Just popping in real fast to announce the release date for Call of Duty 6: Modern Warfare 2. I know a lot of guys on this board, including me, are looking forward to this game, so this should be good news.
The Game Developers Conference 2009 awards ended with a bang a few minutes ago as Infinity Ward unveiled the long-awaited teaser trailer for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2. It doesn't show much but it does include a firm release date. Not a huge surprise as far as the timing goes, but it's nice to know that the sequel will officially be hitting retail stores on November 10, 2009 for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC.
According to the Facebook page of actor Danny Trejo, (The star of Machete) Call of Duty Black ops Zombie Map pack 2 production is already in progress and will feature 4 Movie/TV stars.
Each with past roles in horror style roles that fit in nicely with the Zombie genre. The actors are being put in motion capture suits so we are assuming they will be playing themselves each as a character from one of their past roles.
So who will we have and what roles from the past will they bring to the game? Well the first is known, the later not sure but we can guess at it.
1. Danny Trejo. Danny has been in many roles in the horror/gore genre, Dusk to dawn to name one, but I am betting he will be chopping up zombies in map pack #2 as his most recent bad ass role MACHETE!
2. Sarah Michelle Gellar. Ya she is a petite gal, but her character Buffy the Vampire Hunter is not to be ignored. I am sure a few zombies will be no problem for this gal.
3. Michael Rooker This guys name might not ring a bell but he has been all over the movies, you would recognize him on the street. He has done plenty of horror type stuff in the past but I have a feeling he will be cast as his character in his new role on the new series The Walking Dead as Merle Dixon
4. Robert Englund Hell yes, one of the masters of Horror, you may know him better as the origional Freddy Krueger! But what role will he be cast as? It would be fantastic to play zombies as Krueger but it is possible he will be cast as his less known, more recent role as Ian from the 2008 movie Zombie Strippers.
Rivet is a Media Server which enables you to share your music, movies and photos directly to your Xbox 360 using MAC OS X 10.5 or newer.
Rivet allows you to access your digital life on your Xbox 360. Browse, play, and view all of your pictures, movies, and video through the Xbox 360's media blade right in your living room.
Rivet will automatically load and give you full access to your iTunes music, iPhoto photographs, and any video or picture folder that you wish to share.
Features
Music streaming - Listen to your iTunes music library through your stereo system and while playing games.
Video streaming - No need to let your big screen TV go to waste because your video files are all on you Mac. Stream them over to it and fully enjoy them in the comfort of your couch.
Photo streaming - View all of your photos right on your TV. It's vacation slides for the 21st century. Your family and friends won't be able to get enough! You can share photos from both your iPhoto library or from folders on your hard drive.
Organize your media - Every movie or photo folder that you share is exactly replicated on your Xbox 360. Organize them into subfolders by TV show, genre, or whatever you want. The entire folder structure will be there. No more scrolling through a huge, flat list.
Auto media updating - Add, delete, or move your media all you want. The changes will automatically appear on your Xbox 360.
Format support - If your Xbox 360 can play it, Rivet can handle it. Supported formats include: AAC, MP3, WMA, H.262, DIVX, AVI, WMV, JPEG, GIF, TIFF, RAW, TIFF, PSD, PDF, and more.
Team Cygnos have just published news on the Cygnos360 v2 modchip. The new modchip allows you to have more than one kernal version on your Xbox 360. The Cygnosv2 mod also lets you conveniently switch between PAL and NTSC kernels. .
Cygnos360 V2.0 is an add-on PCB that allows you to have more than one kernel version on your xbox 360. Simply install Cygnos360 V2.0 on your Xbox360 mainboard and connect it via USB to your PC. Cygnos360 enables you to conveniently switch between two kernel versions. At the moment, you can have a "JTAG HACK kernel" on one NAND and on the other you can have a 7xxx dashboard. (DONT update to 85xx!) You can also, after obtaining your CPU key use Cygnos360 V2 to switch between PAL and NTSC kernels. This is now also possible on HDMI consoles that have not been updated to 85xx kernel versions!
The last couple of weeks have been very turbulent for all Xbox360 lovers. We have seen some very good developments towards homebrew and better linux.
We had fought with delays caused by the manufacturing and sourcing process which we finally solved. Now, Cygnos360 V2 is on stock at several shops and on the way to others. Production is still slow but ramping up and we are shortening delivery times.
We did however not spend the time waiting doing nothing. We have used the time to significantly improve the functionality and usability of Cygnos360 V2.
Most interesting new features are
-Integration of the JTAG hack into our firmware so that we can play the role of the microcontroller doing the JTAG inject. This is running and tested on xenon and falcon mainboards. The other versions will follow via software updates. No taking apart or re-wiring needed. (please note that we cannot (yet) read and program the 256 & 512 Mb jaspers, 16Mb Jaspers are fine)
-The Cygnos360 V2 USB board now has a vertical USB connector. That way it is much easier and cleaner to install in your Xbox360.
This is a photo of the production version of Cygnos360 V2
-We have added the possibility to communicate from "Xell" to Cygnos360 V2, for example to switch kernel via software command. (hotswap)
-We have added the functionality to enable switching between kernels having different SMC versions. It is not necessary to unplug the console for kernel switching, which is the case on current homebrew nand switchers and XD card solutions.
-We have added a back-channel to the Cygnos360 V2 that enables developers to talk back from applications running on the 360 to Cygnos. This way it is possible for example to send data from within the 360 to the PC via Cygnos360 V2. (e.g. temperatures, CPU/DVD key, or other nice stuff)
Firmware and Toolbox
A flaw in our firmware has been fixed that caused the JTAG hack to work only once every power cycle. The JTAG hack has so far been tested on Xenon and Falcon. Opus is very likely to work as well. We appreciate, if anyone could test this on a Zephyr. Please report any errors!
The new toolbox in conjunction with the firmware will display serial output from XeLL, Linux, etc. in the console window. Here is a screenshot of the new toolbox.
Output coming from the Xbox 360 is colored yellow in order to distinguish it from toolbox messages (green). Since XeLL outputs the fuse settings via serial port, there's now a very convenient way to save these to a file.
Download the new firmware and toolbox from here.
XeLL
Since our microcontroller cannot handle serial communication at 115200 baud, we had to make a minor modification to XeLL. The modification will set the baud rate register of the Xbox 360 to 38400 baud, 8 data bits, no parity and one stop bit. This implies that you have to build a custom JTAG hack image for Cygnos360 V2 with our modified XeLL. You can download the XeLL binaries and sources from here.
imgbuild
The free60 imgbuild tool does by default not generate a full image as required by our toolbox. We therefore modified the build script accordingly. You can download the whole package from here.
Building your own image under Windows requires the installation of a Python interpreter. The simplest way is to download and install the Cygwin base system along with the "python" and "python-crypto" packages from here[cygwin.com].
Our modified imgbuild tool does not require a full binutils/gcc toolchain to generate an image. We included a precompiled payload binary instead. The SMC config block is taken from a dump of your Xbox 360. A typical command to generate and image would look like this:
python build.py dump.bin CBxxxx.bin CDxxxx.bin xboxupd.bin smc_hacked.bin xell-1f.bin
CBxxxx.bin and CDxxxx.bin are console (Xenon, Zephyr, Falcon, Opus, Jasper) specific, as well as smc_hacked.bin. Please use the xell-1f.bin from our XeLL package.
Manual
For all interested for more info, check out the installation manual it contains a lot of info.
Have you been thinking to yourself "What else could I possibly find in Halo 3??" Why not try some Halo 3 fishing.
HQ M0NSTERB0Y has found a fun area in Halo 3 CO-OP he calls "Halo 3 Fishing". There is a small area in Halo 3 where you can shoot fish as your swim through murky water. The fish do take a bit of hunting but it can be entertaining for a short while. We have attached some pics of our first Halo 3 fishing expedition below so please feel free to check it out and have a laugh..
Want to learn where to go Halo 3 Fishing???
Join our forums and get involved in our official Halo 3 Fishing Topic here
Yes, Microsoft provided the image that is published in the Games for Windows cover story in the Holiday issue of PC Gamer magazine.
Yes, this image contains what looks to be box shots of Gears of War with the Games for Windows branding bar on the box art.
NO, this is not a confirmation, leak, tease, or sly viral attempt to announce, confirm, or admit that Gears of War will be published for Windows.
Here's what happened: These images were created using draft templates for the Games for Windows box art and a variety of Microsoft Game Studios cover images. Gears of War was accidentally included by the artist as one of the MGS titles used as examples to show what our retail setup would look like. This DOES NOT indicate a confirmation that Gears of Wars will be a Games for Windows title -- it was a concept image created by a concept artist, nothing more. In fact, if you look closely you’ll also see that Age of Empires III and Rise of Legends are also branded Games for Windows, and this is not actually the case (Age of Empires III: The Warchiefs is a Games for Windows branded game, but not the original Age III).
We created this image around the E3 timeframe when we were first preparing to announce and show our Games for Windows retail efforts. Shortly after the insanity that is E3, we noticed the box art, and the image was supposed to be removed from circulation. When we provided the package of art assets to PC Gamer for their cover story, we zipped up a directory of our already-public E3 assets as well as more current images (many of which PC Gamer did not use). Unfortunately, we didn't realize that this image was in that directory, and it just happens to be the one that PC Gamer figured prominently in their story. Our bad.
We're incredibly excited about the success of Gears of War on Xbox 360, but we have nothing further to announce about Gears of War, or any other platforms it might come to, at this time.
Now stop rumor-mongering and get out there and start fragging some Locust!
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Firmware and Toolbox
Here's the truth:
