Detecting 512MB Memory Unit:

WARNING: Displayed when restoring to the wrong Hard Drive:

  

     - Jay

Weapon Names Found in BETA Code:

1. Assault Rifle
2. Battle Rifle
3. Beam Rifle
4. Brute Shot
5. Carbine
6. Excavator
7. Gravity Hammer
8. Flamethrower
9. Magnum
10. Missile Launcher
11. Needler
12. Plasma Pistol
13. Plasma Rifle
14. Fuel Rod Cannon
15. Rocket Launcher
16. Shotgun
17. SMG
18. Sniper Rifle
19. Spartan Laser
20. Spiker
21. Sword

Equipment Names Found in BETA Code:

1. Instacover
2. Smoke
3. Jammer
   

Vehicle Names Found in BETA Code:

1. Mongoose
2. Warthog
3. Hornet
4. Pelican
5. Scorpion
6. Ghost
7. Brute Chopper
8. Spectre
9. Shadow
10. Banshee
11. Phantom
12. Wraith

GameType Names Found in BETA Code:

1. CAPTURE THE FLAG
   Invade your opponent’s stronghold, heist their flag, and bring it back to your base to score.
2. SLAYER
   Kill as many of your opponents as you can. The player with the most points wins.
3. ODDBALL
   Find the ball and hold on to it to earn time. The player with the most time wins.
4. KING OF THE HILL
   Gain control of the hill to earn time. Keep your opponents off and earn the most time to win.
5. JUGGERNAUT
   Work together to take down the Juggernaut. Beware, you kill the Juggernaut, you become the Juggernaut, and only the Juggernaut can win.
6. TERRITORIES
   Find and control the territories on the map. The more territories you control, the faster you earn time.
7. INFECTION
   Destroy the Flood or become infected. Score points for killing flood or big points for infecting a human. The player with the most points wins.
8. ASSAULT
9. V.I.P.
   Protect the V.I.P. from dying at the hands of your opponents. If you are the V.I.P., you must stay alive or your opponents score a point.
10. Team Slayer
11. Team Swords
12. Team Rockets
13. Team Shotguns
14. Team Fiesta
15. Team Phantoms
16. Slayer Duel
17. Sword Duel
18. Rifle Duel
19. Rumble Slayer
20. Rumble Swords
21. Rumble Rockets
22. Rumble Shotguns
23. Oddball
24. Fiesta Ball
25. Team Ball King
26. Phantom King
27. Crazy King
28. Team Crazy King
29. Multi Flag CTF
30. CTF Wraiths
31. CTF Classic
32. Shotgun CTF
33. 1 Flag CTF
34. 1 Flag CTF Fast
35. Multi Bomb Assault
36. Rapid Assault
37. Neutral Bomb
38. Neut. Bomb Fast
39. 3 Plots Land Grab

 Now for the kicker..... This is probably the most exciting news about HALO 3 so far... This text was found in the BETA code:

"The game cannot start because all players are set to observer. Too many players for splitscreen. Only 2 players may play splitscreen coop on the same Xbox 360 console. The party size is too large to start the game. Up to 4 players may play coop on Xbox Live or System Link. Loading information from Xbox Live…"

FOUR PLAYER CO-OP!!!!!! 

YES! I was a little excited about HALO 3, then I got pumped after playing the multiplayer beta, but now... after reading that... I'm SOOOOO damn excited that I can't stop thinking about it! I know that all of the information in the beta is subject to change, however, even the thought of playing the story mode with 3 other people over Xbox Live is driving me nuts!

If you've ever played through the story mode of Gears of War with a friend over Live, you can imagine how bad-ass a four players would be..... oooh boy.... Bungie, you've made my year!

DIGG This Story!

     - Jay

 

After roughly two or three rounds I quickly remembered why I stopped playing Halo 2 online.... Some folks take the game far too seriously, and others are just complete jackasses. Don't get me wrong, not everyone I played with acted like a complete d-bag, some gamers were extremely friendly and made the experience enjoyable. (Enjoyable until I started having my @$$ handed to me every time I respawned.) 

Some of the new weapons were pretty slick, others were frustrating, while some weapons just took sime time to figure out & get used to. The new control scheme will take many HALO / HALO 2 veterans a litte while to get accustomed to as well. I found myself tossing bubble shields and EMP grenades on several occasions. while trying to reload. The X button no longer reloads your weapon, reload is now assigned to the right bumper. I even tried pressing the non existant black and white buttons to switch grenades... I just had to keep telling myself; "Don't worry, you'll get used to it sooner or later!"

I'll be back online tonight with the hope of NOT getting my @$$ kicked all over the map, and I'm sure I'll enjoy ever minute of it. To be honest though, I think I'm far more excited to play the single player story mode. I can't wiat to see what other features Bungie will adds to the final version of the game! The ability to save your game play footage is AWESOME! (Hopefully you'll be able to change camera positions during the video playback in the final retail version of HALO 3.)

C'mon September 25th!

     - Jay

SNOWBOUND:

HIGH GROUND:

VALLHALLA:

"Beginning the week of May 7, 2007, the Xbox 360 Spring Update will provide Xbox 360 owners worldwide with access to Windows Live Messenger features, broadening the communication options on the Xbox LIVE social network. "

 

• A richer Achievement notification pop-up will showcase the name of the unlocked Achievement and the gamerscore value without needing to leave the game to check the Achievements list.
• Enhanced family settings features for Xbox LIVE communications enable different defaults for video chat and voice chat.
• A new Xbox LIVE Marketplace blade lets Xbox LIVE members access the content they seek—whether it is game content or TV shows and movies (available in the United States)—from one place on Xbox LIVE.
• Updates to Xbox LIVE Arcade allow owners to quickly see which Xbox LIVE Arcade games their friends are playing and join in the fun. Xbox LIVE members can also compare progress of leaderboard scores and Achievements directly with all friends on their friends list. Expanded "Tell a Friend" capabilities make it easier than ever to boast about Achievements and high scores.
• Expanded "Tell a Friend" capabilities make it easier than ever to boast about Achievements and high scores.
• A new option in Auto Downloads provides faster access to the entire collection of free, trial-version Xbox LIVE Arcade games.
• New progressive download controls provide easy access to optimal viewing options by letting people fast-forward, rewind, pause and resume as their video is downloaded from Xbox LIVE Marketplace.
• Extension of the background download functionality will allow owners to set their Xbox 360 console to turn off automatically after downloads are complete.
• The name of game in tray is now displayed in the dashboard.
• When the user is in the dashboard and an Xbox 360 game is in the console then the name of the game is displayed in the tray icon of the dashboard. If the user highlights the tray icon then achievements and gamer score are displayed for that game based on the signed in user. Xbox1 games show the name and image of the game.
• Integrated support for the new Xbox 360 text input device. Note that this device includes a new wired headset.
• Playback progress bar indicates download completion.
• Switchable aspect ratio now available during video playback (Auto to Letterbox, Zoom, Stretch, Native).
• Player and friends lists now quickly show session presence information for quick identification of users that are joinable.
• Added H.264 video support: Up to 10 Mbps peak, Baseline, Main, and High profiles with 2 channel AAC LC.
• Added MPEG-4 Part 2 video support: Up to 5 Mbps peak, Simple Profile with 2 channel AAC LC.
• Show folder hierarchy for video content played from all devices.
• Bookmarks are stored for each video that the user plays remembering the users last location in the file as well as the aspect ratio that the user choose for that file.
• Video trick modes (fast forward, rewind, chapter skip) can now be used while downloading Video Marketplace content.
• Skip forward and backward functionality has been improved to skip to the next or previous chapter. Each video is divided into 10 “chapters” allowing you to quickly skip around video content.
• The information bar that is turned on via the On Screen Display (OSD) now shows you exactly where you are in the playback of the video file.  In addition it will also show for Video Marketplace content how much of the file has been downloaded and where the “chapters” exist in the file.
• Windows Media protected content (WM-DRM) can now be streamed from the PC to the console. If the WM-DRM license is missing or corrupted then a specific error message is displayed to the user. Bookmarking is also stored for protected content.
• When a user selects an item for download from Marketplace then the system will determine if there is sufficient disk space for the item and, if not, will ask the user to delete content on the HDD. The system provides a sorted by size list of videos, game trailers, demos and arcade content to aid the user in the deletion process. The same list of items are also available from within memory so that users can quickly see which items are consuming the most disk space.
• The console will block the user who attempts to download content onto a storage device that will never have the capacity to store the item without deducting any points associated with the content item.
• The screensaver is disabled when playing photos from any source

     - Jay

• Marketplace now has its own "blade"... (I'll be avoiding this one until the DRM issue is resolved.)
• Compare scores & achievements with friends just like the Xbox.com website
• Updates to the Live Arcade now allow you to see what games your friends are playing, and the option to join them if possible.
• Added video bookmarking so you can pick up where you left off in a movie!
• Rewind, fast foward, pause and resume videos as they're downloading. (No more waiting until they're fully downloaded to watch them.)
• Switch between Letterbox “Widescreen” & Full Screen viewing on the fly.
• Video has been divided into chapters. You’ll now be able to skip between chapters at any time.
• Family settings update for Video Chat and Voice Chat. (Now there's 2 different family settings; one for each.)
• An “auto download” feature has been added for all trial versions of Xbox Live Arcade titles.
• Low power mode allows you to automatically shut down the console when your content is finished downloading.
• Disc tray icon on the dashbaord will now display the game title that's currently in your Xbox 360... no more guessing, ejecting, or having to boot the game to figure out what you left inside your Xbox 360. (I'm hoping it does the same for HD DVD's left in the HD DVD player.)
• Xbox Live Instant Messenger features added for text chat.
• More detailed friends list.

Hopefully they'll add an 'allow this console to play full versions of the Xbox Live Arcade games I purchased without connecting to live' feature too.

 Double Dragon is coming to Xbox Live Arcade next week too. It will be available on Wednesday, the 9th.... I've got my fingers crossed that Microsoft will address the migration and DRM issues by then... yeah, right!