When asked about how size limitations could affect Final Fantasy XIII on the Xbox 360, producer Yoshinori Kitase said, “…we’ll work on trying to find ways to compress the prerendered movies and voice that take up a lot of data in ways that don’t affect the final product. As for the in-game visuals, we’re going to look for ways to ensure that the quality remains the same between the two versions.” Wow, compression. You know what else could be optimized for the Xbox 360? You guessed it…

While talking to one of my friends about the announcement at E3 that Final Fantasy XIII is no longer a PS3 exclusive, I made a comment stating that all Xbox 360 owners need now is Metal Gear Solid 4. He said that would never happen because the size of the game is too big and it would have to be put on multiple DVDs. Who cares if it is on multiple discs? Apparently Kojima cares… or he pretends to care because Sony probably paid him to. Metal Gear Solid was on multiple discs and nobody seemed to have a problem with that, but that is beside the point.

You see kids, there is this little thing called compression. Did you know that the mp3s you buy (or pirate) are compressed? If they were not compressed, your songs would be 30mb and up compared to the 3-6mb songs we are used to. That is quite a difference isn’t it? The video on your DVD movies that you buy at the store (or pirate) are compressed. Most of the textures you see in games are compressed as well. The point is, with compression, it is possible to get MGS4 to the Xbox 360 with a reasonable amount of discs. I have heard people say that there are no pre-rendered cut scenes in the game, meaning, there is no video to compress in the game. That may be true, but there are other things to compress. The audio and textures used in the game most likely take up the majority of the space and can be compressed.

Also, some developers have had to duplicate data on the Blu-ray disc in order to decrease the load times for their games. Bethesda had to do this with the PS3 version of Oblivion. Basically, the larger a disc is, the longer it takes to read and jump from point to point on the disc (this is why some PS3 games require you to install the game to the hard drive). By duplicating data, the laser will have multiple points on the disc to read data, making it closer to the data it needs. Why is this relevant? If this technique was used for MGS4, the game may be a fraction of the size they claimed they needed.

Even if MGS4 has no duplicate data on the disc, and Kojima did not want to compress anything at all, there is now another way to get it on the Xbox 360. At E3, Microsoft announced that you will be able to install Xbox 360 games on your hard drive. I don’t think I need to explain much, but with this option you would need a large hard drive for your Xbox 360 and would have to install Metal Gear Solid 4 on it. After an install, no disc swapping would be needed.

What I am trying to say is, if Metal Gear Solid 4 does not come out on the Xbox 360, it is because Sony is paying for exclusivity. It has little to do with the size of the game. Before I get death threats from any Sony fan boys, know that I own a PSX, PS2, PSP, and a PS3. I am also going to buy MGS4 for the PS3 (after I beat 2 and 3). So There.

The balance and polish of Bad Company, along with the “Gold Rush” game mode, make it a truly amazing online experience. In each round, there is an attacking team that is trying to blow open some gold crates, and a defending team trying to protect the crates. This sounds like a typical game mode for any shooter right? It is until you add an almost fully destructible environment, unlockable weapons, and effective classes. What you are left with is pure gold… and my new favorite multiplayer shooter.

The destructible environments may sound like a gimmick before you play the game, but after a few rounds, you will see that it adds much more strategy to an already tactical game. Imagine taking cover and a few seconds later you have no cover at all. This helps keep the game moving and makes for some quick decision making.

Experienced Battlefield Veterans may have some trouble adapting to the game as there are a few changes. The biggest change for me was the fact that there are no parachutes. You are going to hate this at first, but after a while you will see why there are none. Basically, helicopters in Bad Company are meant for fighting, not transportation. It might also be hard getting used to the majority of classes not having a pistol, but I don’t miss it at all at this point.

I do have some complaints, but they have not stopped me from getting addicted to the game. My biggest complaint is the control scheme. The knife button is in the worst spot ever, and there is no way to change the button layout. Another problem I have with the game is the award system. It sounds like an odd thing to complain about, but after being in many games where my team lost due to a few guys trying to “Get 4 road kills with the helicopter in a round” or any other near impossible award; I can say that they are extremely annoying. I want achievements as much as the next guy, but not at the expense of a loss.

At any rate, it is worth a rent at the very least. Battlefield veterans should definitely try it before buying. I personally like it more than previous Battlefield games, but there are many who feel the opposite. Do yourself a favor and play it for a few hours before passing judgment.

I buy Xbox 360 games over Playstation 3 games because of the online community, the ease of joining a friend in an online game, and the achievements. To be fair, I have always liked the speed of the PS3 cross media bar compared to Xbox 360 blades that are ad heavy and extremely sluggish. As for the in-game cross media bar, it is a huge improvement but is still not as good as the Xbox 360 in-game communication system.

I was very excited at the thought of getting trophies for all the Playstation 3 games I own and was expecting to get some trophies that I may have already earned. Apparently, not all games will have trophies and the games that do will require you to play through them from the beginning. I was thinking about buying a few games for the PS3 that I already own on the 360 just as an excuse to play them again, but I doubt I will at this point. As usual, Sony just doesn’t get it. For something that should have been included with the system, the update is extremely underwhelming.

I added an Atari/Amiga/Commodore joystick port to my Xbox 360 X-Arcade stick today… Why you ask? Sensible World of Soccer of course! Although I never played the older versions, I have become very addicted to the recent Xbox Live Arcade release. The guys at sensiblesoccer.de seem to prefer an Amiga joystick over any other type of control method so I decided I would give it a shot. Since the Xbox 360 controller can be used on the PC, I figured this project would also be good for emulation.

  

The gamepad I used is a wired Xbox 360 MicroCon Game Pad Pro. I had to use a relay (TF2E-4.5v-1-H50  ATF20620) on the left and right buttons because they don’t share a common ground. If you decide to do this and just want a joystick port on the controller and not the X-Arcade stick, you should use an opto-isolator instead of a relay as they are smaller.

1	UP
2	DOWN
3	LEFT
4	RIGHT
6	BUTTON
8	GND

On my controller, pins 3 and 4 go to the following relays which connect to the left and right d-pad buttons. Other controllers may be set up differently. Any button that does not share a common ground needs a relay or an opto-isolator.

The Orange Box is Valve’s new compilation of five great games including: Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode 1, Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Portal, and Team Fortress. If you have not played Half-Life 2 then that alone is a reason to own it. If you have played Half-Life 2 and/or Episode 1 already (most have), consider them a bonus. Portal and Team Fortress together are worth the price of The Orange Box.

Team Fortress is a multiplayer first person shooter where each character type plays a very unique role. For instance, an engineer can build turrets to defend an area while a spy can disguise themselves as a player on the other team in order to sneak past their defenses. It took me a while to learn the basics, but is turning out to be a very solid multiplayer shooter.

Portal is a first person puzzle game where you are given a gun that shoots portals too help you get through the levels. While the story mode may only be a few (extremely entertaining) hours long, there are many more things to do once you complete it. Unless you are a genius, this game should last between 10-1,000 hours depending on how smart you are.

The Orange Box is currently available for the PC and Xbox 360. It will be available for the PS3. To find out more about any of these games, check out The Orange Box site.

There has been a lot of debate as to whether this game is good or bad, but it’s the type of game that is impossible to label as such. This is not your standard 80’s arcade rehash with flashy graphics; Space Giraffe is its own genre. Instead of dwelling on the reviews the game has gotten, I’m going to write a little about the game for those who instantly hated it, played it wrong, or read the bad reviews.

First off, there are two correct ways to play the game. One way is to play offensively and score high, the other is to play defensively and live to see another stage. Unless you are an expert (only three people on the leader boards seem to be at this point) you need to play a little of both. The incorrect way to play is to play as if you were playing Tempest. In short, this game is about setting up enemies to “bull” for a scoring multiplier, scoring high, and surviving.

What makes this game so hard for most people to understand is that you need to use your sense of sight as well as your sense of sound. Many are complaining that it is hard to see bullets and certain enemies when the visuals get hectic, but that’s what the sound is for. There is a specific sound that plays for certain events and this is what you need to listen for.

At this point, I have made it level 46 in one sitting and am ranked 97 on the leader boards with 108,915,762. Right now, the top three on the leader boards have 1.5-.5 million so I know could be doing a lot better at this point. Figuring out the trick to each level is the key to scoring high. That is what I like the most about this game. Surviving to level 100 doesn’t mean a whole lot unless you have a decent score to go with it, and that’s what this game is all about. See http://llamasoft.co.uk/blog/ for more information about the game and much better pictures.

Developer blogs: http://stinkygoat.livejournal.com/85730.html
http://psychedelia.googlepages.com/aboutspacegiraffe

  

Since I will continue to beat my old score, just look for LimitZer0 in the top 100.

I recently bought a broken Guitar Hero X-Plorer guitar on Ebay for $23 hoping to be able to fix it. After plugging it in, the Xbox wouldn’t turn on. This scared me a great deal to say the least. I looked at the power supply and the light was red instead of the usual orange. It had detected a fault and was protecting the console.

Knowing it was a problem with the power, I narrowed the problem down to two things. Either the USB cable was broken internally or the previous owner spilled liquid on the controller. Lucky for me it was the USB cable, an extremely simple fix. The +5 (red) wire was broken right were it starts to come out of the guitar, most likely due to the previous owner wrapping the cable around the controller.

If your X-Plorer controller isn’t working there is a good chance this is the problem. If you want to be sure, test each end of the USB cable with a multimeter. If this is the problem, all you have to do is cut the bad part of the USB cable out and reconnect the two good parts. The bad part will most likely be the thick rubber part coming out of the guitar.

To connect the two good pieces of the cable back together, twist the wires together, solder them, then use heat shrink tubing to cover the exposed part of the wire (you can also use electrical tape, but heat shrink tubing would be best). You also need to twist the outer part of the two good pieces together and solder them. Use electrical tape to cover anything that is exposed (should only be the outer part of the cable at this point).  When finished, use zip-ties to make sure the electrical tape stays put and to keep the wire from moving around.

   

I put an Xbox 360 controller board in my X-Arcade Solo stick a while back to have a proper arcade stick for Xbox Live Arcade games and fighting games. The Xbox 360 controller I have has a turbo button on it but I have been thinking about adding a faster one.

 

If you are interested in adding the turbo button to anything, here is the parts list (all of this can be found at Radio Shack) and the schematics:

• Circuit Board (optional)
• R1 = 1K Ohm Resistor
• R2 = 10k Ohm - 100K Ohm Resistor or Variable Resistor (The lower the resistor, the faster the pulse) Start with 47k and go from there.
• C1 = .1 uF Capacitor
• 555 Timer

 

If you attempt this, make sure you get multiple resistors between 10k Ohms and 100k Ohms (or a variable reistor) in order to find the best pulse rate for your turbo button. I used a 22k Ohm resistor, which is about 30 button presses a second. You don’t want it to be so fast that it just registers as one long button press and you don’t want it too slow.

Note: If you are interested in converting your X-Arcade stick into an Xbox 360 stick, I used an Xbox 360 MicroCon Game Pad Pro [Gameshark or Madcatz] and 30 gauge wire. The hardest part of this mod is mounting it to the board. I used two big screws going through some tubes to keep the board raised above the buttons (See pics above). This thing is a must have for any old school gamers and arcade junkies. Some games just don’t feel right on a gamepad.

This years Comic-Con was an amazing site. I haven’t been to the convention in over ten years and things have changed quite a bit. The last time I went there were about 15,000 people, this year there were 125,000 people! That is an insane amount of people for a comic convention. I actually planned on buying a few things but the amount of people was so overwhelming, I ended up wandering around for hours never even seeing anything I planned on buying. I ended up spending $12 total.

Since I wasn’t spending much, I decided to try to get as many free promotional things as I could. I’m usually pretty laid back, but apparently when people are handing out free junk I turn into an excited little kid. Every time I saw a booth giving away something decent, I plowed my way over to claim my item having no regard for kids, moms, or other nerds.

As if going to a comic convention isn’t nerdy enough, I spent the majority of the time at the video game booths. I tried a lot of games,  many of which aren’t out yet. I was going to buy most of these anyway, but getting to see them in person sealed the deal.

Puzzle Fighter HD - plays as expected; I didn’t spend a lot of time with it.

Contra DS - I thought the gap in between the dual screens would be annoying but it didn’t cause any problems with the game.

Castle Crashers (360) – I didn’t play it much. It plays smoother than Alien Hominid. Support The Behemoth.

The Eye of Judgment (PS3) – Never even played it but I must have it.

Anyway, enough of my rambling, here are a few pictures of the event.

The Crowd
  Promotional Freebies
   The Games