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360 BC update "in the next few weeks"
Thanks to the folks at the Gamerscore Blog, we've learned that the next Xbox back compat update "should be out in the next few weeks." In his earlier blast against BC, Peter Moore proclaimed that nobody is concerned about it anymore, but thankfully the gentler Gamerscore peeps have set the record straight, stating: "We know for a fact that there are lots of people who continue to care about backwards compatibility, including the 'Emulation Ninjas' who are working full time on the updates. And those of us posting on this blog. And, of course, many of you." We suppose quarterly updates to the BC list aren't TOO bad (hey, they sure beat semiannual dashboard updates), but getting more than a dozen titles to work each time would definitely help a lot more for those with original Xbox favorites they'd prefer to play on their new machines. Personally, this blogger would like to see the following titles added to the list: Dead or Alive Ultimate, Doom 3, Capcom vs. SNK 2, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Project Gotham Racing 2, LEGO Star Wars, Street Fighter Anniversary Collection, Soul Calibur II, and Capcom Classics Collection. It may not be realistic to expect Street Fighter support when Hyper Fighting is set to hit Live Arcade sometime in the near future, but one can (vainly) hope. [Via Major Nelson's blog] See also: Xbox BC not a priority, says Moore No Black on 360 till MS makes it so... or a sequel comes out US 360 backward-compatibility list shrinks A video tour of the Xbox Live Spring update SFII on Xbox Live: what's taking so long?
Busted: Meet the Joystiq E3 crew
GamerScoreBlog posted some pics chronicling the embarassing amount of time (from a media ethics perspective) the Joystiq crew spent on or near the Xbox 360 Blogger Bus. Did I say crew? Maybe it was just me eating those Peanut M&Ms. For the people who don't know who the hell we are, try to match names with faces. Here's a hint: I'm the good-looking one.
Chart your GamerScore
Here's a site that lets you graphically chart your GamerScore progress by simply entering your tag. Nice idea, but I suggest enhancing the visuals. That chart looks way too much like the ones I see at budget meetings.[Thanks Jim]
Australian water balloon fight post mortem
Bill Gates has a lot of things. Being the richest man in the world buys you that privilege. World's only tiger-sized domestic cat? Yup, he's got it. Hovercar? Two of those. The world's largest water balloon fight as determined by some agency who makes it their business to record trivial accomplishments? As of this weekend, according to John, yup! The Australian Water Balloon Challenge is over, but that doesn't mean we can't vicariously enjoy the view from here. You can see the two teams above (Xbox versus 360), but that's about all we can tell you with any authority so --without further adieu--here's the straight poop from our peeps on the ground:Cesar's coverage @ Gamerscore (Try these: 1, 2, 3)Major Nelson's Flickr photosXboxic Down UnderXbox.com.au (with pix here)Major points to moreAnd continue reading for some awesome in-fight video footage, courtesy fanboy-on-the-scene Diet Zeek. Thanks!
Blingbox 360
Apparently the folks from Xbox's German division had some spare time on their hands — and some spare crystals! The gang decorated an Xbox 360 with thousands* of tiny crystals, paying a special homage to Tomb Raider's Lara Croft in the process. The unit is now valued at $11,000. Did we mention they're gonna give the thing away?*Gamerscore Blog cites two very different crystal counts: 43,000 and 3,000.
Cheat your way to Oblivion
You know the sense of fanboy pride you get when you beat a good game without resorting to walkthroughs and cheese moves? Me neither. Fortunately, IGN has discovered an "infinite gold" cheat for Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion:In the Talos district of the Imperial City is the house of a man named Dorian. Enter the house and kill Dorian. When looting his body, highlight his gold and press A...and keep on pressing. His gold will never run out, giving you access to infinite funds. At any time, you can return to Dorian's house to loot more money from his corpse.A reader also reports clipping issues with the wall directly across from the basement door. Say it aint so. When you're finished looting that corpse, check out IGN's list of Oblivion achievements, but then a shameless cheater like you probably already rigged your gamerscore.[Thanks FeatherKing]
Gamespot's guide to cheese points
Gamespot has published a bunch of cheesey ways to score 6000 Gamerscore points using various 360 games. If you're the type of person who can't put an honest effort into anything, including video games, by all means take a look (pay no attention to the embarrassing intro video). On the other hand, if you're the type of person who feels the integrity of the Gamerscore system too important to cheapen with undignified shortcuts, please put down that controller and go outside. You need fresh air.
Earn 6,000 Xbox 360 points -- without trying
GameSpot has posted a "guide" for quickly accumulating a 6,000-point gamerscore. Wanna earn 400 points by pressing the start button for 30 minutes? How about the entire set of 1,000 points in a single game of College Hoops? Jeff Gerstmann will show you how, using these 7 games: Madden NFL 06 NBA 2K6 NBA Live 06 King Kong College Hoops 2K6 NHL 2K6 Amped 3 WARNING: While a 6,000-point gamerscore will look good on your gamercard, anyone that takes a closer look at your profile will be able to expose you for what you really are... Don't say we didn't warn you.
Microsoft crew pwns German heatsink video
After a video (and accompanying investigative post) showed up by German gaming site GameStore24.de purporting to show a severe oversight in the Xbox 360 production lines, the internet was ablaze with rumblings that the cause of the overheating 360s had been discovered: a small piece of foil placed over the thermal paste on the GPU's heatsink had failed to be removed. Apparently some 360s had the foil and some didn't. The assumption: that its presence was a result of a failure to be removed at the factory. The foil must have been some sort of protection to keep the paste from getting funky.Microsoft's John Porcaro got the straight poop right from the 360 manufacturing team. His response (and his double negative): "The video and photos posted by German blog GameStore24.de show thermal interface pads that are not installed incorrectly. They are installed per specification. This foil eliminates the need of a protective liner, which simplifies the final assembly process and minimizes shipping concerns and contamination issues." Yup, he has the charts and graphs and product names and everything to prove it. They used the wonderfully named THERMFLOW T558 which features the "conformal metal foil carrier." Porcaro doesn't explain why one of the 360s opened by GameStore24.de didn't contain the foil. Did it use the foil-less--but otherwise similar--THERMFLOW T557? Or is there a rogue factory worker on a misguided one-man mission to foil the 360's global gaming goals?[Thanks to everyone who sent this in... both parts of it.]
360-superfan has 20350 gamerscore points!
Alright, so it's not quite 5 million, but 20350 gamerscore points is almost too high to believe. Amazingly, the guy (yup, it's a dude) doesn't come off as totally crazy obsessive either. Just a little competitive perhaps. He says, "I don't think anyone above 15k gets them only for fun, I mean you can't like all the games. So it's mostly for bragging right even though I don't brag that much (at least not yet). I really think the whole achievements concept is the best idea that Microsoft had since they created Xbox Live as it makes you play games you would never have tried otherwise."The gamerscore points are pretty brilliant; you'll find yourself playing games much longer and much harder than you normally would. 100% completion is no small feat in most games (King Kong excluded). Anyone here able to claim ownership (or is that pwnership? har har) to what he calls the hardest achievement out there: the "No Crash Victory: Single Races" achievement in Ridge Racer 6?[Via GameSetWatch]
Impossibly high Gamerscore: 4,916,919
In my review for King Kong on the Xbox 360, I mentioned that it had earned a reputation for being "especially loose with its gamerscore points." I would like to amend that statement in light of recent developments. The bar has been so significantly shifted, that unless the game dishes out gamerscore points in multiples of 5000, it's chaste relative to one gamer's licentious copy of Condemned: Criminal Origins! Here's how you too can earn gamerscore points well into the millions: instead of playing several thousand games through, earning all 1000 gamerscore points contained therein, just bend the laws of mathematics to your singular, corrupted will, by earning a total 2550 of 50 achievements, and a total of 4915477 of 970 gamerscore points!Dondums' Penny Arcade avatar mocks us, his sterling 5 star reputation shames us, and his motto, "I like hugs," makes us feel empty inside. We don't need a hug, we need a strong drink.[Thanks, Tuan & everyone else that sent this in]Read on for some other pictures from Dondums' page on Xbox.com, captured here for posterity before the powers that be at Microsoft mend the error, or the world collapses onto itself.
