It’s a bit large…
Yesterday I took delivery of my new 32" Samsung LE32R87BDX (big mouthful thar) HDTV. I have been agonising over purchasing a HD screen for ages now but finally jumped on board after the recent purchase of my Xbox 360’s HD-DVD player. While I was day-dreaming away in my office at work, the delivery man phones up saying that he’s just delivered it at my home. I almost got knocked out by an Australian backpacker as I jumped onto the bus and dashed home…to find the biggest box I’ve seen in ages. Took me a solid 10 minutes just to drag the box up to my room!
Upon unpacking the screen, it’s just hard to describe how gorgeous the thing looks in it’s lovely reflective finish, which sadly also makes it a fingerprint magnet. HD video on it looks utterly crystal clear and so defined, once you turn off the post processing features that are enabled by default. This thing is gorgeous. Now for those who will tell me to wall mount it, I’m afraid it’s not possible on these walls….they’re made of something that isn’t your standard household masonry. Suffice to say that drilling into these walls is a mission and a half and I will end up with a huge amount of broken drill bits - I speak from experience.
Sadly I had to ditch my twin 19" Widescreen TFT’s that I use with my PC, just so I could fit that HDTV on my desk. So I’m back to a single 20.1" Widescreen for the PC now. Not good, it feels really odd to work with. Anyway, it’s a Bank Holiday weekend (Monday is a public holiday) so I’ll be spending it with me girlfriend chilling out and watching HD-DVD’s on me new tele \o/
A cheap HD solution for the masses
Woo, been a while since I wrote any solid content for the blog. To be honest I’ve been incredibly busy with settling into my new position at work amonst other things. Spoilt by some of the HD quality film trailers/game trailers on the Xbox Marketplace, DVD’s have started to look poor by comparison. I just cannot watch a DVD anymore without spotting how bad its video quality is in comparison. I have been holding off purchasing the Xbox 360 HD-DVD player for quite some time now but have finally purchased the thing.
Not a lot of people know that it can be easily used in Windows, so I decided to write up a quick article on how it could be done. PR has recently reviewed his HD-DVD drive on his blog and likes it too!
I have had the most chaotic messed up weekend ever. I ended up spending Saturday writing up a whole batch of reports and articles for work, and then managed to accidentally shred a couple by mistak! With no backup copies, I am royally screwed tomorrow when I head back to work.
I spent most of today writing and re-writing a single review (Most Wanted) because I ended up losing a massive portion of the code because it was stored in the windows clipboard buffer, which was then overwritten. Great! I also forgot to mention that last week I added a new review into the reviews section, and just today added a second. So Project Gotham Racing 3 and Need for Speed: Most Wanted are the newest additions. I’ve also tidied up that reviews page to make it look a bit more organised.
Right, that leaves me with Test Drive Unlimited, Top Spin 2, Oblivion, Fight Night 3 and Pro Evo 6 to review so…no pressure!
Oh bugger…
There goes the rumour mill. It’s now true. After a good month of speculation when pictures of a HDMI 360 was leaked onto the web, it has finally been confirmed after the CES show in Las Vegas. Bill Gates’s keynote speech was something a lot of people waited for, hoping he would speak about the future of the Xbox 360. Instead he talked about Windows Vista, Live Anywhere, and then IPTV on ‘a’ 360 - the way he said this seemed to suggest he was talking about new 360’s rather then our current gen models.
Then just before Bill Gates keynote, Dean Takahashi, an Xbox expert and author of the ‘Uncloaked’ series of books on the Xbox and Xbox 360 leaked some news on a new 360 arriving in 2007. He spoke about the Xbox 360 Revision 2, codenamed Zephyr which would have a larger capacity hard drive 120/160mb, HDMI output, and running cooler with its .65nm CPU. It’ll also be IPTV enabled. In the UK, British Telecom will provide our IPTV service…I can hear the boo’s already.
Paul Thurrot, from Windows SuperSite has mentioned on his podcast that a new 360 is on the way during Q4 of 2007. He hasn’t seen it yet, but it has "IPTV capabilities and a larger hard drive", it WILL definitely feature a CPU on a smaller production process so it’ll require less power, emanate less heat and require less cooling too which means that the new 360 should be a bit more quieter then our current models.
I’ve just added two reviews to the reviews section. Call of Duty 2 for the Xbox 360, and the Western Digital 320GB My Book External Hard Drive, which I recently purchased to backup all my data onto.
I’ve been feeling quite poor recently, after the New Years celebrations. I’ve felt unfit, and unwell as a result too, so I really need to get back into shape, not that I went on a mad drinking/eating spree during the festivities, but I did stop going to the gym for a solid 3 weeks and I can now feel the effects of that decision. This unwell feeling isn’t helped by the fact that my Laptop has died, while I awaited parts for my new PC (below). I was meant to use the lappy to write reviews while my main PC was out of action, but that plan backfired. So after spending well over £1100 on components for a new PC, I’ve not got to get the lappy repaired too. Great 
Too much food 
Just a quick update! I’ve just uploaded two more game reviews to the Reviews section, Full Auto and WWE Smackdown 2007.
How was Christmas for everyone? Did the Xmas dinner go according to plan? I celebrated slightly early this year, and spent it with my parents and annoying Ayesha who came to stay. Christmas Eve was spent with some close friends of mine. I’d not seen them in absolutely ages, so I spent some much needed time with them and their gorgeous little baby Arianna, man she is cute! So far I’ve spent these holidays getting much needed R&R. I’ve badly needed this after a hectic end of year at work. Now I’ve got to get in shape for 2007, right now I feel like the Stay Puft Marshmallow man from Ghostbusters…
I’ve written a quick Creative Xmod review that has recently been released on to the market. It’s a small audio enhancement device that claims to improve your audio. Does it work? Take a look at the review to find out. Also added today is the review of Kameo: Elements of Power for the Xbox 360.
Nowt broken yet
I’ve received my Xbox 360 Wireless Headset earlier today, so I’ve done a quick review of that. You can find it in the reviews section. I’ve also upgraded the K2 theme for this blog. It’s taken me a good month or so of tweaking before I could bring it online, so some portions of this blog will still be missing, or dead. Lastly, I’ve re-enabled the Rolling archives feature, so you can seamlessly navigate through the older pages of this blog. Bear in mind that it’s a bit flaky, and doesn’t like the Opera browser one bit (not my fault!), it should work fine in Firefox and IE6/7. Please give me a shout if anything isn’t looking quite right. Ta!
Just like to mention that I’ll be adding Xbox 360 Reviews to the Reviews section on a regular basis now. I’ve opened up the section with a Gears of War write up. This is currently the biggest title available for the Xbox 360, and technology wise, the most advanced. Want my opinions? You know where to look.
Games Galore!
I’ve been feeling a tad ill lately, mentally ill mostly as I recently examined my expenses for November, which isn’t even at an end yet. Everyone is in the same boat though, due to Christmas approaching so spending habits are bound to go out of control anyway. I’ve tried hard as hell to save up this year, and for the most part I like to think that I’ve done really well…sorta.
My expenditure this month however has been something short of ridiculous. Most of it has gone on Xbox 360 games, not to mention a few accessories for the console too. I’ll be also looking at purchasing a 42" HDTV for the parents hopefully at the end of the month in addition to this.
Some of this month’s big Xbox 360 games are Pro Evo Soccer 6, Call of Duty 3, WWE Smackdown vs RAW 2007, Rainbow Six: Vegas and the king of them all - Gears of War which is already out in America and the Uk on the 17th November. This is visually, and technologically the most advanced game ever created at present. Nothing looks as stunning as this title thanks to it’s tweaked up Unreal 3 engine. I’ve also got the 360 Wireless Headset on the way, and bought a spare wireless controller just in case I lose my temper again playing Call of Duty 3 on its super hard Veteran Mode.
I’ve also recently purchased the superb
Saints Row, which is a brilliant Grand Theft Auto clone, and an oldie but goodie -
Condemned, possibly THE scariest game I’ve ever played, and I’m not alone on this.
I’ve got a reason for purchasing these older games, because I’ll be reviewing them. Strangely enough since I started this blog, I’ve had just over 70 emails from various people who used to read the reviews at the now defunct Halfmad.com. They’ve asked as to weather I’ll continue reviewing games for the PC or the 360. Most of these readers have read my old article which discussed why I switched to the Xbox 360 for gaming and have asked for 360 game reviews. I’ve thought about it, and will give it a shot, so this weekend I’ll begin writing up and finalising some reviews for Xbox 360 Games and Accessories. I won’t be doing PC games because I’ve given up on that area - too expensive, and hardly anything new or original nowadays on that format.
