Tim Marman's Loosely Coupled

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• Some amazing water effects in Epic's latest Unreal Engine

  I've had a few "wow" moments in Call of Duty 4, which certainly rivals Gears of War as one of the prettiest games around on the 360. But after seeing the water effects that Epic demonstrated at GDC this week, all I can say is wow. (via X3F ) Posted Feb 23 2008, 11:36 AM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: XBox 360, Gaming

• Having trouble connecting to games on Xbox Live through a router?

  If you are having trouble connecting to games through a router, and you don't have issues when you go directly to the cable modem, you can set your Xbox as the DMZ host. Background Basically, your cable connection gives you a single IP address that the rest of the world can talk to. When you connect the modem directly to the Xbox, you don't have to worry about this - you have a single device and all traffic is sent directly there. When when you go into a router, you have two networks - the external one (i.e., the Internet) and your internal network (your computer, your router, your xbox). If Xbox Live wants to send data to your Xbox, it has to rely on the router to figure out where to forward the traffic to. This is where Network Address Translation , or NAT, comes into play. If you're having trouble connecting to games (or hearing certain players in, say, Rainbox Six: Vegas), then NAT is probably the problem. You can confirm by going to the System Blade and testing your network... Posted Jan 21 2007, 04:27 PM by Tim with | with 11 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Gadgets, XBox 360, Gaming

• My XBox 360 is Broken

  Like Kevin , my 360 broke this week. I first got a blue checkerboard on my screen, and then today I got the three red rings of death. Microsoft is shipping me a box and it should take about 2-3 weeks total. Unlike Apple, no overnight shipping here, but hey - it is a bit bigger than my nano. The support experience so far was pretty good, but we'll see how it goes. It's a little weird that my machine, along wth so many others, died now, considering Microsoft announced this new support plan and I had no problems for 9 months. I guess I'll actually have to be productive over the next few weeks. Ugh. Posted Sep 29 2006, 08:49 PM by Tim with | with 15 comment(s) Filed under: XBox 360, Gaming

• Most people pay for advertising, but EA wants to charge for it

  Starting this Friday, EA and ESPN are making a behind-the-scenes preview of Madden NFL 07 available . Rather than give it away, they are planning on selling it on pay-per-view (yes, through your cable provider) and online for $20. In a recent Major Nelson podcast, they justified it because, apparently, it includes strategy and tips from some of the best Madden players out there, including their insight into the new features. (I guess they all have been able to put in countless hours on the new game already?). If it were $1.50 (or even $5.00), I might consider it - but with games that already cost $60, can they really expect us to pay another $20 for this as well? It seems to me that EA would have been better off putting this out there as a free promotional thing to drum up support after their somewhat lackluster first attempt on Xbox 360. (I know, I know, it was a launch title, this year will be better, but still). Then again, maybe they figure Madden is a title that sells itself and doesn't... Posted Aug 03 2006, 02:12 AM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: XBox 360, Gaming, Marketing, Advertising

• Street Fighter II is out on Xbox Live Arcade

  As expected, Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting was released this morning. Oh, this is just what I need as I wait to waste all my time on Madden later this month. The game is true to the original, which is perhaps my biggest complaint with all of these retro titles. I guess it's debatable whether they should keep the original graphics. Purists would probably prefer that, but I personally think it would have been nice to see them brush them up a la the VGA remakes of EGA games back in the day. What bothers me most is the use of screen real estate. Frogger and Galaga, both of which had the vertical positioning of the old arcade boxes, waste a LOT of space, particularly on HDTV. It's especially bad for me because my primary HDTV which I play this on is 4:3 so I'm already letterboxed. Since the Xbox doesn't do variable output modes, I end up playing the game in a tiny little square in the middle of my 36" HDTV. (By contrast, my DVR box outputs 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i... Posted Aug 02 2006, 05:34 AM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: XBox 360, Gaming

• The Call of Duty 2 patch is out... FINALLY!

  The long-awaited patch for Call of Duty 2 - first rumored in early Jan and which I said would be out on March 8th - has FINALLY been released. Initial reports from Xboxic suggest that this solves all of the lag problems and adds everything else expected. Sure took long enough - but at least it's finally here! Time for some COD action while I wait for GRAW to arrive.... Posted Mar 21 2006, 06:05 PM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: XBox 360, Gaming

• Review of Fight Night Round 3 (Xbox 360)

  Fight Night: Round 3 , the follow up to Fight Night: Round 2 , was recently released on Xbox 360. (Other versions are coming). I really enjoyed Fight Night: Round 2 even though I'm not a huge boxing fan, so I was pretty excited about this release. FN:R2 was also one of the prettier Xbox games, undoubtedly made easier since there are only two models to worry about. As you might expect, Round 3 doesn't disappoint in the graphics department either. Wow. Fight Night Round 3 is one visually stunning game. From a gameplay perspective, the Round 3 is pretty similar to Round 2 with a few minor (but important) improvements. The major difference is the elimination of the HUD. Instead of a health meter on the screen, your health and energy are communicated through visual and aural cues (much like King Kong or Call of Duty 2). This definitely makes for a more immersive experience. The AI has been improved so that it adapts to your strategy. If you go to the well too often with the same move... Posted Mar 13 2006, 06:14 AM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: XBox 360, Gaming

• Call of Duty 2 patch coming today?

  The Call of Duty 2 patch I mentioned awhile back still hasn't come out and a lot of people are up in arms about this. Here's the situation as I understand it - the patch has been ready for awhile, but they couldn't roll out the multiplayer portions without the dashboard update. The multiplayer fix was originally slated to go out with the previous single player fix, but I guess there are also server-side components to it. As of this weekend, it was "scheduled" for release on Wednesday. That's today, so we'll see later whether that timeframe still holds. One thing I can tell you is that I'm pretty sure it's not Infinity Ward's fault that it hasn't gone out. I've been told that the patch has been done for awhile, and given the grief IW is getting, I'm sure they wish it was out. There are other forces at work here (and of course plenty of conspiracy theorists ). And as much as we all complain about it, we also have to consider that they... Posted Mar 08 2006, 10:58 AM by Tim with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: XBox 360, Gaming

• Xbox Core Player's Bundle sold out again at Amazon... but Dell has some

  I still have some monitoring set up from when I scored my Xbox 360. Everything is STILL out of stock it seems, but I just got notification that the Xbox Core Player's Bundle is in stock now at Amazon. This is the same bundle I got last month. It's a bit pricey at $999 for the core system, but you do get 10 games. I've also found you can return the wired controller and memory card for credit at most stores against the wireless controller and hard drive. You can also sell the games or return those for store credit as well. Update : All gone! Although this bundle from Dell appears to be in stock. (That's the other one I ordered last month.... like I said, long story). Posted Jan 18 2006, 05:02 AM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: XBox 360, Gaming

• Rumor Mill: Patch coming for Call of Duty 2 on Xbox 360?

  I've heard an unsubstantiated rumor that a patch is coming for Call of Duty 2 on Xbox 360 that will bring, among other things, 16 player games and a fix for the lag issues. From what I understand, the patch itself is nearly complete, but it's a month off or so based on testing and certification. COD2 should be the killer 360 game - but the lag is so bad right now that I've almost stopped playing entirely. If they can fix this - and increase the size of the battles at the same time - that's great news. I've heard similar rumors about a Madden patch, although I don't know what's supposed to be included in that. There's enough missing in this version so we'll see what they decide to tackle first. I would love to see some online leagues with a built-in storyline central... but that might have to wait until 2007. Update : I originally heard this from an IW employee, but it turns out it wasn't just an unsubstantiated rumor . Given the "official"... Posted Jan 10 2006, 05:00 AM by Tim with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: XBox 360, Gaming