James M. Burke

Last night, I was playing Halo 2 (as usual) on my Xbox 360. After hour two, my friends and I were playing Slayer on Backwash and my box froze. My controller was still vibrating from someone hitting me, and the last frame was still on the screen. The controller continued to vibrate until I power cycled the Xbox.

This is the second time this has happened to me, and I’ve checked…both the unit and the power supply were cool. If I remember correctly, the last time it happened, it was on Backwash too. That seems to be the only map that we (Xbox 360′ers) have problems on. Regular gameplay is very choppy when playing in this map. Maybe some software update will fix it?

Friday night, I finally got ahold of an Xbox 360! I ended up searching eBay for Xbox 360’s in my area and made bids on about 25. I got this one for $610 from a guy in Chapel Hill, a few miles from here. I know, I overpaid…but it came with an additional controller, so it was only by about $120 or so. In the near future, I’ll be creating an Xbox page…which will replace the Halo page I currently have. The stats will still be there, but it’ll look much better.

Oh, and here’s my Xbox Live Gamer card:

I don’t think I have a good chance of getting ahold of an Xbox 360 during first shipment. Circuit City began accepting web orders at 2:00pm on Friday. I had Rebecca try to order at 2:00pm, but their web server was completely overloaded, and she was only able to get it into the cart. It would not let her check out…then, by 4:30pm, Circuit City had updated their site saying “Sold Out!” My original intention was to order one, and still wait in line on Monday night at midnight to try to grab one…ensuring I would at least get one during first shipment. Well, I guess I still have one last shot…

<<< As you can see, I just posted added a Xbox 360 Launch countdown. I threw it together in JavaScript...it is mainly for my personal reference. :)

I saw an article on Joystiq of a young girl playing the new Xbox 360 on a TV exactly like mine. I can’t wait for the Xbox 360! Yes, I have problems.

View: Young lady takes Xbox 360 for a spin - Joystiq

Last Monday, Bungie released 5 new multiplayer maps for Halo 2. The newly named maps are Gemini, Relic, Elongation, Terminal, and Backwash. They are all incredible and are well worth the $11.99 to download them online. More information is available here.

Yesterday, Bungie updated their multiplayer playlists to include the previous 4 maps (Warlock, Containment, Sanctuary, and Turf) in their core playlists. The reason for this delay was that they were just made available to everyone for free recently. They also fixed a few other minor things, such as having a Banshee on Ascension Rifles.

All in all, a very important and very great release by Bungie!

On Monday, April 18th, Bungie released a much anticipated update to Halo 2. This update fixed various glitches, addressed bugs, and modified the weapons slightly. All in all, I think that this update was great. However, browsing through Bungie’s forums, it appears quite a few people were initially upset about the update. I guess you can’t please everyone.

Then, on Monday, April 25th, they released four new multiplayer maps. Two were free (Warlock and Containment) and two were not (Sanctuary and Turf). They were all designed very well, and I think that the $5.99 for the other two is a small price to pay.

Next monday, they update the multiplayer playlists. I am very impressed by Bungie’s moves lately. They’re really listening to their customers and adding new content. Excellent game made by excellent developers.

Link: Bungie Studios

So, I recently saw the Xbox 2 specs, and I am very impressed! They are using IBM processors (so is the PS3), and apparently there are rumors that the Xbox 2 can deliver more than a teraflop of computing performance. Here’s the specs:

Xenon Hardware Overview

By Pete Isensee, Development Lead, Xbox Advanced Technology Group

This documentation is an early release of the final documentation, which may be changed substantially prior to final commercial release, and is confidential and proprietary information of MS Corporation. It is disclosed pursuant to a nondisclosure agreement between the recipient and MS.
“Xenon� is the code name for the successor to the Xbox® game console from MS. Xenon is expected to launch in 2005. This white paper is designed to provide a brief overview of the primary hardware features of the console from a game developer’s standpoint.

(more…)

Since I really don’t have much to blog about today, I just wanted to inform everyone of how addicting Halo 2 is. Seriously, I spend a lot of time playing that game. It’s not that I’m all that good at the game, it’s just so fun to play. Check out the Stats page too!