Home : Hardware : Articles : Top Hardware of 2006 Awards
The Shiznittlebamsnipsnapsnoop of the past year.
The holidays are here! The holidays are here! And we all know what that means...Loot. Tons and tons of loot. The begging question then becomes: What loot is the best loot to ask for.
To put it mildly, 2006 was a veritable cornucopia of wondrous gaming goodies. From new systems to new products for semi-new systems to products that aren’t for any system in particular (but are still pretty cool), there has been plenty to choose from.
So how do you go about separating the gold from the garbage, the jewels from the junk, the awesome from the “Aw, mannnnnn?” We at Gameworld Network have taken it upon ourselves to help, with our all new, hot off the e-presses Top Hardware of 2006 Awards!
We have put our considerable knowledge to the test to find the best of the best (like Tom Cruise in Top Gun) hardware so that you don’t have to. So if you were wondering what to ask for for Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanzaa/The Winter Solstice, or whatever holiday you celebrate that involves the giving or receiving of loot, wonder no longer my friend!
5) NaturalPoint TrackIR 4:PRO (PC)
RRP: $179.95
For simmers, the greatest goal is to eek every possible bit of realism out of the games that they hold so dear. What the TrackIR does is follow the motion of the player’s head, and reflect it on screen. With 120 fps tracking and a 46 degree field of view, accuracy is assured, and immersion is taken to a whole ‘nother level. While the applications for this hardware are fairly limited, and the price is not exactly cheap, we at Gameworld felt that it was just too cool to not include in our list.
4) Atari Flashback 2.0
RRP: $29.99
If you are as old as I am (which I seriously doubt) you can harken back to a time before per-pixel-shading, bump mapping, dynamic AI… hell even “polygons” only garnered mention in geometry class. It was a simpler time. Way, WAY simpler. Back then, the be-all end-all of home gaming was the Atari 2600. The blazing fast 1.19 MHZ processor allowed the 2600 to display a whopping 4 colors on screen…AT THE SAME TIME! Well, now you can bask in the glory of yesteryear with the Atari Flashback 2.0, loaded with 40 classic games including Pong, Asteroids, Centipede, Millipede, Lunar Lander, Missile Command, Combat, among others, as well as retro game and arcade classics that have never before been released for the home console. This little beauty should be on any retro-gamer’s gift list.
Send this article to a friend.
