Category: Games

360 Titbits

Now that the 360 launch is just over 6 weeks away (for which I didn’t pre-order which makes chances of picking one up slim) there is some nice details coming out about the features we’ll see. My Xbox will launch in the next couple of weeks. For the stat whores and just plain nosey this will allow you to see and compare your friends progress in games, what they are playing and their achievements throughout all their games. Some downtime for Live on Monday 24th will see the upgrades take place – we’ll then see just how good the website integration with the Live service is. This is where MS have a big advantage over Sony – it will be interesting to see just how much they push the web and online gaming features over the coming months.

The 360 pad has had great previews so far. What I’d missed until today is that it connects via a standard USB port. Therefore to use it on Windows you just need to download the correct drivers and you’ll instantly have a great pad for the PC. At last.

Finally – gaming servers. The Live service on the Xbox has been good apart from on thing – no server support. This has meant 16 players games as a max, and more than usual only 8 before lag kicks in. Compare that to PC games where 32-64 player games are more the norm thanks to the games being hosted on servers. The 360 looked to be changing that with Call of Duty 2 rumoured to have 64 player support. Alas, it’s 8 player although they won’t stop you hosting more if your connection can take it. Hopefully Perfect Dark Zero will allow for more…even if you have to pay slightly more for the service I would at least like to have the option.

X05

The big Xbox 360 event has been and gone. Initially I felt pretty flat about the whole thing but some of the games and screenshots really have impressed. After slagging off Perfect Dark Zero the last video I watched showed co-op off really well – who cares if the graphics are a bit current gen and slightly rough – the gameplay looked superb and the fact that co-op is online bodes well.

PGR3 still looks jaw dropping as does Kameo. One worry was just what games would be available at launch – the following are semi-confirmed as launch day (and not launch window)

  • Project Gotham Racing 3
  • Kameo
  • Perfect Dark Zero
  • Madden Nfl 06
  • Nba Live 06
  • Tiger Woods Pga Tour 06
  • Need For Speed Most Wanted
  • Fifa 06: Road To Fifa World Cup
  • Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
  • Call Of Duty 2
  • Dead Or Alive 4

plus a few more to be confirmed. I’ve not pre ordered the 360 and I think I’m too late now. I’ll just wait until launch day (2nd December) and see what I can pick up. Looking forward to it once again. Visit Xboxyde to see some of the media from X05.

PSP Homebrew Update

Feeling brave?

Fed up with having a version 2.0 firmware and missing out on all the homebrew, emulators and piracy that could be down with 1.5 firmware?

Visit PSP Updates and follow the instructions in how to downgrade your PSP from 2.0 to 1.5. Over 500 comments with nearly 100% working. Need to download some files and there are torrents available to help spread the load. I’ll stick to 2.0 for the time being. If your up for it a guide with pictures is probably of more use.

Moto GP3

This could quite possibly be my last game bought for the Xbox due to the imminent 360…yet I’ve owned it for 18 months. The reason – it’s no different from Moto GP2 except there are extreme tracks, a buggier Live interface and well…that’s it. 18 months development for that.

However the extreme track are great. Think a mixture of PGR2 and Ridge Racer tracks but with bikes and you get some idea what the extreme mode is all about. Strangely this has also seen a resurgence of friends playing online again – nostalgia has really kicked in. Well worth a purchase especially if you don’t own Moto GP2 – I’m off to set some new times.

*Update* – maybe I was a bit harsh as I’ve really enjoyed the last couple of hours with this. The extreme tracks are really good and there is some graphical polish thats been added to the Moto GP tracks. Online is great and the use of seed points well implemented. However the AI of the computer bikes is truly awful – they stick to their line no matter what you do which can be a bit frustrating. However with enough friends it makes for a great online racer.

The Price is Right

Xbox 360
£280. That’s the price for the Xbox 360 in the UK and it will be launched this year (rumoured last week in November). This is the first console that has been released so close to the USA launch – kudos to MS for doing that and also coming in at a respectable price. The £280 gets you:

  • Xbox 360 console.
  • Xbox 360 Hard Drive. 20 GB and detachable.
  • Xbox 360 Wireless Controller. Nice but has a range and battery life of up to 30 feet and 30 hours of life on two AA batteries. Not much so the battery pack and charger become essential purchases.
  • Xbox 360 Faceplate.
  • Xbox 360 Headset.
  • Xbox 360 Component HD-AV Cable. (I NEED to buy a Plasma or LCD screen)
  • Xbox Live Silver membership – who cares – I want Gold.
  • A bonus Media Remote: Included for a limited time, the integrated control centre for the entire digital experience lets consumers play DVDs, movies and music, as well as access their Windows® XP Media Centre Edition 2005-based PC’s controls with a single remote. Nice.

I reckon that’s quite a bit of hardware for £280. It would have been nicer if it came with HD-DVD but it’s still an impressive package. Not so good is that a cut-price 360 will be available for £210 that has everything except no hard disk, no headset, a wired controller and no free remote. This will be the first console to launch with different hardware options which for me means developers will code against the lowest hardware specification – no hard disk. This might not sound a big deal but the Xbox took great advantage of the hard disk so it will be disappointing if dev’s feel curtailed by this step. It also seems strange that MS have spent the last 3 years building up Xbox Live, have spent the last three months talking up the new 360 service and the online marketplace which will have lots of paid for downloadable content yet launch a console which doesn’t have the headset or the hard disk. Odd. Unless they were trying to get near to £200 and/or the price point of the soon to be launched PSP.

With around 4-6 must buy launch titles it’s going to be an expensive Christmas. I can’t wait.

 

PSP Web Browser

Sony have brought out an updated firmware that will stop warez and hacks from working but also adds a web browser, updates to wireless protocols, swapping of pics from PSP to PSP and also theme and background picture support. As I wasn’t using much of the hacks and warez I installed the update and also purchased a wireless router – the KCorp KLG-575 – which although isn’t an ADSL router adds fast wireless connectivity in my house (for £47 at Amazon). The verdict – pretty good.

The PSP can connect anywhere in the house to the router – outside it really slows down but I’ve not really though to much about positioning of the router. If outside browsing becomes a must then I’ll add an aerial to boost the range. The browser is pretty feature rich for such a small device. It can display style sheets, entry forms, tables, frames, and many other web features although Flash and other video formats aren’t supported. The browser also supports tabs although there is a limit of three tabs opened at once. The screen display is good although being a small size you do have to scroll around the screen quite a bit. I’ve put some sample pics on Flickr. Bookmarks are supported although text entry can be a drag even though common entries like http:// and .com are easily added. Even secure connections can be accessed.

Files can be downloaded and played back on the PSP. For example, I visited Graham’s site, downloaded his new song and played it back on the PSP. Nice. Podcasts can also be grabbed this way. From about 10 metres away I grabbed the 3 meg file in under a minute which I think is pretty good for a wireless connection. I’m not looking for massive bandwidth – just speed that allows me to browse and chat. With that in mind a cheap, small laptop will be purchased soon.

One of the other drawbacks is that the PSP only has 32Meg of ram. This means certain websites are too big to display which is a shame – only found two out of twenty today that failed. Ultimately this is a great upgrade and really makes it a multimedia device. While laptops can already do everything a PSP can, nothing comes close when considering cost, size and functionality. The Video iPod (September?) has it’s work cut out.

Xbox – media hub

The Xbox 360 has been touted as a media hub for everything – plug in usb sticks and it will play music, films and pictures from it. Plug in mp3 players and they’ll work too – even the iPod. One of the most touted features was that it would work as a Media Centre Extender. So if you have Windows Media Centre the Xbox would connect to the pc and play all content – music, pics, films (including hi def) and recorded tv. Great, but I don’t have Media Centre. I tried it but because I’m not using it to record tv I found it to be a bit clunky compared to using iTunes or other software on the main pc. Meh.

However after doing a bit of digging there is hope for us non Media Centre folk. The 360 will allegedly support Windows Media Connect. This allows other devices to link to a normal XP machine and play music, videos etc in the same way as Media Centre. Looks like the software could be a bit flaky but for me this is great news as I had no intention of setting up a Media Centre machine. I’ll still be keeping the chipped Xbox and accessing media that way as the support for viewing online trailers, playing emulated games etc is superb and will not be do-able with a 360…well not until they are chipped at least. However being able to access all the media from the new machine is really cool – roll on November.

PSP Warez

A couple of months ago I posted that UMD’s (Universal Media Disc that games are supplied on for the PSP) had been cracked. Two months down the line not only can all UMD ISO’s be downloaded from the net – they can now be played from a memory stick – PSP Warez is alive and kicking. The hacks that allow this only work on firmware 1.50. Sony has released two firmware patched since 1.50 but they are not compulsory so if you want to play warez, home-brew software and emulated games on the PSP stick to version 1.5. Some games will not play unless the firmware is at the latest version. What’s the betting that GTA:Liberty City Stories will be one of them? But then again – who’ll buy the original if they can download it from the internet and play it for free from a memory stick.