The series got away from the cop chases and went more “PC” with Need for Speed Pro Street and as cool as that game was, I missed the chases. Need for Speed Undercover brings the police chases back to the series and EA announced this week that the game is now shipping.

Need for Speed Undercover is available on every gaming system known to geekdom including the PS3, Xbox, Wii, PS2, PSP, and Nintendo DS. The title will even support force feedback on the Wii, a first for the console. EA is even bringing the game to mobile phones. This will be one of the hottest titles for driving game fans this holiday season.

Need for Speed

At this point I’m thinking, “I can’t think yet, I’ve just fallen off my chair LOLing my ass off”. Then I got up and thought, “Wait a sec. This could easily be Photoshopped.” The logical step was to head on to Blockhead’s site and see if I could secure a copy of the manual, so head on I did. Looking at Blockhead’s website hope filled my heart; the manual was a possibility. How so? Let’s just say that when your kid’s Max V’s whammy bar isn’t whammying like it’s supposed to, don’t let them search for help on the net, lest you find yourself trying to not define certain acronyms for them:

I clicked on the fourth question and it led me to a link where I could get a copy of the manual. I downloaded it and promptly fell off my chair again. There it was, asking me not to insult the guitar. You can go see it for yourself if you still don’t believe me, it’s just a 2 page pdf file anyway.

And to those of you who do own a Max - V: Try insulting it. Please. Just once. Then tell us what happens.

[via engrishfunny]

Tags: John C. Dvorak, PC Magazine

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Reggie thinks third-parties don't 'get' the Wii: discuss originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Nov 2008 00:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

First, they're customizing the compiler specifically for the ARMv6 and ARMv7 processors, which will help speed up and smooth out communications between the processor and the app. Second, they're going to take advantage of the graphics subprocessors found in some ARM chips. Flash on desktops isn't optimized for any sort of graphics processor, but taking advantage of this on a mobile platform will not only help with the workload, but it will improve battery life at the same time. Lastly, they're making video compression and decompression better suited for the processors, so that it requires less horsepower.

It should come as no huge surprise that Adobe says Flash 10 will be running on ARM devices by next year, considering that they already announced plans for the software on the iPhone and G1. It will not only make it easier to view sites with rich web content, but it will also be easier to view and upload flash videos, and run flash-based apps. [MIT Technology Review]

Look, guys, if you really cared about the Christmas joy of children all over Europe you would let loose the ninjas. I mean, you can't spell Nintendo without half of ninja, so you've obviously got them. Ninjas kill pirates. And in this case, protect the innocence of millions of children. Because if "Santa" was real, couldn't he fly around dumb seabound pirates? We're asking you, for the sake of these kids, to not think about how much deeper your lake of gold coins will get from all the loot caused by the extra demand. Release the ninjas. Guard the Wiis. Save the children. [Yahoo via Gadgetell]

Fans of the old-timey GameCube will rest easier tonight knowing that Hori is now manufacturing its variation of the classic controller, creatively named the "Classic Controller." We've seen other gamepads in this style, but not many that get it as close to the original design as this -- plus it has those insane autofire switches. These bad boys are available in black, white, and blue on December 4th in Japan, and you can pre-order them now for $29.90 over at Play-Asia.

[Via Nintendo Wii Fanboy]

Hori's Wii Classic Controller: if you're really into autofire originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Nov 2008 19:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Just when you thought the Nintendo Gameboy Color has been relegated to the junk bin, along comes this DIY project that allows you to cram in the former's innards into a Texas Instruments TI-83 Series calculator - not too sure whether the cartridge, when slotted in, will give the game away, but boy do we wish that this was available back during our schooldays.

Add a comment | From: Gameboy Color Crammed Into Calculator | Visit Ubergizmo | Good deals

The New Xbox Experience, a.k.a. the new Xbox 360 Dashboard, hits tomorrow. If you've got an Xbox 360 that's connected to the internet, you're going to be prompted to update your console as soon as you turn it on. No exceptions; this is what your machine will look like until either it dies, you die, or Microsoft decides to make ANOTHER Xbox Experience. Unfortunately, unlike Batman, you didn't have time to prepare. Here are the ten things you should know about the new Xbox experience so you can be set for tomorrow.

1) Installation is quick. Owners with hard drives that aren't 100% full will be able to update with no problem, but Xbox 360 Arcade fans that rely on memory cards can get in on the free 512MB card deal from Microsoft. We'd recommend you go for the 20GB hard drive for $20 if anything. The update won't be as fast as the 10-second patches you're used to for standard Xbox Dashboard upgrades, but clocking in at somewhere between five to ten minutes, it's still faster than standard PS3 firmware refreshes. And this changes the entire UI!

2) Avatars are neat, but need some work. They're not necessary in the sense that you've still got the option of using your old gamerpics to represent your gamertag to the rest of Xbox Live, but everyone can create a Nintendo Mii-like avatar. Because there are only a handful of clothing options and customizability selections, your Mii will only kinda look like you. They're neat, though, and can be used in future games so you can control a virtual you instead of, say, Venus Williams or Marcus Fenix—the second being extremely unlikely.

3) Performance gains are found everywhere. One of the things Microsoft with the new Dashboard was lift restrictions about how much resources it could use, resulting in a much speedier and more fluid browsing experience. For example, your Xbox Live Arcade game list loads instantly, instead of one at a time in the order you downloaded them. Other time savers are the ability to bring up the Xbox guide from wherever you are and jump into another game, bypassing the need to reroute from back in the Dashboard.

4) Everything is much more usable because it's organized better. By putting in a game and going to its info screen, you can look at its achievements, all its possible downloads and access game details like whether or not it supports 1080p and co-op. In fact, you can do this for all the games in the marketplace, giving you an easy way to browse around and learn whether or not Fable 2 supports online multiplayer (it does).

5) Blades are still there if you want them. Although you're "stuck" with the new interface in the actual Dashboard, you can hit the Xbox guide button on your controller and hop around the console that way. There really isn't a reason to dislike the new interface, but if you're one of those weirdos that hates things because they're new (why are you on THIS website again?), you've got an option.

6) Netflix movie and TV streaming look great. As Mark covered in his impressions, Netflix streaming to your Xbox works fantastically as long as your connection is fast enough. HD streaming requires 8Mbps for their highest tier quality, but Mark was fine with 5Mbps in their second tier. This all requires you to have an actual Netflix account to be able to access the feature, but the convenience of movies on demand, directly to your TV should make you at least sign up for a trial.

7) Hard disk game installs save time, save wear-and-tear on your DVD drive. As bingegamer details, installing a game on a hard drive usually cuts down load times and improvs streaming from the disk in sandbox games. It's very rare that installing actually makes games slower, but it's been known to happen in Halo 3 and a couple other titles. The other benefit, besides speeding up gaming sessions, is that you eliminate DVD noise. You still need to have the disc in the drive when you play, so you can't go rent games, install them and return them.

8) Media Center and media playback still work. No change in Media Center or DivX/XviD playback functionality in case you were worried about compatibility issues before upgrading.

9) Ads are basically everywhere. You know how there's space set aside in the current Dashboard for ads and promo content? Well, in NXE, promo content can be mixed into the regular menu system, which makes it more difficult to tell at a glance whether you're firing up your own copy of Gears of War 2 or clicking to the Gears of War download page where they want you to download themes. It's not too horrible, on the whole.

10) The future looks good for NXE. Instead of sticking to the Spring/Fall update cycle, NXE allows Microsoft to roll out incremental updates for your Xbox whenever they're ready. This means more timely feature bumps (stuff like Netflix, for example), and special one-off changes that can skin your interface based on whatever hot game is due out soon. And hell, who wouldn't want to be able to download a Gears of War suit for your avatar?

Our final verdict is that NXE is a good thing. It's great of Microsoft to be devoting precious resources to revamping a usable interface (you won't see a new Wii Experience anytime soon) three years into a console's lifetime because they think they can do a better job the second time around. Get ready to install a whole new Xbox tomorrow. [Xbox Coverage on Gizmodo]