Archive for November, 2006
Nov
30
Posted under
Games,
Xbox Live Arcade Newer and cooler games continue to release for the 360, like Gears of War, COD3 and Rainbow Six Vegas. While the games are still fresh off the retail shelves, gamers typically watch the leader boards, CLOSELY. And just as many gamers give their best to climb up those lists at any cost. However, there is still one launch title that perseveres and instigates ones ambition to be called King.
A five dollar Xbox Live Arcade game called Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved.Â
About six months after launch, the #1 High Score in GeoWars was about 82 Million. Now, six more months later it’s over four times that! With a symbolic score of 360,360,600 (he claims he intentionally ended the game prematurely), K4rn4ge now takes back the top spot, AGAIN.
Congratulations K4rn4ge! It must be a relief that all that Red Bull and Pizza wasn’t for nothing. While we can easily assume that this score won’t last forever, I wonder if we’ll see a Billion in another 6 months? Can a 360 even stay on long enough to reach that? (Don’t borrow Carpals).
-Rust.
Nov
28
Posted under
MrCarpalTunnel,
XBL Radio,
Xbox I tried to write 360 things to do, like our friend Trixie, but I have to admit it’s too much work. So while I wait for MS to send my return box, it’s been 2 days since my call, I figured I might as well add something to the BLOG. Here are some things you can try to do while you wait for your 360 to get repaired…
1. Go to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/907586 to seek help.
2. Call MS Support at 1-800-4myxbox to get the ball rolling.
3. Surf Google for: Xbox 360 broke. (It makes you feel not alone)
4. Call a friend. (Headsets are not the only way to communicate nowadays)
5. Go out to dinner. (Give the pizza delivery guy a break)
6. Play some Solatair
7. Talk to your Family. (It’s been a while, they may have changed)
8. Read a book.
9. See a movie. (That doesn’t take 4 hours to download)
10. Break out the old gaming consoles. (and realize how many MS points you’ve wasted)
11. Take a walk.
12. Learn a new language.
13. Start a forum for abandoned 360 owners.
14. Take up a new hobby.
15. Listen to some podcasts.
16. Go Christmas shopping.
17. Buy a pet.
18. Practice YoYo
19. Write that great American Novel.
20. Stand in line for a PS3.
21. Stand in a shorter line for a Wii.
22. Stand in the checkout line for another 360.
23. Hope that every car that comes down the driveway is a FED EX truck.
24. Take Bowling lessons.
25. Learn the art of mime.
26. Learn Oragami.
27. Ride a bike.
28. Go to the Zoo.
29. Get a DS
30. Get a PSP and regret not getting a DS.
31. Visit www.xblradio.com/forums and bitch to gamers who care.
32. Collect Tom and Katie baby photos.
33. Make a TOM and Katie collage with the photos you collected.
34. Watch every episode of 24 in order and realize that the 360 isn’t coming back any time soon.
35. Go Skating.
36. Go fishing.
37. Type a list of things to do while your out of your 360.
38. Buy a real Pinata (Then talk to it in your front yard)
39. Go camping.
40. Exercise
41. Take a long hot shower.
42. Reformat your PC.
43. Re-organize your drawers.
44. Make of diary Starting with the day your 360 died. 
45. Find God. 46. Find some change in your couch.
47. Find the meaning of life.
48. Start a pod cast.
49. Start a revolution.
50. Start something.
51. Study.
52. Take out the trash.
53. Take out a friend. (without a private chat invite)
54. Go to a funeral.
55. Go to a wedding.
56. Learn how to sew.
57. Learn how to knit.
58. Play minature golf.
59. Bake a cake.
60. Try to see how long you can hold your breath.
61. Mourn over the Pam and Kid Rock divorce.
62. Write a letter.
62. Type a letter
63. Write an e-mail.
64. Type an e-mail (I’m running out of list ideas sorry)
65. Take up bungee jumping.
66. Learn karate
67. Learn how to break-dance (It will come back)
68. Try a new food.
69. Start a diet.
70. Mow the yard.
71. Vacuum the carpet.
72. Adopt a 3rd world child.
73. Start a cult.
74. Shave your head.
75. Shave your head then start a cult.
76. Serve Kool Aid at your cult meetings.
77. Quit Smoking.
78. Start smoking.
79. Become a recluse.
80. Become more sociable.
81. Get some rest.
82. Take a vacation.
83. Take some viagra.
84. Buy a pony.
85. Go to the mall
87. Take a drive.
88. Visit Steve Erwin’s memorial.
89. Go to Graceland.
90. Go to a concert.
91. Go to a foreign country.
92. Watch Nick Toons Spongebob marathon.
93. Go skinnydipping.
94. Go skinnydipping in someone else’s pool.
95. Go skinnydipping in someone else’s pool you don’t know.
96. Hang up Xmas lights.
97. Hang upside down.
98. Play Lotto.
99. Realize your 360 isn’t going to fix itself.
100. Wish you had bought the wired controller so you could end this stupid list!
Any other suggestions would be helpful. As you can see I am desperate…
Nov
28
Posted under
.5 Shows,
Podcast,
XBL Radio The PS3 and Wii have launched! We talked to 360 owners who happily purchased the competitions consoles and guess what, they didn’t put em up on ebay! Our 3 regular gamers, just like you, include HALooVER XP, Cognative and Mik.
Roundtable Topics:
We go in depth comparing the controllers, graphics and the games.  Hear our guests share their expeditions about securing their consoles on launch day.  Get their take on the coolest features and whats laking. Then find out how these new systems compare to the 360.
Show Wrap-up Discussion W/ Surprise Third Co-Host
Carpal’s Xbox Takes a Dump:Â Is XBL Radio done for? Maybe we’ll become PSWii Radio?
GoW Achievements: If people quit > the match doesn’t count > NO achievment. How are we supposed to get them?
Hear a real life Gears of War chainsaw story.
The Video Marketplace, Download inDemand movies in just days, not hours!
Website news, XBLRadio.com is acitve!
Racingfreak92 wins the XBL Vision Camera.
Marketplace Minute Segment Announcement for the .0 shows! Find out who’s gonna do it and what it’s all about.
Gamertag Radio vs. XBL Radio, SMALL ARMS Tournament Announcement!
XBL Radio Live Vision Camera Givaway contest Ends November 20, listen now to play.
Here is the direct download link,
Right Click here (and save as… for best download experience).
Talk about the show in our forums.
To subscribe to the podcast you can click on one of these…
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Nov
26
Posted under
Xbox 360 Well I guess I am due. My 360 finally gave up. Below is an image of my gaming area…
As you can see the 360 logo, on the startup screen, is saturated with white dashes.
So I tried again, to start my system, this time to play Geo Wars. This image below is taken as the game locked up once again.
Â
So I decided to search the web for possible solutions. I tried switching the video inputs, from HD to TV, then I took my Hard Drive off, then I disconnected all periphrials. All this was to no avail.Â
 So I decided to put my 360 in time out…
It worked on my kids.
 So I then called up MS. They stated it’s still under warrenty. So I finally get to expierience what all my friends have gone through. The customer service at MS was great. They seemed to be aware of the problem. So I am officially without 360 gaming for the next few days (hopefully).
I do have one question though. If I have movies on my HD I have yet to view, am I out of luck with the time constraints? Also I have several games I have rented from Blockbuster (for the Turkey Day Weekend) that I wont be able to play. So I guess It may have cost me more than just gaming delays. It’s now monetary.
Well I do have one side-note: I picked up a new system last week. Hopefully it’s Wii-liable!
Nov
25
Posted under
Games,
Interview,
Microsoft,
Review,
Steve519,
Xbox,
Xbox 360 
So a couple weeks ago I got my hands on Viva Piñata! You know? One of the handful of “E” rated games for the Xbox 360. In fact, considering all games marketed for young kids this is one of the 2 or 3 depending on how you look at it. So with that in mind, I believe there are no good games for that market. That is, until Viva Piñata came our way. Now this game is obviously marketed to a much younger audience, but I have to say I absolutely love this game.
Now you start off with this beat up small piece of land, with junk all over it. What you have to do is first, beat all the hard dirt, clean up your land and plant grass. When you get points you will already start to bring in piñata’s to your farm. You will get these cool little worm thingys, these are the most basic and easiest type of piñatas to get. Once you have two of them on your farm you can then “romance” them. (Now parents don’t worry because when you “romance” piñatas they go inside their house and dance.) Each piñata has there own special piñata dance that was done pretty creatively and no two piñatas dance alike. Once you have two piñata’s of the same type, you have to meet special requirements to ramance them. All different for each piñata, like for the worms all you have to do is have there type of house built. Once that is done you can let them go at it. Later on it the game however, things get more complicated. You might find yourself having to feed your piñatas other piñatas banana splits or many other things.
Now in this game there are many other things to do than just romancing your piñatas. For instance, they will fight each other. Yes, they fight if their personalities are not compatible. You have to worry about keeping them happy, and protecting them from the “sour” piñatas outside your farm, along with many other things.
Now for the overview of the game.
First, gameplay. Its all pretty simple, you have to meet certain requirements to lure piñatas to your farm, to make them residents, to romance them and to keep them happy. Thats the gist of the game, you do this over and over again. However, in Viva Piñata you don’t always feel like you’re doing the same thing again and again… even though you are! There is a ranking system and here are a few things you need to do to get your rank up. Get piñatas to your farm, plant new and exciting plants and make varients of piñatas or plants. As your rank goes up, you’ll unlock upgradable tools, new items in your store, new piñatas among many other things. Overall on gameplay I will give this game a 7, ya it’s fun but as you get high in rank you start to feel like you’re repeating things that you have already done.
We will go over controls next. Wow, this game is so simple to pick up and play, and while your playing you get hints along the way with a button diagram in the top right of your screen that doesn’t get in the way. Great job on this Rare, so I have to give it a 9 on controls, just because its so easy for everyone to pick up and play.
Now lets move on to sound. While there’s nothing spectacular here, Rare does the job and does it OK. Interesting sounds all around but still nothing special, so I have to give it a 6.
Graphics, this game is a pretty game. While I don’t feel its maxed out to the full capabilities of the 360 they still did a great job with the bright colors, amount of detail put into the piñatas and with the surrounding areas. I absolutely love the colors in this game and how bright everything is, so I am going to give Viva Piñata a 9 in the graphics dept., great job.
Overall, now remember, Viva Piñata was made mostly for the younger audience and to get them to jump-in on the Xbox 360 bandwagon and I think that Microsoft and Rare did an excellent job of making a game with such potential. But what hooked me was that as an adult, I still love playing this game myself. So I am going to give Viva Piñata a 8.6 overall.
Now if you do the math you will notice that things don’t add up but thats because I don’t feel certain things like graphics or sound should count as much as gameplay. I don’t just add all the numbers together and go from there. I go off of what I feel the overall rating should be. If you’re an older gamer I would strongly recommend that you check this out. If you don’t, you’re only cheating yourself because this is so much better then some of the games out there for the 360. If you’re a casual gamer on the other hand or wanna get this for your kids I would ask “Why are you reading my review instead of going to the store right now to get this game?” Viva Piñata is so made for the kids or casual games that you just have to pick it up.
Now if you like my review please feel free to comment here in the blog. If you do not like my review, feel free to send evil piñatas to my farm through the games cool mail system.
Stay tuned to show 32.0 where you will be given a “KIDS PIX” from MrCarpalTunnels kids. It’ll be cool to listen to a review from a kids prospective, which I will be waiting to hear.
Posted by Steven Artlip (Steve519)
Nov
25
Posted under
Tech News,
Websites,
Zune 
If you’re still waiting on that episode of South Park to download from the marketplace (it took me 4 hours to get it completed) the ZUNE is offering a way for you to listen to XBL Radio while you wait.
FEED YOUR ZUNE is an easy way to incorporate RSS into your Zune. One of the features that made the iPod great was its ability to incorporate podcast RSS subscriptions.
On our last show, XBL Radio ver 31, Steve519 discussed all of the Zunes features. One feature not included was the ability to use RSS. So if RSS subscriptions made you not purchase the newest portable entertainment machine, now might be a time to reconsider…
Nov
24
Posted under
Steve519,
Websites,
XBL Radio,
Xbox 360 
Alright, this was from a listener tip: I had no idea that Trixie did this but it looks like she wrote a list of the top 360ish reasons to love our Xbox 360’s. I was browsing the list and what caught my eye was reason 334… XBL Radio! So thanks Trixie for that, you’re by far the coolest girl I know on the Xbox.  Thanks for letting your fans know that Xbox acknowledges indie podcasts amongst its colony. It helps us to know that we matter to you and the community.
So for those of you that wanna see all 360+ reasons… here you go, 360 Reasons to Love Xbox 360
Posted by Steven Artlip (Steve519)
Nov
24
Posted under
PS3,
Websites,
Wii,
Xbox 360 
Factual statistics or just something for the fanboys to fluster about? Either way, NexGenWars.com is the eaisiest way to find out the status of all 3 console sales. In fact so easy, it’s virtually the only thing you’ll find on the site at this point.
There is some more information to learn about this site and you can get it by checking out gamertagradio.com!  Godfree will publish an interview with the founder/owner of NexGenWars.com soon.
-Rust.
Nov
23
Posted under
Market Place,
Movies,
Steve519,
Xbox Live 
First off I just wanna wish everyone have a Happy Thanksgiving, since today today is Thanksgiving. Now time for my post, I was not going to post anything today but something happened to me when I was trying out the new Xbox Live movie and TV download feature. So yesterday I get home off of work, you know they first day of the video marketplace, and I happen to go online before I turn on my Xbox 360. The first thing that I see that everyone seems to be having issues with the video downloads. Some people are having issues with download speeds and others are having issues with the video downloads not completing and then the dashboard is popping up error messages. I was a little discouraged because of this, granted it was the first day that we have had this option and Xbox Live is probably getting slammed but they have experienced this before so this should not be happening, but I ignore the issue and feel that I can not slam MS without trying it out myself. It was already 11 at night and I had to be at work early tomorrow morning, yes I had to work today on Thanksgiving, so I decided to download a movie and let it go throughout the night so I can later do a review about the whole thing. Now most of the movies that they had either sucked, or I already owned, or I have already seen, but V for Vendetta, which I have not seen yet and I actually did want to see it so I decided on this one.
Not only did I decide to download this one, but I decided to get the HD version because I wanted to see it in all its HD glory, all 6.07GB of it. So like I was saying before, I picked V for Vendetta, right before I went to bed. Now I get up the next day ready to watch it and what do I see? ERROR - Ah, shit. Stupid ass piece of crap. So it was on all last night, or so I thought, and it had an issue. So I try again before I went to work, I restart the download. And you know how when you restart your download it shows you how much it has done? Well for it I had 2%, yes, only 2% done from all last night. So again, I restart it and go to work. Now I get back from work, turn my TV on and I figure it would be done minus any error and what do I see? No error messages!!! Oh I feel good now, I go over to active downloads, 8% done. What kind of crap is that? I’m about 16 hours into downloading now and I have a whole 8% is it. Right now I’m while I’m writing this story, I just reached 20 hours and I am at 19%.
Microsoft, if your reading, which I know you are because you have contacted me before about my stories, this is piss poor. Seriously, this whole movie download service which is suppose to be like on demand really blows. I could care less for excuses, I just want this fixed. In my case I am spending big dollars to watch a movie in HD which is costing me more then if I just ordered it from Comcast through In Demand, and their service is a whole lot faster and easier. I do not like to feel like I am getting screwed when I spend dollars at your marketplace but it seems that with all your retro releases, EA downloads, and now a broken in demand video service.
I know that the Xbox already has a good following, a lot of GREAT content but this is no time to drop the ball. I do not know if you have noticed but there are 2 new systems out there now to compete with and if you wanna let them catch up keep doing what you have been doing lately but if you do want to succeed against them you need to fix these issues and fix them soon.
Â
Posted by Steven Artlip (Steve519)
Nov
22
Posted under
Console Crimes,
Video,
Xbox 360
As the gaining buzz about the 360-Wireless-Headsets-not-working-properly continues, I was able to capture some video of the connectivity problems I have been frequently having. Maybe this video can help Microsoft pinpoint the problem and make me feel better about spending 60 bucks for it. This has happend to me on a total of 4 distinct occasions. The video is self explanatory. Any questions?
-Rust.
