KontrolFreek Blog

The Elgato Game Capture HD is the easiest to set up and most versatile video game capture device I have ever used.

I’ll be honest, coming from me this isn’t saying too much—considering I’m not a professional YouTube director or even an amateur video creator. But let me tell you, I know a quality piece of hardware when I see it and I couldn’t be happier with the Elgato.

In case you’ve been under a rock, let me start with the basics:

The Elgato Game Capture HD enables you to record PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 gameplay to a Mac or PC and share it with your friends (or YouTube subscribers). With advanced hardware H.264 encoding, you can capture gameplay in HD quality while keeping the file size small on your computer’s hard drive. A recent update even adds the ability to record in full HD 1080p at 30fps, making the Game Capture HD the first and only USB capture device to do so.

Your gameplay is passed through from your console to the TV via HDMI and then in to your PC or Mac’s USB port without loss of quality. Elgato Game Capture HD doesn’t require a bunch of cables or a bulky power supply to record your gameplay. With a direct Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 input, you can use a single cable to connect it to your console. Everything included, it literally uses three cables (HDMI in, HDMI out, USB in). You can seriously be recording clips in about 10-minutes. It’s that easy.

The included software is pretty nifty too. Even if you forget to press the record button, the Flashback Recording feature lets you go back in time. So, you can simply slide the slider (did I say slide the slider?) back and hit record retroactively so you don’t facepalm when you miss something awesome. Elgato Game Capture HD’s software also allows you to quickly trim your gaming clips and pass them on to your favorite editing program for easier editing later. Again, easy!

For $179 (Amazon.com price as of this morning) the Elgato Game Capture HD seems like a good deal to me. It does exactly what it’s supposed to do and makes it easy for you to do what you’re supposed to do—create epic gameplay montages! So this is good news for all of you guys and gals looking to make a name for yourselves on YouTube: Elgato did all of the hard work for you so all you need to do is hit the big red button and play.

Call of Duty is second to none when it comes to limited edition bundles, and for Black Ops 2 they’re making no exception.

This year the Hardened and Prestige Editions are both back, the later being dubbed the Care Package which includes a freaking radio controlled drone. There’s also some other stuff. Awesome!

Mark my words: we will secure a bunch of these bad boys and give them away to you just because we’re cool like that. We may even throw in our new FPS Freek Havoc (which should be in the Care Package anyway) as an added bonus. So, be sure to follow us on Twitter and/or Facebook for that.

CARE PACKAGE (Xbox 360/PS3) SRP $179.99:

• Call of Duty: Black Ops II
• Remote Controlled MQ-27 Dragonfire Drone - Command cutting-edge technology, exclusively for this once-in-a-lifetime combat collection.
• Nuketown Zombies Bonus Map - Battle hordes of Zombies in this beloved 1960s nuclear neighborhood.
• Nuketown 2025 Bonus Map - Relive the close quarters chaos of this classic fan-favorite map re-imagined in a 1960s visionary depiction of the "model home of the future."
• Collectible 2-Sided SteelBook - Limited edition game case featuring exclusive artwork.
• (2) Challenge Coins - Limited edition challenge coins that serve as your key to exclusive digital content.
• Weapon Camo - Rank-up in style with an exclusive multiplayer weapon skin.
• (2) Player Card Backgrounds - Liven up any killcam with two exclusive player card backgrounds, inspired by Nuketown 2025 and Zombies.
• Official Call of Duty: Black Ops II Soundtrack - A digital copy of composer Jack Wall's epic in-game score with Theme by Trent Reznor.
• Xbox LIVE CLAW Avatar Prop - An exclusive avatar prop, deployable to a dashboard near you.
• Xbox LIVE Zombies Avatar Costume - Show off your pride with an avatar costume built exclusively for fans of the Call of Duty undead.
• (PlayStation 3 versions include a dynamic multiplayer theme of the Turbine map as well as a dynamic Zombies theme that shows off Call of Duty: Black Ops II Zombies)

HARDENED EDITION (Xbox 360/PS3) SRP $79.99:

• Call of Duty: Black Ops II
• Nuketown Zombies Bonus Map - Battle hordes of Zombies in this beloved 1960s nuclear neighborhood.
• Nuketown 2025 Bonus Map - Relive the close quarters chaos of this classic fan-favorite map re-imagined in a 1960s visionary depiction of the "model home of the future."
• Collectible 2-Sided SteelBook - Limited edition game case featuring exclusive artwork.
• (2) Challenge Coins - Limited edition challenge coins that serve as your key to exclusive digital content.
• Weapon Camo - Rank-up in style with an exclusive multiplayer weapon skin.
• (2) Player Card Backgrounds - Liven up any killcam with two exclusive player card backgrounds, inspired by Nuketown 2025 and Zombies.
• Official Call of Duty: Black Ops II Soundtrack - A digital copy of composer Jack Wall's epic in-game score with Theme by Trent Reznor.
• Xbox LIVE CLAW Avatar Prop - An exclusive avatar prop, deployable to a dashboard near you.
• Xbox LIVE Zombies Avatar Costume - Show off your pride with an avatar costume built exclusively for fans of the Call of Duty undead.
• (PlayStation 3 versions include a dynamic multiplayer theme of the Turbine map as well as a dynamic Zombies theme that shows off Call of Duty: Black Ops II Zombies)

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 launches for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 November 13, 2012.

Fans of arcade rally racers like Dirt and the classic XSN title, RalliSport Challenge will find a lot to love about Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad. Is it a good as either one? Probably not; but you’ll be shocked at this racer’s cost-to-fun ratio.

For only $10 you get 5 different vehicles including buggies, trucks and rally cars—each with 3 different setups and each really fun to drive. You get a 23-event career that takes about 2-hours to complete on semi-pro difficulty and moving up to the harder difficulties adds more challenge and more time.

The 7 included tracks are some of the most fun I’ve played in a racing game in a while—with trips through jungles, deserts and snow-covered passes. Beating and banging with opponents, launching for big air and crashing through dynamic environments was intense and gratifying. As you progress, you’ll earn experience each race that buys you simple upgrades reminiscent of the old Ivan “Ironman” Stewart’s Super Off-Road arcade game. It’s not a big deal, but it was nice to see my vehicle’s performance improve along with my own.

I think developer 2XL Games and publisher D3 made a good call with this game. It’s fun, value-priced and looks great running at a buttery smooth 60 frames per second at 1080p. There are a few small peeves here and there but nothing that will get in the way of your good time. Completionists and online players will find nearly unlimited playability with Jeremy McGrath—as long as you can find some other humans in lobbies to play with.

Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad is available for both PSN and XBLA for $9.99.

So, we decided to send one lucky fan to Call of Duty XP 2012!

Before we announce the winner, we’d like to thank all of you FPS Freek Prestige fans for your support through the years. We love our fans and hope to bring you more big giveaways like this in the near future.

The winner of the CoD XP 2012 trip is Daniel Kvaley! We’ll be contacting you via the email address you provided very soon.

There are very few FPS Freek Prestige’s left in stock so get them while you still can.

More than two years later, Heavy Rain for PS3 still stands alone as the most unique and best interactive experience on any current generation console. You can disagree with me if you want, but you’re definitely wrong.

There have been some great experiences since then—Skyrim and Amnesia: The Dark Descent come to mind—but neither one of those is necessarily what I’d call “unique”. Are they both superb games? Yes. Are they both really fun to play? Yes, yes they are. Unique, though? Not really.

I won’t fully rehash my enduring love for Heavy Rain here, but if you’d like to read my review from back in 2010, feel free.

The reason I’m talking about old games is because last week at GDC 2012, Quantic Dream, creators of Heavy Rain, showed off a tech demo for the PlayStation 3’s real-time rendering capabilities and a new motion capture method called full-performance capture. The demo brings to life a female android named Kara. Kara is being assembled by robotic arms and running through her initialization sequence when a spark of independent thought prompts engineers to begin disassembling her for being “defective”. After begging for her life, Kara is warily put back together and joins the other androids, promising not to cause any further problems.

It’s a captivating and emotional piece that provokes the imagination. It reminds me that too many games today fail to incite emotion and makes me wish more developers would take chances with the games they make.

Though Quantic Dream denies that the demo is tied to a current project, I really hope to see more of Kara someday soon.

I’m not a huge fan of puking ever since mojito night turned into minty carpet stain. I am, however, a huge fan of Borderlands and cannot wait to gather up my old crew and start Vault hunting again.

Also, Claptrap.

Borderlands 2 is set for a North American launch on September 18^th 2012.

Competitive gaming tournament site, Virgin Gaming, recently announced that they have surpassed the one-million registered users mark. Since the service launched in June of 2010, over $7 million in prizes has been awarded to gamers.

This is great for the world of competitive gaming!

If you are not one of the 1M people in-the-know, Virgin Gaming offers free registration with the option of depositing a $20 minimum to compete in matches for cash. Currently, you can compete in 13 different games, ranging from FIFA 12 to Battlefield 3, on both Xbox 360 and PlayStaion 3 consoles.