News Roundup: Halo Kinect, Blizzcon streaming, Be a Zombie and Rift

Newsy bits and bobs from our inbox today.

Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary: As was inevitable, Microsoft have finally announced the Kinect integration that’s going into the new Halo: CE. You can scan items by aiming at them and saying “scan”, use gesture controls to navigate your library of scanned items – vehicles, characters, enemies, weapons – and apparently summon magical pixies to reload your gun simply by saying “reload”. I won’t lie, as an interface geek I am curious to see how the Library navigation works but will it add any fun factor to Halo? Of course not.

Blizzcon: It’s Blizzcon time again. Yes, we know it’s in Anaheim and would therefore cost an absolute fortune to attend. That’s why Blizzard are offering £25 virtual tickets to watch the HD Blizzcon stream. You’ll also get a virtual Murkablo pet for your WoW avatar, streams of all the panels as well as the Foo Fighters closing concert.

Be In A Zombie Game: British developers Chaos Created are making some kind of transmedia Windows Mobile zombie game called Zombies Ate My City. No details on how it will work yet but they’re filming zombie action over here in London’s Docklands next Saturday, 22nd October. Do you like dressing up in zombie outfits? Come along and be in the shoot! Apply to be a zombie here.

We’d need you to come along already dressed as a zombie (ripped clothes, pale faces, crazy hair…) ready to take part in a few short videos from 11am – 2pm. We’ll give you a credit in the app too, just in case your friends and family don’t recognise you! We’ll also reward the best zombie-like outfit with 4200 Microsoft Points for you to spend on Zune or on Xbox Live and we may have a few other things to give away.

Rift: If you’ve been wavering about Rift, maybe now’s the time to buy it? They’ve announced a price drop to £5 for the next three days only – from now until 19th October. The catch is, you get bugger-all game time with it. In other words, you’re basically paying for the privilege of downloading the client and maybe creating a character. To actually play the game it’ll cost you £13.99.