The XBox Live Update will be out on 6 December.
Look back here for a review of the new features.
Showing posts with label dashboard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dashboard. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Mass Effect 3 Beta Leak
As you may have heard, elements of Mass Effect 3 were leaked last week through the XBox Live. It seems that users with access to the XBox Live Dashboard beta (set to be released next week and mentioned here) got access to a 1.8GB download. This was to be an internal only beta to Microsoft, but someone released it to XBL.
It appears the game will have 3 main types or styles of play: Action Mode, Story Mode and RPG Mode.
Action Mode emphasizes combat over story, using automatic replies to move things along. Story Mode is the opposite, with fully conversation options and low combat difficulty. RPG Mode is full conversation options with normal combat difficult. You are still able to select such things a combat difficulty.
This seems to be a short cut way to get into the action with presets. I am not sure why you would want to play Action Mode (it's an RPG, if you just wan the combat, go to Battlefield 3 or Modern Warfare). There are some who think Bioware is trying to make the game more accessible to the Modern Warfare crowd. As long as they don't dumb the game down to try to get this group, I don't see that the hard core fans will be affected.
From the article:
The beta was supposedly devoid of sound, animation and textures, but from these screenshots, it seems to look great, even without textures. Note that at the above link, there is some links to YouTube video, but these links have been taken down.
Some may feel some of the images are spoilers, but they all seem to revolve around combat against the Reapers on Earth, something you should already be aware of if you watched the trailers on the Mass Effect site.
More Mass Effect: Interview with Mass Effect 3 Producer Jesse Houston
Update: It seems some story documents were also leaked yesterday. I am not following up on this, as screen shots are one thing, but I don't want to know any more about the storyline.
It appears the game will have 3 main types or styles of play: Action Mode, Story Mode and RPG Mode.
Action Mode emphasizes combat over story, using automatic replies to move things along. Story Mode is the opposite, with fully conversation options and low combat difficulty. RPG Mode is full conversation options with normal combat difficult. You are still able to select such things a combat difficulty.
This seems to be a short cut way to get into the action with presets. I am not sure why you would want to play Action Mode (it's an RPG, if you just wan the combat, go to Battlefield 3 or Modern Warfare). There are some who think Bioware is trying to make the game more accessible to the Modern Warfare crowd. As long as they don't dumb the game down to try to get this group, I don't see that the hard core fans will be affected.
From the article:
“We want to stress that these features are still in the early stages of development and will receive considerable iteration and refinement,” he said. “These modes are designed to give players an even finer degree of control over their game experience than ever before. Whether it be someone who finds the combat difficult but wants to experience the amazing story, someone who wants to focus on the action and combat game play, or fans who want the rich, story-driven RPG Mass Effect experience they’ve come to love – Mass Effect 3 will support all of these options.
The beta was supposedly devoid of sound, animation and textures, but from these screenshots, it seems to look great, even without textures. Note that at the above link, there is some links to YouTube video, but these links have been taken down.
Some may feel some of the images are spoilers, but they all seem to revolve around combat against the Reapers on Earth, something you should already be aware of if you watched the trailers on the Mass Effect site.
More Mass Effect: Interview with Mass Effect 3 Producer Jesse Houston
Update: It seems some story documents were also leaked yesterday. I am not following up on this, as screen shots are one thing, but I don't want to know any more about the storyline.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
XBox 360 Dashboard Update Next Week?
This report claimes the XBox 360 Dashboard update set for 15 November will be released next week.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
XBox Live News
More TV Content for XBox Live
Microsoft has announced the addition of almost 40 more digital content providers added to their service in 20 countries. For us here in Canada, this includes Rodgers and TELUS. The above article mentions that this content will be available in time for the holidays, so I would assume it would be included in the next Dashboard update which is supposed to happen on 15 November.
XBox 360 System Update
There was an XBox 360 update today. No new features and no change log has been released (as usual) so not sure what was changed. Some users complained of problems getting their system to work after the update in the comments on the above site (Major Nelson). Does not appear to be widespread and I did not have a problem with my update.
It it likely that the above update is to prepare for the big dashboard update that is coming on 15 November.
Update: No update yet, rumours are now 19 or 25 November.
Follow this link to sign up a public beta for the new dashboard.
Microsoft has announced the addition of almost 40 more digital content providers added to their service in 20 countries. For us here in Canada, this includes Rodgers and TELUS. The above article mentions that this content will be available in time for the holidays, so I would assume it would be included in the next Dashboard update which is supposed to happen on 15 November.
XBox 360 System Update
There was an XBox 360 update today. No new features and no change log has been released (as usual) so not sure what was changed. Some users complained of problems getting their system to work after the update in the comments on the above site (Major Nelson). Does not appear to be widespread and I did not have a problem with my update.
It it likely that the above update is to prepare for the big dashboard update that is coming on 15 November.
Update: No update yet, rumours are now 19 or 25 November.
Follow this link to sign up a public beta for the new dashboard.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
XBox Live New Dashboard Design
XBox Live is preparing a dashboard redesign for release this fall.
This article has all the details. Release date is set for 25 October. Update : More recent info has release set for 15 November.
I agree with the above article, the present dashboard is cluttered and is due for a redesign. There have been a number of additions (Netflix, facebook) that have contributed to this clutter.
This update is to focus on performance, discoverability and voice.
For me, increased functionality to voice will be welcome. Last month our old, white 360 finally gave up the ghost after a few weeks of the occasional 3 red rings. So we went whole hog with a new black 360 with Kinect. I thought my five year old daughter would get some use out of the motion games (she is not very good with a controller) and I was curious as to how it worked. We also signed up for netflix. My wife had signed us up for several different video delivery services, so going with instant delivery over the internet seemed a no brainer, compared with waiting for them to send you the disk of their choosing through the mail.
One thing that disappointed me about voice functionality was that it did not seem to work for certain functions. Being able to pick or play a movie with voice or gestures is less useful if I have to pick up the controller to get through certain parts of the process. This update should fix that.
Just by looking at the pictures of the new dashboard, the performance improvements are obvious. No more endless scrolling to find a deal of the week.
The discoverability aspect has to do with the use of Bing to search for movies, games, etc. There is not too much out there about how well the search functions. I will reserve judgement until I have a chance to test it.
Cautiously optimistic about October 25th. (or November 15th)
This article has all the details. Release date is set for 25 October. Update : More recent info has release set for 15 November.
I agree with the above article, the present dashboard is cluttered and is due for a redesign. There have been a number of additions (Netflix, facebook) that have contributed to this clutter.
This update is to focus on performance, discoverability and voice.
For me, increased functionality to voice will be welcome. Last month our old, white 360 finally gave up the ghost after a few weeks of the occasional 3 red rings. So we went whole hog with a new black 360 with Kinect. I thought my five year old daughter would get some use out of the motion games (she is not very good with a controller) and I was curious as to how it worked. We also signed up for netflix. My wife had signed us up for several different video delivery services, so going with instant delivery over the internet seemed a no brainer, compared with waiting for them to send you the disk of their choosing through the mail.
One thing that disappointed me about voice functionality was that it did not seem to work for certain functions. Being able to pick or play a movie with voice or gestures is less useful if I have to pick up the controller to get through certain parts of the process. This update should fix that.
Just by looking at the pictures of the new dashboard, the performance improvements are obvious. No more endless scrolling to find a deal of the week.
The discoverability aspect has to do with the use of Bing to search for movies, games, etc. There is not too much out there about how well the search functions. I will reserve judgement until I have a chance to test it.
Cautiously optimistic about October 25th. (or November 15th)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)