Microsoft XBOX 360 NXE Update

I have just installed the new NXE Update for my XBOX 360 and, like a lot of people as it turns out, I now have no sound at all.

I have my XBOX hooked up to an HD Monitor via HDMI cables… and there’s no sound!!! Not impressed. Not remotely impressed.

I searched around on the Forums and there were various recommendations about switching on and off, removing hard-disk etc and rebooting… non of these have worked… really not that impressed.

Have read some rumours about Microsoft releasing a patch for this in the next few days…

Have gone ahead and raised a support e-mail with Microsoft to try to get the issue raised.

This update has, for the meantime, ruined my gaming experience. Did I mention I’m not impressed? I await to hear from Microsoft on a fix for this in anticipation.

After all the hype around this update… I expected more anyway… there just doesn’t seem to be much in the way of decent new functionality.

I was especially amazed that Microsoft haven’t put a Web browser onto the XBOX 360 yet. The Wii has a web browser. The PS3 has a web browser. With the NXE Update, Microsoft is trying to reposition the XBOX 360 as a more family-oriented gaming and multimedia experience… a web browser would have been a smart thing to put into this update.

It seems like the update has fallen very short of expectations and hopes for many…

http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/21/nxe-creating-hdmi-headaches-for-uk-xbox-360-owners/

http://www.trustedreviews.com/gaming/news/2008/11/20/Xbox-NXE-Update-Causing-Problems/p1

http://www.avforums.com/forums/xbox-360/867084-nxe-installed-now-no-sound.html

Steve Ballmer confirms Zune coming to Windows Mobile

Class! Pure Class! I had been thinking that I would really like to get myself a new, solid, smartphone in the new year. I want something that I can use for everything – and the idea of Windows Mobile combined with Zune sounds very appealing indeed.

I will happily rush out to the store and buy one of these any day of the week! Bring it on!

So, we finally hear of something to up the bench mark against the iPhone and Google Android.

Steve Balmer confirmed today with CIO Magazine that Microsoft are to start making a Zune player for Windows Mobile. Excellent!

Today’s announcement that “the Zune software will be ported to and be more important not just with the hardware but on the PC, on Windows Mobile devices, etc”, is just great.

We see Microsoft gearing up for a much rounder media experience with additional ongoing development around the XNA Framework, wherein games will run on XBOX 360, Windows, Zune, and Windows Mobile. XNA Studio 3 (Still in Beta) is currently being re-geared to include support for Zune too – cool!

Will Zune features be available in Windows Mobile 7? Certainly CNET announced last week that Windows Mobile 7 has been seriously delayed… it sounds like they are possibly very busy at the drawing board right now.

I await in anticipation…

In the meantime… click here to check out cool Zune videos…

XBOX Live Gold and XBOX Wireless Dongle

Just ordered myself XBOX Live Gold membership and wireless dongle…! Woo-Hoo. Gearing up for Far Cry 2 and Gears or War 2 in the next few months, but also quite looking forward to getting to play some of the GTA IV online gaming…

XBOX 360 and GTA IV – Just Great!

I bought a new Microsoft XBOX 360 specifically to play GTA IV on (although have bought and borrowed a whole bunch of games for it).

This has turned out to be a great investment. I have HDMI cables going from both my XBOX 360 and my PC into an HDMI switch which is then plugged into my HD Monitor – so I can just switch between Vista and the XBOX on the same screen – works perfectly. The graphics quality and smoothness of gameplay of gaming is just sweet!

My brother-in-law bought me the messenger keyboard that plugs into the bottom of the game controller so you can sign into Windows Live Messenger.

Still have to get myself setup on XBOX Live which I fully intend to do. I want to procure the wireless bridge dongle (shame this wasn’t built in by default into the machine as this is an additional £46 from amazon).

The XBOX 360 and Windows Vista work seamlessly together for media streaming so I’ll also be able to wireless stream my music through this if and when we ever invest into a larger HD TV elsewhere in the house.

One thing I did think was missing from the XBOX 360 was the presence of a web browser… both the PS3 and the Wii both have browsers – it seems strange that Microsoft didn’t stick an XBOX version of Internet Explorer web browser onto the XBOX… probably something to do with anti-competitiveness…

GTA IV itself… possibly the best game ever made… Rockstar have not let us down. The game runs extremely smoothly on the XBOX although the loading times could be a little faster. Am only about 25% through the game and am just loving it. The sheer amount of detail and effort put into this makes it truly a work of art. The cars are beautiful, the environment feels alive, the plot is engrossing… it just all feels good.

A few things I don’t like about GTA IV…

• I wish the environment was more destructable and realistic… If you drive a car at 100MPH into the front of a shop window… I’d expect the car to go through the shop window… not bounce back into the street.
• I wish the environment was more accessible… there are lots of buildings which should have lots of rooms… but not too many open doors… would be better if you could kick any door in and go anywhere in the map… and it would be cool if the properties were inhabited appropriately.
• I wish there were planes… In earlier versions of GTA you could fly planes… this has been removed out of respect to 9/11 which I think is just dumb… they haven’t removed bombing and shooting from the game out of respect to all the other horrific terrorist acts the world has seen over and over again… they haven’t removed cars out of respect for all the car bombings the world has seen… Given that this games glorifies violence, crime and the murdering of innocent people… it’s just seems a little superficial to take planes out of the game in respect for a one-off act of terrorism in a small part of the world that happened years ago. Flying planes was one of the best parts of GTA San Andreas and it is sorely missed from GTA IV.
• I wish you could procure property earlier and easier – I’m currently running around the game with thousands of dollars in my pocket… but I’m living in a really dodgy apartment…
• I wish the map was bigger… like world-size bigger… instead of just one city and one general environment theme… it would be really cool to be able to travel to any part of the world… the game is limited in that you know the most you can ever aspire to is becoming a City boss… if the map was expanded to be more world sized then you could play to become an international crime boss…
• Think there should be much more online capabilities… able to setup online teams where we could compete against each other to rise up through the ranks…

I suppose, really what I’m saying is that GTA needs to become a lot more like SecondLife in its architecture for the future for online play and achievements… and much more like Far Cry or Crysis in respect of destructability – needs to be much more real! We want real!

Anyway… love the XBOX 360… and thoroughly enjoying GTA IV… all well worth it for entertainment…

Am also playing Assassins Creed and a few other games at the minute… and have a few others on my Amazon Wishlist at the minute… too many games and not enough gaming time seems to be the only issue!

New Microsoft XBOX 360

GTA IV… The game of the year is now only weeks away from being on the shelves and I simply cannot wait.

There are some rumours that this game will be released for the PC in October but it’s just far to far away to wait.

So I have finally given in and bought an XBOX 360 from Amazon.Co.Uk who are, by the way, doing a deal to knock of £10 if you buy the console with GTA IV… my brother was a bit disgusted with this… he said I probably would have got a better package deal from Game… he was probably right… but what the hey!

Microsoft have just reduced the price of the XBOX 360 substantially to help ensure that it remains the leading next-gen console against the PS3.

So I got an e-mail in from Amazon this evening saying that the console had shipped already and will be at my front door hopefully within the next few days… cool… I have a few older games to play on it in the meantime…

Am also happy enough with this purchase because, as a .NET developer, I’ve also been messing with Microsoft Game Studio Express 2.0 so I should be able to use my XBOX 360 for program testing. This is really cool, it makes use out of my pre-existing programming skills, and knowledge of Microsoft development studio, and allows me to cross-develop games that will run flawlessly on the PC and the XBOX. With the next release of Game Studio Express 3.0 there will also be the ability to port games directly to the Zune and hopefully Windows Mobile as well…

As well as that I should be able to stream media pretty easily on my home network from my Vista machine down to my XBOX so that’s cool too…

As well as that I’m gonna sign up for XBOX live which should integrate nicely into my Windows Live account so I get joined up E-Mail, Instant Messaging etc etc.

This is the thing I love the most about Microsoft technologies… they all just glue together seamlessly!

Anyway, in the meantime – new toys! Woo-Hoo!

Just need to get myself a decent HD TV now to connect my XBOX to. Still can’t justify this seeing as I have two perfectly good TVs already that are only about five years old and still working perfectly… I need to start leaving cups of coffee on top of them or something to help me build my business case for new asset investment…

GTA IV’s Latest Trailer – Everyone’s a Rat

I have played every GTA game ever released. I know my way around San Andreas better than I know how to get round the city I live in. Don’t really care how sad that sounds to some of you… I have no remorse over putting in 100s of gaming hours into this… I wouldn’t change a thing…

This series of games has been, by and far, my favourite PC games of all time… which is why I am unbelievably dissappointed over the fact that the new GTA IV – which currently has preview boxes lining the walls of every GAME store in the country, and is currently the number 1 pre-ordered game – is only being released by RockStar for XBOX 360 and Playstation 3 consoles next month… there are some unconfirmed rumours that they might release it for the PC in October this year… not good enough! Not nearly good enough!

I  have concluded that I need to procure an XBOX 360 A.S.A.P! My birthday is in the not too long distant future and I’ve been dropping hints left, right and centre to friends and family to buy me one.

Anyway… there’s lots and lots of GTA IV movies on you tube… and this is the latest!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAkVxUcvG-I

BioShock 2 Officially Announced

Take-Two Interactive have announced that BioShock 2 is officially in the pipeline.

BioShock, designed by Ken Levine, released in August 2007, was one of last year’s biggest XBOX and PC first-person “genetically-enhanced” shooter games, with over 2 million units sold. This game came from nowhere and received an extremely positive reception, now voted as the 13th best ever game, so it’s no wonder they’re investing in a sequel.

I’ve been playing Crysis and Call of Duty 4, and have to say that BioShock is the best – very possibly has been the most original, immersive first-person shooter I’ve played since Far Cry.

Set in 1960, BioShock places the player in the body of Jack whose plane crashes mid sea. Making your way to a lighthouse, you find your way venturing into the vast Objectivist-dystopian underwater city called Rapture – once a truly amazing underwater city, but now neglected, creaking and leaking like an old submarine – it is truly like being in a horror movie where have to survive against a population of mutants and robot drones.

It’s the first game I’ve ever played were I actually found myself sitting for at least 2 minutes trying to make a moral decision on whether to pull the trigger or not… the first time you kill a Big Daddy you are faced with the choice of saving or harvesting one of the little sisters… I couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger!

One of the really cool elements of BioShock that differentiates it from all other shooters at the minute is the ability to completely improve your weapons and other abilities.

I’m still really enjoying playing this game on the PC… fantastic gameplay, fantastic theme, amazing sound. The sound in the game really makes it… it is totally creepy from fx to background music… and totally suits the art deco theme in the game.

The game actually scooped 8 G.A.N.G Audio awards presented by the The Game Audio Network Guild. “Every now and again, life provides one of those great moments of satisfaction for which words are really inadequate to describe,” said BioShock composer Garry Schymann.

If you haven’t played BioShock yet I highly recommend you take a trip to your local game store and procure a copy… like now… like why are you still reading this blog post???

The sequel, planned for a fourth-quarter fiscal 2009 release date, is actually rumoured to be a prequel which focuses on the fall of Rapture, is apparently being developed by newly formed 2K Marin studio.

BioShock 2 should be totally awesome! Of course before all that I’ve gotta play Far Cry 2!!!