Halo History: Version to Version Evolution

“Halo 3 sold more than US$170 million worth of copies in the first twenty-four hours of release, breaking the record set by Halo 2 three years prior.^[5][6] The games have sold over 34 million copies worldwide, and all Halo merchandise has grossed more than $1.7 billion.”
- Wikipedia

“Microsoft Corp said its "Halo 4" video game racked up $220 million in global sales on its launch day, beating records set by previous installments of the hit series.” – Yahoo News

Since the announcement of Halo 4 at the E3 conference, I’ve been reminiscing about the Halo franchise. I have fond memories—after all, I spent enough time with Halo to write three books: The Black Art of Halo Mods (Sams), Halo 2 Hacks (O'Reilly) and The Unauthorized Halo 2 Battle Guide (Thompson).

The Halo video game series has clearly been a fantastic success for Bungie, Microsoft and the Xbox group. As I played through Halo: Reach, I thought I’d write up a post about the most memorable differences between the various flavours of Halo. I wanted to do this as much from memory as possible so that the things that were really memorable get the most attention.

I didn’t get around to posting what I wrote, so now that I’ve had some time with Halo 4, it seems like it’s about time to post.

Halo: Combat Evolved (Halo 1) — 2001

- © 2001 Microsoft. First released screenshot of Halo

The first version of Halo (Halo 1, or Halo: Combat Evolved) is a first-person shooter (FPS) that was released on the original Xbox platform. It became the most important game in the success of the new Xbox video game console and spawned a massive franchise.

These are the aspects of the original Halo that I remember most vividly:

• It was beautiful (which sounds funny when you see the anniversary upgrade)
• The game engine was solid
• Melee attacks were addictively fun
• Vehicles were cool (see warthog jump). Combat with vehicles was a lot of fun
• The story was good
• Multi-player (deathmatch) was a lot of fun but there was no Xbox Live option when Halo was released, so you needed to either use the same Xbox (up to four players) or network Xboxs together (up to 16 players). In Building 25 on the Microsoft campus they had large screens and would network Xboxs together to play. That was the first time I played with a group. Later my roommate and I would thread a network cable to our neighbour so we could play.
• The pistol was clearly overpowered
• Large portions of the game involved playing through a level and then going backwards through the same level
• How do you run?
• The race at the end was exciting

 
- © 2001 Microsoft

Halo PC — 2003

A couple of years after the Xbox version of Halo, a PC edition was released. This became known as Halo PC. It was a popular game since consoles were still not considered cool by hard-core gamers. Basically, if you couldn’t use a keyboard, a lot of FPS fans, wouldn’t take the game seriously.

Thanks to networking options there was a vibrant multi-player scene for Halo PC and it boasted far more maps than the original Xbox game. If I remember correctly, the flamethrower—which was cut from the original Xbox game—was available in Halo PC.

Halo 2 — 2004

- © 2004 Microsoft

Halo 2 was a significant advance. Included in the upgrade was:

• Faster movement
• Dual-wielding (using two weapons at the same time)
• Exploding vehicles
• Jacking vehicles was a fantastic addition
• Xbox live multi-player support
• Health status was hidden and no health packs were available. This made it harder for better players to dominate by constantly rejuvenating.

Here are some of the Halo 2 Cons:

• The ending
  The ending was a let-down because there isn't any in-your-face way to see how many levels are left in the game (as there was in Halo 1), many gamers were surprised when the game ended. personally, I enjoyed the direction of the story, but at the end I was incredulous. "that's it?"
• The Jackal snipers sort of ruined part of the Legendary level experience. The Jackals were so ridiculously good with the Covenant beam rifle that they would immediately take you out. The only way to deal with them was to learn where they were and get the drop on them.
• Weapons aren't balanced
  Having played the Halo 2 Beta, I was disappointed with some of the changes (primarily to do with weaponry) that made it into the final release. I believe that too much was done to limit the impact of gamers who can actually aim. My pet theory is that players such as char (from crew116) kicked ass so badly in the Alpha and Beta that Bungie thought their favourite weapons were overpowered; the truth is that they were just the best players. To 'balance' the weapons, Bungie beefed up the weapons that require less skill. For example, the sword is clearly overpowered - there is no logic to the fact that the sword lunge has better range than the shotgun. IMHO, the sword ruins Lockout Slayer.
• One positive weapon change was the pistol being toned down—which prompted the Red vs. Blue joke “Balanced doesn’t sound like more powerful.”
• Still no run?

I wrote my first Halo book about Halo 2 multiplayer: The Unauthorized Halo 2 Battle Guide: Advanced Combat Techniques. Despite some unfounded allegations to the contrary, I did not violate any NDA agreement by writing this book and I did not release any information that wasn’t already in the public domain.

And since I did have a legal right to write about Halo, I decided to exercise it by writing Halo 2 Hacks. Which is a book about Halo 2 Easter eggs, glitches, skulls, tricks and mods. I tried hard to spread the word about modding as a creative and positive hobby, but I have to admit that most press at the time focused on modding as a form of cheating and it was hard to have my voice heard above the people claiming that all modding is bad—a perspective that is indefensible when people take the time to understand the modding community.

Halo 2 Hacks: Tips & Tools for Finishing the Fight. After the experience with my first book, I had to take precautions. Before writing Halo 2 Hacks, I paid an overpriced lawyer to write a decision in support of my legal right to write books about Halo. That document clearly asserted that the 1980 “Pac-Man decision” set the precedent for instructional books about software. After that, no one bothered to question whether there were any legal issues with writing books about Halo.

Halo Custom Edition (HaloCE) — 2004

In 2004, Microsoft made the enlightened decision to release some of the developer tools that were used to create Halo. This version was called HaloCE (for ‘custom edition’—not to be confused with ‘combat evolved’) and was an add-on for the PC version HaloCE brought modding support to the Halo universe. Unfortunately, it was the last time a version of Halo included support for ad-hoc modding. A map editor was added later on, but it doesn’t compare to the power and potential that Halo modders experienced with HaloCE.

If you had a Halo PC disk, you could install Halo Custom Edition (HaloCE). Some people confused HaloCE with Halo: Combat Evolved, but they’re entirely different beasts.  I wrote the Black Art of Halo Mods about modding HaloCE. This book combined many tutorials from the Halo modding community.

Halo 3 — 2007

 
- © 2007 Bungie/Microsoft

Halo 3 was another step up for Bungie. The graphics and game play were better, but it really felt like they spent much more time on the multiplayer experience than the campaign.

• The enemies were largely the same but with better graphics
• Equipment was added. Items including sprint and invisibility could be picked up.
• Two-handed weapons such as turrets
• Legendary campaign was too easy. It really felt like the new equipment and weapons put the game out of balance and Bungie didn’t have enough time to fix it before releasing the campaign. I can remember one instance where there was an invulnerability item that I ignored because I got through the whole fight without needing it—that struck me as odd at the time.

Halo Wars — 2009

 
- © 2009 Bungie/Microsoft

The original Halo concept was a real-time strategy game. However, that vision didn’t become a reality until 2009 when Halo Wars was released.

Halo ODST — 2009

- © 2009 Bungie/Microsoft

I understand that ODST was meant to be a different kind of Halo game—I get it. However, that doesn’t mean I have to like it. What I remember from ODST is long sections of walking around in a dark city and not doing much. There were flashback scenes to daylight that had the best battles in the game; some really fun fights.

• No multi-player
• Because you’re not a Spartan (you’re an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper [ODST]], you had limited “stamina” and had to rest. This ruined the experience for me since I’m all about getting into really gnarly battles and you simply couldn’t go hard enough for long enough to have the crazy fights I enjoy.
• An over-charged plasma burst can temporarily disable a vehicle
• Halo 1 Pistol was back
• Achievement progress was shown on screen

Halo Reach — 2010
 

- © 2010 Bungie/Microsoft

• Armour abilities were added. When a player spawns in multi-player, she can choose an armour ability such as armour lock or hologram.
• Dual-wielding is gone
• Weapons seem to disappear faster than previous Halo games
• Some new monsters that were fun to fight
• ‘plays more like Halo 1 or Halo 2‘
• Can’t jump as high as you could in Halo 3
• You have health again along with your shields like Halo 1. Pick up Health packs to restore your health.
• Fight in space was cool and difficult
• New assassination animations which are really cool.
• There is a new cR (credit) system where you earn credits by using anything in Halo Reach. This includes campaign, firefight, multiplayer, theater, and forge. You rank up using cR. You cannot de rank. Details of multi-player system: http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1314
• No social matchmaking.
• The vehicles were the best yet—until Halo 4, that is
• Best selection of modes: driving vehicles, manning turrets, flying, etc.
• Ending was anti-climactic
• This was the last Halo game developed by Bungie.

Halo 4 — 2012

- © 2012 Microsoft

Halo 4 is the first new Halo game developed by 343 Industries. They worked on the Halo 1 Anniversary Edition, but that was just a graphics upgrade—not a whole new game. I’ve only just begun Halo 4, but so far I like it.

• Master Chief is back! He has been done for a few games. He’s back for a three-adventure.
• The game feels a little bit different. I noted earlier that Halo was slow in comparison to Unreal Tournament. I’m not saying Halo 4 is as fast, but the way the engine feels and the weapons behave is closer to the Unreal experience. For example, the Storm rifle.
• The graphics are great. The detail improvements are obvious; warthogs even have red gas cans at the back that get knocked off when the jeep takes damage.
• Equipment has been revamped yet again. It seems that this is the hardest problem to solve in the Halo universe because it keeps getting fundamentally changed. Armour lock is gone in favour of a directional shield.
• Weapons and ammo seem to disappear even faster than Reach and saving doesn’t seem to save them. This would be a big issue if ammo wasn’t so abundant. I’ve run into numerous occasions where my carefully stashed weapons were cleared away… annoying.
• The Elites look cool, but I don’t like the new grunts. The old models were better in my opinion. The fact that some can fly for short bursts is cool, and it’s also kinda cool that some of them look like they’re wearing Mexican wrestling masks, but I liked the old look.
• One issue that I have in the early levels is that ammunition is far too abundant on the Legendary setting. I remember having to be pretty frugal with ammo in past versions, but so far in Halo 4, I’ve had my pick of numerous weapons in most fights. This is just getting more and more obvious as the game goes on. I’ve regularly left entire crates untouched. I’d rather have fewer weapons but not have them ‘stolen’ by the game.
  If there is so much ammo because it’s the same amount for a co-op game, then there needs to be some logic to change this. Just as one example, I was in a section that boasted Elites as the toughest opponent (that’s on Legendary) and yet I had easy access to: an Incineration Cannon (the most lethal weapon in the game—thus far), plenty of small arms such as Plasma Pistol and Needlers, easily 200 rounds for the Covenant Carbine, numerous Storm Rifles, a Scattershot, lots of grenades, two Binary Rifles and at least three Banshees (I didn’t use any of them). Just a crazy arsenal considering the limited opposition.
• So far the new weapons and ‘monsters’ are cool. I’m enjoying fighting the new race: Prometheuns.
• The new vehicles are fantastic!
• RUN! FINALLY! It’s so nice to be able to run without using some special armour ability.

Halo has obviously had a grand impact on the gaming community. I don’t know the numbers, but it must be the best selling game for the Xbox. Halo 4 is the beginning of a new trilogy and I’m sure that 343 will do an excellent job with the next two installments.

XNA Game Studio Kindle Edition

The Microsoft XNA Game Studio Creator's Guide has been doing well in the reviews for the Amazon Kindle edition.

“I purchased this book specifically because it was the second edition and it seemed as though the authors' credentials exceeded the average book on XNA. Also, I was interested in the math behind game programming. I was not disappointed.”

- Rob "ActivelyX”

“This is a great book for XNA developers! My son and I are working through this book together and we are having a great time learning XNA! The author takes the time to explain complex gaming concepts simply, the code examples are almost without error, and the reader is taken through a wide variety of examples including everything from collision algorithms to writing games for Zune.”

- James Anderson "Avid Reader"

Does your Xbox Blog?

I just came across this great post on SharePoint expert Mike Gannoti's blog and just had to share.

"Did you know that my Xbox 360 blogs? No, not me blogging about my Xbox, but my Xbox blogging about me and my gaming exploits (okay more it blogging about my son playing on it). Seriously, it seems everyone is blogging including machines. My Xbox has its own blog at http://360voice.gamerdna.com/blog.asp?tag=MasterG and it is pretty active in it’s commentary. On July 17th my Xbox 360 wrote:

“My power supply almost exploded! MasterG turned on the juice and we did some serious gaming! 5,025 points of total gamerscore is pretty good. Admit it. That is an improvement of 20 points over last time! He made some progress on Infinite Undiscovery finishing 2 achievements, and without even blinking! Ok, maybe he blinked once...”

Now how the heck can an Xbox blog? Well it is a pretty neat example of the magic of software couple with web services. Xbox 360 is hooked to Xbox Live. When I, or in this case my son, is logged in and playing, the Xbox supplies the service with raw data that is then exposed by some public APIs and then a service such as this blogging one uses an AI engine to look at the activity, or lack thereof (you should see what it starts saying when no one plays it for a while) and generates auto text complete with links to info. If you are a gamer you can grab one of these yourself and let your own Xbox start telling the world about you and your exploits, or is it Xploits? Check it out at http://360voice.gamerdna.com/"

kitten proof your Wii

I have previously written about the adventures of living with Luddite kittens. this Christmas presented a special challenge (pardon the pun). under the tree arrived a Wii for my wife and me. we opened the box and then shared a look of horror--the Wii comes with an LED sensor bar that's powered by a thin cable. we knew instantly that this cable would not last a day in the same household as our cats.

we have tried the usual precautions, but none have worked for our tag-team of furry felines. for example, duct tape with the sticky side out keeps Rory away, but Asha likes chewing on sticky things, so her gnawing exposes the wires for Rory. it's hard to believe that such adorable creatures could cause any trouble at all...


- Asha (the oldest)


- Rory (the baby of the family and the proud owner of razor sharp teeth)

and, of course, we got caught up in a rousing game of Wii tennis and took our eye off Rory for the few seconds she needed to make mince of the cable. after splicing it back together, I knew that it was time for some more precautions. we went to the hardware store and bought a healthy supply of Split Flex Tubing (about $12 for 20'). it's simply a flexible tube that we are putting around any cable that seems fine enough for Rory's taste--fortunately, she stays away from thicker cables.

in addition to the Wii's sensor cable (which we'll only use until we can get a wireless one), we've put the tubing around the thin part of the Wii power cable, the power cable for the Xbox 360 add-on fan, and the small cable that comes with the Xbox 360 wireless network adapter--the router has long since been moved into a cat-free room.


- the Wii power cable protected from harm


- the Xbox 360 wireless network cable with a protective cocoon

so far, I'm very happy with the tubing. I think it might save me from some ill will towards our pets. on that note, I'm currently reading Marley and Me, which I'm also hoping will put our cats in a positive light.

SharePoint Conference 2008

as I sit in the Washington State Trade and Convention Center--waiting for my flight--I find that the obvious use of my time would be to create a blog post about the most successful SharePoint conference ever.


- the busy Metalogix booth

the company I recently joined, Metalogix Software, was there representing the best of breed software for migrating web content, files, and upgrading previous versions of SharePoint to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007.

the conference was especially enjoyable for me since I haven't been to the SharePoint conference since I left the Microsoft SharePoint team in 2004. In fact, in 2004, I actually presented a talk at the conference about Microsoft Content Management Server (MCMS).


- the Washington Trade and Convention Center in Seattle

after writing for a few years (which prompted a couple of Microsoft people to comment that I had "disappeared") this show gave me a chance to catch up with some old friends, and make some new ones. most of my co-authors for the MCMS Complete Guide were there: Bill English and Todd Bleeker (co-owners of Mindsharp a high-profile SharePoint training group), and Shawn Shell (a principle with Consejo, Inc.) was also there. I also caught up with some of my former Microsoft team and some of the SharePoint MVPs.

I had a short chat with Lawrence Liu (the Social Computing Product Manager for MOSS). it's a really interesting area and it seems that SharePoint is only now getting recognition for the potential there. after collaborating with various individuals and groups (such as the Halo community) on book projects, I fully understand the value of enterprise social computing.

it was no surprise that the conference was popular; MOSS has grown by leaps and bounds over the last few years. what was somewhat surprising was just how crazy popular this show was. rumour has it that the 3900 attendee limit was (just slightly) bent to allow close to 5000 people to attend the conference.


- sold out indeed

and with that number of people, you know that there are a lot who need the SharePoint migration and upgrade solutions from Metalogix Software. my feet are still sore as I sit here, and my voice was hoarse after just one day of talking to the constant flow of SharePoint customers (and future SharePoint customers) who want to migrate to SharePoint or upgrade from an earlier version of Sharepoint (e.g., Windows SharePoint Services [WSS] or SharePoint Portal Server 2003 [SPS]).

but it wasn't all business. we had a great time at the official parties (such as a visit to Seattle's Museum of Flight and the Xbox game night with the Master Chief, see cheesy image below), and the not-so-official ones as well.


- the museum of flight's unique M-21 Blackbird.


- a daylight shot of the M-21 Blackbird taken by "innocent bystander"


- the museum of flight... enough said


- Xbox 360 game night. the pose was his idea. I have this same photo with Andre Arlovski--MC vs. Arlovski, now there's a match-up

Halo 3 finish the frustration

I previously whinged about my Xbox 360 crashing. now I'll vent a little bit more. the replacement machine literally crashed within five minutes of turning it on. so the biggest game launch in history is upon us, and I'm left out of the rumble until I get the replacement replacement. arghhh!



I just sent the Xbox Global Marketing team an e-mail about these issues. as a professional courtesy, I'll give them a chance to respond before I publish the e-mail.

update: they did respond and said that they are taking the problem seriously and have allocated roughly one billion to deal with defects.

as if to mock me further... MS is sending me e-mails reminding me of what I'm missing.


- MS e-mail about the Halo 3 launch

listen to O'Reilly blogs

O'Reilly has added a cool feature to their blog pages. for example, you can listen to this blog post of mine about Halo 2 modding.

the site is powered by ReadSpeaker, which is an app that will read the text on website pages.

I'd be upset that the app can't pronounce my last name, except that it can't pronounce 'Xbox' either.

Halo 2 bloodless?

I recieved an interesting question via e-mail that I thought I'd share. it demonstrates just how much modding can aid this world of ours.

"I am writing to you because I need help changing the color of the blood in Halo 2. Our Church just invested $50,000 in videogame equipment to allow teenagers a place they can hang out and be in a safe environment. We are OK with the war shooter games but the blood upsets some people. I want to know if there is a way to hack the game to stop the blood or change the color. If so would you please tell me or direct me in the right direction."

this was my response...

unless you're talking about PC's, you're probably going to run into some trouble getting approval for modding. although it is possible to buy pre-modded Xboxs with third-party warrantees, modding Xboxs means voiding the Microsoft warranty. if you have PCs then you won't have to worry about any hardware modding and Halo 2 mods are supported.

once you have modded systems, changing the blood to another colour (or even transparent) would be an option.

for questions about modding an Xbox, go to http://www.xbox-scene.com
for questions about modding Halo, the place to go is http://www.halomods.com

Xbox 360: red light green light

sadly, I've run into a major issue with my beloved Xbox 360. I have been afflicted by the deadly "three red lights" error (read: must send machine to MS). no bejeweled 2 for 4-6 weeks .

although the support person was helpful, they have a computerized voice response layer at the front end. it was pretty frustrating to try and get an actual person... even with them trying to make the computer voice sound hip and using surfer band hold music.

this problem has affected a lot of people. of course, there's no telling who's to blame. it could be a third-party component failure. but it's a black eye for the green box.


- three red flashing lights is the worst-case scenario

Frogger HD update

thank goodness! I discovered yesterday that there has been an update to the Xbox 360's version of Frogger.

when I first tried the game, it was virutally unplayable because the screen was squished on a high definition TV.

now I can happily enjoy the acrade classic -- and I'll even pay the two or three bucks for the full version.



- classic Frogger

why we mod video

thanks to halomods, I found this great video: Why We Mod.

from the halomods description:

"Modding has long been associated with cheating. Although people do use mods to cheat, a large group of people actually use it as a means to get a little more out of the game. Still, modding for fun is misunderstood on a daily basis, and people cannot seem to figure out why we mod. Thanks to ExileLord though, a video has been created to demonstrate how modding is used for recreation and not for cheating."

way to go ExileLord! I'm thrilled to see modders lobbying for their due credit. I have been trying for years to get people to differentiate between legit modders and cheaters -- I even wrote an article about it for o'reilly called "modding Halo 2 considered harmful?"

XNA Game Studio Creators Guide

I'm happy to say that my latest book project is an XNA development guide that I'm co-authoring with Pat McGee from BCIT college. the book covers game development on the exciting new XNA platform.

not only is XNA an amazing new platform, but it also allows anyone to develop games for the Xbox 360. all that is required is an Xbox 360, a PC, and a $99/yr subscription to the Xbox 360 Creator's Club.

the book is called XNA Game Studio Creators Guide and it will be published by McGraw-Hill.

update: the sample code and other files that go along with Microsoft® XNA Game Studio Creators Guide can be found at: http://www.mhprofessional.com/product.php?isbn=007149071x (look for the "code" link on the left side, just under the cover image)

thanks to Pat, the forum for the book is here: http://www.gamedeveloperonline.com/


- working cover for the XNA Game Studio Creators Guide

pimps at sea invite

one of my oh-so-hilarious former microsoft colleagues just sent me an Xbox 360 invite to play Pimps at Sea (Alpha) - which, of course, is Halo 3.

and, of course, I don't have a copy of the Halo 3 Alpha DVD.


jerk!

my kittens hate nazis

lucky guy that I am, santa brought me a copy of call of duty 3 this Christmas. here's my sob story for the day.

being a fan of the xbox 360 achievements, I've been working through some of them. today I was trying for the close combatant award which requires that you finish a mission without firing a shot - only melee attacks and grenades are allowed. I was on the last checkpoint and about to launch into the final assault when one of my cats nuzzled up to the controller and managed to press the trigger. my rifle fired and that was it for my hard work; I had to start again from the beginning. :(

I guess she was just too eager to get into the fight.

showing a bitmap in XNA

I've seen some crazy complicated samples online for something that should be very simple - showing a bitmap in XNA. I even found one article that suggested using pointers. ha!

here's the simple version that I used to show augmented reality markers on my TV. unfortunately, it seems that the TV scan line is going to prevent this from actually working as an AR demo.

#region Using Statements
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Audio;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Input;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Storage;
#endregion

namespace Xbox360Game1
{
public class Game1 : Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game
{
GraphicsDeviceManager graphics;
ContentManager content;

//Added for bitmap
public static Texture2D SpriteTexture;
public static SpriteBatch SpriteBatch;
public Point Velocity;
public Point Location;
public Point Size;

public Game1()
{
graphics = new GraphicsDeviceManager(this);
content = new ContentManager(Services);
}

protected override void Initialize()
{
base.Initialize();

//Added for bitmap
SpriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(this.graphics.GraphicsDevice);
}

protected override void LoadGraphicsContent(bool loadAllContent)
{
if (loadAllContent)
{

//Added for bitmap
SpriteTexture = content.Load("base0_128");

}

base.LoadGraphicsContent(loadAllContent);
}

protected override void UnloadGraphicsContent(bool unloadAllContent)
{
if (unloadAllContent == true)
{
content.Unload();
}
base.UnloadGraphicsContent(unloadAllContent);
}

protected override void Update(GameTime gameTime)
{
// Allows the default game to exit on Xbox 360 and Windows
if (GamePad.GetState(PlayerIndex.One).Buttons.Back == ButtonState.Pressed)
this.Exit();
base.Update(gameTime);
}

protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime)
{
graphics.GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.CornflowerBlue);

//Added for bitmap
Location.X = 100;
Location.Y = 100;
Size.X = 512;
Size.Y = 512;
Game1.SpriteBatch.Begin();
Game1.SpriteBatch.Draw(Game1.SpriteTexture, new Rectangle(Location.X, Location.Y, Size.X, Size.Y), Color.White);
Game1.SpriteBatch.End();

base.Draw(gameTime);
}
}
}

debug xbox 360 without xbox?

it didn't take long for me to realize that the GSE XNA xbox 360 project forces a deployment to the xbox 360 when you debug or build. so how do you work on your xbox 360 game when you're in the coffee shop?

there doesn't seem to be any way to disable the deployment, so - unless you take your xbox with you - it's a bit of an issue. even adding Any CPU as an additional platform in the configuration manager didn't work. I found a forum post about debugging without the xbox 360, and it seems that the current solution is a bit of a hack:

"You can start a new Windows Game and link all the files from the 360 project. It would probably take about 30 seconds to set up. After you create the Windows Game project, right click on the project in the Solution Explorer, select Add Existing Item, select all the files in the dialog, click the arrow on the Add button and select Add As Link. Any changes made in either project will be reflected in the other."

there is a second solution in the post (manually altering the project file), but it isn't recommended.

xbox creators club live!

the xbox 360 creators club is up and running. this option allows game developers to use the XNA game development platform to create and run xbox 360 games.

although the game studio express (GSE) dev environment is free, the creators club requires an xbox live subscription and a creators club membership.

refer to the XNA blog (and the GSE docs) for details about setup. once you have everything installed, you can connect your xbox 360 to your pc and begin to work your magic.

this screenshot shows an xbox 360 project deployed and running on an xbox 360. the project is running in debug mode and a breakpoint has been hit - all while still listening to the iPod connected to the 360... nice.


- debugging an xbox 360 project - click for full-size version

xbox 360 mods banned?

it looks like ms has been banning people for using mod chips on their xbox 360s. they are doing this because, at this time, the only reason to use the 360 mod chips is to play illegal copies of games or remove the region protection so that one can run games from other regions.

this has nothing to do with modding actual games. modding games - as I've written way too many times - is great as long as you're not doing it to cheat. any chance I get, I'll remind everyone that modding is not the same as cheating! if you go on xbox live and play a mod, then hell ya - you're cheating. but that's not what most good modders are doing.

many modders are out there creating cool mods that they enjoy on their own LANs. i.e. when everyone knows that they're playing a mod. they're not trying to level up like a wuss or play an illegal copy of fusion frenzy.

halo 3 info coming

go to 1up.com for impending info. about halo 3.

they aren't giving out much info. yet, but they did let slip that the mongoose is back and there will be a new type of grenade called the spike.

Xbox 360 saved my iPod

as with many other first generation iPod owners, I find that my device is pretty much useless unless it is plugged in. there is a flaw that has significantly limited the battery life. this problem is so prevalent that a successful class action suit was launched against apple - although they are trying to weasel out of paying my settlement.

but then along came the Xbox 360 and its out of the box support for iPods and other music sources. all I had to do was plug my iPod into one of the Xbox 360's USB ports and presto! I actually have a use for my iPod. it's now a fixture in the living room - not exactly what they had in mind when they made it, but it works.

despite the great press, there were other issues with the original iPods, and some of them have been addressed. for example, it used to be that the "On The Go" playlist was erased every time you connected your iPod to iTunes - now that was annoying. but it was fixed fairly quickly. other problems have not been addressed. a good example is gapless playback. I doubt this occurs on the solid state iPods, but if you have a hard drive version, you probably know what I'm talking about. there is an almost inexplicable delay as the iPod searches the hard drive for the next song. there is even an online petition to try to convince apple to add this feature. issues like this are the reason why I bought a creative MuVo for running. the MuVo is great, and the fact that it stills works after I accidentally ran it through a wash cycle, makes me even happier that I bought it.

microsoft is about to launch the zune portable media player to compete with the iPod. lots of people have said - in a knee-jerk fashion - that microsoft is wasting their time, that there is no way that they can compete with the iPod. well I tend to agree with one dimension of those statements, it will be tough to compete with the almost religious fervor that surrounds the iPod. I'll admit that I was disappointed by the original iPod. other than the size of the drive, I didn't think that it was as useful as my 1998 diamond Rio.

from that experience, I feel that I gained an objective view. but for many people, the iPod was their first MP3 player, so they didn't know that things could be even better. I can see that iPods have cool interfaces - but also that these interfaces aren't as easy to use with 6000 songs on the device. I can see that iPods are important to apple, and I'd like to see great companies like apple do well. but, I can also see that there are plenty of features that aren't available on iPods, if other players offer those features, I wonder what the devout will say?

iTunes 7 appears to be trying to address the gapless issue - at least in iTunes - because I'm currently waiting as it's "Determining Gapless Playback Information" for the 5929 songs on my iPod. oh wait... the battery died near the end :P

but I don't want to complain... thanks to the Xbox 360, I can actually use my iPod for something other than car trips.