Download Confirmed it does work.

Being the quarterback would be simple and fun to implement but once the ball has been passed to another teammate would the controls be switched over? It would be the most logical that who ever is the last to hold the ball will now be controlled. Ok, well that seems to work well with offense but how about defense. Will the camera angle switch over so that now you can see the quarterbacks face while you rush him. That would be awesome wouldn’t it? Who will you choose to be on defense and how will you choose them will be the issue. Lets assume the QB gets the pass off while you are in defense, if the camera rotates back to default it might make a player dizzy in addition to that how will you choose a player to tackle. It looks like Microsoft and developers have some challenges ahead of them regarding what type of games the kinect will be able to handle.

We all know the Xbox 360 as a hardcore gamers console so if the kinect will only allow casual games then the hardcore gamers will feel a little abandoned. Perhaps this is there plan to broaden the spectrum of games the xbox is known for. If you asked me its pretty much a 1st person shooter console. The vast majority of the games are in this genre, so in my opinion a new set of games is a much needed refresh. I am excited to see what types of innovative games we will see from Microsoft in the coming year.

iXtreme LT in dev (for all drives) – minimal patching, all aspects of fw indistinguishable from orig No ETA!

7 Months later it would seem as though Hitachi has yet to even give word if its still being worked on. My opinion, move on to the other consoles where LT is supported and don’t get your hopes up for a Hitachi LT. Maybe by the end of the year.

Does this sound familiar to you? Yes I am referring to Microsoft’s banning practices for its Xbox360 game console. Fair is fair and playing pirated games on their service is prohibited and subject to violations as per the TOS. However other functionality asides from xbox live services should not be affected. For example many banned users are complaining that the HDD and all save states are corrupted and are no longer retrievable. This includes games that were installed on the hard drive whether they were legitimate or not. Playing games from the HDD was crippled. So the HDD can only be used by formatting it on another console which is not banned.

It can only be assumed that this tactic sounds as though Microsoft is taking this more personally and is angered. Thus taking more extreme measures then the usual force to counter piracy. Hence ensuring that banned customers repurchase the console to get 100% functionality again. Purchases of new consoles will boost hardware sales during this 2009 4th quarter holiday season. Which makes the timing of this all the more planned. With this said in this day and age it is eerie to know that consumers are being monitored so closely and it should be emphasized that anyone who plans on modifying anything and then using that device online should expect to be watched.

Imagine banning Other Things

XBOX 360
Ability to work with Hardware. (Not afraid to open expensive stuff.)
Hitachi Drive v59
Computer w Compatible SATA Connections (Assumes you have SATA Cord)
iXtreme Firmware 1.51 (Latest for Hitachi Drives) *Legal reasons I cannot distribute this file.
JungleFlasher (Included is a Detailed PDF file *Must Read*)

Flashing your Xbox 360 can be a scary thing to do. It is not a toy and is very expensive if you were to somehow mess up. This is why I will try and ease some of those tension by making a guide that addresses how to flash your xbox 360. You might come across many sites but none really help you out. This is why I will answer any questions that you might have in the comments section. For this I used my Dell Vostro 420 with Windows XP for this and by luck or chance the SATA IC9H chipset works flawlessly with this drive. Other drives you might need to go out and purchase a SATA card to install but I will talk more about that later. Flashing your xbox drive has become a slightly easier task to accomplish with the help of useful new programs and tools. WARNING opening your xbox will void your warranty. This is only a guide to assist you I do not take any responsibility if you damage your xbox 360. If you follow everything you should and will be fine.

The first task of course will be to open up the xbox 360. I found this task to be a bit more difficult than opening up the original xbox. But this tutorial will not cover this process. Although I will forward a link to a helpful youtube video, just watch it a few times and have the proper torx screwdrivers. I stress that you read up on the jungleflasher pdf file prior to doing anything because this will bring you up to speed on your drive and what steps. You can find this pdf file included when you download jungleflasher. This is just so you feel more comfortable with the process.

Once you have this bad boy open things get a bit easier, that is if you are comfortable with hardware and opening things. But I assume you do since you made it this far. You need to have both your computer and xbox 360 open so that you can use easily access key components. The xbox 360 for power and your computer for data transferring. I want you to now take your SATA cable and plug it into an open space on your motherboard. Leave the power cable from the hitachi drive connected to the xbox. I at this point shut off my computer and restart it just to be safe.

Install the PortIO32: Xbox 360 Device Driver which is includes in the jungleflasher package. There is a folder called manual_install go in there and follow the txt file. Getting your xbox 360 recognized by your computer is the next step which can work funny sometimes depending on your computer setup. Just be patient and try it again if it doesn’t get picked up the first time. But now that everything is installed you should be ready to continue. From here if your successful you can follow the video which I made to help you out a little. Good Luck and Happy Flashing. Please remember to legally backup your game discs. This is by no means a lesson on piracy.

UPDATE
Video is fixed but I should work on a voice over.
UPDATE 2
Added Audio plus M$ is doing some serious banning so please do not play on live ever your console will be banned. Dont cry these are the repercussions of doing such things. Do you like live that much buy a second console im sure ms wont mind that.

After watching Microsoft’s Project Natal promotional video I began to think of possible concerns that might arise while playing games or movies. The potential of this is monumental and is a great leap forward in the future of gaming technological advancements. But when seeing this it almost screams first person shooter all over the place. But how could this sensor see small hand gestures such as pulling a trigger on an imaginary gun. It doesn’t appear feasible unless there is some hardware component that works in addition to the camera. Or quite possible holding your existing controller and using it as a gun while the sensor picks up on your movements. This seems like a step backwards, when the idea is to not use a controller at all. Maybe they might go the wii route and come out with FPS peripherals that work in conjunction with FPS games and project natal camera.

My next concern comes while watching the promo video where it depicts a couple watching movies and navigating through menus with their hands and also voice controlling the playback of the movie by saying “Play Movie”. I really do hope they sorted this out but how does it know when I am talking to the device or if I am talking to a person in the room? It seems like a big whoops if they didn’t work on that part. Unless it works similarly to how computer interaction is done in star trek. A geeky example from star trek is when someone wishes to locate someone else on the ship they simply give a touch the emblem on their uniform to initiate a response to the computer and they state “Computer” followed by command “Locate Captain”. This implementation would avoid massive confusion than if I were to casually ask a friend could you locate captain… and the computer would jump in and try to answer me.

As I have stated on a previous post the psp desperately needs a new method for typing. Simply because the current method sucks horribly. l0rdnic0 from psp dev has come up with a way to take the Xbox 360 chat pad and some how through the grace of God got it to work on a PSP. With a custom flashed chatpad and a modified version of piKey he was able to achieve this cool hack. His work has been uploaded, check out the video proof which I linked above. I feel sony should take a gander at this and think; maybe in their next console they can make a better keyboard so people wont feel the need to make there own.

If you find your self in a situation where your hard drives are not as fast as they used to be and that defragging takes alot longer then it used to this might come in handy. If you store alot of music or have tons of program setup files on your computer you can save space by turning it into one file, yes one file. I had a setup folder for Microsoft Office 2007 there were literally thousands of files in that folder and created clutter like crazy. I used Ultra ISO to turn that folder with all those files into one nice big file. Now I know what your thinking since its in a .iso format how can I access it when I need it. You will be able to easily access those file with the use of virtual cd drives. I will simply mount the iso and you will be able to use it as you would with any drive on your computer. When I assembled all the files I wanted as an iso things were easier to locate and created less clutter on my drives.

Here are programs you can look at to get stated.

ISO Mounting

ISO Creation

If you want to go more free for creating the iso also try PS2GEN3 and Alcohol 120%

When you see 1 million points you probably think this is a lot of points. Well if you take a look at the xbox live leader boards you will feel really small when you see their high scores. But no worries I can atleast show you how to get the ever elusive 1 million mark and along the way you should have a bunch of achievements collected.

The simple strategy here is that you should alway circle strafe around your enemies. You may not have to use this early in the game because there are just not enough enemies attacking you. However when the game progresses you will see the only way to survive is to circle around the enemies.

Geometry Wars 1,000,000 points from Encript on Vimeo.

Don’t stop firing your weapon always aim in front of you clearing a path so that you can move around easier. Only shoot in back if you know you have time.

You may think portals are bad but they can be used to help you in tough situations. When you have a swarm chasing you shoot at a portal and leave as quick as possible some of the enemies will be sucked in and potentially give you a break. Now if the portal collapses don’t panic as long as your shooting right at the small fast circles you will be fine. Keep circle strafing.

Also you can use portals as shields if you have space between a portal and your ship stay and fire at it while the swarm gets sucked in and you can clear the portal and the rest of the swarm out. You will see this demonstrated in the video.

Only use your bombs when you have no where else to move. Its ok if you use them back to back just don’t get caught. You know you will get a change to get more bombs.

IronMan Exclusive Gameplay from Encript on Vimeo.