Ask X3F: Splitting screens edition

Welcome to another exciting edition of Ask X3F, where readers ask the questions and we put on an air of a pompous know-it-all. This week, we discuss hard drive issues, immature gamers (again), dismemberment and online splitscreen games. We also take somewhat of a departure this week by explaining to some worried parents that Firefox is not spyware.

Got a question for Ask X3F? Maybe you have a story or some information you'd like to share? Send it all to ask [att] xbox360fanboy [dawt] com.

Hey guys, gamer tag ElCapitan006 here. Love the podcast and the site. With the NXE coming out very shortly, and the ability to instal games on the HDD, not too mention the loads of DLC from RB to map packs to TV Shows, even with the 120GB HDD, there isn't that much room. Are we going to have to wait and then pay extreme amounts of money for a larger HDD by MS, or is MS finally gonna wise up, follow in Sony's footsteps, and let us use any HDD of our choice? Thanks guys. Love the podcast/site, and I wanna play some Gears with Dustin and all you guys sometime. I could use a break from all the loud, obnoxious people crying about how the game plays different.

In answer to your second question, no, Microsoft will never, ever allow you to use any hard drive you want. The company has it's reasons for this, both technical (piracy, hacking) and financial (have you seen how much 360 HDDs cost?). Your first line of thought -- that MS will release bigger hard drives -- is more likely, but we doubt it's in the cards either. It's pretty hard to believe that the average 360 owner will need more than 120 gigabytes, so there isn't much incentive for Microsoft to release a bigger drive. For what it's worth, you can install a 120GB SATA hard drive, but it requires some technical know-how and is not supported by Microsoft (obviously). Keep in mind that any modifications you make to your hardware are made at your own risk.

Why is everyone on xbox live under the age of 10-15. Where are the mature gamers?

In ur bushes stealin ur privacies. Seriously though, there are plenty of mature gamers to be found. We had a very long discussion about it in last week's Ask X3F. You might check the comment thread there. Also, if anyone out there knows of a good place to find mature gamers, feel free to point it out in the comments below.

2 questions:
Why dont more games have dismemberment? i mean if force unleashed had a lightsaber actually cut people and not just droids i would never put it down. Seems more games are going for a Teen rating now when i feel that a lot of their audiences are getting into their 20s or 30s and the games should mature with them as well. Unrated games anyone?

Also why would you make a game without euphoria? does natural motion have a contract with certain studios or what. i think euphoria is the best thing to happen to video games since anything. its the only reason im looking forward to backbreaker is to see all the amazing things euphoria does. anyone else agree?

thanks
Chompenstein

First of all, we're sure that many people that dismemberment doesn't necessarily corellate to maturity. Still, we take your point, it does seem strange that a lightsaber fails to dismember those it hits. You have to keep in mind, though, that the ultimate goal of any publisher is to release a game that sells. As such, aiming for a family friendly rating is generally the way to go. The same thing happens in the movie industry, in which studios tend to push for a PG-13 rating over an R. We wouldn't be surprised if the game industry begins to adopt the practice of releasing both edited and unedited versions of certain games. Unfortunately, games are still largely considered to be a child's medium, which is a stigma it will have to overcome before we start seeing that sort of content.

On Euphoria -- a physics based animation system used in games like GTAIV -- we imagine that not everyone wants to pay the licensing fee. Furthermore, many developers probably prefer to create their own animation systems. Of course, it seems like the industry has readily accepted the use of the Havok physics engine (seriously, is there a game that doesn't use Havok?), so it's possible that we might see Euphoria becoming more widely accepted.

Dear X3FB

I am trying to find a list of games that support Split-Screen Xbox live(with only one xbox live gold account) could you suggest some?

Thanks

There are plenty of games that support split-screen Xbox Live play with only one gold account. Just a few are Halo 3, Left 4 Dead, Bomberman Live and Age of Booty and Gears of War 2. In fact, we're fairly certain that most games will allow you to bring guests online, though you might not be able to participate in ranked matches of any kind (Gears 2 restricts you to private matches, for example). Co-Optimus has a list of co-op games on 360, though it doesn't specify whether or not guests can be taken on live. If anyone out there knows of a list of such games, let us know in the comments.

Here's a question for you. What the hell happened to the Castle Crashers patch? I bought that damn game in August, and 3 months later, I'm still waiting to play it online. Has that boat sailed? Is there going to be enough interest left in the game that I'll actually be able to find some folk that want to play it with me?

According to the Castle Crashers dev blog, the patch was sent to Microsoft for certification a few weeks ago. In other words, the patch is in Microsoft's hands now, so it all depends on how long the certification process takes.

hey guys I've been reading the blog for almost a year and love it keep it coming.

I've recently started to download games and demos with VALVe's steam and my mom thinks that it is spam/adware/malware/virus downoader. My dad also thinks Firefox is malicious. Iv'e not been able to convince them out of of their crazy paradigm they live in because of past experiences on windows machines (we now have a mac and i use crossover games to run steam and steam games). I've even showed my mom the copy of orange box from VALVe I have for 360 and yet still no change in opinion. i don't want to brag but im really tech savy and useally they hang on to every word i have on tech help and computers advice (along with everyone else I know) please help me out here guys explain that these two apps (crossover games and Steam) are not malware/spam/adware/virus and if you can't please direct me to someone who can?

much thanks and graditude

from Dizez66

Okay. Go grab your mom and dad and have them stare at the screen. Are they standing there? Good. Ahem.

Mom, Dad, on behalf of the staff here at the Joystiq network (part of Weblogs Inc., which has been owned by AOL for three years), let me assure you that neither Steam nor Firefox are in any way related to spam or viruses. I understand that you may have run into malicious programs in the past, especially on a Windows computer and using Internet Explorer. As Microsoft's products are the most popular, they are also the most targeted by those who would do your computer harm. Macs, for the moment, are less threatened by such things, though that will likely change as they grow more popular.

Back on topic though: Steam is a digital distribution service for video games. Think of it like the "On Demand" service found on most cable boxes, only for games. It was created by Valve Software, one of the most respected video game developers around. It will not harm your computer in any way.

Firefox is a web browser created by the Mozilla Corporation and has become one of the most widely used web browsers. Most users move to Firefox because they believe it to be better than Microsoft's Internet Explorer in many ways (an opinion I personally agree with). As a matter of fact, many features were implemented by Firefox long before they were added to Internet Explorer, such as tabbed browsing. Personally, I know very, very few bloggers that use Internet Explorer. Most bloggers (and tech savvy people in general) will only use Internet Explorer if they have to. Apple's Safari is a decent browser as well -- I know plenty of people that love it -- but Firefox is generally the browser of choice among my coworkers. Firefox will not harm your computer and, in fact, it actually comes with many features to protect your computer from malicious programs.

I hope this sets your mind at ease.


That's it for this week, folks. Keep sending your questions to: ask [att] xbox360fanboy [dawt] com.