XBox 360 Rally

Hey, are you a modder? Did you mod your Xbox? You did? …dumbass. You may have noticed that your Xbox Live account has gotten the Ban Hammer from Microsoft. Does this surprise you? Doesn’t surprise me one bit. BUT… if you are a Modder AND own the HD-DVD drive… you can get around the ban. How? A new firmware hack for the DVD drive allows you to bypass all of the current Microsoft detection protocols, thus allowing you back on Xbox Live.

On a personal note: You people are scum. Not you modders — those of you who make kick ass case mods are awesome. But those of you who hack the console so you can get a leg-up on the competition are scum. Period. And Microsoft will find out how to break your balls until you knock this childish crap off.

[Xbox-Scene]

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lawl of Arrogantics.com posted 2 videos of some Guitar Hero 3 gameplay. Thank him greatly for converting these videos so we all do not have to suffer the fate of using IGN’s player (which does suck). Songs are My Name is Jonas by Weezer (below) and Slow Ride by Foghat (after the break).

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Possibly the most unimportant thing you will ever read unless you own Dead Rising, and even then, I put this on a scale of 1-100 as a .. 2, possibly 1. However, if you own the game, take a few seconds to get yourself a Pure White Suit, Stripe, and Accountant outfits.

Check out the Marketplace for some other goodies for sale today, such as Red vs Blue episode 20, Call of Duty 3 “Bravo” map pack, and some new Lost Planet pictures and themes.

[Major Nelson]

I cannot tell a lie. This game is one I look forward to more than Halo 3 (okay, maybe right under Halo 3). Seriously, go buy a Gamecube, rent Pikmin (probable total cost = $20 more or less), and see why I would get all excited over this game that no one seems to give us news about.

Well the nice folks at Xboxyde got screenshots and decided to share with the world. They were sent by Codemasters themselves over to them in the form of a press kit. I am sure mine is on the way Codemasters, probably just lost in the mail.. right guys… right. Well to see all the screens, take a gander over at Xboxyde.

A Japanese magazine interviewed Masashi Tsuboyama and someone translated it and posted it (”Snail Mail” magazines ftl). In the interview the meat and potatoes of what a good Xbox 360 owner would want to read is:

“DP: Have you made any thoughts on the platform which Silent Hill will appear?

Tsuboyama-san: Like I said, we only have ideas but we have been assessing next-generation consoles such as Sony’s Playstation 3. We have looked at other consoles too but they exact limitations which could delay progress. We have not decided the console yet.

DP: Would going multi-platform be an option?

Tsuboyama-san: Silent Hill 1 to 3 have all been multi platform appearing on either Playstation 3, Xbox or PC. This was when we were working at DVD level with no HD needed. Mutli-Platform will be discussed but nothing is certain yet.”

[Source and full interview @ SilentHill5.net | Thanks to TheLastBoss]

TeamXbox highlights some of the finer points from the newest issue of Official Xbox Magazine 6-page article on Unreal Tournament 3.

In the preview, Epic Games’ Steven Polge, the lead designer of Unreal Tournament 3, confirms that the Xbox 360 version of the game will support four-player co-op and two-player split-screen in the single-player campaign, which will let you take different paths depending on the decisions you take.

The preview also revealed that Unreal Tournament 3 will feature 18 vehicles and 5 types of turrets. Epic also promises “zero-time to spectacle” thanks to the hoverboard.

Regarding the controls, Polge revealed that they are so good that half the people who work on the game prefer to play the Xbox 360 version. Furthermore, the guy responsible for the controls has stepped in playtest sessions, where everyone was on keyboards, and with a controller he kicked everyone’s butt.

Now that Epic is known among Xbox gamers for Gears or War rather than its emblematic Unreal franchise, the comparison between the two series is inevitable.

Jerry O’Flaherty, the art director for both games, says that “Gears if a more confined game. UT is about big, huge distances. The speed of UT is so quick; it’s not a walking environment, it’s a running or flying environment.”

Finally, Polge chipped into the discussion saying: “It’s Gears on crack. Cover is for wimps!”

I actually can’t wait to play this, I am interested to see the Unreal Engine on an Unreal game for a change

[OXM July issue | TeamXbox]

This time Midway has decided to throw their hat in the WWII FPS ring with their offering, Hour of Victory. Now you can see exactly what all the fuss has been about, because the Hour of Victory demo is now available on the Xbox Live Marketplace.

The single-player demo offers you the chance to play through one of the North African levels as any of the three heroes: The Army Ranger, a Covert Operative, and a British Commando. The big headline catcher with this game is that it’s running on the Unreal 3 Engine — the same game engine that gave us Gears of War. So we expect this game to be quite pretty.

Now, there were a few problems with the downloading of the demo last night, but I can assure you all now that the download is up and running. It’s just going pretty damn slowly, but I’m sure they’re working that problem out. So download it, and tell me what you think.

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I’m going to leave this brief, since I am very, very pissed. I have spent the past seven hours pushing my car four miles. I drive a 1992 Cadillac DeVille. A heavy beast of a car. So, I am tired. I am grumpy. I am really not giving two shits about the fact that the Hour of Victory demo is available on the Marketplace. You want to know what it’s like? Download the damn thing.

Business will resume as normal tomorrow.

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One of the major complaints about Halo 3 is that it doesn’t look enough like Halo 3 should. Personally, I think the character models look like very smooth clay-mation. Bungie, in regards to the seemingly underwhelming graphics seen so far, has essentially said “we’re workin’ on it!”.

Bungie’s Frank O’Connor had this to say about the criticisms brought forth by Halo 3’s graphics:

““We have a long time to polish and iterate on the largely complete game at this point. We’ll be working on some big ticket items as well as making sure that the little details, like decorators and shaders are all in place. Lighting and atmospherics are going to be big keystones in our look and feel, and those really haven’t been shown except in multiplayer to this point.”

In short — they’re still working on it. Don’t be getting your panties in a bunch just yet.

[Next-Gen.biz]

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Peter Jackson is, some say, a great filmmaker. I won’t deny that his treatment of King Kong was his best work since The Frighteners (one of my top five favorite films). So, when he was attached to produce the on-screen adaptation of Halo, many fanboys were overjoyed! Even when Jackson chose unknown director Neill Blomkamp, we all took a deep breath, and hoped for the best.

…then Universal put the film on hiatus. Millions wept.

Well, in an interview with New Zealand magazine Onfilm, Jackson stated that he hopes that the release, and surrounding hype surrounding Halo 3 will spur interest in rekindling the film. When asked if he would return to produce, he said that he’d return only if Blomkamp was attached to direct.

We wouldn’t want to do it with anybody else. It’ll be Neill’s call.

[Onfilm]

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Just shut the hell up, sit your ass down and watch this video. I am honestly starting to think that Bioshock may become one of the greatest games of the past decade.

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Ranked Matches
Team Slayer
Big Team Battle
Rumble Pit

Unranked Matches
Big Team Training
Double Team Training
Team Training

[Thanks to youNEWB.com as I forgot about this update for some reason]

Whilst you are today purchasing Forza 2 or Shadowrun and getting your FREE game, allow me to lure you back to two pretty good titles, one is a little better of a title than the other imo, but what you buy isn’t for me to decide (otherwise you would all own Tetris Evolution).

Condemned (the better of the two) and the honestly not that shabby Quake 4, are going for $19.99 and $14.99 over at EBgames.com, while their used counterparts costing $5 more. Both titles have demos on the Xbox Live Marketplace, so check ‘em out and see if these FPS are for you.

*gets on megaphone*

Listen up — today is Tuesday! Today, both Shadowrun and Forza Motorsport 2 are released to us, the general public! If you are planning on buying either Forza 2 or Shadowrun, do so at Circuit City! Why? Because if you pick up either title, you will get a free Xbox 360 game. Sure, it’s a $19.99 value game, but you will get to pick a free game to take home, to inflate your game collection while you spend hours and hours with either Forza 2 or Shadowrun.

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So here’s the deal — Ron Workman, aka “Greybush” over at one of our favorite sites, Destructoid, is claiming that Metal Gear Solid 4 is no longer a PS3 exclusive, and is now headed towards the Xbox 360 around Q4 2008. To quote Ron:

I have been waiting for many months to finally say this, and today is the day. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots will not be a PS3 exclusive after all. It has been confirmed that it will make its way to the Xbox 360 in 2008.

Now, I want this to be true. I trust Ron, and the rest of the guys over at Destructoid. But there is no source for this. No press release. No quote from an insider with the team working on MGS4. No nothing. So, take this with a few pounds of salt, and hope for the best.

If this is proven to be a crock of [censored], please, please, PLEASE… send your hate mail to Ron. Not us.

[Destructoid]

UPDATO MAGNIFICO!
Apparently, this mess was started by a Swedish magazine that is making claims that an inside source has confirmed that MGS4 will, eventually, come to the 360. You can read about it, ironically enough, at PS3 Center.

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