Sure, there's a bit of scattered video game representation at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, but it's really all about gadgets. Our own Nick Breckon took a break from testing amazing chairs and hunting down game coverage to focus on testing out a whole bunch of wacky, impractical technology.

Among the products previewed are the touch-sensitive Microsoft Surface, VR-esque Vuzix iWear glasses, well-endowed The Shaft controller for Wii, wireless power (!), brain-controlled robots (!!), and a $25,000 home theater case. Check it all out.

This model was designed specifically for PC games, and features some pretty spiffy head tracking technology. What this means is that, in a game like Flight Simulator, you don't have to use a mouse to look around--you can simply turn your head to the left in order to look out the window of a plane.

Which is exactly what I was doing the second I put on the glasses. The view is the same as the AV920-C, but the head tracking makes it. You have a full 360 degrees of movement to work with, so turning fully around gives you a view of the back of your seat. Read more...

Chair connoisseur Nick Breckon has had some exciting adventures during this year's Consumer Electronic Show, but none quite as exhilarating as his exploration of the conference's various innovations in seat technology.

Awards include achievement in overall utility, achievement in plastics, worst bargain, achievement in whiteness, and more. But what device swept Nick off his feet and came away with the coveted CES chair of the year title? Click through to find out.

While braving the crowds and adult film stars of this year's Consumer Electronics Show, intrepid reporter Nick Breckon attended a demonstration of Media Molecule's PlayStation 3 cooperative platformer LittleBigPlanet. The prognosis? Looking good.

For my part, no matter how many times I see this game, I can't help but smile.

Senior Sony producer Pete Smith was having fun too. "If we're not together we're all gonna die," he exclaimed as the four participating Sackmen faced a particularly challenging pit of lava. Before he had even finished speaking, half the group was quickly left behind. "Waiittt!"

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A resolution of 2880x900. Dimensions equivalent to two 24" widescreen monitors standing end-to-end. DLP rear projection on a curved screen, with OLED illumination. An insignificant .02ms response time.

Alienware's new curved monitor caused quite a stir when it was revealed here at CES. It seemed like the natural evolution of monitor technology had finally arrived. After all, the human eye is curved, so why shouldn't our monitors curve too? What a great idea.

So is it that great? Well, it's as quick as advertised, and as curved. Not that any of that means much right now, because this monitor has major problems.

Pulling up to the beast, the Crysis demo loaded and ready to go, I was... Read more

Providing a simple side-step to players exhausted by the bickerin' and lawyerin' between Harmonix and Activision, Nyko has unveiled its Front Man guitar peripheral, functional with both Rock Band and Guitar Hero III on the PS3.

PS3 Front Man adopters will be able to swap Rock Band and GHIII compatibility with the flick of a switch on an included dongle—not as simple as an out-of-the-box solution, but it gets the job done. The Front Man will net 80 hours of wireless play on two AA batteries and will be functionally identical to first-party guitar peripherals.

Due out for the Wii, 360 and the PS3 in March, the Front Man will be available at a $50 price-point. Activision and Harmonix both plan to release standalone peripherals in early 2008, but haven't yet revealed any specifics. Last week, Mad Catz announced that the company had acquired a license to produce Rock Band instruments.

I have finally managed to shove off the crushing burden of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, leaving our intrepid reporter Nick Breckon to shoulder that considerable weight. In addition to his general show impressions, he checked out Gas Powered Games' upcoming PC action RPG Space Siege and spoke with lead designer Daniel Achterman.

Space Siege will be an accessible game, he said. It's kinda like watching a movie, he said. It will be a simple game. It will be a scripted game. Comparisons were made to Hellgate.

This isn't going to fly with my readership, I thought. Not in a million light years.

But then, maybe it will. Achtherman explained that the idea with Space Siege is to create a very focused 12-hour action RPG. As we talked, games like Portal and Half-Life and BioShock kept coming up, great games that largely offer a very specific, scripted experience, and do so within a budget of less than 20 hours. Read more...

Exploring CES is a lot like fishing. You spend a lot of time waiting. The food is bad. Most of what you catch is boring.

Robotic vacuum cleaners. 3D goggle gimmicks. Expensive stereos ruined by impossible acoustics. More TVs than you would ever care to look at in one day. Yes, CES has all this junk and more, ready and waiting for you to toss back into the over-saturated pond of electronic spawn.

That being said, what follows below is the result of my first catch. It's a smattering of games, gadgets, and some truly useless, expensive machinery. Enjoy!

RIP HD DVD
There it stood above the South Hall, like a towering mausoleum. Draped in black, the mourning had already begun.

After the announcement that Warner Bros. had turned coat and shifted to Blu-ray exclusivity, the HD DVD camp simply canceled their pre-CES press event. They had been suddenly trumped, and a format contest that seemed destined to become a war of attrition now seems over after a single, powerful shot.

Exhibitors remained defiant, touting the advantage of HD DVD, because... Read more

Eidos sure likes its buddy shooters. You've fallen for Kane & Lynch--now meet Walsh and Laing, a pair of lovable CIA operatives who also shoot guys.

Developer Pivotal Games is changing up the Conflict formula this time, aiming for the increasingly popular co-op shooter genre. On the outside, Denied Ops is a standard first person shooter, full of machine guns and rockets and blood. You move from objective to objective, occasionally climbing ladders, or clearing rooms. It's nothing you haven't seen before in other games.

However, from what I could tell, Conflict: Denied Ops has three things ... Read more

It doesn't seem like very long ago that the use of the PSP was limited to a handful of decent games and You Got Served on UMD video—suddenly, it's 2008 and there's actually a great deal of use to be squeezed out of Sony's little handheld that could, including a bevy of new features unveiled at this year's CES.

Today, Sony officially confirmed to Gamasutra that certain Blu-ray movies will allow the uploading of a version of the content to the PSP at no additional cost. Also revealed were plans to deliver other additional content from supported discs, including mobile ringtones and games, through the coming year.

Additionally, the PSP camera and GPS receiver peripherals—already available in Japan and Europe—have been officially dated for a North American release in that vague, "around the end of the year" sort of way. Sony representatives could not offer a more specific time.

PSP owners who fall into fits of hysteria and violence at the thought... Read more

Amidst an already busy CES, Microsoft also announced nine new titles set for Games for Windows branding, to be released in 2008.

• Alone in the Dark, Eden Studio (PC, PS3, X360)
• Bionic Commando, GRIN/Capcom (PC, PS3, X360)
• Conflict: Denied Ops, Pivotal Games (PC, PS3, X360)
• Empire: Total War, Creative Assembly (PC)
• LEGO Indiana Jones, Traveller's Tales (TBD)
• Microsoft Train Simulator 2, Microsoft Game Studios (PC)
• Sins of a Solar Empire, Ironclad Games (PC)
• Space Siege, Gas Powered Games (PC)
• Tomb Raider: Underworld, Crystal Dynamics (PC, PS3, X360)

Microsoft did not disclose whether any of these titles will support Live for Windows, cross-platform play or achievements. This newest roundup of games will join an existing roster of anticipated releases in 2008, including Gearbox Software's Borderlands (PC, PS3, X360) and Fallout 3 (PC, PS3, X360) from Bethesda Game Studios.

In his last keynote speech at CES, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and his supporting cast had a lot to speak about on Sunday night at the International Consumer Electronics Show--and some of it was related to games.

Playing up high definition displays and connected entertainment, Gates spoke of wide-ranging changes to the industry, before bringing on Microsoft president of entertainment devices Robbie Bach to make a few Xbox 360-related announcements.

"ABC and Disney will be bringing their TV shows to Xbox Live this month. Top rated shows like Lost, Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, and others," said Bach, who also noted that MGM will be added to the growing list of movie studios supporting the service.

"Windows is far and away the largest gaming platform in the world, and continues to grow," remarked Bach, before similarly lauding the Xbox 360's success. "We have passed the ten million member mark for Xbox Live. That's six months faster than we expected to get to that number."

Other than a mention of British Telecom partnering with Microsoft to use Xbox 360s as IPTV set-top boxes, the conference was largely dominated by a look at future technology and portable devices.

Gates introduced the Microsoft Surface, a sort of giant iPhone table... Read more