If you've been keeping up with the PSP homebrew scene, you'll know that Dark_AleX has managed to get the PSX emulator working with any given ISO of a PSX game. That being said, I've been ripping PSX games to my HDD and converting them slowly. (OK, the tool is fast. I'm the one who's slow. :P) Off I am to play FF9 again! No more trying to jig my PSone to work! :D
Not too long ago, Shockrave acquired an XBox 360. I only had about a day or two with it, but I can say I was quite thoroughly satisfied with the XBox 360. :D (Surprisingly, although I have nothing against the XBox 360, I can't exactly say the same of the lack of games for it at this point in time - and without it running Linux to tide me over, I have no interest whatsoever in acquiring one myself. I'll stick with my XBox. :D) Most people who read this blog I believe, already know what the hell an XBox 360 looks like, so I ain't gonna go put tons of photos of the XBox 360 itself.
The big cable is the AV cable. I'm quite sure you might be able to find a thinner one, but I find the idea of having a composite and component AV cable in one a rather wise decision on Microsoft's part. The ring of light is obviously working, and since I only had one controller, only that quadrant lighted up. The disc drive photo, which regretfully didn't turn out, would show you, one of my gripes with the drive. Somehow, putting the disc in when it is upright doesn't feel quite as secure as with the PS2. Too many times I have held that disc there out of fear of it falling out. I don't think it actually is a problem, but it didn't feel safe to leave my disc in that position for too long.
We move on to the... controller!
I loved the XBox controller. It was just so damn right for FPS control. I have no idea why. Having it wireless? Excellent. That is, until I loaded up my copy of Halo 2, and found the XBox 360 controller didn't quite cut it. It's what I would call a step backwards. The analong sticks didn't have the right feel to it. They felt quite terribly inferior to my XBox controller. It felt like the loss of a limb trying to play Halo 2 with the controller. It didn't feel so smooth. I'd say it felt a little stickier than I would like in my analog sticks. Then I have a gripe I had already noticed the moment they unveiled the wireless controller. I have a PS2 controller that had a little something sticking out the back before. Guess where that ended up?
I particularly hate things being put where I usually put my fingers. Having it jut out at the back like that it absolutely painful. (both literally and philosophically) Being me, I'd probably go take up a wired controller thank you very much. Or hey - if only I could use my XBox one.
Everybody knows what the XBox 360 HDD looks like.
It's easy to install and remove (by my standards). Only has one connector - and it seems of an OK strength, although having it poke out during transport might not be one of it's strong points. My only complaint? 20GBs doesn't hold much. It holds like... err... maybe 20 XBox 360 game demos. Maybe. All I know is that I managed to use most of it in a day. Don't ask me how. I most certainly want a larger HDD - and I think so do most gamers. I'm assuming at some point Microsoft will release these in different sizes, but we kinda need them like.. err... NOW. (I know you can probably change the thing in the case yourself or something. Maybe. Not sure - didn't bother checking like the ignorant consumer I am pretending to be.)
Shockrave also acquired a XBox Live Gold 12-month pack, so I had an XBox live headset here to try too. Pity it doesn't work as headphones too, but it serves its purpose. handy, connects to the wireless controller. How can you complain about that?
I'm quite sure you've heard this somewhere before - the AC adapter is huge, it's heavy - bla bla bla.... (and hot)
Whatever it is, I found the XBox 360's exhaust air more likely to ignite stuff than the AC adapter so I find it justified that they decided this piece shouldn't go in the XBox. If it were inside, we'd be hearing houses burning down because of the XBox 360 a lot earlier than the Wii's controller's flying antics. How is it Nintendo could've missed that I wonder? Wouldn't they have tested it with children? Apparently there must be quite a number of adult idiots who have less common sense than children.
Anyway, back to the topic - the XBox 360 itself runs pretty hot - the AC adapter runs hot too, but the exhaust from the XBox 360 is hotter - I even moved a box of two because I was afraid it was going to start a fire from my cardboard boxes. Heat isn't a problem since you'll be far far away from the console - and I suppose it running hot is itself a cost due to the relatively low operating noise. Design is nice, I think if I had a little more time and had it been my own console, you would've seen the insides of the console too. Chances are those photos are already around the net since I took forever to get hold of a XBox 360 unit to photograph, but I don't care. This is Random Ideas after all, not IGN.
I couldn't get any photos of the dashboard, but it is good, easy to navigate. Functionally speaking I would call it exactly the same as the Sony's XMB (Cross Media Bar), so that's most certainly easy to use. I didn't have any problems connecting it to the Internet, although I think maybe a better wizard style interface is called for.
The XBox Live Marketplace is full of demos. XBox Live Arcade is full of demos. The marketing potential is grand - although I did run into trouble trying to log in with my GamerTag for some odd reason. I think the server was down or something - oh well. I got to play Kameo and COD2 on it, but I'd have to say I liked the demos a lot more. Demos of Full Auto, N3, NFS Carbon, DOA4 were more than enough to keep me entertained for hours. I, of course, didn't have any MS Points to spend, but the free games Hexic and Bankshot Billiards were good. If I had any MS Points, I'd probably be happily spending them in the Arcade on Geometry Wars and probably lots of other stuff.
Overall, I find the XBox 360 pretty cool. Probably would've have been cooler if I had a Media Center PC to use this remote with.
The console itself and the XBox Live Marketplace are excellent and have been executed well. I'm quite sure backward compatibility is being worked on, and the graphics upscaling are also excellent. If only it had games I actually wanted to play and would actually justify the AUD500 investment. Oh well.
I'm kinda still recovering from my trip. Nothing serious, just fell sick yesterday and still feeling sick now. I've got one post ready, to be honest, but I've decided to hold it back in the meantime. It's time I went back and revamped the story to read properly. I'll post another long photo post to make up. :D
Oh well. All my marks are out. Needless to say, one subject oddly stood out as awfully bad. I only got 56 for my Applied Math Advanced subject. :P Apparently I wasn't quite as ready as I thought? Or did someone decide it would be fine to give me some sort of warning? The rest of the subjects I thought were fine, and I'll just take this as it is. I have no reason to care too much since this subject isn't quite that important towards my exemptions, I think. :P
Did I get a wake up call? Probably. Although I'm not sure if I did badly because I sucked at it, or because I didn't care much for it. I, myself believe it's the latter. Oh well, what's done is done. Next year is the crazy year - 73 and above for everything except Organisational Behaviour. Heh.
(And thanks to the kind or not-so-kind soul that I'm leeching wireless internet from to make this post. :D)
This is a response to this post: My Desk at Chewxy's Blog Some of you might have come from Chewxy's blog to see my 'rather' neat table. Just so you don't think I'm as neat as I appear to me, there's something you need to know about my table. My table is pretty small. I can't have it messy since it would be quite difficult to study since I'd have to stack stuff up pretty high. I'll give you a picture of where my stuff actually is.
So as you can see, it is actually above my head where I usually sit. I consider a part of my table, since I tend to grab stuff from there like it is my table. Now, one picture isn't sufficient to show you the whole thing, so I'll have to start slow. Here's view 1.
1 - Ubuntu Linux CDs - 1 x86, 2 x PowerPC and 1 64-bit (not visible) set of CDs. Used sometimes. 2 - A box that used to house no.9. Now it houses another mess of memory sticks, DVI-to-VGA converter, S-Video-to-Composite converter, staplers, staples, and a whole lot of cabling. 3 - My calculator. Always falls down, always still works. Heh. 4 - My PDA. Doesn't fall down, obviously still works and play Duke Nukem 3D. 5 - Sellotape. If you squint, you can see another roll behind it. 6 - Executive Marble Run. Great desktop diversion. Only reason it's not on my desk is because I keep hitting the desk and everything falls apart. 7 - A Magic deck. Yes, you heard me right - a Magic deck. 8 - PSP travel case. Currently holds 2 UMDs, my music players, 2 sets of earphones, 1 PSP remote. 9 - Desktop Organiser. Obviously not on my main desk since I can reach it when I sit at my desk. It may look neat, but the truth is a lot of the stuff that used to be on it, no longer is. :(
Onwards to view 2!
Nothing much new here. But you can more clearly see - another PSP game case. And I bet you must be wondering what the cable around my PDA is - that's my USB hub power cable. Currently not in use. You can also see the small stack of mail at the back (barely) and some bags of Lindor that you saw from before.
Here, you can also see a very important thing - my PSP strap. So yes, my PSP is actually there under the stack of paper. No, I'm not going to neaten it up for you to see my PSP. The point is to see it as it usually is, so you won't be seeing my PSP. Maybe another angle. :)
1 - HDD music player charger. Oh yeah, you guys haven't seen it yet. (on my blog at least) 2 - A pack of batteries. 3 - A wad of paper. The point of interest is that cabling near the wad of paper. See it? Those are the stock Walkman earphones with an extension cable. I used that once while using Shockrave's PS2 to play .hack//G.U. Part 1.
OK. And that conclude the overview of the top side of the shelf.
Yes - there is a bottom side to this story. And the bottom photo isn't complete. I'm doing this in a rush since I have an exam tomorrow to study for.
1 - Highlighter. I'm quite sure you know what this is for. I use it regularly, so that means a lot of digging every time. 2 - G2 pen refill. 3 - Bet you can't guess what this is - but it's actually a CD scratch remover. 4 - Cluedo playing cards! 5 - My Wacom graphire3 tablet. 6 - Spare printer cable. 7 - A pack of playing cards. 8 - My palmone Universal Wireless Keyboard. 9 - A kinetic energy powered calculator. (I know 8 and 9 look like the same thing in the photo, but I assure you it's not.) 10 - Barely visible, DS carrying case strap. 11 - CD lens cleaner. I spilled soup into my SuperDrive once. This fixed it. Heh. 12 - Sunday Saver Metcard. 13 - To the right of the number, is actually a small plastic bag to make the occasional temporary rubbish bin.
Note that a lot of stuff has been omitted hidden by the papers that I refused to move. I don't have the time to index what's underneath those papers, but I'll tell you what's there - a wireless mouse, a PSP, a USB cable, two more decks of playing cards, a roll of cloth tape, a FireWire 6-pin to 6-pin cable, a 1 metre Ethernet cable and a puncher. And don't get me started on the dresser and minitable I made that's behind me.