For you game lovers out there, you’ll be happy to hear that today’s Beta release includes the Pointer Lock JavaScript API(a.k.a. mouse lock). This means 3D web apps and games like first-person shooters can remove your cursor from the screen and get access to raw mouse movement data, so you can pan the screen’s view to your heart’s content. You can play with this nifty WebGL Quake 3 map viewer to see it in action. Have fun!

In my mind, summer always means more free time. And more free time is the perfect opportunity to play some of the latest Chrome Web Store games.

I’m really excited to play From Dust, an award winning strategy adventure in which you control nature to help your tribe survive. The newly released Cut the Rope is also at the top of my list. This addictive physics game requires precise planning and timing to successfully feed candy to a little green monster called Om Nom.

Another game I’m hooked on is Fairway Solitaire, a mix of golf and solitaire played against a pesky gopher. Other cool new titles include Go Home Dinosaurs, Command and Conquer, and many, many more. And if I’m traveling for the summer and don’t have Wi-Fi, I can always enjoy of my favorite offline games, such as Angry Birds, Ookicookie and Solitaire.

To get these and other games, just visit the Chrome Web Store. For those of you who don’t have Chrome, you can download it here with 17 of our favorite games pre-installed.

In an effort to “boost” employees productivity around the globe, a group of programmers have decided to port a popular Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator (MAME) into Google Chrome and thanks to that, you can now play pretty much all the classics directly from your web browser.

While you might encounter some compatibility issues with few games, the majority of them should work fine and if you need any ideas, just head over to the MAME’s web site for some nostalgic moments.

In case you are not keen on testing them, Google Chrome Store already includes the ones that are compatible, for example: Robby Roto.

Every year, lots of people have fun tracking Santa as he takes flight around the world to deliver gifts. This year, Santa is getting some help from the Chrome Web Store elves who have already started delivering the gifts of gaming to more than 200 million Chrome users.

The first gift of the season is Bejeweled. Bejeweled is one of the most successful online games of all time; the brand new Chrome edition features Classic and Speed modes and flaunts impressive new visual effects created with HTML5.

For those of you who love action games, we have another special gift: Bastion, the award winning role-playing game (RPG) is now available exclusively in the Chrome Web Store. Featuring stunning hand-painted artwork and action-packed combat, Bastion has already destroyed the productivity in our office.

Bastion is part of a set of new games coming to the web for the first time, thanks to Native Client - a new technology that enables console-quality games on the web. You can check out Sleepy Jack, Pocket Legends, and more of these new and upcoming games in the video below.

Finally, several other Chrome Web Store favorites have holiday updates of their own. Angry Birds features many new holiday-themed levels and Cargo Bridge has released a special Christmas level edition.

Discover these and thousands of other games in the Chrome Web Store.

With the growing popularity of HTML5 games and applications, it looks like Google has a vision of its own.

According to the EDGE, during the Develop Liverpool conference in London, Google’s developer Paul Kinlan has announced that Google Chrome will receive gamepad support tin the first quarter of 2012. In addition to that, it will feature a support for cameras and microphones that don’t have to be plugged in.

While not many details were revealed, it is known that the search giant is already working on the next instance of its Google TV service, with the hardware set to debut sometime next year.

Why add gamepad support anyway? If our speculation stands correct (and only time will tell), we guess that Google Chrome will be an essential part of Google TV, offering its users an ability to play HTML5 games on their TV with a gamepad attached. Think about it as Google’s version of a gaming console.

First person shooters are next.

If you are using the Dev Channel builds of Google Chrome 10, prepare for a nice surprise. According to Google OS blog post, it now comes with two HTML5 games pre-installed: Poppit and Entanglement.

As of today, it will install games without your permission. However, manual removal is possible.

Okay, so we're not quite at the point where you're going to be playing the next Crysis sequel in your browser, but still -- the arrival of WebGL in Chrome's beta channel is kind of a big deal. Apart from being able to play around with cool demos like the ones offered up by Google in its official announcement, WebGL is another important step in bringing more desktop-like functionality to the Web.

In addition to cloud-y 3D support, hardware acceleration support is due to arrive at some point -- presumably before Chrome 9 gets pushed to the stable channel. Whether or not that will happen remains to be seen, but we'll know soon enough thanks to the six-week release cycle.

Check your Chrome wrench icon for the update notification, or hit About Google Chrome to force a check.

Anyone else up for some WebGL Quake action?

Filed under: Games, Linux

Valve is all too familiar with gaming folks out there. They are the guys behind the awesome STEAM online gaming platform. They were in a bit of controversy recently when they denied all reports of a Linux version of their famous online gaming platform. But once again, Valve is in the news.

The "employment opportunities" section in their website is the new source of all the hype. The responsibilities of the desired candidate for the post of Senior Software Engineer include "Port Windows-based games to the Linux platform".

What could it all mean! Mystery and Guesswork abound.

Following in the fine tradition of band tie ins, Rock Band Green Day is shaping up to be a Green Day fan’s dream, even if it is a bit of a niche. The demo has appeared on Xbox Life Marketplace and PlayStation Network, with a little teaser when you exited the demo. The teaser image above show the normal instrument icons, but with one addition.

In case you’re not too hot on musical instruments, the final circle is a keyboard, which could mean that for Rock Band 3 (what seems to be advertised by the image) some sort of musical keyboard device, thingy, will be added to the line up. I haven’t got a clue how the heck you make a keyboard for a rhythm game, as at that point, you’re heading into the area of being far too musical, and not enough game.

I'm still up for a new Spyro the Dragon game by these guys

Insomniac Games, developer of the Ratchet and Clank and Resistance series’ have announced on their official blog that they have made a deal with EA Partners to make a new franchise for both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

Writing on the blog, Ted Price thanked fans of the games for supporting the company for 16 years and then goes into explaining the basic details of partnership.

Today, we’re excited to announce that we have created a brand new universe and franchise for you to experience in the coming years. As we develop it, one of our goals is to provide an awesome experience for as many players as possible. With that in mind, we’re working with EA Partners to bring this title to both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

Yes, this was a little sneaky, but they asked very direct questions comparing it to Xbox Live Gold

I suppose it’s time to come clean. Quite a while ago, I was invited to take part in a survey for Sony with gauged how willing I would be to pay for additional PlayStation Network features. I took a screenshot of the survey, and may well receive a letter telling me to take it away, but welcome to the internet.

In either case, it looks like there is definitely going to be a move to some sort of paid service, as prompted by a question put to Andrew House, President of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe on the official blog. When asked, “Will PlayStation Network become a paying service?”, he replied;

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

Hey, you remember that announcement of Sonic 4 that seemed to spell the end for the 3D Sonics that have plagued the past few generations. Well forget it. Sega have announced on their blog and a through a press release Sonic Colours, which appears to be taking place in a futuristic Sci-Fi theme park, as you attempt to save wisps from, surprisingly, Dr. Eggman.

These Wisps give Sonic extra powers. No, I’m not sure what this game is going to consist of, with the announcement trailer above being only 20 seconds of computer generated images, but I’m going to guess at it being a platformer.

The only other thing we know is that Sonic Colours will be coming to Wii and DS later this year. And that my americanised spell check is freaking out over me spelling colours with a u. Good work Sega, good work.

As a helpful Bit-tech.net user shows us, Half Life 2 is now, most certainly, on Mac

I’m back, after a bit of a short break, and, typically, a lot of news kicked off when I was away, so I’ll do my best sum up some of the stories that have caught my eye and other people’s eyes. Thankfully, my eyes are still intact.

First of all, Steam for Mac got a game update yesterday, and whilst it was a little thin on the ground, some of the additions will please Mac owners so much they fly out of their turtle neck jumpers. Half Life 2 is now available on Mac, as well as episode one and two. Whilst this is cool news in itself is that rather than just releasing the games as port jobs, they have done some work on making the Half Life experience even better.

Nope, not much yet, 'cept these dudes look angry and cold.

As what usually happens we report up to the minute news on our Ignition Podcast, we are instantly out of date as soon as we go live. Guerrilla Games recently had a press conference in their home town of Amsterdam and James Gallagher, a Content Produced at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, posted on the Official Playstation Blog about his trip and his experience.

Whilst Gallagher was obviously full of praise for the game, the screen shots that he brought back with him does show the Arctic levels that the GamePro magazine was talking about, as well as talking about the jetpacks and the worsening situation for the ISA.

This week we decide not to enjoy the sunshine, but to sit indoors and talk games, movies and tech. On the topic list we have: Red Dead Redemption; Google IO; MUBI coming to PS3; A NES, SNES and Megadrive console; speculation on Apple’s WWDC 2010; a whole heap of infomation on upcoming video games and much more.

Duration: 72 minutes

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