File this one in the rumoured category for now. Its been rumoured many times in the past, Burnaby, BC based Blue Castle Games is working on Dead Rising 2. Although previously these rumours were from a confidential source close to the developer, we believe these rumours may have gained a bit more credibility via Blue Castle’s job listings. Many of the job listings are referencing work on a licensed property, even mentioning rumours surrounding the company.

I got in touch with Microsoft to ask about the Blu Ray add on rumours from yesterday, here’s what they had to say:

“As we’ve said before, Microsoft has no plans to introduce an Xbox 360 Blu-ray add-on. Games are what drive consumers to purchase game consoles, and we remain focused on providing the largest library of blockbuster games available.”

There you go folks!

A lot of people don’t know this, but I’m a great fan of FPS. Maybe not that good of a player anymore (ah, Duke Nukem 3D LAN parties… good times), but a fan nonetheless. I mean, I didn’t get my hands on Wolfenstein 3D Linux for nothing!

In any case, I’m afraid I have some bad news to FPS players all around. Severity, the announced FPS by famous Doom and Wolfenstein 3D co-creator, John Romero, has been cancelled. Romero told to “ThatGamingSite” that:

Yeah…….. the game was cancelled a while ago. I’m never going to announce a game that i’m not actually working on again.

Sorry!”


Severity was announced back in December of 2006, and although several videos eventually made it to youtube, news about the development of the project stopped all of a sudden early 2008. Now we know why, I’m afraid.

I’m somewhat sad about this, actually. The videos looked quite nice.

]With the imminent release of XNA Community Games, you may ask yourself, what other legal methods do I have to make games or applications for the Xbox 360? We have complied a list for you along with descriptions and resources for you to use. Enjoy and please leave feedback, of course spread the word!

HDi was previously used with Toshiba’s HD DVD, it was the navigation system many were so familiar with. Yes you too can use HDi to your advantage, although HDi coding is pretty “niche” right now it could grow if the right people get their hands on it. HDi seems to have a lot of potential, its easy to use and pretty easy to port applications too. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone ran Doom or built a NES emulator using HDi.

For years man has wondered how do I get Internet on my Xbox 360? Today you will need to look no further! I have found a way to have a Internet browser run on the Xbox 360 without no illegal modifications! You must have the following for this to work:

An Xbox 360 with a Internet Connection (Duh!)
Windows OS (XP SP2, Vista)
Windows Media Center hooked up
Steps to follow:

Install Windows Media Center Extender on your Xbox 360 using the following guide
Download and install this program
Once the program is installed check to see it works fine on your PC by doing the following:
Open up Windows Media Center
Scroll over to “Online Media” and enter the “Program Library” Menu
The first program you see their should be called “Browser”, enter it and test it out!
4. Repeat the process on your Xbox 360

Their you have it, a web browser for your Xbox 360, have fun! I have not tested out everything in the browser yet but at least it works! I don’t see why Microsoft would say anything since we are not modifying anything.

The “PC world” knows about this program and its wonders, so I am assuming someone may have tried it on a Xbox 360 already. But a majority of Xbox 360 owners are clueless.

Just a tip: To type press “Y” to open up a virtual Keyboard, maybe a real one will work as well.

Word from Paramount today is that Star Trek Season 2’s remastered DVD release is not cancelled as previously stated by many. Unlike its predecessor it is missing one vital component, the HD DVD portion! This saddens me, the HD DVD master was not only crisp and beautiful but it was also very interactive and neat.

I am a huge fan of the original, so regardless I will buy Season 2 when it is released in August. The good news is the film was still remastered and will feature a Dolby Digital soundtrack, plus those that bought the first season won’t be disappointed since the case is still designed the same way as the original was so it won’t stand out too much in your collection. Also consider this, if you have a good upscaller you will be missing very little. I believe it will still keep its 4:3 aspect ratio, so the picture won’t look stretched (The HD DVD side was also 4:3).

As for the “true” HD content, I believe it will eventually end up on the Xbox Live Video Marketplace (Season 1 has), and maybe even have some TV runs like Season 1 did remastered.

Your thoughts?

I have been meaning to post this for a while, but I didn’t get around to it, I wrote this piece up in the Summer of 07 when I first came across the RROD. I don’t know if this theory still applies to the newer Xbox 360 units with the heatsinks or newer chipset’s since they do not produce as much heat as the previous models did.

When I first experienced the RROD the first thing I did was phone in for a “coffin”. I heard bad things about the RROD call service, about how the person on the other side wouldn’t understand me due to outsourcing, bad service, etc. I can safely say that none of those applied, I got someone who was fluent in English, I’m assuming it was someone from North America. When I told the man on the other line about my problem the first thing he said was “Oh well on behalf of Microsoft I am sorry for your loss” or something similar to those lines. He then went on assuring me that it would cost me nothing. After all that was done I played the waiting game, the “coffin” came in about 7 or so days, in reality I phoned in on Monday and the “coffin” arrived that Thursday night, too late to make it onto the morning trucks. So I had to wait since they didn’t ship on weekends until Monday to get it. After receiving it I sent it in the next day and received it in about 3 weeks, 2 days after the Bioshock launch. I was hoping for a HDMI console since the announcement of the HDMI Premium console came out a week before me shipping mine in, but it was the original. It had a bad DVD drive which forced me to send it in again, missing the H3 launch due to my own procrastination, but that’s a different story.

While I waited for the box the first time around I started to experiment with the 360 a bit. I heard of the towel tricks but from my tests I found out a towel was not needed! What I did was I let the Xbox run without anything blocking the vents, through trial and error I found out the following:

I was a huge fan of the original Condemned, the story line was amazing, the in your face battle system was awesome and really added to the fear, the graphics were awesome, on the Xbox 360 I didn’t notice any jaggies, which is suprising!

If only I could say the same about the Condemned 2: Bloodshot, I have come across the save game bug, in which the saves are on the hard drive but are not detected by the game! Luckily, I have not come across any of the audio issues so many are complaining about. I hope a fix is released because I refuse to play back up to the area I was at, especially when it could happen again.

So the question remains, who’s to blame? Is it the publisher, Sega, who could have forced the game development times, to cash off what would have sold good in either state (See KotOR 2)? Or is it the developers, who were just to lazy to fix these problems, or to lazy to thoroughly have their game tested. Yes I realize not everyone will come across these problems, but their are more then 2 beta testers at Monolith, plus the copies the employees probably played. If not the save glitch, how do you let the audio sync issues which many are facing who choose to run their audio through HDMI?

I expected 2008 to be Sega’s redemption year, in which they would shape up, get their act together, and release quality games. So far they have released two big titles, Condemned 2: Bloodshot, and Viking: Battle for Askgard, although both met with good reviews they both have problems, like really bad glitches that can stop you from going any further. I still recommend you buy these games though, they will probably get patched, soon…