Cada desarrolladora trata de llamar la atención con tal de que los jugadores cambien su reserva de la edición estándar por la coleccionista sin pensarlo un solo minuto. Ese es el caso de ‘Dead Island: Riptide’, que sorprendió a todos los jugadores con una edición en la que incluso la propia desarrolladora tuvo que pedir perdón a los usuarios por lo que contenía. El torso de una mujer en bikini de 31 centímetros de altura y con mordeduras zombis y otras heridas por la infección vista en el videojuego, puede ser uno de los mayores trofeos de un jugador para situar en su habitación. Imaginaros la cara de vuestra madre o novia al entrar por la puerta y ver semejante pieza pintada a mano encima encima de vuestra mesa. El torso femenino infecatado por el virus zombi venia incluida en un gigantesco pack con una caja metálica exclusiva y contenido descargable para disfrutar in-game. La edición todavía se puede encontrar sin videojuego en tiendas online. Ubisoft apostó un año más por las aventuras del agente Sam Fisher esta vez en un lanzamiento multiplataforma, y a pesar de que el juego regresaba a sus orígenes, las ventas no han apoyado la lista negra.

Entre las diferentes ediciones anunciadas para el lanzamiento de ‘Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist', en Estados Unidos los jugadores tenían la opción de reserva la edición Paladín, que incluye una copia de la novela gráfica ‘Splinter Cell: Echoes’, un poster, contenido descargable con nuevas misiones y la guinda del pastel, un avión Paladín a escala que cuenta con dos motores y tres canales para manejarlo vía radiocontrol.parrot ar drone falabella Espiar a tus familiares desde las alturas será coser y cantar con el avión que utiliza Sam Fisher en la última entrega de la franquicia para dirigirse a sus próximos objetivos. parrot ar drone downgrade170 dólares tienen la culpa.parrot ar drone erratic

En cada entrega anual que lanzan al mercado, Activision ha querido vestir en fascículos a los jugadores de auténticos soldados de guerra a través de las diferentes ediciones coleccionista que sacan con la franquicia ‘Call of Duty’. El debut de las grandes ediciones coleccionista dentro de la serie comenzó con el estupendo ‘Modern Warfare 2’, los fans de la saga bélica se quedaron perplejos al descubrir que dentro de la edición Prestige podían ver en la oscuridad gracias a las gafas de visión nocturna al estilo militar que también aparecían en el propio videojuego. parrot ar drone api c#Además del libro de arte y el típico contenido descargable, las gafas tenían su propio expositor y es nada más y nada menos que la cabeza de Sopas McTavish para apoyar nuestra nueva adquisición, todo un lujo.dslrpros - dji phantom aerial uav drone quadcopter for gopro

Treyarch y sus zombis acechaban con ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops’ y una nueva edición Prestige que dejaba en “ridículo” la versión coleccionista de ‘Modern Warfare 2’. Esta edición traía consigo un vehículo teledirigido equipado con micrófono y una cámara integrada para vigilar el entorno. get bat drone dcuoEl controlador para manejar el pequeño vehículo traía consigo una pequeña pantalla de TFT 220x176 de dos pulgadas que transmitía el vídeo de la cámara del RC. Este coche teleredigido aparece en el propio videojuego y se podía usar dentro del multijugador para activar una bomba y eliminar a los enemigos cerca del perímetro del RC. El regreso de la serie ‘Black Ops 2’ dio paso a otra edición coleccionista (‘Modern Warfare 3’ se quedó sin su propia Edición Prestige) que contaba con un paquete de ayuda con una réplica del MQ-27 Dragonfire Drone, un dron futurista que funciona bajo un control remoto y que tiene presencia dentro de las modalidades multijugador del título.

La última entrega de la serie, ‘Call of Duty: Ghosts’, no se iba quedar atrás y se atreve con su propia Edición Prestige de 199,99 € de precio final, el mismo que el resto de ediciones de la serie. Teniendo ya nuestro propio visor nocturno, el dron para espiar desde las alturas y el vehículo teledirigido para las zonas terrestres, Activision nos convierte en el perfecto soldado con una cámara táctica de alta definición (1080p) con tarjeta de memoria, batería recargable y accesorios de montaje. Ya tenemos el equipaje perfecto para armar nuestra propia guerra… en casa.The need for humans to participate in armed conflicts could soon be over. The next generation of military hardware might be able to think and act for itself. Military hardware will soon consist of “autonomous robots that know neither pity nor fear” – quite a step up from the current generation of UAVs and drones operated by humans from the safety of military bases hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away.

Ever since drones such as the Predator were prepared and armed for use in Iraq and Afghanistan in the early 2000s, stealth weapons have played a key role in the West’s “War on Terror”. It was a Predator drone that located Osama Bin Laden in 2011, and it was a Predator drone that launched the missile attack earlier this month that killed Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud. The drones have clocked more than 200,000 hours of flying time in Afghanistan since their inception. Drone operators work in a safe environment, sometimes in a completely different country to the one that the aircraft flies in. They make judgement calls based on the situation they see on the computer screen in front of them. The success of the programme has meant that the US Air Force is training more people to fly drones than it is conventional aircraft. The legal battle over whether drones such as the Predator and the Reaper contravene international law is still raging. The basis of the argument against their use is that actions viewed thousands of miles away on a computer screen can be misinterpreted and the response could have severe consequences.

That legal battle could get a whole lot tougher with the next generation. Future weapons will remove the human element from the equation completely; they will be able to engage targets by themselves, maximising destruction. They will represent the age-old saying: “Shoot first, ask questions later.” Of course, most next generation technology is carefully guarded and the plans are kept safely under lock and key, but you may have experienced the next generation of military hardware already. If you’ve played Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, you’ll be familiar with “futuristic” military technology such as Dragonfire quadrotors and the AGR, or Autonomous Ground Robot. That technology simply isn’t that far away. Take the Loadstar, for example. The Lodestar is a multiplayer killstreak that allows the player to control missiles fired from an aircraft flying above the map. The Lodestar will become a real piece of military equipment when the US Air Force commissions the X47-B for an active combat role.

The X47-B is currently in the demonstration and testing phase. It is an Unmanned Combat Air System capable of flying over targets without human control – think of it as similar to the creation depicted in the 2005 film Stealth. The parallels between the vitual and real world don’t stop there though. Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Future Soldier also featured future military technology. The live-action trailer for the game included something similar to Call of Duty’s AGR, capable of engaging targets without the need of human interaction of acknowldgement. It wouldn’t be a lengthy stretch of the imagination to realise the people that worked on Black Ops 2 probably looked at the images of the X47B available at the time. This technology is being developed and it will be able to make its own decisions. Organisations such as Samsung and G-NIUS have developed early versions of military vehicles and equipment that can operate on their own. Take G-NIUS, for example. Its website states it is “a leading Israeli unmanned ground systems company”.

They boast their technology can provide a solution to almost any defence situation, “whether it is 24/7, all-weather, all-terrain, homeland security missions you are interested in, or keeping your human assets out of harms way and revolutionising the way in which your combat support and force protection tasks are being currently accomplished… G-NIUS has the precise solutions you are after”. One of its latest creations is the Guardium Mk.1. Guardium is an armed robotic vehicle that employs “state-of-the-art technologies and various combinations of payloads”. It has been developed for deployment in closed perimeter sites such as airports, energy plants and borders. If you thought the G-NIUS was worrying, Samsung’s SGR-1 will probably give pacifists nightmares for the rest of their lives. SGR-1 is, essentially, a sentry gun created to monitor the hotly contested Korean demilitarised zone. Its sensors can detect a human face at a distance of two miles and is capable of firing a machine gun or grenade launcher without human operation.

The technology is also being used by Israel to monitor its borders. Imagine a world where robots dominate everything. There are some pretty good examples from the movie world – I, Robot, for one, springs to mind, although that is slightly different in the sense that the robots are used in the domestic sphere, rather than the military one. The principle is very similar though. If robots replace soldiers on the battlefield, war will descend into a game of chess where Generals will move their robotic pieces around the board without a care or concern for what actions are taking place. If Generals are just moving piece of metal around a war zone, is that not the final realisation of technological power? War will no longer be about defending a group of people or a nation, it will be about who has the biggest and best weapons. It won’t matter whether removing a dictator is a good or bad thing if his weapons are more advanced because other nations simply won’t be able to compete.

Imagine the international arms trade if robotic weapons entered the market. The demand for weapons that can control themselves will be huge. They would be a game-changer for nations that have been embroiled in lengthy civil wars or armed conflicts. Take the Taliban, for example. If they were able to source G-NIUS robots from Israel it would devastate Afghanistan completely, whether western powers were still present or not. While most military technology under development will be used in combat situations to kill enemies, some companies are working on ways to make war greener. Just last week the Pentagon was treated to a showcase of upcoming developments by a G-4 Operational Energy team. The team showcased a number of technologies including new engines for Black Hawk and Apache helicopters that could save fourteen million gallons of fuel each year. Also on display were solar-powered blankets and lighter, more efficient, batteries for existing technology. Both are designed to mean that soldiers carry less weight, although they could also be applied to the non-military world as part of relief efforts for humanitarian crises and natural disasters.