hard! This is also a new feature for the console versions.
The second multiplayer mode is online, and that enables you to play with up to 8 players. The problem here is that you can only play with people in your friends list, you cant just join a random game. This is fine if your friends are playing Terraria, but if they aren’t then you may find yourself sitting and waiting a lot! The great thing about multiplayer though is that you can trade items with your friends and go together to explore and attack. And for some of the bosses it’s so much better with a friend, or 7! There is even voice chat included so you can talk to everyone while you play,
Terraria is a lot of fun and you will soon find that you have spent many, and I do mean many hours player the game. Even when you are 40 or 50 hours into it there are still new things to find and new places to explore, you just have to get through those first few hours, which do drag a little, but its worth it.
Developed by Engine Software and published by 505 Games, Terraria is available now for 1,200 MS Points on the Xbox 360. There is also a demo you can download too! There is also a PlayStation 3 version however it hasn’t yet been released in Europe. And a PS Vita version has been announced too for release during the Summer!
Have you played Terraria yet? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
Nintendo will discontinue a number of Wii channels and services in June, the company has announced. Discontinued Wii channels include the Nintendo Channel, News Channel, Forecast Channel, Everybody Votes Channel and Mii Contest Channel.
The message boards will also be switched off, preventing Wii users from sending and receiving messages.
The channels will be discontinued on 28th June, although the Wii Shop will remain open.
“We at Nintendo sincerely thank you for your continued patronage of our company’s products,” a Nintendo spokesperson told Eurogamer.
“We apologise to those of you currently using these services, and ask for your understanding.
“The above services will no longer be available even if they are started up from the Wii Menu. However, services other than those mentioned above, such as the Wii Shop Channel and ‘Today’s Accomplishments’ on the Wii Message Board, will remain available.”
Mohu recently send me one of their attic and roof HDTV multidirectional antennas intended to pull in over the air TV broadcasts to review. Read on for details!
We recently told you about Mohu’s new Sky attic/roof antenna for HDTV here. Mohu was nice enough to send one over for review. Billed as a multidirectional antenna with a 60 mile range, the Sky is based on US military technology. It can be mounted in your attic or on your roof, and comes with mounting hardware to allow you to mount it outside. There is a 30 foot coaxial able and amplifier included as well. Here is what Mohu says about the Sky:
The Sky HDTV Antenna is the newest addition to the Mohu family and offers a completely new take on the traditional rooftop or attic mounted antenna. Weighing in at only 3 pounds, the Sky is a powerful, amplified antenna solution that was developed from research for the United States military. The antenna design is unlike anything that you will find in texts, literature or competitor’s products. Similar to the Leaf or Leaf Ultimate, the Sky is multidirectional and does not have to be constantly readjusted for optimal signal strength.
The Sky is small, powerful, and unique. With the ability to provide uncompressed HD broadcast to multiple televisions in a home with a range of 60 miles, users will not have to settle with a large, bulky or more expensive rooftop-mounted antenna. The Sky’s unique design allows it to be easily mounted in an attic where other antennas are simply too large.
The Sky features a tightly integrated low noise state-of-the-art digital amplifier to increase the signal range and improve the quality of the HD broadcast signals. The amplifier is powered via a USB port or with the included power cube.
Check out these product pictures to get an idea of size and styling:
Winegard recently sent me one of their FlatWave Amped HD TV antennas to review. Read on for details!
Winegard recently sent me one of their FlatWave Amped HD TV antennas to review. The FlatWave Amped is an in-house HD TV antenna with a powered amplifier and advertises a range of 50 miles to the transmitter. Watch this video as a good primer on the product:
I live in a very tough area for over the air TV reception. You can see how your TV reception should be at TVFool.Com, and this guidance is useful in determining what kind of antenna to buy. TVFool.Com takes your address, converts it to lat-lon coordinates, identifies the transmitters near your home and analyses for topographical issues to render an estimate of what you should be able to receive and what antenna that you should use. Click here to get your assessment.
Here is what TVFool said about my address:
This shows three stations that should be reachable with an internal antenna (the three shaded in green), six that would be reachable with an attic mounted antenna (the yellow ones), four as being reachable with a roof-mounted antenna (the red shaded ones) and the rest as being impractical to expect reception. TVFool suggests that the power rating, called Signal NM (db) on their site, should be greater than zero to have any chance at reception and at least 20 for optimal results.
As this analysis suggests, I’ve had issues getting OTA signals in my location to use with Media Center. I was very curious as to how well the Winegard antenna would work…I currently only get NBC and CBS stations with the Media Center tuner.
The FlatWave Amped is easy to set up. I hooked it up to a Sony 32” set in a bedroom upstairs that supports digital OTA and has a USB port to power the amplifier. After taking the items out of the box, I noted the antenna with attached coaxial cable, two pieces of adhesive to hang it on a wall, and a USB cable and wall wart for the amplifier. Simply hang the antenna, screw in the coaxial cable into the right port on the TV, plug the mini-usb connector on the amplifier cable into the port on the antenna, and connect the USB connector on the supplied cable to the USB port on the TV.
Next, turn on your TV and set the input to Antenna. My Sony called that TV. Once you are seeing the signal from the antenna, go into the setup menu and scan for channels. The TV will then use the signal from the antenna to scan for available OTA channels and will set up the TV to tune them. Channel scanning can take up to an hour to complete; mine finished in 15 minutes. Setup took 25 minutes from when I opened the box to watching TV OTA.
X-mini recently sent me their capsule speakers, the Uno and Max, to review. Read on for the details of these fun little speakers!
X-mini recently sent me their capsule speakers, the Uno and Max, to review. These are small speakers with rechargable batteries intended to help you to improve your music and movie consuming experience while on the run, a perfect fit for us at ConnectedDigitalWorld.Com to play with! Let’s see how they did.
X-mini is headquartered in Singapore and their products are available here in the US. Their tagline is Sound Beyond Size and they focus on bringing good sound to as small a package as they can. When you have the music volume turned up, these speakers will jump around a bit on the table, which my daughter found to be fun.
Check out this video for a good overview of the speakers that I reviewed:
The Uno is a mono wired speaker with a rechargeable battery. When you open the package, you’ll see the speaker, a charging and connection cable and a nice carrying bag. When I opened the speaker and set it up, I had low expectations for sound. I was wrong; the sound from the Uno filled the living room and sounded quite good for the size. It sounded a little tinny, but overall was quite acceptable for a mono portable speaker. I used the Uno with a Sony PS Vita, a Microsoft Surface RT, a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0, a Samsung Galaxy S3, an iPad (4th generation), and a Nokia Lumia 822 Windows Phone. All sounded better with the Uno than with their built-in speakers. Bass response was surprisingly good for a speaker of this size, and was only a little bit off of the iHome iDM8 that I reviewed in January, a much larger speaker. Note the size of the Uno in this photo, connected to the PS Vita:
The X-mini Uno sounds great, is easy to set up, stays charged for about 20 hours and easily fits in your bag when travelling. I wish the Mono speaker were Bluetooth; this one is not, but X-mini does sell a Bluetooth version. You can also connect multiple Unos together using the on-board buddy cable to really pump up the mono jams…a nice touch! Each Uno has its own volume control built into the speaker, and can be connected either with the charging/connection cord shown above or with the buddy cable built into the bottom of the base.
I give this a 4/5 Silver Award; Bluetooth added to this would bump that to a 5/5 Gold Award. You can buy this today at Amazon.com for $39.99.
In Part Two of my review of the LaCie 5big NAS Pro, I show you how to set up remote access and basic Wuala for cloud access. Read on for details.
In Part Two of my review of the LaCie 5big NAS Pro, I show you how to set up remote access and basic Wuala for cloud access. In Part One, I showed you how to perform the initial basic setup of the NAS unit. I experienced some flaky Wuala performance when I tried to rely on just UPnP to assign the server’s IP addresses, so I needed to set a static IP address. Wuala would report that the 5big NAS Pro was offline; sometimes, a reboot of the NAS and/or router would resolve this, sometime not, so I decided to go ahead and set up a static route and also a DHCP reservation for the 5big. I went ahead and deleted the static route, using only the DHCP reservation method in the end, but I’ll show you both options here.
The 5big NAS Pro supports maintaining connectivity and remote access availability without setting up a static IP by relying on UPnP. This means that you can simply connect your 5big NAS Pro and let it and your router negotiate the IP address to assign, and your remote access site is available reliably in this setup. However, I found that Wuala would often lose connection with the 5big NAS Pro when relying on this setup, and solved the issue by setting a static IP address. This setup shows how to configure a static IP (a permanently-assigned, never-changing IP address) on a 5big NAS Pro using a Linksys EA6500 AC1750 AC router.
Log onto your router.
Click on Connectivity on the left hand side of the screen.
Click Advanced Routing and then Add a Static Route. Populate the information for the static route. Click Save.
Just an Android smartphone could be used by terrorists to hack into an aircraft’s control system, a security expert has warned.
Pilot and security consultant Hugo Teso revealed at this year’s Hack in the Box conference (in Amsterdam) that he has spent the last three years developing an application potentially capable of this.
Teso demonstrated how his Android app PlaneSploit could be used to hack into a plane’s security system and give the users control of the aircraft’s speed, altitude, and direction to provide a stark warning to the aviation industry. “You can use this system to modify approximately everything related to the navigation of the plane,” he told Forbes.
“That includes a lot of nasty things.” The PlaneSploit is designed to work only in virtual environments, but its creator was quick to point out that it could be modified to work on a real aircraft.
However, aviation security firms have expressed scepticism about Teso’s claims, with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) claiming that the technology he demonstrated “does not pose a flight safety concern”.
“The FAA is aware that a German information technology consultant has alleged he has detected a security issue with the Honeywell NZ-2000 Flight Management System (FMS) using only a desktop computer,” read a statement from the FAA.
“The FAA has determined that the hacking technique described during a recent computer security conference does not pose a flight safety concern because it does not work on certified flight hardware.
“The described technique cannot engage or control the aircraft’s autopilot system using the FMS or prevent a pilot from overriding the autopilot. Therefore, a hacker cannot obtain ‘full control of an aircraft’ as the technology consultant has claimed.”
Codemasters have revealed how GRID 2 will immerse players in a new world of multiplayer competition powered by RaceNet, the online extension for Codemasters Racing games which tracks players’ races, rivals and rewards. GRID 2’s multiplayer game mode will offer an entirely distinct progression system, separate from career mode, offering depth and flexibility as the best of modern online gaming comes to the racing genre.
Whether players want to dive into a quick race online or in two-player split-screen,
specialise in their favourite event or become one of the best cross-discipline racers in
the world, GRID 2 offers a multiplayer experience that revolves around the gamer’s
play style and choices.
GRID 2’s wide-range of game modes can be played online with up to 12 players,
including custom races based on player preferences and choosing from pre-defined
playlists to jump straight into the action. Players can modify their cars with upgrades
and make their mark on the grid by customising their car with a simple yet powerful
livery editor which offers up to 6 billion different combinations.
New anti-griefing technology includes player grouping, so gamers who like to trade
paint will be brought together online whilst clean racers are more likely to find similar
drivers in their online sessions.
Game modes: Race (Including LiveRoutes), Endurance, Drift, Touge, Checkpoint,
Face Off, Time Attack. Global Challenge events also includes Overtake and Power
Lap.
RaceNet, Codemasters’ free online browser-based extension which tracks players’
races, rivals and rewards, launches fully with GRID 2 and is the beating heart of the
game’s multiplayer mode. RaceNet will go far beyond visualising progress in-game and
will provide players with new objectives, rivals and rewards for progress. Players can
also track community stats, leaderboards and participate in weekly Global Challenge
events. RaceNet can be accessed on player’s desktop, tablet or mobile device and will
have dedicated apps set to release around launch. Players can sign up today and get
ready for GRID 2’s launch by visiting http://www.racenet.com.
Gamers will always have someone to play and always have a new challenge with
GRID 2’s Rivals system, powered by RaceNet. GRID 2 features three types of Rivals:
Global Challenge is where player’s rivalries come to life in this brand new
asynchronous game mode. Players can compete against Rivals even when those
Rivals are offline and earn XP, in-game Cash and RaceNet Followers(see below) as
they compete in up to nine weekly Global Challenges selected from across GRID 2’s
wide range of game modes and locations. Players can track progress in Global
Challenge in-game and online through RaceNet.
As players perform on track they can gain online fame and bragging rights by
increasing their RaceNet Follower base. The better they perform, and the more
objectives completed, the larger the increase in Followers players will get. Followers
can be stolen from Rivals by beating them in weekly Global Challenges and gained on
RaceNet by taking part in online events, participating in Community Challenges and
completing RaceNet objectives. Gamers can also unlock RaceNet Rivals cards on the
site to show off Follower Achievements and RaceNet will showcase players with the
most amount of Followers.
Players can show off great overtaking moves or spectacular crashes online as GRID 2
allows gamers to quickly upload highlights to YouTube and RaceNet from in-game and
easily share their favourite videos through Facebook and Twitter.
GRID 2, the long-awaited sequel to the BAFTA-award winning, critically acclaimed Race Driver: GRID, will race into retail on 31st May for the Xbox 360 , PLAYSTATION 3 computer and PC.
There is also the Grid 2 website to check out.
