Last week we had a peek at the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 (http://www.gadgetaddiction.com/gaming/mobility-radeon/) so it’s only fitting that this week that the spotlight shifts to Nvidia. Yesterday the GeForce GTX 260 and GTX 280 debuted, kicking-off a new, next-gen line of GPUs. The specs themselves are quite stellar, so make sure that if you’re a technophile without cash to spare that you stop reading here, because rest assured, power has its price.

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This week at Computex, the annual computer expo held in Taipei, Taiwan, all sorts of neat products are on display and some seeing the (public) light of day for the first time. Among those first-timers is the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800, a rebuttal to the recently announced Nvidia GeForce 9M series of laptop GPUs. The Mobility series of graphics chips is ATI’s line of laptop-specific hardware. This latest iteration, as claimed by ATI, is “tripling top-of-the line graphics performance in comparison to the previous generation ATI Mobility Radeon.”

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If you're a gamer and a Gadget Addict you may have been depressed that the hugely successful game Guitar Hero has yet to be made available for your favorite handheld, whether it's the PSP, Nintendo DS or... uh, the PSP or the Nintendo DS. In fact, it's likely that you never even thought that a handheld version of GH was possible. Well, Activision and the Nintendo DS will prove that theory wrong come June of this year when Guitar Hero: On Tour comes out for the DS.

Why does Nintendo's handy game-device get picked while Sony's infinitely lickable PlayStation Portable is left Guitar-Heroically-challenged? Well, the DS has a (not all that) secret weapon in this battle--the GBA slot (or Slot-2, as it is sometimes called). Into that slot goes a new peripheral Activision is calling "Guitar Grip." The thing is literally a handle that allows you to hold the DS like it's the neck of a guitar. Pretty rockin', huh?

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I mentioned earlier that during my initial encounter with Grand Theft Auto IV my relatively young Xbox died after merely an hour of gaming. Since then I’ve dealt with severe ineptitude with Xbox customer support, including a week and a half delay on an empty box that is merely a two hour drive from my house (for those in southern Ontario, the distribution/repair centre is in Toronto). Despite being covered by warranty, the entire process, needless to say, is a large pain in the ass. And this is my second time in only 10 months. With that figure in mind I decided that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and sunk some time into researching methods of avoiding the dreaded Red Ring of Death.

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Normally, outside of the iPhone and iPod Touch, I won’t delve into video games here on GA simply because that’s a whole different field than what we cover here. However, that being said, this game is so acclaimed, so hyped, so over-the-top media-frenzy can’t-turn-on-even-the-AM-stations-without-hearing-about-it that if I failed to write it up than I wouldn’t be doing my duty.

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So you’re sitting on the subway, making the long daily commute to work, thinking to yourself that you really should be putting this time to good use. A newspaper next to you displays the day’s crosswords and sudoku puzzles, but you don’t even have a pen. Then you remember your iPhone tucked neatly into your pocket. You bust it out and low-and-behold your savior: TextTwist.

Yes, the addictive word game is now available for the iPhone and iPod Touch. For those of you unfamiliar with the word puzzler, TextTwist presents you with 6 letters in random order which can be rearranged to form words (only those with three letters and up count). In this version of the game, when the letters are presented, there is also a list of blanks at the top of the screen (the game itself runs in landscape mode). Each blank represents a possible word, so you can track how close you are to finding all the combinations within the 2 minute time limit. The last blank in all the lists represents the ‘big one’; a word formed out of all six letters.

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October 18th, 1985 it hit the streets in North America and ever since millions of gamers and technophiles alike have found a place in their hearts for the 8-bit video game console known as the Nintendo Entertainment System. It’s sold over 60 million consoles world wide and launched the careers of two Italian plumbers, destined for stardom. What does that have to do with today’s cutting edge technology? Well, nostalgia has programmers revitalizing the antiquated system on one of the most advanced gadgets to date: the iPhone/iPod Touch.

The NES emulator functions by simulating the graphics and controls of the original system. It is capable of reading ‘rom’ files, which contain the data of a videogame. Simply put; the emulator simulates all that cumbersome hardware on your little iPhone. The developer has crafted a replication of the controls as they would appear on the original NES controller. So you have your D-pad, Start, Select, and A and B buttons. All of the buttons are located on the lower portion of the screen and respond via touch. The NES app also makes use of the accelerometer by tracking portrait verses landscape positioning and adjusting the screen in accordance. This means that if you hold the iPhone sideways the screen and controls will reorient themselves to compensate.

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Many of us have heard of the Dance Dance Revolution series of arcade games in which you jump about, wildly moving your feet to the beat of the music. The series went on to the console market allowing you to Dance Dance away in your living. And in many respects the instrumental-themed consoles games that have developed over the past few years (Guitar Hero, Rock Band) share the same game mechanics. What they all boil down to is hitting the right trigger at the right time, be that a footpad, a footpedal, or a fretbutton. Another quality they share is that they are all ridiculously addictive to play. And so it is with Tap Tap Revolution, the iPhone/iPod Touch game in which you match the beat of the song by touching the on-screen notes.

Tap Tap Revolution works like this; on-screen are three vertical bars. Along any one of these bars any number of beats flow downwards, depending on the song. Your task is to tap each beat as it passes over the final section at the bottom of the screen. Sounds easy, right? Hardly. Some of the more advanced songs have you frantically tapping about, forcing you to rethink your strategy. On top of that, there are different degrees of accuracy, each eliciting an on-screen remark, ranging from ‘You suck’ to ‘Sweet.’ The game tracks your score based on your accuracy and missed beats subtract from your overall score. Although you can note your score at the end of the song, there is no highscore feature which would be a nice addition.

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While the music videogame genre is relatively young, it has been dominated by one brand and one instrument: Guitar Hero. Though widely popular and still a phenomenal financial success, the series, now in its third iteration, runs the risk of becoming derivative (Essentially, the only thing that’s evolved is the track list). So, when Electronic Arts announced that it was entering the market with their own instrument-themed game called Rock Band, many were enticed by the notion of multiple instruments. The game supports four instruments in total; guitar, bass, drums, and vocals. Each instrument takes some getting used to but for those guitar heroes out there, the guitar controls are a facsimile of the ‘other game.’ However, once you’ve got your friends together and up to speed, Rock Band truly shines not simply as a videogame, but as a new, dynamic, means of interacting. It’s just plain cool to rock out with your friends!

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Did you ever have one of those wooden contraptions where you guided a little marble through a maze, avoiding pitfalls, until you reached the goal? Or maybe you have no idea what I’m talking about. Regardless, Labyrinth for your iPhone and iPod Touch is here. Utilizing the devices tilt sensing technology, you control the pitch of the ‘board’ by holding the Touch parallel to the ground. By adjusting how level the device is you are in fact directing a little metal ball that rolls towards the lowest point. Once you get the hang of it you can start working your way through the levels that consist of navigating through a series of channels, riddled with pitfalls that send you back to the start.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, sounds kind of bland, right? Well, the iPhone is capable of discerning very minute shifts in tilt, couple this with an excellent physics system that has the ball bouncing off every surface realistically and you have a game that behaves with such incredible realism that just experimenting with it is great fun.

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