Epic and Microsoft Game Studios let fans go behind the scenes to play "Gears of War®” on the Xbox 360 and meet its creators before the game hits store shelves in November
No ticket gets the same level of access as a backstage pass, and no contest will take gamers closer to the “Gears of War” action like Xbox Live Backstage Pass. On October 27, 2006, two lucky winners from the U.S. will join other winners from around the world at Epic Games in Raleigh, North Carolina for a day of exclusive fun, including:
· A tour of the studio for a behind the scenes look at the creation of “Gears of War” for Xbox 360
· The chance to meet the game's creators, including Lead Designer Cliff "CliffyB" Bleszinski
· An opportunity to play multi-player “Gears of War” prior to its official release
Prize packages include round trip airfare and hotel accommodations for 4 days and 3 nights for each winner and their guest. “Gears of War” fans can log on to http://xblgearsofwar.onlinepromo.com to register for a chance to win. Registration runs through 11:59 p.m. on Saturday, October 14.
“Gears of War” thrusts gamers into humankind’s epic battle for survival against the Locust Horde, a nightmarish race of creatures that surface from the bowels of the planet. Blending the best of tactical action games with the best of survival horror titles, “Gears of War” features cinematic, beautifully rendered interactive environments with high-definition visuals.
While looking into an unrelated story a little while ago I stumbled across (from what I can tell) a New 360 Controller. Now the information I have about it is almost none at present and this is mainly due to the fact that the site I found this little beauty on is in Japanese.
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The only real information I could grab was that it was tagged as a Freestyle 360 Controller. And has an additional Turbo button. I'm sure you will agree the quality is extremely good indeed. Right down to the Football style Xbox Guide button. The only thing i'm not quite so sure on is the D-Pad, it looks to easy to slip off of.
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So I guess we could come to the conclusion that this is a Third Party controller designed with a specific game in mind. Football from all accounts, Pro Evo anyone? ;)
If anyone has any other information on this controller please do let us know on our forums.
Today NCCA and Madden Strategy Guides went up on the Xbox Live Marketplace. For 160 Microsoft Points each ($2.00 USD) you can download these videos that will give you tips on one of 4 fields, Defense against Passing, Defense against Running, Offense with Passing, or Offense with Running. These sets of videos are available on both of the recently released football games, Madden 07, and NCAA 07 for a total of 8 videos. Also available for Madden, two Classic Stadiums: LA Rams, and Seattle Seahawks. These are 300 Points each but if you are a fan of either team much more worthwhile to download.
As if EA has not already milked us all to death with crappy ports and buggy next gen games they decide to charge for videos. This is a trend I hope no one else follows. It has been common for most any game to be bundled with a Strategy Guide of some sort. I would have thought that vidoes such as these should have been built into the game, not as a means to squeeze more money out of the consumer.
Have you ever wanted to boost your GamerScore with little or no effort. You have tried having loads of mates round helping you boost your score but still it just does not seem to be going anywhere near the kind of elite score you would like!
Well it seems there is now a way for you to boost your GamerScore by barely lifting a finger. The people over at LevelMy360 will do all the hard work for you and help you get that elusive GamerScore you have always wanted.
They offer a service that will boost your GamerScore by either 500, 750, 1000, 1500, 2000 or 3000 points! Now I guess this could be handy for people that just cannot get their GamerScore up no matter how hard they try or maybe for the Achievement addicts out there.
Soooo, how does all this work then? Do they Hack your gamer card? Well in a word NO! The system works by you choosing the package (as above) that you want and then sending them payment via PayPal, yes thats payment ladys and gentleman. I'm sorry did you think this would be free? ;-)
The next step is for you to supply them with your Password for your Profile and they then get one of their elite players to go off and boost your score to the purchased amount.
Dead simple I hear you all say, well personally I think its a pretty bad way to get GamerPoints, what i'm getting at here is that if you cannot get be bothered to boost your own score then why are you playing games at all?
We all know that your GamerPoints are linked to Achievements which in turn are linked to you completing certain objectives in the game. So if you cannot be bothered to get them Achievements then surely you cannot be bothered to play the games themselves?
There is also one little thing biting at my heals here, where is your credit card details stored for your L!ve subscription? I cannot be 100% sure where they are stored but I know you can access them from the MS website and not just your Xbox. So you might want to remove them details before willingly handing over your login details.
So is this service purely aimed at the people that want to be Elite (without any hard work involved) or people that just cannot be bothered? Mmmm, well I think thats for you lot to decided. Is it right for someone to pay somebody else to boost their points while you have to work hours just to get 50 points?
We would love to here your views on this subject and as such we have opened up a discussion, so please do pop along and help us figure out whether this is a good thing or not and whether you would use the service.
News has filtered out in the last 24hrs that Microsoft has once again taken a step forward in trying to put a stop to people Patching the Firmware on their internal DVD drives. Which in turn allows a user to run backup discs and games on their system.
Xbox-Scene today published information regarding additional protection placed on new Xbox 360's for the Hitachi drive released in the UK and Australia starting from the end of August and maybe earlier.
Here is a breakdown of the additional protection:
No "memdump" command works, totally new program needed
Chip type has been changed to a 39VF020, so new "flashsec" program needed
Black hard glue has been added covering all the chip pins and the controller pins.
External "debug" triggering into ModeB has been removed.
Which in turn will have these negative effects for people trying to patch their firmware:
The Team-X kit will no longer work on this drive.
Dumping the firmware by software is currently not possible
Wiring in a patching-on-the-fly "mod" would be very hard due to the "new black glue"
Removing the flash chip to externally be read will destroy the drive due to the "new black glue"
The drive version these changes affect is the Hitachi GDR-3120L - Version: 0078fk which you can identify using the below images.
Portable media player to utilise Xbox 360 currency
Microsoft's portable media player, Zune, will accept Microsoft Points as currency in exchange for music downloads.
Already a system in use for transactions via Xbox Live Marketplace on the 360, users will be able to purchase songs at a price of 79 points per track, or around US $0.99 (EUR 0.77).
Although speculation regarding interconnectivity between the Xbox 360 and Zune has been rife, this is the first time that Microsoft has revealed a system unique to the hardware.
As with a majority of MP3 players, the Zune is able to connect with the Xbox 360 to play music and other media, or via a Media Centre PC streaming content to the console.
Zune will go on sale in North America on November 14th, priced US $249.99 (EUR 197).
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