The folks at Wicked Audio are donating one pair of their Reverb headsets to us so that we can give it away to one of you lucky readers. This giveaway is open to all residents of North America, and will end on June 7th @ 11:59pm Pacific time. Entering the contest is easy: Simply hit the link here (click me!) and you will be taken to our giveaway widget. On the widget, you will find multiple methods of entry (some can be repeated daily for increased odds of winning).
The folks at AirSplat were nice enough to loan us on one of their A&K LMG MK-I Airsoft SAW Machine Gun AEGs to review. I have always been interested in the role of the Automatic Rifleman or Support Gunner as it is an important part of a tactical fire team – laying down suppressing fire to allow the squad to maneuver and flank. This A&K support AEG is based on the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, or “SAW”, which has seen service in some form or another with the U.S. military since the late 1970s.
At first glance, A&K’s M249 MK-1 SAW AEG is quite the looker, measuring in at 43 intimidating inches long as well as weighing about 15 lbs unloaded. The real M249 weighs roughly 22 lbs, so this is fairly close to accurate. This AEG features a retractable bi-pod made of an “okay” quality metal – not the most durable material I have seen but far from unstable. The bi-pod has three levels of elevation and makes for a nice pivot point to lay down fire from. Powering the gun is a battery which is held inside the handguard, underneath the barrel, which features a quick-release mechanism. Simply remove the barrel and the battery will fit into place without issue. Unfortunately, the battery A&K included with the package featured a bunch of dead cells and I could not power the gun for more than a few “lurching” sounds before it completely died. I inserted one of our own, working batteries and it ran without issue. Another great feature of this support rifle is the included box magazine.
Official Specifications:
Official Features:
Using the included box magazine was very simple. Slap in two AA batteries to run its feeding motor and fill the BB chamber with up to 2500 rounds. The box magazine slides and locks into place beneath the receiver and the feeding tube mechanism gets locked into the M249’s left side. It is supposed to, that is. In our model, the box magazine would not lock into place. It stayed in well enough, but I religiously kept checking it throughout our matches to make sure it would not slide out. The box magazine has a three position power switch. The center setting is “off” while the other to control the method of winding. One automatically winds BBs up continuously while the other is a sound-activated winder. This mode in particular is very important as, without it, you will put unnecessary wear and tear on your box magazine and could even break it. The box magazine, when set to sound-based winding, kept up very well when slinging a lot of BBs down range, only needing to be allowed to catch up a couple times during exceptionally-long bursts. If you don’t wish to use the box magazine, you can apparently insert AK magazines instead. I could not test this, however, as I do not have one on-hand.
In terms of practicality on the field, this M249 was unwieldy to say the least, with no fore-grip to speak of. The overall configuration of the box mag near the hand guard made it a bit awkward and uncomfortable to use. It is very evident that the M249 MK-1 SAW was meant to rely on its bi-pod. In the tight corners of SC Viper’s urban area, it became a bit of a liability and I couldn’t recommend that beginners utilize this AEG unless they fully understand what a support gun like this is meant to do. It should be noted that when I was able to get the SAW mounted on its bi-pod overlooking SC Viper’s main roadway, it was a lot more effective at pinning OPFOR down (although the range suffered due to a hop-up problem – more to come on that).
Performance-wise, the M249 MK-1 SAW fired consistently at 380 fps with a fire rate of 750 rounds per minute (12.5 rounds per second). The AEG has a rotary knob on the gas tube underneath the barrel meant to adjust the AEG’s rate of fire (at least, it does this in other A&K support guns). In this first-gen A&K M249, however, the rotary knob is there but non-functional. Another problem with the gun was that its hop-up system did not function whatsoever. I even took out the inner barrel and manually adjusted the hop-up expecting to see the “nib” move down into place to provide spin. It never extended into the inner barrel and, in playing with the gun, its range suffered because of it. I have read on numerous Airsoft forums that A&K support guns are notorious for non-working hop-up units. Apparently, this issue can be fixed by taking apart the hop-up and adjusting where the nib is in relation to the hole on the inner barrel where it should protrude. Many Airsoft shops will actually fix this for you, free of charge. So, I highly recommend that you look at your M249’s hop-up before taking it to the field, just in case your gun needs this service performed.
Not counting the easily-fixed hop-up problem, I rate the A&K LMG MK-1 SAW a solid 3 out of 5 stars. Ultimately, A&K’s poor QC as well as its awkward design bring the score down. That being said, if you are gifted at modding your AEGs, this support gun would make a very nice platform to build upon – especially at its economic price point. The A&K LMG MK-I SAW AEG retails for $284.99 at AirSplat’s official website.
[easyreview title=”A&K LMG MK-I SAW Machine Gun AEG Review Score” cat1title=”Overall Score (out of 5)” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”3″ ] Our Rating Scores Explained
*NOTE: Please excuse the lack of video in this review. During our excursion at SC Viper, our camera malfunctioned and has yet to recover. We will review another AEG once our camera is fixed so we can bring some in-game video of it in use.
May 31, 2013 — Magrunner Dark Pulse, the action/physics game for PC, Xbox LIVE® and PlayStation®Network, today unveils more of its challenges in a new series of screenshots!
In the near future, in 2048, a handful of young and brilliant citizens have been chosen by Gruckezber Corporation to join the Magtech training program for space exploration. Equipped with a special glove using Gruckezber’s technology, the candidates have to solve their way through a huge maze of challenge rooms, by magnetically charging objects that will attract or repel each other. But when an earthquake disrupts the training program, what seemed to be the chance of a lifetime for the candidates will soon become a descent into folly and cosmic horror!
Today’s screenshots show some of the dangerous challenges that await Dax. The hi-tech training center in which Dax is testing his Magtech glove is being warped little by little, plunging irreparably into a strange and nightmarish world: that of Cthulhu and the frightening paranormal creatures it hosts.
Magrunner Dark Pulse will be released on PC, Xbox LIVE® and PlayStation®Network.
Larkspur, Calif., May 31, 2013 — Deep Silver today announced that Metro: Last Light has enjoyed a stunning first week of sales, significantly outselling its predecessor Metro 2033 over the same launch period, and earning stellar reviews from the gaming media on all three platforms.
On Windows® PC, the game more than tripled Metro 2033’s worldwide sales over the same opening week period. In the US, Metro: Last Light sold through more boxed units in its first week of sale than Metro 2033 has managed lifetime to date. Across all formats worldwide, Metro: Last Light has sold more units in its first week of sale than Metro 2033 managed in 3 months. Metro: Last Light has shot to #1 in the weekly charts in multiple European territories including Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, and also in the UK, where publisher Deep Silver recorded their fourth straight week at number 1.Metro: Last Light has garnered praise from players and critics alike, with all three formats enjoying a Metacritic score of 80+ and a slew of 9 / 10 reviews from GameSpot, Official PlayStation Magazine, Joystiq, The Escapist and more. Metro: Last Light is Deep Silver’s most critically acclaimed game to date, said Menno van der Bil, International Commercial Director at Deep Silver. We are delighted with the deserved critical and commercial success the game has achieved, and hope that this success represents a statement of intent for future quality titles from Deep Silver. We would like to thank 4A Games for their talent, passion and commitment in helping us reach this milestone.”
4A Games are honoured by the reception our latest project has received, said Andrew Prokhorov, Creative Director at 4A Games. We are a small but dedicated team who are lucky to have been given the creative freedom and support to make the kind of experience we dream, as gamers, of playing. Our work on Metro: Last Light continues with new single player DLC, and we look forward to revealing future projects from the team. We want to thank all the Metro fans for support we have received.
Deep Silver announced earlier this week that 4A Games will support Metro: Last Light with a series of original single player content packs throughout the summer. Metro fans can pre-purchase all future DLC at a discount with the Season Pass, now available on Steam, the Xbox Live® online entertainment network from Microsoft and the PlayStation Network for €14.99 / $14.99 / £11.99 / 1200 Microsoft Points. The Season Pass also grants an additional weapon, the deadly Abzats, a semi-automatic shotgun rifle with a devastating secondary fire mode that unleashes six shells in one blast.
The Season Pass will include:
Metro: Last Light is available now for PlayStation®3, the Xbox 360® games and entertainment system from Microsoft, and Windows® PC .
For more information about Metro: Last Light, visit EnterTheMetro.com, like us at Facebook.com/MetroVideoGame or follow us on Twitter @MetroVideoGame.
Durham, North Carolina, May 31, 2013. Empty Flask Games, a startup company based in North Carolina, announced today the launch of its newest game, Starship Battles. Classify Starship Battles as a Category “C” for the Best in Casual Gaming. The smartphone app developer has created an arcade style game that breaks new ground for casual game-play with high resolution graphics and an engrossing—yet simple—immersive gaming experience for newcomers and old schoolers alike. Starship Battles features compelling and realistic 3D retina graphics and intuitive and entertaining game-play. Those, coupled with short pick and play sessions make for endless re-playability. The game is available on iTunes at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/
Graphically, Starship Battles presents in full 3D with high resolution environments and science-fiction warships. In addition, game play is greatly enhanced by simple and responsive controls. As the player commandeers the Warship’s battle-station, he is awarded fantastic visual effects as his weapons fire and enemy ships explode in brilliant 3D. The player can spend soft currency to upgrade and design his fleet. Designer ships come with visual personalization, War-Paint, and instant game-play bonuses.
At product launch, Starship Battles offers five highly detailed ships, each with five War-Paints. Additional ships will follow. The game begins with the avatar mounting only one Frigate to defend the galaxy against an infinite force of relentless aliens. The Cruiser, Destroyer, Battleship and Corvette wait to be purchased with minerals earned through game-play. Victories and achievements are posted at Game Center through social media integration, lending another dimension to extend competitive game-play.
Says Pierre Roux, CEO and Founder of Empty Flask Games, “Starship Battle’s greatest strength lies in its simplicity and strong graphics. It’s a well-known and familiar game-play experience. “
Starship Battles is the second highly anticipated offering from Empty Flask Games. After the highly touted Infinite Warrior, the Empty Flask team, headed by Pierre Roux, has more in the pipeline for release in the coming months. Roux, a veteran video game artist and producer, hails from Marseille, France, and has worked at Namco Bandai, Electronic Arts, Quantic Dream Crystal Dynamic, Eidos Interactive, Vicious Cycle, Ubi Soft, and Cryo Interactive. Roux’s strong art background and extensive gaming experience make him uniquely qualified to create an innovative and visually compelling gaming experience with Starship Battles.
The visual quality of Starship Battles is reminiscent of the console game experience: its simplicity makes for a fun, engaging, and addictive game-play challenge. Starship Battles is now available on iOS. An Android version will follow.
For more about the game, visit Empty Flask Games at
http://www.emptyflaskgames.
Hamburg, May 31, 2013. Today, InnoGames updated 3D action game Kartuga with improvements coming directly from player feedback in its closed beta. New features in the update include a daily reward system, which allows PvP players to increase their winning bounty on the first win of each day. This “Win of the Day” delivers a huge amount of XP and gold to players – increasing every day. The fifth consecutive “Win of the Day” equals a valuable gift of gems. In addition, InnoGames has made balancing changes of the various classes and skills, and also further improved PvP matchmaking – all which were hot topics for beta testers.
Player feedback for Kartuga has been extremely positive in the closed beta, especially relating to its high-end 3D graphics. “The feedback from the community in recent weeks has been very helpful to our further development,” explains Product Manager Florian Supa. “The beta is an exciting time because it offers the possibility to work together with users to make it exactly what they are looking for.”
The action-packed MMOG Kartuga is based on Unity 3D and focuses strongly on cooperative PvP (player versus player) gameplay with several role-playing elements. As a purely free-to-play online game, users only need a Unity 3D plugin, which is available for all current browsers. Kartuga is InnoGames’ first partnership with its subsidiary company, Ticking Bomb Games, who is responsible for the development of the title.
SAN FRANCISCO – May 30, 2013 – Razer™, the world leader in high-performance gaming hardware, software and systems, today announced the Blade Pro, the latest evolution of its award-winning 17-inchgaming laptop.Powered by a future 4th gen Intel® Core™ processor, next generation NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 765M graphics and groundbreaking storage performance, the new Blade Pro is faster and more powerful than ever before.
“With the Razer Blade Pro, we´ve designed a gaming laptop for work and for play – appealing toon-the-go hardcore gamers, game developers, creative artists and aspiring video professionals,” says Min-Liang Tan, Razer co-founder, CEO and creative director. “The Razer Blade Pro can flawlessly run the most popular creative software applications, and is powerful enough to run the most graphically intensive games on the market today.”
Razer’s designers and engineers refined every inner component to increase performance, while staying true to portability. At 0.88 inches thin and weighing 6.5 pounds, the Blade Pro is the most portable 17-inch gaming laptop in its class. Every detail is sleek, slim and light, all the way down to the compact power supply, making the Blade Pro the best choice for gaming performance and creative work on-the-go.
The Blade Pro, the third iteration of Razer´s ground-breaking, ultra-portable laptop, features a 47-watt Intel chip, 10 watts more than the last 17-inch Razer Blade and the most powerful CPU ever fitted into a Razer system for increased professional performance. The latest NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M GPU is also included. All of this is packed into the thinnest and lightest form factor in the 17-inch laptop class. The Blade Pro comes with Dolby® Home Theatre® v4, featuring immersive audio quality that is custom-tuned to each Razer laptop to deliver a cinematic sound experience. All of this is topped-off with gaming-grade peripherals built right in, such as Razer Synapse 2.0, a fully programmable anti-ghosting keyboard with adjustable backlight and an ultra-sensitive track pad.
“Innovation is happening across the PC industry, and what Razer has done with the Blade Pro is groundbreaking,” says Navin Shenoy, vice president and general manager of Intel’s Mobile Client Platforms. “Utilizing a future 4th gen Intel Core processor, the Razer Blade Pro delivers top-class gaming and professional performance in a very portable form factor.”
“The Razer Blade Pro packs extreme performance in an ultra-portable form factor,” says Rene Haas, vice president and general manager of notebook GPUs at NVIDIA. “Thanks in part to the performance-per-watt efficiency of the new NVIDIA GeForce GTX GPUs, the new Razer Blade Pro is incredibly thin for a 17-inch gaming laptop.”
At the heart of the Blade Pro is a full-HD 17-inch LED display linked in combination with the Switchblade User Interface (SBUI), allowing users to take advantage of tools and creative possibilities at their fingertips. Driven by 10 dynamic adaptive tactile keys, a revolutionary LCD track pad and professional-grade and game apps, users can work harder and play harder. Razer´s SBUI now includes several new, professional-grade apps and a wide array of new tools available at no charge, including programs like Adobe Photoshop® and Adobe Premiere® Pro, Maya®, GIMP and more.
The Razer Blade Proalso features 8 GB of fast 1600 MHz DDR3L memory and now comes standard with 128 GB of total solid-stage storage, with optional 256 GB and 512 GB SSDs. With solid-state storage technology, gamers will now experience up to four-times the performance of a traditional 5400-rpm notebook hard drive.
Razer is also offering a new creative professional pricing program, allowing design students, game developers, development staff, Kickstarter partners and others to purchase Razerproducts, including the Blade Pro, at special prices. Selected developers and partners are now listed atwww.razerzone.com/creativepro. Those not listed are encouraged to fill out an application on the page for a chance to be included in the program.
The Blade Pro will be available for pre-order June 3. For more information, go towww.razerzone.com/bladepro.
Price:
Starts at $2,299
Availability:
Razerzone.com – Pre-Order June 3
United States and Canada only
Product features:
For more information about the Razer Blade Pro, please visit http://www.razerzone.com/
SAN FRANCISCO – May 30, 2013 – Razer™, the world leader in high-performance gaming hardware, software and systems, today unveiled Razer Blade, the world´s thinnest gaming laptop. The Razer Blade, measuring in at just 0.66-inches thin, packs more power-per-cubic-inch than any other laptop in the world. The Razer Blade is powered with a future 4th gen Intel® Core™ processor, the latest NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 765M GPU and utilizes solid-state storage technology with boot speeds of up to four-times faster than a traditional 5400-RPM notebook hard drive. The Razer Blade has a rigid all-aluminum chassis, with a stunning 14-inch LED-backlit HD+ display and features a custom-designed trackpad and backlit gaming grade keyboard.
“We´ve designed and built the thinnest, most powerful 14-inch laptop in the world,” says Min-Liang Tan, Razer co-founder, CEO and creative director. “Thinner than a dime and more powerful than other traditional desktop replacements today, we´ve created an entirely new category of thin and powerful laptops that is generations ahead of other PCs.”
Designed entirely in-house by the multi-award winning Razer design team, the Razer Blade has an incredible 14-inch LED-backlit HD+ display with a native resolution of 1600 x 900and its custom-made gaming grade trackpad offers multi-touch gesture support. The Razer Blade also features a full-size backlit gaming keyboard that has full anti-ghosting capabilities and programmable keys powered by the revolutionary Synapse 2.0.
“Incredible innovation is happening across the computing landscape, and the new mobile gaming experience Razer is delivering with the Edge, and now its Blade, is remarkable,” says Navin Shenoy, vice president and general manager of Intel’s Mobile Client Platforms. “Powered by a future 4th gen Intel Core processor, people can expect the highest level performance from the Blade for the most discerning gamer.”
The ultra-portable laptop features 8 GB of fast 1600 MHz DDR3L memory and comes standard with 128 GB of total solid-state storage with options for a 256 GB or 512 GB SSD. The Razer Blade also comes with Dolby® Home Theatre® v4, featuring immersive audio-quality output that is custom-tuned to deliver a cinematic sound experience.
The Razer Blade delivers up to six hours of battery life and includes a Killer™ Wireless-N high-performance wireless networking adapter, combining intelligence and control along with up to five-times the wireless networking speed of competitive wireless adapters.
“The 14-inch Razer Blade packs a ton of horsepower into a very small chassis,” says Rene Haas, vice president and general manager of notebook GPUs at NVIDIA. “The new NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M GPU delivers blazing performance with incredibly efficient power usage to this ultra-portable gaming machine.”
The new 14-inch Razer Blade embodies Razer´s continuing goal to design the world&aqute;s best gaming laptops for those that need insanely powerful performance in the thinnest form factors to game anywhere, anytime. Razer sets out to do the impossible without compromising performance and, with the new Blade 14-inch laptop, users are able to game more and do more than ever before on an ultra-portable system.
The Razer Blade will be available for pre-order June 3. For more information, go towww.razerzone.com/blade.
Price:
Starts at $1,799
Availability:
Razerzone.com – Pre-Order June 3
United States and Canada only
Product features:
For more information about the Razer Blade, please visit www.razerzone.com/blade.
So, here is Danny Trejo, being a bad ass (as always). Also in this upcoming flick are Jessica Alba, Lady Gaga, Mel Gibson, and a very familiar-looking gent calling himself “Carlos Estevez”. Machete Kills is due out on July 31st, 2013.
The studio that brought us gems like Brutal Legend and, my personal fave, Costume Quest, has started up a Kickstarter fund for a project they are working on called MASSIVE CHALICE. The game is said to be a single player, tactical strategy title experience set in a new fantasy world.
Pledges begin at $20 dollars, which includes a copy of the game once it’s ready as well as your name in the “Backers” section of the game’s credits.
