Category: Games

XBOX Mod

Well, 13 hours after starting we finally managed to mod 3 xbox’s yesterday. And it was FAR harder than we had imagined. Stripping the boxes apart was pretty straightforward. Even the first solder was not too bad, just very time consuming. This involved de-soldering 12 pin points (although we managed to do 16), pushing a plug into the holes and re-soldering – took about an hour. However the final solder task was one solder point on the xbox motherboard – d0. What a bitch.

Graham’s board was the first victim and after an hour of trying the two points one of the tracks was lifted off the board. When I say lifted, more like burnt away! A combination of lack of tools and lack of skill. An hour after realising the damage we took the first sensible decision of the day – call for help. One of Grahams friends was a spark with electronics experience. 20 mins later he had arrived, but said we didn’t have the right tools. So one trip to Maplin later (3rd time in the space of 24 hours but thats a whole other post) and we had a good soldering iron.

John then did his magic, repairing the track and soldering the chip on. We tested the box – woo-hoo – it worked. We then set-up a production line Henry Ford would be proud off and we rattled through the other 2 boxes. This cannot be underestimated – get someone who knows what they are doing when it comes to soldering, especially motherboard stuff. What took us an hour, John did in 5 mins. Very impressive.

So I left last tired but pleased. Checked at home and it worked really well. Until this morning, where the day just got worse and worse.

Firstly, got FTP working and fired over a copy of XBMC. Cool – that worked. Then started playing with some of the emulators – Rick Dangerous for the xbox :-). I then ripped GTA 3 with ease. This was going to be good. Switched off for a while as a sore head was developing. But then wanted to try the shoutcast streaming so switched on again. Oops. Screen was flicking between wide and 4:3 and flickering slightly. A bit of investigation and it turned out the box thought it was NTSC and Japanese. Strange. And I couldn’t change the setting. Bugger.

A bit of panic searching lead me nowhere. I stopped for a bit as the head was getting worse. Roll on 6 hours and a short nap later. Find a setting in Smartxx to change region – no effect. Then try Avalaunch which was the worst thing I could do. Changed regions in there and switched off and on. Bugger. Smartxx would load but no matter which bios I loaded, I would get no graphics. The xbox looked knackered. Tried the backup flash in Smartxx – no difference!!

After a couple of hours I found that Avalaunch is buggy. Changing the region settings in their can screw your xbox. I eventually found a recovery bios which I could flash to Smartxx via the pc web front end. Thanks goodness we chose Smartxx as other chips don’t let you do this. I ran the fix, and switched off and on. Thankfully the machine now works. Took a backup of the eeprom just in case this happens again. Phew. An eventful weekend, but now have a really great gadget. Ok, it’s a toy, but a very cool one!

Crystal XBOX

So I’ve made the first purchase of my next gadgeting odyssey (wanky words a go-go). The crystal xbox. Exactly the same kit as the one I’ve got, but see-thru. Now – I’ve not gone completely mad – the old one isn’t going to waste or to the great console graveyard that is my attic. Firstly, the disk drive is getting repaired by Microsoft as after 2 years of hammering it’s not the most reliable.

Once I get the old one back I’ll then be adding a SmartXX chip and a 120Gb Maxtor drive. Why? Why not! Firstly it will let me play copied games, not that I’m some sort of dirty games pirate, but broadband will be my friend. Secondly, I can runs loads of emulators from the xbox – some arcade classics and maybe even Head Over Heels if I can find the rom. Thirdly, stream mp3’s from the pc and also internet radio. So killing lots of birds with the one stone. The reason for the new xbox is:

a) Mod will be done solo so who knows what may happen when random soldering is required
b) The crystal xbox will be live only games, so no chance of my xbox being banned.

Top smart.

Pro Evo Soccer 3

The third pro-evo has just come out on the ps2 and while it looks to contain a couple of flaws it’s the best game of football on any console. Why? Well, its just like real football. To be honest it’s not changed that much from pro-evo 2, but changes noticed so far are:

On the plus side:

  • Referee now plays advantage
  • It’s much tougher – computer AI is much better
  • Players make more intelligent runs
  • It feels more realistic – players don’t control balls straight away – ball can bobble away and it makes a more challenging game. Can’t just ping four or five passes in a row by pressing x five times.
  • Shirt pulling has been reduced – at last
  • Hand ball can be called
  • More crossing options and more options at free kicks for both attack and defence
  • The stadium sound is very impressive

    • On the negative:

  • It stutters ever so slightly. To be honest you notice less and less but its still there. This has been a flaw on Winning Eleven also. Poor show Konami.
  • Hand ball can be called – a foul is called and you have no idea why

    • Overall a great game.

    Colin Mcrae 04

    Picked up Colin Mcrae 04 today. First impressions are favourable. Graphics are improved over previous version, handling does feel more weighty – I tried 03 a couple of days ago just to make sure I would notice differences like these.

    However there are some usability niggles that should no longer exist in games and smack of lazy programming and/or cash-in of an easy upgrade. Firstly you can’t assign your own controls, with the ability to only choose from one of five pre-defined control settings. This is pretty nasty and while I can find one that almost suits me why couldn’t I assign controls to buttons of my choosing. Allowing the user to map controls to any buttons should be a pre-requisite on all games.

    Every time you start the game you have to enter your name – why doesn’t it hold the previous entry? The LIVE scoreboards are a good edition although proper multiplayer is would have been a better option. In fact the LIVE scoreboards seem to load separately meaning you come ‘out’ of the game when accessing them. When you go back to the game it restarts but without the loading intro’s – weird.

    Overall a good game, better than the last one but a fairly weak update.

    Edge Magazine

    Edge magazine is 10 years old this issue. If you’ve never tried the magazine and are into games then you really have missed out. The website is awful, one of the worst I’ve seen but the magazine is pure class. Written for adults, never one to shirk from being controversial and ultimately a damn good read. Most disturbing is the fact that I’ve got every issue from 1 to this months 128. Must revisit some over the weekend.