Official Xbox 360? Thread...

[Fingolfin269]

Originally posted by: SpiderX
Well I finally jumped on the 360 bandwagen yesterday. I picked up GoW of course. It's pretty damn awesome. Only problem I'm having is getting the pc and xbox to network. I can ping the 360, but can't find it. Anyone have any sure fire tips? I've spent hours coming the offical forums today to no avail.

Are you using Media Center?

 

[SpiderX]

Not yet. I was thinking about switching to it though. I'm running XP and was trying to use Media Connect.

Will Media Center help fix the issues?

 

[dlock13]

I'm having almost the same problem. I use the Zune software now, and I was able to find my wireless computer which has all of my music on, but since the first time I tried, I haven't been able to find it again. No firewall, all ports are open, I just don't understand..

 

[purbeast0]

Originally posted by: Queasy
ShadowRun video showing a group of guys playing another groups of guys. Kind of looks like CounterStrike with magic...

yah ... i'm going to pass on that game lol.

 

[blurredvision]

My RS:V versus GoW thread over in the software forum. Thought maybe a few would like to see it.

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=33&threadid=1965699

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: dlock13
I'm having almost the same problem. I use the Zune software now, and I was able to find my wireless computer which has all of my music on, but since the first time I tried, I haven't been able to find it again. No firewall, all ports are open, I just don't understand..

There's a guy over in another forum I frequent having a problem connecting his 360 with his PC running Windows XP as well. He's followed all the instructions for using Windows Media Player 11 but isn't having any luck.

 

[bucwylde23]

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: dlock13
I'm having almost the same problem. I use the Zune software now, and I was able to find my wireless computer which has all of my music on, but since the first time I tried, I haven't been able to find it again. No firewall, all ports are open, I just don't understand..

There's a guy over in another forum I frequent having a problem connecting his 360 with his PC running Windows XP as well. He's followed all the instructions for using Windows Media Player 11 but isn't having any luck.

Before installing Media player 11, i was using media connect to play music off of my windows xp PC. After installing WMP11, I cannot see the 360 at all either. I have tried EVERYTHING. I'm hoping someone can figure it out...

 

[ivol07]

Originally posted by: chrisg22

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: dlock13
I'm having almost the same problem. I use the Zune software now, and I was able to find my wireless computer which has all of my music on, but since the first time I tried, I haven't been able to find it again. No firewall, all ports are open, I just don't understand..

There's a guy over in another forum I frequent having a problem connecting his 360 with his PC running Windows XP as well. He's followed all the instructions for using Windows Media Player 11 but isn't having any luck.

Before installing Media player 11, i was using media connect to play music off of my windows xp PC. After installing WMP11, I cannot see the 360 at all either. I have tried EVERYTHING. I'm hoping someone can figure it out...

I recently installed WMP11 and I was having the same problem. After reading up a bit it seems that when WMP11 installs it uninstalls Media Connect, what I had to do was go to options in WMP and change the option to allow sharing again.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925915/en-us

Hope this helps.

 

[James3shin]

I picked up a 360 Premium for myself yesterday along with R6: V and an extra controller for my homie. We're going to be splitting some terrorist domes...BOOYAKA SHAKA WAKA

 

[bucwylde23]

Originally posted by: ivol07

Originally posted by: chrisg22

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: dlock13
I'm having almost the same problem. I use the Zune software now, and I was able to find my wireless computer which has all of my music on, but since the first time I tried, I haven't been able to find it again. No firewall, all ports are open, I just don't understand..

There's a guy over in another forum I frequent having a problem connecting his 360 with his PC running Windows XP as well. He's followed all the instructions for using Windows Media Player 11 but isn't having any luck.

Before installing Media player 11, i was using media connect to play music off of my windows xp PC. After installing WMP11, I cannot see the 360 at all either. I have tried EVERYTHING. I'm hoping someone can figure it out...

I recently installed WMP11 and I was having the same problem. After reading up a bit it seems that when WMP11 installs it uninstalls Media Connect, what I had to do was go to options in WMP and change the option to allow sharing again.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925915/en-us

Hope this helps.

I've read over that link, and everything is set up the way it is supposed to be (at least I think so)

The 360 is listed and is set to allow (green check) and it is set to share pictures, video, music

I've gone through every option under media sharing and see nothing that I can turn on to make it work. Even after following the instructions from MS's support site it still won't work. I've even done port forwarding on my router which has had no effect (even though I didn't need to with media connect 2.0)

 

[bucwylde23]

ok, I got my 360 to stream media off my PC. I am an idiot apparrently

I had to go into my system settings, delete the previous computer connection, and re-establish a new one, and it worked.

guess I should have tried that a long time ago.

off to play R6 now

 

[Queasy]

Shadowrun Beta Signup for those interested.

 

[batmang]

beat GoW on hardcore.. tried playing it on insane by myself.... lol. soooo hard on insane!

 

[bucwylde23]

Originally posted by: batmang
beat GoW on hardcore.. tried playing it on insane by myself.... lol. soooo hard on insane!

:thumbsup: Great fun on insane, beat it a few times and enjoy it every time coop makes it even more fun

 

[darkswordsman17]

Originally posted by: RagingBITCH

Co-op makes it uber fun.

And chainsaw - if you get shot/hit the chainsaw "turns off". It frustrated me at the beginning but it makes you realize you cant just rush an enemy with the chainsaw on...gotta sneak up on them and gut em.

Well, I finally got to play it co-op. We beat it last night on hardcore. Definitely gets better with co-op. To be honest, early on, I wasn't wowed by the graphics either, but after playing through it, I am impressed.

The thing with the graphics is that they're subtle most of the time, which is what makes them so good. Half the time you don't notice the stuff that looks so much better than other games because it looks like you'd expect it to and has a more natural look, whereas in the other games it'd be sticking out like a sore thumb screaming for attention. There's a few rough spots that I'm sure they'll get worked out with further development, and I can't wait to see how it looks with more art design put into things.

Gameplay could use some polishing as well (there are some nagging issues, in my opinion), but is good. They need to make the chainsaw more accesible for one (its not bad that there's a risk/reward dilemma, but it just needs to be made better and instead let tougher AI manage your chances of getting the kill and not clunky controls). The AI could use some tweaking (I didn't have a problem with difficulty as it was pretty good actually, but rather sometimes the enemies do really stupid things, like holding in their cover when the top half of them is still exposed and you just need to shoot them in the back). I wish they would take the co-op element further and polish it more.

Most of all though, they really need to do a better job with the story. Half the time it doesn't even tell you why you're doing anything until you're halfway through doing the mission and there's a lot of character development that would have helped.

Also, I'm not complaining here, but I had serious deja vu to Resident Evil 4 when playing Gears. Its not just the over the shoulder part either. Some of the music sounds very similar (could just be the tone and not the actual music itself I admit), and there are several other similarities. That being said, I can't wait to see how the sequel for both of those plays now that they've got some really good ideas to exploit.

Playing it co-op, I'd give it a 9.0. Single player, I'd say maybe an 8.0. I haven't really played multiplayer yet though so that might effect things. Seems like it could use a lot more fleshing out as far as options and things go though.

 

[bucwylde23]

Originally posted by: darkswordsman17

Originally posted by: RagingBITCH

Co-op makes it uber fun.

And chainsaw - if you get shot/hit the chainsaw "turns off". It frustrated me at the beginning but it makes you realize you cant just rush an enemy with the chainsaw on...gotta sneak up on them and gut em.

Well, I finally got to play it co-op. We beat it last night on hardcore. Definitely gets better with co-op. To be honest, early on, I wasn't wowed by the graphics either, but after playing through it, I am impressed.

The thing with the graphics is that they're subtle most of the time, which is what makes them so good. Half the time you don't notice the stuff that looks so much better than other games because it looks like you'd expect it to and has a more natural look, whereas in the other games it'd be sticking out like a sore thumb screaming for attention. There's a few rough spots that I'm sure they'll get worked out with further development, and I can't wait to see how it looks with more art design put into things.

Gameplay could use some polishing as well (there are some nagging issues, in my opinion), but is good. They need to make the chainsaw more accesible for one (its not bad that there's a risk/reward dilemma, but it just needs to be made better and instead let tougher AI manage your chances of getting the kill and not clunky controls). The AI could use some tweaking (I didn't have a problem with difficulty as it was pretty good actually, but rather sometimes the enemies do really stupid things, like holding in their cover when the top half of them is still exposed and you just need to shoot them in the back). I wish they would take the co-op element further and polish it more.

Most of all though, they really need to do a better job with the story. Half the time it doesn't even tell you why you're doing anything until you're halfway through doing the mission and there's a lot of character development that would have helped.

Also, I'm not complaining here, but I had serious deja vu to Resident Evil 4 when playing Gears. Its not just the over the shoulder part either. Some of the music sounds very similar (could just be the tone and not the actual music itself I admit), and there are several other similarities. That being said, I can't wait to see how the sequel for both of those plays now that they've got some really good ideas to exploit.

Playing it co-op, I'd give it a 9.0. Single player, I'd say maybe an 8.0. I haven't really played multiplayer yet though so that might effect things. Seems like it could use a lot more fleshing out as far as options and things go though.

Now you should move on to R6:Vegas 4 player coop.... lots of fun planning with 3 other people on how you are going to enter a room and take out the terrorists It's also MUCH harder than GoW on insane

 

[Queasy]

Well, I finally received my wireless headset in the mail yesterday. This is the one that I won from a drawing at HiDef.com. A couple of people asked me to give it a review so I'll go ahead and give a quick mini-review based off about 4 hours of gameplay last night.

Setup
Setting it up isn't too complicated. Once charged (about 4 hours to fully charge), all you have to do is turn your 360 on, turn your earpiece on and press the connectivity buttons for both. They'll detect each other and the earpiece will assign itself to whatever quadrant of the circle is available. You can assign it to different quadrants too so that it can be associated with the controller using those quadrants. There are little lights on the inside of the mouthpiece showing which one.

It did take two tries though to get it setup. I don't know what happened the first time but a second run through had it going fine.

Use
To my partially deaf and untrained ear, the quality of the sound was fine. Wasn't all that different from the wired headset. All the swearing, smacktalk, and whining came through loud and clear. :laugh: The people I was playing with online in Uno and Gears of War didn't seem to have a problem hearing me either.

The main difference is that the wireless earpiece won't pick up you whispering like the wired headset will so you have to speak at least at your normal level for people to hear you. Also, because it rests on your chin, you may get some scratchy sound if you have any facial hair and are moving around. Putting the foam piece from the wired headset on to the earpiece can alleviate that problem though.

There also was a couple of times that the wireless earpiece lost connection for a second and the sounds of people talking came from my TV instead of my earpiece. This has happened to me a couple of times with the wired headset as well but that was a couple of times over a couple of months compared to a couple of times in one gaming session for the wireless earpiece. Fortunately, the disconnection only lasted a second or two.

Comfort
I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of wearing stuff on my ears. I don't find it comfortable at all. The earpiece is extremely light though so the weight of it wasn't a factor. However, the bit that you wrap around your ear wasn't very comfortable at all to me. Maybe I just have Dumbo ears but it seems like it was designed for ears smaller than mine. I had to switch sides a couple of times and fiddle with it until I could get it in a semi-comfortable/non-annoying spot.

The earpiece actually comes with an extra attachment for your ear and I thought it was going to be slightly larger...but once I put the one that is attached and the extra attachment next to each other, I realized they were the same size.

Quibbles
I'll be honest, the instructions stink. It gives you the basic information like how to set the connection up, how to turn the volume up and down, and what warning beeps it gives you when the battery is running low. But, the instructions don't tell you what all the other beeps mean.

Example1 - I had the earpiece on mute and didn't realize it. The earpiece would beep in an interval of about 30 seconds and I couldn't figure out why at first. Finally, I realized it was because I was on mute. Would be nice if the manual would say that.

Example2 - In both games I played, the earpiece would beep and I couldn't figure out why. I think Uno it was for a warning that it was my turn to play or something.

I don't know...I just couldn't figure out what these seemingly random single beeps were for and the instructions were no help.

Verdict
We need to qualify my verdict with the knowledge that I am a cheapass. Does the earpiece work very well? Yes. Would I buy it? No. I would have been satisfied with the headsets included with the 360 just like I was satisfied with using the rechargeable batteries I already had for the controllers instead of buying the Charge Kit that comes with the battery pack.

All that said, this is a nifty little piece of hardware that does its job well. Some differing sizes for the earhook attachment and more info on what all the differing beeps mean would make it all the more nifty.

8 upchucks out of 10.

 

[bucwylde23]

Originally posted by: Queasy
Well, I finally received my wireless headset in the mail yesterday. This is the one that I won from a drawing at HiDef.com. A couple of people asked me to give it a review so I'll go ahead and give a quick mini-review based off about 4 hours of gameplay last night.

Setup
Setting it up isn't too complicated. Once charged (about 4 hours to fully charge), all you have to do is turn your 360 on, turn your earpiece on and press the connectivity buttons for both. They'll detect each other and the earpiece will assign itself to whatever quadrant of the circle is available. You can assign it to different quadrants too so that it can be associated with the controller using those quadrants. There are little lights on the inside of the mouthpiece showing which one.

It did take two tries though to get it setup. I don't know what happened the first time but a second run through had it going fine.

Use
To my partially deaf and untrained ear, the quality of the sound was fine. Wasn't all that different from the wired headset. All the swearing, smacktalk, and whining came through loud and clear. :laugh: The people I was playing with online in Uno and Gears of War didn't seem to have a problem hearing me either.

The main difference is that the wireless earpiece won't pick up you whispering like the wired headset will so you have to speak at least at your normal level for people to hear you. Also, because it rests on your chin, you may get some scratchy sound if you have any facial hair and are moving around. Putting the foam piece from the wired headset on to the earpiece can alleviate that problem though.

There also was a couple of times that the wireless earpiece lost connection for a second and the sounds of people talking came from my TV instead of my earpiece. This has happened to me a couple of times with the wired headset as well but that was a couple of times over a couple of months compared to a couple of times in one gaming session for the wireless earpiece. Fortunately, the disconnection only lasted a second or two.

Comfort
I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of wearing stuff on my ears. I don't find it comfortable at all. The earpiece is extremely light though so the weight of it wasn't a factor. However, the bit that you wrap around your ear wasn't very comfortable at all to me. Maybe I just have Dumbo ears but it seems like it was designed for ears smaller than mine. I had to switch sides a couple of times and fiddle with it until I could get it in a semi-comfortable/non-annoying spot.

The earpiece actually comes with an extra attachment for your ear and I thought it was going to be slightly larger...but once I put the one that is attached and the extra attachment next to each other, I realized they were the same size.

Quibbles
I'll be honest, the instructions stink. It gives you the basic information like how to set the connection up, how to turn the volume up and down, and what warning beeps it gives you when the battery is running low. But, the instructions don't tell you what all the other beeps mean.

Example1 - I had the earpiece on mute and didn't realize it. The earpiece would beep in an interval of about 30 seconds and I couldn't figure out why at first. Finally, I realized it was because I was on mute. Would be nice if the manual would say that.

Example2 - In both games I played, the earpiece would beep and I couldn't figure out why. I think Uno it was for a warning that it was my turn to play or something.

I don't know...I just couldn't figure out what these seemingly random single beeps were for and the instructions were no help.

Verdict
We need to qualify my verdict with the knowledge that I am a cheapass. Does the earpiece work very well? Yes. Would I buy it? No. I would have been satisfied with the headsets included with the 360 just like I was satisfied with using the rechargeable batteries I already had for the controllers instead of buying the Charge Kit that comes with the battery pack.

All that said, this is a nifty little piece of hardware that does its job well. Some differing sizes for the earhook attachment and more info on what all the differing beeps mean would make it all the more nifty.

8 upchucks out of 10.

when you say that it beeps, is it an annoying type of beep? I don't need a beep every time it's my turn in Uno.... I think that would drive me nuts. vibration is enough :laugh:

Honestly I can't justify spending $60 for it. That's another game I could be playing. The wired one works fine for me, and is one less thing that I can forget to charge...

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: chrisg22
when you say that it beeps, is it an annoying type of beep? I don't need a beep every time it's my turn in Uno.... I think that would drive me nuts. vibration is enough :laugh:

It's just a beep. Not unlike the beep when dialing a cellphone. I don't know fur sure if it was beeping every turn on Uno. I was trying to figure out the pattern and sometimes it did and sometimes it didn't.

Honestly I can't justify spending $60 for it. That's another game I could be playing. The wired one works fine for me, and is one less thing that I can forget to charge...

That is my biggest holdup as well. I probably should have knocked it down another point or two just for the price. If you can get it for around $30 or less it may be worth it though.

 

[UpgradeFailure]

Queasy, that was a great review and answered a lot of "wonders" I had about it. I was tempted to buy it at $34 a few days ago, but the price is up now and after reading your review, I am going to pass. If I can get it for around 20 bucks or so, I'll pick it up though.

Is it a pain in the ass to mute? Because you have to take your hand off the controller right?

Thanks again for the review. You should submit that to some sites

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: UpgradeFailure
Queasy, that was a great review and answered a lot of "wonders" I had about it. I was tempted to buy it at $34 a few days ago, but the price is up now and after reading your review, I am going to pass. If I can get it for around 20 bucks or so, I'll pick it up though.

Is it a pain in the ass to mute? Because you have to take your hand off the controller right?

Thanks again for the review. You should submit that to some sites

Not too much of a pain in the ass. The mute/power button is right in the center of the earpiece so a quick reach up puts it on mute. Changing the volume on the fly was a little more difficult simply because those buttons are recessed on either side of the mute/power button and smooth on the rest of the earpiece instead of sticking out so that you can easily recognize them with your fingers.

I did keep reaching for the wired earpiece attachment though.

 

[bucwylde23]

Anyone else notice that in GoW and it seems R6:V also, that it happens quite often that everyone in a server can't hear all of the other people in the same server?

In GoW if you join a game that is already in progress, sometimes you can't speak to people in the room.
In R6 last night I was only able to hear 2 people in a server of 14 people. And from talking to others online it has happened to others as well.

 

[James3shin]

Originally posted by: Queasy
Gears of War + 1600 MS Live Points ($20) at Best Buy

$59.99 for the regular edition + 1600 Live Points with free shipping
$69.99 for the collector's edition + 1600 Live Points with no free shipping

I tried to get this offer, but it didn't work. Anyone having success?

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: James3shin

Originally posted by: Queasy
Gears of War + 1600 MS Live Points ($20) at Best Buy

$59.99 for the regular edition + 1600 Live Points with free shipping
$69.99 for the collector's edition + 1600 Live Points with no free shipping

I tried to get this offer, but it didn't work. Anyone having success?

I should have come back and edited that. This deal appears to be dead now. Was actually dead not long after I posted it.

 

[R Nilla]

here's a new XBOX Live points deal...

1600 points for $4.99 with Halo 3 pre-order.