I am an avid PC gamer and one of my all time favorite PC games was the original Max Payne. The shooter had an original story, great graphics, and some very innovative game play with its Bullet Time feature. The game was so popular it spawned a feature film recently that honestly sucked, not Marky Mark’s finest work.

Rockstar has announced that Max Payne 3 is coming this winter, we can probably expect the game in time for holiday shopping. Payne is still out for revenge for the death of his family in the third installment from the franchise.

Thrustmaster announced the launch of a limited edition pack for the PC in the US, where you get Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X by Ubisoft along with the Thrustmaster T.16000M joystick. The T.16000M features a default configuration for Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X game that allows you to plug and play instantly without any setup. Open the box and you are ready to go.

The T.16000M features new HALLEFFECT ACCURATE TECHNOLOGY (H.E.A.R.T) which provides surgical precision during gaming. This technology uses the 3D Hall Effect magnetic sensors located on the T.16000M stick. The precision is 256 times greater than most other systems, with over 16,000 different values per axis.

Psystar might be in the middle of a court battle with Apple over the use of the Apple Mac OS X operating system, but that didn’t stop the Mac clone company from releasing a brand new Open Computer model on Tuesday.

The new model, the Open (3), will be “Smaller, Faster and Sexier” and includes Intel’s E7400 Core2Duo processor running at 2.8GHz, which is over 50% faster than the previous processor. They’ve phased out the mini-tower and opted for a “slim form-factor” that is 47% smaller.

You just have to love a case that radically changes the form factor. The Level 10 by BMW DesignworksUSA is a masterpiece of a PC case with loads of style. And it manages great design while giving you easy access to all components. We showed you the case a few weeks ago and now it’s been spotted in the wild.

We’re happy to say it looks even better in the flesh. Thermaltake and BMW teamed up to create the “Level 10” PC case, which was on display at the CeBIT conference in Hanover, Germany. Everything has it’s own enclosure, even the motherboard. And yet it maintains a graceful and thin composure. A beautiful monster if you will.

The last time we saw this much circuit board on the outside of a mod, it was my very own Atari-Hero guitar mod. So right away this caught my attention.

Modder Frenkie designed this glow-in-the-dark case mod that features strips of circuit board to give it the scorpion-inspired look. Dubbed Sting, the case features a custom cut PCB boards pattern all over the body. It looks deadly. If you’re going to build something, make it stand out and have a life of its own. Make it look like it can sting the hell out of you.

As usual the Japanese have scored something before us. In this case they have an exclusive on this new multi-touch Studio One 19 PC from Dell, which looks kinda sexy. The All-in-One “entertainment PC” comes in a bunch of colors to match your life with specs that include a Core 2 Quad processor, 4GB of memory, 750GB hard disk, 6x USB, integrated 1.3 megapixel webcam, and NVIDIA GeForce 9400 graphics, and a Blu-ray player.

The 18.5 inch display has a 1,366 x 768 aspect ratio with touch or non-touch glass panels. Prices start at about $699 and it will launch in other countries later this spring.

This is bound to be the preferred mouse of housewives and maids everywhere. Shunning conventional computer mouse design, Oliver Rosito’s Zero Mouse concept “combines state of the art design with lightweight materials.”

We’re just a little concerned that the lack of side grips may have your grandmother holding it like an iron and accidentally fake-ironing your shirt, which has now become a mousepad, while chatting on the Martha Stewart forums and playing online bingo.

Aside from Lenovo’s W700ds ThinkPad, and maybe one or two other offerings, frankly, most things branded Lenovo aren’t all that exciting. That includes Lenovo’s ThinkCentre line, which is understandable as they’re not aimed at gamers

What they’ve done here is shrink the size of towers. The ThinkCentre A58 and M58e feature Intel Core 2 Duo / Core 2 Quad CPUs, onboard graphics, up to 1TB of HDD space, 4GB of RAM and up, and optional Blu-ray drives.

There have been plenty of conceptual gadgets that claim to control computers with just the brain, but the difficulty is getting them ready for the commercial market. That’s where NaturalPoint comes in. They are serving up a new pair of SmartNav 4 human-computer interface devices that will let users control all basic tasks with just by using their noggin.

The AT and EG models are designed so that physically handicapped individuals can control their PCs like a Jedi, moving the mouse around by with head movements and selecting commands and phrases on a virtual keyboard. Like Stephen Hawking for instance.

Gaming computers tend to be very expensive systems that pack all sorts of the latest technology into a machine designed to allow gamers to play games. At CES this year one of the coolest things I saw on display was the NVIDIA 3D vision 3D system. The system includes glasses and requires a special monitor to operate but provides slick and realistic 3D effects.

Boutique gaming desktop maker iBuyPower has announced a pair of new gaming desktops that are bundled with everything you need for 3D gaming at great prices. The machines include the Gamer Fire 640 and the Gamer Paladin F830. The Gamer Fire 640 runs an AMD Phenom II X3 720 CPU, 4GB of RAM, 500GB HDD, NVIDIA 9800GTX+ graphics and 64-bit Vista all for an MSRP of $1,349.

This awesome looking PC case appears to be from a distant future. Thermaltake and BMW have teamed up to create the “Level 10” PC case, which is on display at the CeBIT conference in Hanover, Germany. All of the components are outside the case yet inside their own compartments.

Visually, it’s great. Would the cables be running everywhere or would those be hidden as well? There isn’t very much info on this thing so we aren’t sure if it will actually be for sale, for how much or when. All we know is that they would be crazy to not sell something so beautiful.

[Crunchgear]

The slow global economy is hurting the PC market. Demand for computers is up and what computers are selling are being sold at lower than traditional retail prices leading to reduced revenues for computer makers. Many consumers are also resorting to cheaper computers like netbooks as well.

According to research firm IDC, the computer market is in for a big loss in 2009 as PC shipments are expected to drop 4.5% for the year. The company reports that shipment sin Q4 2008 dropped 1.9% in what is traditionally a big shopping season.

Or is it? No one knows for sure. But is man capable of such a feat? How could man have built such a thing using only primitive tools? It may forever remain a mystery. One theory is that the Great Pyramid PC Mod was made by modder polo360x from the Techpowerup forums.

The amazing case was made from a customized Luxor Pyramid case, which itself was made from laser cut aluminum, and is a combination of black and silver aluminum. The base measures 19 by 19 inches and the case stands 25 inches tall. Some specs: CPU: Q6600 B3 OC @ 3.15 GHz (Max stable OC @ 3.4 GHz) – “water cooled”, Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3L, RAM: G-Skills 4GB PC2-8000 OC @ 1066 MHz, GPU: 512 MB 8800GT Zotac AMP Editions (700 MHz Core/ 2000 Mhz Memory), HDD: 500 GB Cavier WD 300 SATA, PSU: 500 Watts Rosewill, Cooling: Thermaltake Tide water plus w/ Swiftech apogee GT CPU block.

Great news. Asus’s awesome Eee Keyboard will be available in May or June for only $400-$600. It’s essentially a home theater PC inside of a keyboard, complete with wireless HDMI and a secondary touchscreen. According to Asus CEO Jerry Shen, they’re working on two different models, one wired and one wireless. The wired version will cost around $400 while the wireless will be around $600.

The keyboard features a 5-inch built-in display, 1.6 GHz Atom processor, 1 GB of RAM, 16/32 GB SSD, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. It’s got all of the ports you want like wireless HDMI, 2 USB 2.0, VGA, HDMI, and audio in/out. We’ve been waiting for this one. It’s almost here.

Maybe you’ve been looking for an inexpensive all-in-one for your kitchen, so you can look up recipes or read the ‘Brick while burning dinner. If so, you might want to have a look at ASUS’s Eee Top.

It’s almost available in the US as it has a pre-order page on Amazon.com. The 15.6-inch touchscreen model has a 1.6GHz Atom processor, 1GB of memory, and XP installed on a 160GB drive. It’s available in either black or white flavors for $599.99 with free shipping. If you already have one by the time you read this…Something’s burning. Go check.