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Have you felt the sting of Sunday afternoon envy watching F1 drivers frolic in their hydraulic simulators like giddy children on priceless corporate bucking bronco rides? ‘I could probably go quicker than that’ you whisper through gritted teeth, ‘if only my dad had spent all his money on karting licences instead of bourgeois nonsense like mortgages and food’.

But until Red Bull Racing spot you executing perfect doughnuts in Homebase car park and decide to offer you a racing contract, the closest you’ll get to the pro race driver life is getting a decent force feedback steering wheel and loading up an unforgiving racing sim.

Logitech’s Driving Force GT is such a wheel. Decent. It’ll work on PC or PS3, and the Gran Turismo logo on the front hints it’s better suited to the latter, where expectations are lower.

Right enough, there’s convincing force feedback, but compared to the superlative G27 in Logitech’s arsenal it hardly compares. Gear shifting is the Driving Force GT’s real bogey, though. Lacking paddles, the wheel-mounted buttons feel stiff and unsatisfying and the flimsy stick offers little relief.

It’s capable then, but at £100 it’s not worth the money and dangerously close to the greatly superior G25, also in the Logitech camp. Consider only if you want cross-platform driving.

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We’ve gone through many of the best modified uses of Kinect in the past. Cool as many of them may be, holding a stick so it shows up on-screen as a lightsaber isn’t the most practical use of this technology. A professor at the University of Minnesota has found a new potential use for Kinect that Microsoft may not have ever imagined, and it’s one “that could change medicine.”

After laughing at the prospect of purchasing a Kinect for research, in so doing, Professor Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos has saved researchers more than $100,000, The Minnesota Daily reports. Several Kinect devices are being used as a video monitoring system to keep an eye on children playing with toys as part of a collaboration to diagnose mental disorders such as OCD and ADD. Data from the cameras is tweaked and then given to doctors.

“As a doctor, you don’t have tangible data,” Papanikolopoulos explained. “We try to provide the tools in order to back up claims of a mental disorder.”

He suggests the possibility that this data could eventually be used to help make diagnoses. They would be able to do this, keep in mind, with Kinect. “Is a $100,000 system being outsmarted by a $150 toy?” he asked. “Indeed this is the case.” He also referred to its usage as a “tremendous step forwards.”

The process is still being worked out. Once it’s complete, the Institute of Child Development will take over and try putting it into practice.

“Something we can do three years down the line, we can do it today because of technology that was destined for the gaming industry,” he said. “I don’t think Microsoft has realized that [Kinect] is something that could change medicine.”

So, sorry, weird-Japanese-first-person-virtual-gaming-hack, but you’re no longer the most impressive modified Kinect use in town.

Despite numerous claims to the contrary, it’s not true that PC gaming is dead. But Microsoft’s support of the platform has largely been dead for many years now; other than the Games for Windows Live initiative (which many would say pales in comparison to Valve’s offering with Steam), Microsoft hasn’t done much in the space of PC games — although, to its credit, it did announce that Age of Empires Online (pictured above), Microsoft Flight, and Fable III would be coming to the platform.
Now a source has told TechRadar (via CVG) that “Windows 8 will represent a real new push into PC gaming” for Microsoft. The source also claimed, “Gaming will be a key component for the whole OS.”

While that certainly sounds nice, we’ve heard things like this before; gaming was supposed to be much more central to Windows with the launch of Vista, and that never really quite worked out. We’ve also not seen PC versions of several big name games from Microsoft including Gears of War 2 and every Halo game released after Halo 2 — including Halo Wars, which seemed like an absolute no-brainer as an RTS game developed by Age of Empires developer Ensemble Studios.

It’ll be a difficult task to become a prominent player in the PC space with competitors like Steam, which has arguably become the de facto Xbox Live-style service for a large segment of the PC gaming audience. There’s also an increasingly large group of people gaming on Macs, and there are those who might not upgrade their operating system if they’re content with Windows 7 or whatever they’re currently using, which would limit the number of people that any gaming-centric features in Windows 8 could be exposed to.

Microsoft will have an uphill battle to climb in order to make a significant impact in the PC gaming space. If the source is correct and that’s something being planned for Windows 8 — which wouldn’t come as a complete surprise, as Microsoft has at least spoken about supporting PC gaming more — we should begin to hear about it over the next few years.

Konami has announced two new DLC chapters for the Xbox Live Arcade title Castlevania Harmony of Despair to be released in January according to the official Japanese site. Both stages are priced at 320 Microsoft points ($4 USD).

One of the stages (seen above, left) will be called “Do as many, become one” and will be based on the Catacombs area of Castlevania Symphony of the Night. As the name suggests, the boss will be the popular recurring foe Legion (a.k.a. Granfaloon, seen above, right), a massive sphere of corpses.

The other DLC stage has no image available, but the title is “King of the Flies.” This could refer to Beelzebub, another boss character from Symphony of the Night who was surrounded by giant, poisonous flies. More information on that stage is, according to Konami, “comming soon” [sic].

Xbox 360 revenues have risen 33 percent since this time last year, hitting $1.2 billion in the first quarter, Microsoft announced today. Halo Reach represents a significant portion of the proceeds, raking in $350 million on its own (via Gamasutra).

The Xbox 360 helped the company’s Entertainment and Devices Division generate a $382 million profit the quarter, which represents a 46 percent increase from last year. The console was also cited as one of the key reasons Microsoft saw its revenue increase to $16.20 billion.

Microsoft expects further increases going forward, projecting a total year revenue increase of 20 percent and 30 percent year-over-year growth. Major releases will include Kinect and Windows Phone 7.

Kinect will be out next week.

Microsoft has announce that Age of Empires Online, their upcoming persistent online PC strategy game, has entered the closed beta phase.

You can head over to the game’s official website to sign up for the beta. While there, you’ll also find the PC system requirements to play the game, along with a brief description of what to expect from it. Unlike the previous Age of Empires titles, Age of Empires Online is going for a more “approachable” (read: mainstream) style, with players taking control of their own “constantly evolving empire” in a persistent online game world.

As for signing up for the beta, only a few restrictions apply: You have to be at least 18 years old, you need an Xbox Live gamertag (a free Silver account will due), and it’s only available in North America and European regions. Also keep in mind that since this is a closed beta, there’s no guarantee you’ll get in — if you’re interested, you just have to throw your name in the hat and hope it gets plucked out.

We know Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Phone 7 will have access to Xbox Live, but it looks like their connectivity ambitions between the Xbox 360 and Phone 7 are even loftier than that, including not just turn-based gameplay but eventually real-time multiplayer between Phone 7 games and Xbox 360 games as well.

“So initially we’re turn by turn-based,” said a Microsoft representative to rgbFilter during the recent X10 event in Toronto (via Joystiq). “We are working on real-time phone-to-console, likely initially through Wi-Fi — again, operator networks are sensitive to that. That’s not on day one; day one will be turn-by-turn as well as companion-type gaming where you play a level on the phone and it may unlock a level or a weapon or some special achievement on the console game.

“But, uh yeah — absolutely working on phone-to-console real-time. That is something we’re working on and expect to have in the near future,” the rep concluded. He also confirmed they’re working on multiplayer connectivity between the PC and Phone 7 as well, referencing — believe it or not — 2007’s Shadowrun as an example (which itself was noteworthy in its time for offering cross-multiplayer between the PC and 360).

The rep didn’t get into much detail about how exactly real-time 360-to-Phone 7 multiplayer would work, what kind of games to expect it in, or when it’ll even be ready, so there’s still much to be revealed. Windows Phone 7 is planned for release in October.

Software pirates may want to reconsider downloading that leaked copy of Halo Reach in advance of the game’s September 14 release date. Microsoft is issuing permanent Xbox Live bans for anyone it catches playing unauthorized versions of Reach.

Xbox Live’s director of policy and enforcement Stephen Toulouse commented on his Twitter (via Joystiq), “As with all unauthorized play on Xbox LIVE, anyone playing any unauthorized title runs the risk of account permaban and console,” adding, “Legit store bought copy runs no risk of ban. Key word: UNAUTHORIZED. We have ways of knowing.”

Don’t want your console permanently exiled from Xbox Live? Then don’t pirate games, dummy. And have a little patience; September ain’t that far away.

Halo fans will soon be able to remotely pay tribute to Halo Reach’s Noble Team with the help of a giant robot arm starting next week (via Wired)

Microsoft is launching the Remember Reach site next week, which allow users to view a monument of light honoring Reach’s Spartans. In the game, Noble Team goes missing shortly after the fall of one of humanity’s last colonies.

Fans will be able to help construct the monument by logging onto Facebook, picking a point of light and watching as the robot plots it on an image. The robot is a Kuka KR 140, which is also used to assemble automobiles.

There will be 54,000 points of light to choose from, but they will slowly fade so that new visitors can replot them. Remember Reach goes live next week, and the game will be out September 14.

Burger King is planning a triumphant return to video games later this year, in partnership with Microsoft and the new Kinect device. Kotaku reports that Mike Kappit, chief marketing officer for the fast food chain, commented on the company’s plans. “Our first endeavor with Xbox 360 took the gaming world by storm, so we couldn’t pass up the chance to come together on another cutting-edge program,” he said. He promises this year’s promotion will “stimulate the imaginations of gamers and entertainment-lovers of all shapes and sizes.”

The games offered by the King years ago were actually a success, selling fast thanks to low prices. Big Bumpin, Pocket Bike Racer, and Sneak King may not have been critical smashes, but as XBLA-style mini-games complete with Achievements, they inspired more than a few burger-loving gamers to pick them up.

No word yet on what kinds of games Burger King would develop this time, but we’re hoping for a proper sequel to Sneak King. For too long, the burger-stalking genre has gone without innovation or reform, and the time to correct that is now.