I’ve completed my second review for PlanetXbox360.com. It’s on the new Worms for XBLA. You can read it here, where it’s the top story. Yay!

In a dream come true, I’ve been hired to write articles and reviews for PlanetXbox360. Make money playing games? Sign me up!

I’ve just completed an article on the power consumption of the Xbox 360 in various modes and with various peripherals. You can find it at www.planetxbox360.com. Here’s the direct link.

I also wrote a review of the Xbox Live Arcade title “Assault Heroes”. You can find that here.

UPDATE: My power consumption article has been picked up by www.xbox-scene.com. Check it here!

I scored on the Xbox Live Vision Camera for my Xbox 360, and was very much looking forward to using it as a webcam. Having just upgraded to Windows Vista Business, I was bummed to discover that there are no drivers for it yet. It just plain doesn’t work. If you figure out a way to get it to work, let me know - in the meantime, you’ve been warned.

I feel like I should get one of those stickers that say, “I tried to give blood.” Such was my experience this morning to snag one of six PS3s for sale at the local Fred Meyer this morning.

Sharpie and I hit the store at about 6:35 this morning, and found a line of around 100 people. It was actually quite the party - kids, elderly folk, people smoking, drinking, swearing, scratching - the works! Now, they (Fred Meyer) had decided just a few days before that they would hold a lottery for the “privelige” of buying a PS3, instead of on a first-come, first-serve basis, so the line itself wasn’t relevant to our chances. That said, people continued to line up behind us. At 6:45, managers started down the line, passing out tickets. Then, everybody crowded up to the front doors while someone else shouted out ticket numbers.

I did not win. The guy right in front of me did. And so did my other friend, Doug, a hundred people back.

My ticket # was 085052. Sharpie’s was 085051. Forever shall these be known as our unlucky six-digit numbers starting with a zero. Anyway, I heard a ticket get called for around 085052, so I surmise that there were at least 450 people there. We examined what was left of the games selection afterwards (plenty of EA trash left), and bought some donuts on our way out. Had to put that money to work somehow, you know?

Yes, just so you know, I WAS planning on eBaying the thing immediately. Why would I want to crack it open? So I couldn’t play online with instant and easy matchmaking with ranking? So I couldn’t have voice chats, download demos, games, stream music and video in between and during games? Heck no - it’s 360 time. See you all online - where the PS3 players won’t be.

Sneak King. You’ve heard about it. You’ve wondered about it. You didn’t believe it was possible. You’ve thought - could I really be the King? Do I have what it takes to bust out of trash cans, and present Double Whopper Value Meals to hungry citizens? Can I Sneak the King?

Watch and covet: http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/858/858064/vids_1.html

I know what I’m doing November 19th.

EDIT: BONUS!

EDIT 2: Last edit I SWEAR. Key points here for us 360 owners are the facts that these are genuine Xbox 360 games (not backwards compatible original Xbox titles), that all three will have achievements, and that Big Bumpin’ and Pocketbike Racer are eight-person playable over Xbox Live. Seriously - what’s stopping you? Congrats to the writers of this particular link - there are some hilarious quotes and captions in there…

I do not envy the position of the Official Xbox Magazine. In the past, they had an easy business model: do articles, and provide DVDs filled with demos. As practically the only source where you could go to find demos for games before they came out, OXM’s success was guaranteed!

Fast forward to today, when OXMs biggest selling point has been one-upped by the Marketplace. Now, as soon as a developer has finished the code, it can be pushed to every single connected gamer, without forcing that customer to buy a magazine. More exposure == more profit. Simple!

So, now that OXM has lost its exclusive grip on demos, how does it regain that same level of gotta-have-it-ness? For one, it can seek exclusive rights on new game demos, and prevent them from appearing on the Marketplace, at least for a while.

This seems like a winner - get the games out before anyone else, and move some magazines. The fundamental shift here, though, is that OXM has now firmly moved from ENABLER to OBSTRUCTOR. Do you understand the distinction? Since my magazine hasn’t arrived yet, I cannot play Rainbow 6 because of their exclusive deal. Will my mag get here before the demo hits the Marketplace, anyway? What about everyone else who doesn’t subscribe?

You and I - we’re just plain our of luck… that is, until that blasted e-word finally expires.

I, for one, will not be renewing my subscription. The money would go towards supporting the blocking of demos that I otherwise would be able to play. You don’t want me to do that, and I don’t want me to do that.

Say what? How many players? That sounds like an unsubstantiated rumor?

http://kotaku.com/gaming/x06/rumor-x06-announcement-roundup-203314.php

Games are fun, yes. We play to have fun. Xbox 360 Achievements are brilliantly fun to acquire - and they have actually affected the games I play. I can’t tell if that’s good or bad.

You see, the newest Xbox 360 compatability list just came out, and with it Burnout 3: Takedown was finally added. Non-seredipitiously, the day before I sold my copy for $6 to my local Game Crazy, figuring that this game would never see the light of day.* What unluck! But, as I continued to think about it, no matter how much I enjoyed the game, playing it would not affect my Gamerscore, pictured to the right. It wouldn’t be tracked online - my friends would never know that I played! It seems like a cheap reason, and I’m the first one to say how surprised I am at the fact that I have the same agonizing problem with Halo 2. The Halo series is my favorite series, bar none. You have only to read this site to figure that out. However, playing Halo 2 online is like kissing with one lip: you can’t see your friends list, there’s no high score (other than online levels, some of which are hidden), you can’t chat with someone else who’s playing something else, you can’t adjust your music - it’s just plain limiting. And, again, there’s no record it ever took place.

That’s a hard realization to come to - especially since my best friends like the game so much. I feel like I also want to get some distance, so that the Halo 3 hype machine can sweep me up. I’m going to cut down on my Halo 2 time - if GRAW’s new multiplayer content comes down in price over the course of this TGS2006 (see my gamer pic!) and X06 season, I’ll snag it in a heartbeat.

This same issue keeps me from wanting to snag other Xbox games that I’ve heard were good. Games like Ninja Gaiden, Lego Star Wars, or Black. Does anyone else find it hard, now that there is a definite, tangible reward to playing, to play simply for playing’s sake?

*What did I do with that $6? Why, I pre-ordered my copy of Halo 3, of course. The real question is, why haven’t you pre-ordered yet?

My gamer profile got corrupted a few days ago. I have no idea why - I didn’t drop my machine, spill anything on it, or delete something while turning it off. In between games of Feeding Frenzy, my sister comes up to me and says, “Your profile’s gone.” What, I say?

Sure enough, my console said “0 profiles”. Not good. I tried the Gamertag Recovery tool, but at the end it would always say, “Can’t Save Profile, either you don’t have enough space, or your storage location isn’t connected right.” Really not good.

I deleted demos down to 8 gigabytes free, took my harddrive on and off, but the Recovery tool still wouldn’t work. There HAD to be enough space, simply because some people store their profiles on little 64 MB memory cards, while I had 8 gigs free! I knew my HD was connected correctly, because I could play arcade games on it.

I called Xbox Support at 1-800-4MYXBOX and the guy (James? Kent? I can’t remember…) had no idea what the problem was, either. Finally, while on the phone, I went to the Gamer Profiles section of the Memory, and there was listed a “Corrupt Profile”. Ah ha! There’s ol’ Stonesand, corrupt to the core. I deleted it, and then tried the Recovery tool, which worked this time. I was sure to pick the “Don’t delete my saved games” option, and they all seem to be there.

There were several problems with this experience. First, the text is misleading - the Recovery tool was constantly telling me that it would delete all of my save games, which it didn’t.

Second, the main profile selection screen saying 0 profiles, when there really was one there (a corrupt one), was less informative than it could be, and was the reason Xbox Support couldn’t figure this out.

Third, the error about Can’t Save Profile was wrong - there was a conflicting, corrupt profile in the way of the fresh one the Recovery tool was attempting to create, which wasn’t an option presented by this error message.

So, be careful. Delete any corrupt profile(s) first before attempting to Recover them!

On a second note, Conan the VIIIth and have been having problems joining each other’s games (when he or I were the host), and talking to each other. I finally discovered that it was occuring because, when running the XBL connection test, it reported my NAT as Moderate. Perhaps Conan also has the same problem - he’ll fix it, if that is the case. NAT needs to be reported as Open on both ends if you want to be able to connect to everyone, and hear their voices. You can’t control the host, but you can at least control your own.

This problem occured both in original Xbox games, and Xbox 360 games.

If your router is reporting your NAT as Moderate, or (worse) Strict, there a couple of things you can do. First, make sure you aren’t filtering out any NAT packets in your router firmware. Second, make sure UPnP is enabled. This one change moved me from Moderate NAT to Open. Third, if nothing else works, you probably need to get a new router.

You can check the router compatability list at:
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/connecttolive/xbox360/homenetworking/equipment.htm

Note that on this page, when you find your router, you should click on its name or version if it is a link. There may be additional gotchas, inside. Also, note that my router is not on this list, yet I clearly can connect to XBL. That’s probably because the WRT54GL is exactly the same as the WRT54G just with more RAM, so that people can load in new firmwares based on the larger Linux kernal. Which I have done. Ask me in this post if you have any DD-WRT, or NAT questions.

I’m using a brand-spanking new Linksys WRT54GL with DD-WRT v23 loaded as the firmware. It’s workin’ great.

Here’s my second-by-second analysis of the trailer Halo 3 announcement trailer. There are already other analyses out there - I hope you enjoy reading mine. I’ve tried to pick out the things that most impress me, the things that I think are indicative of the game we’ll eventually get, and the things that worry me (if any).

Remember that this trailer is running on Xbox 360 hardware - this is not prerendered. We can therefore judge the quality and know that we are somewhat approximating the final build. Enjoy!

0:00
The Halo 3 trailer was designed for the E3 conference - the audience wasn’t supposed to know it was Halo-related until the MC walked out of the cloud, and Cortana’s face was finally revealed. That’s partially the reason we have this long, slow intro - it builds tension.

A piano chord sounds at the beginning - two notes, an octave apart. With no notes in the middle (the third or fifth, especially), the notes sound lonely and final - fitting for the apocalyptic terrain that is slowly revealed. The screen begins white, and the overexposure fades out as blowing dust appears.

0:15
The white has faded away revealing a dusty, damaged area. The camera begins pulling back. It’s here that we first have cause to get excited - look at those clouds! Wispy cirrus on the left, and puffy cumulo nimbus on the left and right. Lofty stratus streaks the middle high in the sky. These clouds look better than even Oblivion’s clouds. We don’t see them moving, or changing at this time - this may or may not need to happen, but it does add realism. Should they be moving, though, especially compared to what we’re about to see in the sky? Moving clouds is not particularly difficult - they can be simple moving textures on the sky dome. Changing clouds - now that’s hard!

We see trees, though they are too far away to really examine - are they billboarded, or actual 3D objects, for example?

The most exciting thing, I think, that this image has to offer is the debris on the ground. I’ve always thought that a realism issue in today’s games is the amount of stuff lying around. If you step outside, there are rocks, shrubs, sticks - the ground is busy with stuff. In a typical Halo shot, the ground has only a texture - take a look at this shot.

At this point, you can see debris that includes wreckage - presumably from a battle - rocks, and the aforementioned dust. One negative point - the rock on the right that is partially let is very angular. So is the small clump at left center. Rocks you see in the world typically are round, such as the rock at far left.

I don’t know what the cable-like structures at the back are. I’ve heard that they could be a skyhook, but it looks more like a bridge to me. Maybe it’s multiple skyhooks? Look at the ring on the left. It has cables running to both ends, as if both have to be held down - a skyhook with two ways up? In any event, these rings were not just debris effects added at the end to make the scene look more “destroyed” - they are part of the complete storyboard. Perhaps this means that they are more important than just dressing - a battleground or level?
EDIT - Bungie has said that this is indeed a skyhook.

The dust gobs that are blowing past are simple textures - they don’t look like volumetric clouds; fairly easy to do, and adequate. Volumetric dust clouds are what you and I think of by a “cloud” - they have volume, and look different from different angles. Real clouds are fairly computationally expensive, though, and can be simulated well with flat, partially-opaque, moving dust textures. One thing that can be done to improve the dust clouds is to have the texture be a “moving” texture, so that it looks like the dust is in fact volumetric - this does not appear to be “moving” textures, either. Bungie has said that these kinds of environmental effects are part of the standard engine.

Finally, the “Warning - Grunts” sign is well documented. It’s nice to be fans of a company who are putting easter eggs into everything they do.

0:20
A thick dust cloud begins to blow past the very center of the screen, obscuring the road.

0:22
A figure appears carry something over its shoulder, though it is too far away to tell anything about it, other than the fact that it’s probably human. Plants begin to come in from the lower left. The plants sway nicely, but they are stiff like steel rods, and have no shadows. Oh well - at least they move!

0:26
A ruined structure begins to come in from the left.

0:28
A second piano strike, and static begins to fill screen.

0:32
A blue, fuzzy image overlays the screen, and says, “I have defied gods and demons”. You can clearly hear Gravemind pronounce the word “demons”.

0:50
The figure walking towards the screen, which has gotten closer and close, appears in armor for a split second, before the blue fuzziness returns, and the blue fuzz says, “I am your shield, I am your sword.” By the end of the text, the blue fuzz is clearly Cortana

0:58
The figure coming through the smoke, through the broken structure is revealed as the master Chief. A music swell begins, and ends lightly, corresponding to the Chief removing the Assault Rifle he’s holding over his shoulder and placing the stock in his left hand.

Here is a shot of this AR. It looks slighly different than the original:

Here’s a shot of the old AR, for comparison purposes:

Some differences: The new AR is a higher resolution model, which accounts for some changes. The ammo counter area, though, is at a new angle to the stock. There are some new rivets along the upper area. The barrel is slightly longer, and has a bit of a crown to the end. There is a small plate of some kind on the right side, on the upper piece, above the pistol grip. Who knows what the changes are - full auto/triple shot, for starters? A scope?

The Chief looks great - his armor moves in separate pieces. The chest carapace moves independantly from the lower torso piece. There is much better lighting - the light coming from screen right is accurately reflected by all sides facing that direction. In addition, there is bloom associated with the light. This shows that the HDR features of Halo 3 are in full gear! Yay! Bloom is one of the easier effects, though - lets hope Bungie is able to make use of the more complex parts of HDR.

1:02
If you look closely at the MC’s visor, you can see little flashes of blue light. I believe that these are lightning flashes being reflected from what the camera is about to turn towards. They are the right color and same frequency as the lightning that is occuring. These flashes are especially apparent at 1:12 through 1:14.

1:05
Cortana says, “I know you - your past, your future.”

1:10
Marty O’Donnell comes into his own - the piano finally moves, and we hear the Theme. That haunting, theme which sounds so light - so final - so expectant.

1:14
Banshees fly in from behind. Presumably they miss the chief because he’s hidden by the wreckage? Maybe they are on his side?

1:15
The music swells, and we see that the Chief is really at the edge of a cliff, and a Covenant cruiser is right on top of him. Six banshees fly past, and a Phantom. The theme repeats again.

1:20
We see a hurricane eye-like cloud structure over what looks like a giant crater. In the middle of the crater, a non-man-made hill rises gently, and the middle of the hole is dug out again.

1:23
Two more banshees fly past (one quite close), and the Halo battle music starts! We see two more Covanant cruisers in the crater (it must truly be a gigantic hole), and we can count upwards of ten more in the background. Lighting plays from the ground to the central hole of the crater.

1:24
We get a good look at the back of the Banshee that flies close by. Where is the pilot?

1:34
Lines of dust appear in the crater, and the hill splits open, like the petals of a flower. The central area also explodes with dust. The cruiser in the middle of the crater is blown back a bit.

1:38
We have a view of the cliff edge, and the Chief standing there.

1:43
Notice the shadow of the Master Chief? It is actually correct to his body - the sun is drawing his shadow as it actually should be. No round blobs, no fuzzy pixelated lines. Just sharp shadow! In fact, take a look at this picture:

The Chief’s shadow lifts up with his foot! It’s accurately being cast by the model geometry, and I’m very glad to see it. Even his gun is cast correctly. Now, look at the cracks in the ground behind him. They look good, and there’s even debris on the ground behind him. That’s what I like to see.

1:45
The Covenant cruisers ignite their engines, and fly back from the opening ground. We cut back to the crater, and see that the ground has continued to open - the center of the crater has descended, as well. The petals continue to rise. Energy collects around the rings inside the central hole

1:52
We cut to a closeup of the Chief - in his helmet, you can see the central structure and the cruisers.

1:59
The central hole “fires” into the sky, and the screen whites out.

2:04
Black - the music pauses, with strings hanging on the same tonic as in the start. Cortana says, “This is how the world ends.”

2:07
The theme lets go - trumpets blare, choirs enter, The Halo 3 symbol appears, we see Bungie’s logo, and the tag line, “Finish the Fight” and “2007″ appear.

If there was any doubt that this was the end of this story arc, this shows it - “Finish the Fight,” indeed. The FAQ again lists that the music at the end serves to possibly emphasize triumph, a finale.

I want to stress that Marty O’Donnell came up with a very stirring refrain for this trailer. I’ve been humming it for the last two days. Bum BA DUUUUUUUUUUMMM, bum ba duuuuuuuuuumm! It really sounds final. This is it. Bungie is done. I have to admit - I find it kind of sad. Even from this preview trailer - a year and half before the game comes out - it’s billed as the FINISH. So much finality was unexpectedly unwanted. I found myself waxing nostalgic even as I watched it - knowing that the fun I’d had with the series really was coming to and end.

So. We learn very little from this trailer. We learn:

• The Master Chief is back on earth. But we knew this from the end of Halo 2.
• Cortana is a little out of sorts, and seems to be somewhat adrift in time. This isn’t surprising, since she ended Halo 2 in the clutches of Gravemind.
• This is the end of this story arc. Unfortunately!
• The Covenant defeated the Earth defenses. We didn’t know if this would happen or not - at the beginning of Halo 2, the Covenant attack Earth, but arrive with a scout force, as opposed to a battle fleet. Cortana makes this clear. However, we can only assume that reinforcements must have been alerted!

How long was the Chief gone in Halo 2? A day? Two days? How long up to this trailer since he’s been back? Clearly he didn’t come directly to this crater, as the Covenant have uncontested air superiority, and appear to have wrecked things up quite a bit, and he’s carrying a weapon he didn’t have on his way there.

Do we get to participate in the defense of Earth, or only in the taking back of it? Do we go to another Halo? How can the fight be finished?

I liked the trailer, even though it doesn’t reveal a whole lot. The game is like a year and a half away, so it doesn’t surprise me that we don’t know much. Your thoughts, my friends?

Halo 3 was just previewed for the first time at E3.

The trailer has since been released to XBL, and the web via Bungie.net, and I will comment on it in another post. Here, though, let me say how excited I am, regardless of the quality/impact of the trailer. The Halo series started a frequent LAN party group that still happens today. The originators of that group still play on XBL on a nearly weekly basis.

I don’t know if I’ve ever been more excited for, or more involved in, any game release’s pre-release hype machine than when the “I Love Bees” ARG campaign kicked off for Halo 2. Sharpie and I checked those websites constantly throughout the summer, and communicated our findings, as we both worked at jobs where we could communicate via IRC. We used our GPS tracker to roam all over Corvallis, and pinpoint exactly where the phone call should come in. We went and stood by our phones at the appointed time, even though we couldn’t pinpoint the phone exactly. We never did get a call, but we had a blast running around, and enjoyed watching and helping the internet solve the riddle.

The speculation, the hype, the standing in line for hours until midnight - those were good times. And I am so excited that we get to do this again.

Now, we’re all older - we’ve got kids, school is harder, jobs are harder - but we’ll stay connected. I fully plan to use this website as a hub for all of my/our activities in pursuing the fun that is Halo 3. I seriously doubt that this will be the clearinghouse of information for the Halo 3 community, but I hope to use it to track our adventures with it. See you online, and bee prepared!

Nintendo is absolutely destroying Sony at their press-conference. Sony’s stodgy presentation - translated in place - was painful to watch.

Nintendo is flashy - and that controller really looks like it works! I’m seeing Zelda sword action, Mario jumping, game after game that really looks like the analog precision of a position sensing controller is perfect. Think about it like this - joysticks and dpads induce vectors - move this way, move that way, move this fast, move that fast. A positional controller, like a computer mouse, lets you say - go here, go there.

The result is that I’m seeing these people shoot exactly that orc - fish exactly that spot - jump to exactly that place.

Wow - he just said that the new Zelda game will ship on launch day with the Wii. Now, they’re demoing the game. Dang - that bow aiming demo. Wow - the controller has a speaker! As you draw the controller back, the speaker sounds like the bow string being drawn back, and then when you fire, you hear the arrow leave your controller, and then get picked up by your main sound system.

Holy cow that mario game looks amazing. I am coveting this. It’s called Super Mario Galaxy, and has lots of Mario running around the outsides of asteroids, cauldrons full of lava, etc. I may very well have to get this, especially if they reveal a low enough price at the end.

FYI - the next Zelda game, Twilight Princess, is coming out for both GameCube and the Wii. The Wii version uses the fairy from OoT again - the fairy is your indicator of where the remote is pointing.

“Until you get the controller in your hand, you have no way of knowing what this is about.”

They’re getting into DS stuff now, which doesn’t interest me as much, but I sure am impressed with the Wii. I haven’t yet seen how the Wii is a synonym of We - no online service that I can see - but the play control really looks like playing. Here’s hoping for a low price!

There’s a line of smart DS games - Sudoku, Brain Age, etc. It’s almost like one of those mini-mags you can buy at the check-out line.

Theory now from Satoru Iwata - the Nintendo Prez. They’re goal is to create more gamers. Specifically, they’re reaching out to those who once played, and to those who never have. They are changing the controllers and screen layouts (DS) so that more people, who wouldn’t ordinarily play, have a chance to see a new way to do things.

Theo whole point behind the Wii controller, he says, is that the remote control is something everybody knows how to use. And, everybody knows how to move their arms to do things. They’re banking on the fact that the familiarity of the controller, and control methodology, will attract new gamers.

The Wii can always be on - it has a Standby feature that lets it remain connected, but in a low-power state. Also, it can be connected to the internet to download new things, etc. Don’t know about online play, but it can download stuff in this standby state.

I didn’t catch a price - did anyone else?

So… Sony’s big announcement is the controller sensing motion. What about the price, or the release date you say? Old news - we knew it’d be later in the year, and we knew it’d cost more than my car. But the controller? They’ve got a good idea going here, if it works. Picture this:

• Seven controllers at once - how about seven player Gauntlet?
• Stick with a proven design - PS people love the DualShock (it hurts my hands, FYI)
• Wireless
• Motion Sensor

Why is that Motion Sensor dealio so important? Because of this. Look at that thing! It’s a remote control! My watch has more buttons than that! Now, what about a real controller that also has motion sensing capability? It would have six degrees of freedom that don’t require buttons. Think Splinter Cell - you approach a corner, and to lean around it, you simply lean the controller. Neat! All of the lean buttons (which have historically been digital, anyway) are now freed for other things, and the lean is now a natural, analog process.

OK, but the price, now. Seriously - $600? And before I finish, lets talk problems with motion sensing. Say your daughter bumps the controller and you go

HURTLING OFF THE CLIFF.

Or you’ve got an itch and you accidentally

SHOOT DOWN THE ADMIRAL’S FLAGSHIP.

A note about Microsoft’s press conference tomorrow - if it ain’t Halo 3, and if Halo 3 isn’t anything more than a 360 version of Halo 2 (single player, and then standard matchmaking…. yawn…), what are they going to show?

EDIT: I just found on Microsoft’s Xbox.com E3 page this link:

“E3 GamerSpeak” - The Xbox community sounds off about what they hope to hear and see at E3. Is Master Chief on the list?

I sure hope he is! Why would they post that if he’s not?!