jump to navigation

Do NOT Use Third Party Hard Drives in an Xbox 360 August 19, 2011

Posted by Maniac in Game News.
6 comments

This is just a quick warning for everyone who visits this site for its technical information.  It turns out that since it’s so easy to build a hard drive for an Xbox 360 Slim, people have been selling third-party unofficial drives through methods like Amazon and eBay since they’re cheaper than what Microsoft is charging for them.

Recently, I got a comment on my Xbox 360 Slim Hard Drive installation video from an Xbox Slim user who could not play Halo 2 even though he had upgraded it with a Hard Drive.  I was troubleshooting for this poor guy for several days, and we could not get the game to run on his slim no matter what he did.

Finally I did some research into the problem and found the solution.  It turns out generic, homebrew and international drives are not properly formatted to Xbox 1 specifications.  Xbox had a specifically partitioned hard drive which its games made use of.  This was in lieu of having only 64MB of RAM, game developers created a pagefile in the hard drive to make up for it.  Since the 360 is backwards compatible, all Microsoft made drives have this partition in place so Xbox 1 games can make use of it.

If the drive is not properly partitioned and formatted the way an Xbox 1 game expects, the game will throw an error and refuse to load.  It turns out the idiots who are making these drives and selling them on the cheap are not aware of how to properly partition the drives they are selling, and while they are working fine for Xbox 360 storage, without the Xbox 1 partition in place in the hard drive you will not be able to play any of the Xbox 1 games that are backwards compatible.  This is a problem even if the game was downloaded through Xbox Live, it still will not play.

In short, they’re a plague, avoid them as such.  Be aware of what the Xbox 360 Slim HD packaging looks like, and be wary of any deals you might be getting on them.  If your drive is not able to play an Xbox 1 game, return it immediately and get a refund.

UPDATE:  This video might help.  This is what actual Xbox 360 Hard Drives look like.  If your drive does not look like what is featured in the video, you likely have a fraudulent drive.

Resistance 3 Preview August 19, 2011

Posted by Maniac in Previews.
add a comment

Humanity is on the brink of destruction.  The planet has been overrun with an invasion force which converts or kills all enemies which stand in their way.  They’re changing the weather, dropping the temperature of the planet to better suit their survival.  We will not survive the winter.  The only man who stood any chance of standing in their way is dead, executed in the back of the head by one of his own squadmates at the moment of his conversion.  Humanity must resist, and a new hero must step forward to lead the charge.

What a way to start a game!

Nathan Hale is dead, and you are Joseph Capelli, who not only has the weight of protecting his wife and child but also the entire surviving Earth population.  Your only hope is the mysterious Dr. Malikov, who sought you out after the events of Resistance 2.  You’re going to need to keep him alive as he crosses the devastated country, preparing for one last stand which will hopefully destroy the Chimeran invaders once and for all.

Gameplay has been retooled in this game quite a bit.  You are no longer restricted to the two weapon limit as you were in Resistance 2.  The weapon wheel, which allows you to carry all the weapons you pick up over the course of the game, has made its glorious return.  The more you use a weapon and the more kills you accumulate with any weapon in particular will effectively level the weapon up, giving you more capabilities, including improved zoom or better damage.  Regenerating health is gone, making you reliant on health packs.

Some of this will carry over to multiplayer.  Some additions to multiplayer include the ability to get payback on the last player who killed you (they’ll be flagged on your HUD).  On a nice added bonus the game will support cooperative through the single-player campaign using either split-screen or online, however it will be limited to two players.  In the past, Resistance: Fall of Man supported two player co-op, but only through split-screen, and Resistance 2 had an entirely separate co-op campaign that could support seven players online (with a maximum of two through split-screen), and trust me YOU NEEDED those seven players just to progress.  Online co-op through the single player campaign has been wanted since Resistance: Fall of Man shipped, and we’re finally getting it.

A multiplayer beta test for the game has already begun for people who own SOCOM4 and to people who preordered off Amazon.  Pretty soon Playstation Plus users will be granted access, and following that, the rest of the PS3 population.

Resistance 3 is coming September 6th, 2011 exclusive to the Playstation 3.