SteelSeries keeps it classy with its new gaming headsets

Any gamer can benefit from a good headset, whether to stay in clear contact with their teammates during an intense raid or to keep the noise down while their spouse is asleep. But some cans are loud in a different way, boasting garish designs or cheap plastic builds that you might not feel comfortable wearing outside your home. Newcomers like LucidSound have taken a stab at building headgear on the more stylish side, but now industry vet SteelSeries enters the arena with its own line of fashionable gaming headsets.

SteelSeries’ products have always been known for their clean lines and relative lack of embellishment. But when it came to the company’s signature Siberia line of headsets, it still needed a way to allow users to resize the fit to their liking. While the distinctive suspension system was effective at ensuring the right fit, its design also made the Siberia headsets look a bit odd.

The new headsets, called the Arctis 3, 5 and 7, avoid that telltale double band by switching to a sizing system that should seem familiar to anyone who’s spent a bit of time outdoors. There’s a tight, stretchy band across the top, similar to the ones that hold snow goggles on your head. You’ll feel a bit of pressure when you first put an Arctis on, but it’s not uncomfortable and eventually fades into the background.

SteelSeries took other ideas from sporting goods as well, covering each earcup in a thin, breathable fabric akin to the material used to make jerseys and gym shorts. The AirWeave material is soft and perforated with small holes, preventing your head from getting as hot and sweaty as it might otherwise. If you do sweat, though, both the earcup fabric and the stretchy band are removable and washable.

The ability to remove the headband means that you can swap it out for a different one of your liking. Outside of that bit of fabric all three headsets embrace a simple design typical of SteelSeries products. The earcups are oval with just the company logo printed on the side; the headband is a simple curve. Out of the line, only the Arctis 5 comes equipped with RGB lighting, and even then it’s just the logo and a thin line around each ear cup. The colors and pattern can be adjusted using the SteelSeries software.

To be clear, though the three headsets are named after consecutive odd numbers, those digits don’t actually refer to the number of channels (stereo or surround) each headset has. All three Arctis products are equipped with 7.1 surround sound that was designed to not favor any particular end of the spectrum — no overpowering bass, no “crisp, clear highs” like so many gaming headsets tend to push. It’s great to “feel” an explosion, but SteelSeries would like you to hear the non-player characters reacting to it as well and their footsteps as they run away.

The team at SteelSeries gave plenty of extra attention to the microphone as well. Many headsets tend to offer just “good enough” sound, using unidirectional mics that filter out some — but not all –surrounding noise. The Arctis’ mic is bidirectional, making it better at capturing your voice and ignoring any sounds coming from next to you. It’s also retractable, so you can use the Arctis as just a pair of headphones without the worries of losing a detachable mic unit or looking silly because it’s sticking out.

The Arctis 5 and 7 are equipped with DTS’ Headphone:X system for slightly better audio, but otherwise the three headsets are identical internally. That makes it a bit easier for shoppers, who don’t have to worry about whether the lower tier will provide what they need, or if the top tier will be “too much.” It’s a solid experience all around, allowing buyers to focus on features instead.

Indeed, the Arctis line offers a lot of variety on that front. The Arctis 3, which costs $80, is a pretty standard wired headset. It uses 3.5mm jacks for input and output with all the adapters you’d need to attach it to an Xbox controller or a laptop with no microphone port. There’s also a jack on the headset itself, for sharing audio with a friend; this feature is also available on the other two Arctis sets.

The $100 Arctis 5 expands the feature set with RGB lighting and it also connects via USB. The headset has a special ChatMix Control dial that allows player to vary the volume of their incoming audio — If you’re having trouble hearing your friends, you can easily raise that side, or turn it in the other direction if you’d rather focus on the game’s audio. There’s a slight ‘click’ to let you know when the dial is centered between the two.

With the Arctis 7 the price jumps to $150, but that cost brings with it 2.4GHz wireless which should boast zero latency compared to Bluetooth. The ChatMix dial is built into the headset to avoid adding more cords, and the headset boasts 15 hours of battery life with 40 feet of range. All three headsets are exclusive to Best Buy starting today.

Crowd control and confetti cannons at the Overwatch Open

The studio is immaculate. Shiny black floors glisten under orange, blue and purple lights. A dozen people dressed in all black, wires dangling from their headphones to the battery packs at their waists, mill around, preparing massive hooded cameras, adjusting light fixtures, sweeping the floors and, way in the back on a raised platform, tweaking the appearance of the stage from behind multi-screen terminals. It’s 9PM on a Friday night and everyone in the room is at work, but the air sizzles with chatter and excitement.

The stage itself is impressive, with three massive, crisp screens alternating between the logo for the 2016 Overwatch Open and the competing teams’ insignias. A cartoon rabbit head wearing goggles and a scar over one eye smirks down from the orange side, representing the European underdog team, Misfits. A stylized white “N” surrounded by a circle looms over the North American favorites, EnVyUs. Twelve young men — some bearded, others clean-shaven — sit in front of their respective screens at two long, curved banks of gaming PCs, getting in just a few more minutes of practice before the big game; just a few more kills, just a few more dodges and clicks and saves. The mood on the stage is deadly serious. Whoever wins tonight takes home $100,000, after all.

A woman in a long-sleeved shirt with “LOVE” printed on it in large, white letters stands on the center platform, in front of the main viewing screen. She yells for someone to turn on Outkast’s “Hey Ya.”

The speakers continue to pump out peppy indie rock.

ELEAGUE analysts prepare the desk before showtime (Image credit: Engadget)

Rows of empty chairs line the studio floor and cascade up three platforms at the back of the room, strategically positioned around cameras and control panels. The on-air talent arrives about an hour before the show starts, settling into their seats for lighting and mic tests. They’ve done this before, but tonight is special. Tonight is a first. Tonight’s games, the ELEAGUE Overwatch Open grand finals, will be broadcast live on TBS, where families across the country will be able to watch it just like they’d switch on football, baseball or wrestling. Tonight, Overwatch eSports will be live on television for the first time ever, shoutcasters, audience and all.

The three analysts at the main casting desk sink into their seats and adjust their papers, jotting down notes and happily chatting with each other.

From the stage, the woman in the LOVE shirt yells again for someone to turn on Outkast’s “Hey Ya.” The music switches off entirely. She stares down the technicians at the back of the studio and calls out again. The speakers remain silent. She calmly makes her way across the room, climbing the stairs to the men manning the control panel in a shadowy corner; she’s not angry.

“The music part is very important,” she says, laughing and leaning over the panel to line up the song herself. “Gotta keep ’em hyped, gotta keep ’em turnt.”

She plays the music video for “Hey Ya,” skipping past the scripted intro and diving directly into the song. By now, people are pouring into the studio, taking their seats on the ground floor and trickling up the platforms. The music energizes the room as the clock ticks closer to 10PM, when the cameras will switch on and the show will go live.

North America’s EnVyUs minutes before the grand finals begin (Image credit: Engadget)

The woman takes the stage again, this time to command the eager audience. She tells them how the evening will go down; she explains their role in the show. They need to be excited, energetic and loud. Every time the studio comes back from commercial, everyone in the crowd needs to scream like this is the night of their life.

Two minutes before going live and Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” is blasting through the speakers. She pulls a random fan out of his chair and onto the stage; they dance, both smiling wide as the audience laughs. She dabs and he dabs. The crowd whoops and cheers, and she motions for him to take his seat once again. The show is about to begin. The music shuts off but the audience doesn’t need it anymore; they’re pumped and ready to demonstrate it at a moment’s notice.

She’s not a hype director — she’s a puppet master, controlling the entire studio with electric, warm energy. She starts talking and the audience listens; she says scream and the audience screams. She pulls one string, and then another.

Quietly, from the bank of screens and lights at the back of the room, a man says, “Three, two, one and go. It’s Domino’s, Domino’s, Domino’s, Domino’s…” as the commercials begin. The show starts with a video montage introducing the game. The audience is enraptured and silent, until the puppet master leaps out from behind the main screen and yells for them to scream. They do and she slinks back, out of view of the cameras. The studio goes live.

The puppet master appears at the end of the first few commercial breaks to cue the audience, but by the third one, she doesn’t even need to prompt them anymore. She fades into the background as the crowd responds according to their training, screaming and clapping whenever the show comes back on.

Fans celebrate a big play at the Overwatch Open (Image credit: Turner Sports)

The studio is rocked by waves of screaming jubilation and muted, shifting silence as the crew and the audience alternately watch the games play out and then wait for unseen ads to run their course. The players’ faces, captured by cameras hooked onto the top of their screens, hover above the crowd in two long strips, gazing down on their fans and detractors alike.

There’s no sound from the game in the studio; just the quick, precise chatter of the play-by-play announcers describing everything happening on the screen. But, the audience doesn’t seem to notice or care about the audio: During the matches, the energy is real. The crowd chants, “USA! USA! USA!” unprompted when EnVyUs make a big play and it’s difficult to not get wrapped up in the nationalistic glee.

Someone on EnVyUs selects the character McCree, a vigilante gunslinger, and the massive viewing screen follows him as he hunts down Misfits’ Winston, a gorilla scientist character. McCree unloads a rapid-fire round of bullets directly into Winston’s face, killing him, and the room explodes in cheers, a few hundred #Harambe supporters standing and raising their arms in pure, unironic victory.

It’s midnight by the time the match ends, but the roiling, pumping energy never leaves the crowd, even though the home team loses and Misfits, the European underdogs, leaves with the trophy. A pair of cannons blast out confetti and streamers and the lights go as wild as the audience.

And then the studio empties out, fans pouring into the hallway as they try to take pictures with their favorite players and shoutcasters. The brooms reappear. The puppet master disappears into a back room, leaving behind a trail of invisible, powerful energy that the studio will store for the next live show, dormant, buzzing and ready to be deployed.

3D print your own ‘Skylanders’ hero with the Creator app

With Disney Infinity on its way out, it’s down to Skylanders and Lego Dimensions to maintain the toys-to-life dream. Skylanders is the oldest of the two and this year, its new gimmick is the ability to create custom “Imaginator” heroes. Which sounds great, except there’s an obvious problem — the point of the franchise is to collect physical figurines too. How is that possible with player-created characters? Well, today Activision Blizzard has the answer: Creators, a mobile app which lets you order 3D-printed versions. They’ll be available in “limited quantities,” however, so you’ll need act fast if you want to immortalise your handiwork.

Each figure will cost $49.99 and come with both a base and a clear, protective dome. It’s fully compatible with the Imaginators game, meaning you can place it on the podium to summon your character digitally. If 50 bucks sounds like a bit much, you can always order a “high-quality, custom made” trading card instead. These will cost $14.99 and, like the figures, can be placed on a “Portal of Power” to unlock the character mid-game. Lastly, there’s the option of having your Imaginator on a t-shirt for $24.99.

Skylanders Imaginators is set to come out on October 16th. The new Creators app is out now, however, and includes the same customisation tools found in the console game. So if you want a head start prepping your own zany hero, you can grab your smartphone or tablet and get cracking right away. Over time, you’ll also gain access to “Sensei Chests” and “Timed Imaginite Chests,” which give you new limbs, heads and pieces of clothing to tinker with. Personally, I would rather play as cameo characters Crash Bandicoot and Dr. Neo Cortex — but maybe I’m just old-fashioned.

Source: Skylanders Creator

Fighting game’s ‘useless’ add-ons help its creators

Steam has a wide range of ways to support game developers, ranging from buying early releases through to countless add-ons. But it doesn’t have a way to pay developers out of sheer kindness. How are you supposed to donate short of visiting a website? Pehesse has a way: turn those donations into add-ons. The developer’s Honey Rose: Ultimate Fighter Extraordinaire is available for free, but includes eight DLC purchases that do absolutely nothing besides reward the team for its work. The creators of this brawler/visual novel hybrid are very explicit about their pay-what-you-like model, too — tier labels even offer suggestions, such as “symbolic,” “2016 standard” and “above and beyond.”

There’s no certainty that Valve will be completely fine with this approach. It’s easy to see less-than-scrupulous studios promising extras that never show up. However, Honey Rose does make a case for purchases that aren’t strictly tied to in-game content. Many developers (especially indies) don’t want to charge up front or restrict material to paying players — so long as they’re honest, why can’t they have a built-in tip jar?

Via: Kotaku

Source: Steam