It finally happened.
Tag Archive for 'xbox 360'
Here is my progess so far. Been hitting it hard 
If you are not already excited about the imminent release of GTA 4 I highly recommend you checkout Edge’s in depth interview with Sam Houser that covers the development of the entire series and where Rockstar are headed in the future.
The one thing that hasn’t been covered to date by the official PR channels are the multiplayer portions of the game. Aside from magazine leaks much of the detail is going to be discovered when the game ships and gets into people’s hands. Make no mistake about it, 16 players in Liberty City is a huge deal
Thinking back to first 2D GTA games which had network multiplayer on PC I remember how fun it was due to the variety of ways you could take the fight to your enemies. Shoot a rocket at their car, car jack them and back over the splayed out body and so much more. Then the GTA 3 trilogy came about sans multiplayer but that didn’t stop enterprising modders from trying to get some kind of network play going. Through all the bugs and glitches I played Multi Theft Auto with many a university house mate and everytime it was clear - this could be a gem of an experience if done properly by Rockstar.
I am more intrigued by this than the main game in a lot of ways. Crackdown, while a great co-op experience, was unfortunately limited to 2 players leaving me a few times having to pick between friends. The technical challenge involved in getting 16 players synced up in an open word environment must have been hard to overcome and I will be blown away if the online experience is smooth.
The secondary issue is the split player base. My friends who know a lot about games own Xbox 360s. My friends who are less well informed own PS3s (or intend to). From everything published the 360 version is looking to be the best in terms of performance, online play and exclusive downloadable content. Those three facts won’t make a damn bit of difference in the UK as GTA is associated with Playstation very strongly over here. As such I won’t be able to play with everyone I know.
Hopefully some fresh information will come out in the next few weeks. Hard to believe it’s only a month away. This time things will be different!
Checking out the new content released by Microsoft during GDC this week hamered home that the Xbox dashboard and Live in general is getting rather complicated to navigate. Looking at my games folder it has 92 games in there including Live Arcade, demos and XNA stuff. Getting to what you want can be tricky and it’s not always obvious in which area the thing you are after will be located. Added to this many similar functions yield different interface concepts, just compare purchasing and running a Live Arcade game versus an Xbox Original game - completely different and sends my HCI alarm bells ringing.
Of course while I’m thinking of this comes the news that MS are looking to double Live’s user base and completely redo the way the content is presented. Maybe they should take a page out of Apple’s handbook on this one? I do like the new Apple TV interface.
Managing the sheer amount of content is daunting and MS don’t exactly have the best track record in UI design. I’ll be impressed if they even go ahead and completely refresh what they have now, its gonna take some big balls because the backlash from some parts of the community will be enormous. Good luck!
After announcing it here over a year ago and having to endure a bit of crap about it from various people (including Bioware), Mass Effect has now been officially confirmed as coming to the PC in May. This year. Yes its a 6 month delay. Thanks for being honest from the start Bioware!?!
In the latest Xbox 360 dashboard update they added support for Xvid aka DivX aka MPEG-4 ASP at long last. I finally had the opportunity to try it out this week and so far I’m very impressed. For some reason it isn’t included as standard in the dashboard and requires a 2.5mb download of the “Optional Media Update” which you are prompted to fetch when it encounters a suitable file. Once you have this the 360 will read AVIs off DVDs, CDs, USB drives and over your network with very little trouble. All the files I tested worked as documented in the above link with no playback issues at all and while it doesn’t support AVIs with an AC3 track it will playback 720p Xvids no problem.
Good work MS it’s great to see this feature finally working, just keep the codec machine churning and eventually we will have a fully functional media center :-). Next on the agenda Matroska containers with x264 encoded video please!
I have had my “home cinema” setup for a few months now but totally forgot to blog about it until I was reminded recently. Right now I have an Optoma HD70 projector sitting atop some cheap IKEA shelves that boost it over the height of the sofa with anyone sitting on it. It’s far enough away from the wall that I can get about an 80″ to 100″ picture depending on how I feel. Luckily the wall in my apartment is very plain and clean and you don’t even notice the texture of the wall. 720p stuff looks amazing while standard def content doesn’t look too shabby either, especially when compared to and LCD TV. The projector has HDMI, component and VGA inputs so I connect my PC via HDMI and the Xbox 360 via component.
I knew I would have to get some new speakers to go with this when I got it so I went for the cheapest THX DTS set around. This turned out to be the Logitech Z-5400 which produces a ton of bass and has coax and optical inputs to connect to the PC and 360 respectively. The remote is a little flaky but nothing a few smacks can’t cure.
Alien is an awesome demonstration of the system. I have a 1080p version with DTS sound and it just comes alive with the creepy score and crisp visuals. Having this system makes me want to go back and watch the classics all over again and I have definitely found myself watching more movies because of this. Next on the list is Blade Runner Final Cut and Back to the Future (if I can get a decent HD version).
The 360 works nicely too but I did find myself getting slightly motion sick in Halo 3 from the first few hours of play. This is probably due to the sheer size of the screen alone but you do get used to and it only affects FPS games. Oh and playing games like Lumines, Tetris and Bomberman on the thing feels like total overkill!
So my recommendation if you are looking for a nice big screen is to seriously consider a projector. Obviously you need the throw distance, a dark room and a large enough wall but the price per inch of screen size cannot be beaten. Gizmodo put handy list of tips together recently which are worth checking out.
Definitely. The characters, graphics, story - anything involving dudes talking on screen is the most engaging it has ever been in a game. The decisions you make effect how your companions treat you and even extend to which of your companions survive to see the end of the game. The combat is outstanding - it’s an action packed 3rd person shooter with RPG stylings and just the right amount of squad control. Watching some of the early trailers it came off kind of clunky positioning guys exactly where you wanted them and even taking control of them directly if you needed to. Thankfully you don’t need to do that and can rely on AI performing effectively in most situations while you worry about who is shooting at you.
Disappointments. Texture pop in when scenes change - it’s something we have seen in Gears of War and UT3 so I guess we can blame it solely on Epic’s Unreal Engine. It’s not a major deal when the end result is so amazingly detailed but it would be nice if Epic could iron it out. Also the side missions are rather lackluster after you have done a few. Bombing around on barren worlds in your buggy and going into prefabricated structures to shoot guys is pretty much the extent of it. Maybe they would have been better served randomly generating these planets to give some variety? I’d be surprised if any significant DLC packs are released like they planed.
Overall verdict - go buy it now! I am already planning how I can play through it differently next time. I’m thinking evil female combat and biotic specialist who always chooses the dark path rather than the goody two shoes I played the first time round. Should be fun kicking arse across the galaxy one more time.
Finally, the studio is asking that Epic be forced to surrender all profits garnered by Gears of War as a result of misconduct.
And the reason,
“That advantage was nowhere more evident than at E3 2006, where Gears of War was awarded ‘Best Game in Show’ and garnered nothing but laudatory press,” the suit reads. “By contrast, Silicon Knights–one of the only other developers to publicly display a playable demonstration of its game–saw Too Human roundly criticized in the videogame press for its technical problems and generally unpolished appearance. The damage to Silicon Knights caused by Epic’s misconduct was manifest, because E3 attendees were able to compare Too Human with another game running ostensibly the same game engine, Gears of War, with vastly superior results.”
So it all comes back to E3 2006 again. First they blamed the press now they blame the engine. I seem to remember another Unreal Engine 3 game called Rainbow Six: Vegas coming out in late 2006 and being very successful. Funny that.
This game has been in and out of development for 8 years. Something tells me they have bigger issues internally than they care to admit.
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