xbox

So… it’s come to this.

I just finish Call Of Duty 4 and get ready for some serious online multiplayer killing and my xbox decides to go tits on me and display the dreaded Red Ring Of Death when I power it on.

Like a good corporate Microsoft bitch I logged it with their Xbox Repair website knowing full well that this particular issue is a common one and therefore forced Microsoft to give an extra 2 years warranty on top of the usual year.

I now await the Xbox Coffin to arrive to spirit it away to the Xbox Hospital to be mended. Hopefully they will seek pity on me and send back one of the slightly newer hardware revision models with a nice juicy HDMI port on too!

I can only hope.  They will probably pre-load Vista 360 onto it and that will be the end of my gaming days, as the included joypad won’t have any working drivers!

Wow, a major milestone has passed in my life.

I have actually completely finished a computer game in Single Player mode!

Call Of Duty 4 is a totally excellent game and the graphics look amazing when running in top-notch VGA mode on my LCD TV. Even though the single player mission only lasted 4.5 hours - it was still a great story, good fun and bloodthirsty.

The image above is me sniping the brains out of Damo on COD4 Multiplayer. Your man-cold can’t save you now Derby-boy!

I recently posted about my upgrade week encompassing installing OS X Leopard on my MacBook and also the new update for the Xbox 360 that allowed DiVx content to play.After spending a few weeks with OS X Leopard, I have decided to uninstall and move back to using Tiger, the previous version instead for the following reasons:

• Too slow - I just found that with my measly 512mb of RAM, my MacBook was just not as responsive and as quick as it used to be. Even with the Dashboard disabled and the 3D dock busted back to 2D it was still sluggish.
• Wifi Issues - since the update to Leopard, my wireless connection seemed to be searching, connecting, scanning, searching… all the time. There are grumbles about this issue on the web but all of the fixes I attempted never worked. Back to Tiger - all is fine again.
• Unused New Features - the features like Quick Look, Stacks and Cover Flow were all very nice, but not essential to my use of the MacBook. I was able to quickly search through all of my JPG files to try and find one particular image using Cover Flow, but I could have achieved the same result by using the normal search results. The new version of Safari is nice and I will miss that most of all. Both Spaces and Time Machine were not anywhere on my radar.

At the moment I am running a very basic OS X installation with nothing apart from the following applications installed:

• Transmission - The best OS X BitTorrent client - link
• Perian - a collection of codecs for Quicktime - link
• Burn - for converting videos and creating DVDs - link
• Quicksilver - an application launcher - link

Whilst OS X Leopard is a good and solid update for the Apple systems, it’s not for me at the moment.

It's ugrade week here in the Megatao camp.

Tuesday saw the release of the Xbox 360 "fall dashboard update" which brings DivX and Xvid playback to the console with a host of other new features .  Microsoft have even seen sense and allowed the content to be played from USB memory devices and data CDs and DVDs too.  If only the 360 wasn't so noisy , it might replace my aging Xbox1 and the perfect Xbox Media Centre app.

Wednesday was "upgrade to Leopard" day!

I have now updated my Macbook to run Leopard , the latest (and greatest) version of the OS X operating system.  The upgrade went smoothly without any issues (after I freed up some hard disk space) and I am now taming the beast that is Leopard.

My first impressions are positive.  It does seem a little slower to operate - so some more RAM might be on the cards once I have had a good poke around to make sure nothing is stopping it from running properly, but it kept all my settings, preferences and files too!

I had even disabled the OS X Dashboard to give my Macbook a performance boost and it left that disabled after the update too!  I have already changed the dock from 3d back to 2d though as it does seem to be a bit of a memory hog.

What will I upgrade next?

I have two more days left in upgrade week… 

Microsoft have just stepped one BIG step closer to “droppin’ da bomb” on Sony and the PS3 by announcing support for Xvid and DivX codecs within their Media Center Extender software.

The software runs on your PC and can push content to Media Center devices such as the Xbox360.  Support for Divx and Xvid has been available before using various hacks/transcodes and workarounds, but if the Xbox360 gets this as part of its Fall Dashboard Update (already rumoured to be true) then this will kill the PS3.

Well.. until Sony add support for it anyway.

Ahhh… procrastination wins again.
I knew there would be a good reason not to get my Xbox360s DVD drive modded to play copied content.

Looks like Microsoft have now found a way to ban consoles that contain modded firmware and dodgy components.  I knew it would come at some point and am glad I never went down that route now.  £40 well not spent in my opinion!

Shame my 12 Month Xbox Live Gold Membership has expired recently, but to be honest I haven’t been online for a while.  I might get the Xbox Live Vision Camera and 12 month Live subscription pack from Play.com soon - especially as you get a copy of Uno with it too.

It looks like the Xbox360 will be getting a dashboard update this spring to allow for integration with MSN Messenger! Also to be released is this natty little QWERTY keyboard addon for the controller. Other updates to the service will include:

• Windows Live Messenger IM integration.
• More informative achievement notifications.
• A brand new Marketplace blade with updated organization.
• Upgraded XBLA friend interaction functionality.
• Auto-off downloading functionality featuring low power mode.
• Enhanced family settings for chatting.
• Ability to watch videos while downloading off the XBLM.
• Hundreds of other random fixes and tweaks.

Not sure where the Xbox Live Headset will plug into though once the keyboard is plugged in. From this pic you can see a headphone socket on the bottom of the unit in this picture, but it does’nt look sculpted to take the usual headphone/mic unit.

I won’t get one though. Nice gimmick, to be able to chat to your MSN mates online too, but I really don’t want to be bothered by them when playing though! I would rather have the Xbox360 wifi adapter so I did’nt have to use Internet Connection Sharing through my PC to play. But they are too expensive!

I wandered into my local Gamestation today and whilst perusing the cool Nintendo keyrings, sweatbands and pencil cases, I was watching a hidden PS3 run through a demo of Virtua Fighter 5.

It did look pretty impressive and smooth, but I am sure that the Xbox360 would have looked equally impressive up on the massive Sony Bravia TV. The Virtua Fighter series has not yet been released on Xbox360 so I will have to wait until summer to see how it compares to the PS3 verison.

I have not got a fighting game for my 360 yet so I hunted down a £22 second hand version of Dead Or Alive 4 which was one of the original launch titles for the console. I was never that impressed with it until I saw the demo running in HiDef on my LCD TV.

Since seeing Tekken running on a Playstation 1 in the window of a store in Portsmouth many years ago whilst on a weekend pissup, I have been enamoured with fighting games. Virtua Fighter 4 on the PS2 was my favorite as was Soul Calibur on the Xbox. I have a passion for games I can pick up and play for 30 minutes without getting too engrossed and fighting games are perfect for this.

We just need a good 3d fighting game for the Nintendo DS and I will be sorted. Tekken DS? Where are you!

I popped to Toys-R-us today to buy yet more Pokemon cards to add to my Sons collection of over 500 (most were donated though… I’m not that stupid (or rich!)). We still don’t know how to play the game yet though.

Whilst I was there I got my eyeballs on the Playstation3 demo cablnet! A large Sony (40 inch+) screen was running Hi-Def demos of the PS3’s capabilities such as Blu-Ray, movie trailers, photos and games too. Some of the games looked amazing and smooth, such as Motorstorm - but others like “Metal Gear Solid 9 - Trouser Snake gets zipped” looked a bit PS1 for my liking.

I was immediately thinking..

Wow! This really is better than my Xbox 360! I might get one. Hmm.. £450 for the console.. how could I afford one… Sell the 360, and my Nintendo DS Lite…

Then I leant over to take a look at the console itself only to read, printed on the top in plain white capital letters “EXAMPLE CONSOLE ONLY”. Not only was the shiny black beastie not a real PS3, it meant that everything I was seeing on the video was also fake!

I then realised that all of the employees at Toys-R-Us were looking at me and they had little radio receivers in their ears like the FBI use - and they were all talking about me! Even the CCTV cameras were watching my every move. I tried hiding in the Hot Wheels isle, but some of the customers were also obviously “in on it” too and were casualy watching me whilst pretending to look at boxes of Yahtzee Texas Hold-Em Edition. One of them was even pretending to be texting on his mobile phone - but was obviously taking video surveilance footage to send back to the scientists at Area 51 who have been after me ever since I accidently hacked into their mainframe whilst looking for crackz and serialz for my BBC Micro.

I had to ditch the kids in the Scoobiez section and pull over a display of new TMNT action figures in order to escape the shop and then call my mate Jesus to come and place a protective “Faith Bubble” around me so the police and social services could not track me using that anal alien implant they gave me.

I’m invisible. You can’t see me. By the power of Jesu.. oh.. hello officer..

You just can’t trust anyone! Its all lies!