What Has BXB Given You?

A very interesting post appeared on BXB's forum recently by "Noir" called "What has BXB given you? Have a read here.

Here's a few snippets from it: "Throughout my years here BXB has shown me that it is not only difficult to get away with being a complete twat in real life, but it is also pretty difficult to get away with it on an online forum."

"BXB has also provided me with many great gaming friends (and one genuine real friend; he knows he is!) and introduced me to several people with similar interests to moi."

"So I'd like to say thankyou in particular to Janus and Phlash for running a fantastic community and increasingly impressively successful website! I also think their team of moderators deserves a mention too, as the general tidiness of the forum is not just due to Phlash and Janus."

What an awesome Christmas present! These comments, of course, spawned many other positive comments from other users on the forum and generally a whole lot of priase for the team behind BXB. It makes me very proud and happy to see this kind of outpouring from our community.

I've visited plenty of forums in my time and I've never really encountered anything like the community on BXB. Our forum's community is the best in the UK despite claims to the contrary by our competitors. It's established, closely knit, loyal, fun and accepting which are all very positive aspects of a forum.

Some more kind words that recently made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside were from Microsoft's EMEA Community Manager Graeme Boyd (aka Aceybongos) who said that as far as he's concerned 'Britxbox is one of our best XCN sites'.

So, this'll be my last entry into BXB DNA until the New Year as we'll all be taking a break from working on the site for a few days (mainly because everyone else in the industry seems to be). But there's one thing left to do and that's to get the voting going for the BXB 2006 Awards!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Family 360

Rather oddly, my Mum and Dad decided they wanted an Xbox 360 for their front room and not for the reason I'd expect them i.e. to take advantage of the cheap HD-DVD player!

My Mum wanted one after playing Viva Pinata on my 360 and really enjoying it, so she's been enjoying playing the game but hasn't quite grasped the fact it's not Settlers III on easy and that you have to pay attention.

My Dad wanted it to play Gears of War. Yep, my 55 year old father wants to play on Gears of War. It'll no doubt be hilarious at first, but what it shows is the importance of next-gen graphics.

My Dad says he wants to play Gears because "it's like watching a movie". Now, that's an interesting thing to say because he's not intimidated by the controller and drawn into the game because it looks real.

This is the opposite to what Nintendo are saying about the Wii. The WiiMote is meant to be familiar and easy to use and having a powerful graphics machine isn't the most important thing. But my Dad hasn't been out a bought a Wii...

I think it's a testament to Microsoft Game Studio's promise to produce less but higher quality titles that they've sold another Premium Pack to two very mainstream customers when Nintendo are directly targetting the Wii at that audience.

And a firmly slap on the back for Allards vision of getting families back in of the console!

This gives me an idea.

Unorganised Media Playlists...

Ah I hate them. They're up there on the list of things you really should sort out when you've got a spare hour or two (rarely I might add) but you just never want to and instead spend your time writing blog entries about it.

Since Window's Media Player 11 shares everything on your PC with your 360 my playlist has gone just mental. I've got album names like 'Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks' or 'Dukes of Hazard'!?

I have three different guilty pleasure Madonn's Confession on the Dancefloor albums and useful album names like 'New Title' or 'Unknown' (which, it turns out, is where all my music actually is).

Now, I'm not very good at all this new media stuff as I kind of grew up putting a CD in a CD player and that's how I God damn like it but everything is going in the direction of digital distribution and I really need to get "with it" before I get left behind and find myself struggling with the concept of not having material entertaiment storage.

Thankfully, the 360 makes all that quite easy and I was having a nosey around Microsoft's new digital distribution service that launched in the states a few weeks ago and was impressed to see there's some really good stuff on there (that we can't officially access yet).

You could donwload every single episode of Jack Ass or the HD remakes of Star Trek: The Original Series. As well as HD movies like the great V for Vendetta and the not so great Mission Impossible 3.

So, until that launches in Europe, I'll have to stick to putting CDs into drives and playing DVDs in the normal manner.

And I've managed to successfully avoid organising my Media Library for another five minutes. Right, what can I do next?

The Addicition Goes On...

So, I've finally unlocked all 50 achievements on Viva Pinata!

Perhaps the scariest thing is that I just got the Master Longevity Award meaning I've been playing over 50 hours. I've heaped priase on Rare for this game on BXB, in my game review and on my blog but I just cannot get over how brilliant it really is.

So, with the 50 achievements under my belt, I've got a few more things I want to do...

- Get a Chippopotamus
- Get a Galagoogoo
- Get a Dragonache
- And breed the above plus Roario and Elephanilla!

Also, you've got to love the cliquey Leicestershire people joke around "Costalot" Stores...

BXB Community Day?

A couple of guys from BXB are looking to organise a new Community Day in the new year for BXB's Community and I'm totally behind it.

Our combined LAN/Paintball session with Ubisoft earlier in the year proved to be very successful and frankly I just don't think LAN events have the popularity they once had and have never had the support they deserved.

With an increasingly large pick up of Xbox Live and reduction in support for LAN based games in recently released titles I really don't see any future for pure LAN based events in the style that BXB has successfully organised in the past.

Community Days are definately a route I'd like to explore more and make them more about making friends with your fellow gamers to help strengthen the community and grab the headlines.

LAN Parties are still happening now, but are increasingly old news and big mags aren't really interested in publishing articles about them.

Community Days are something new and different. And new and different makes for good news.

Want to find out more? Click here then!

A Rare Achievement

So, up until recently I'd not really played any games that really made me want to work hard and get all their achievements.

I've been enjoying playing lots of Gears but some of the achievements are gained with online prowess, something I neither have the natural talent or time to achieve and hence I'm rather limited to just the offline stuff.

However, Viva Pinata is a different story. Thanks to the rewarding and addicitive game play I really want to get all 50 achievements and I'm doing pretty well!

I've just unlocked the Taffly Fertiliser Achievement and the Maccaracoon bringing you a love sweet achievement as well which means I'm pretty close to unlocking all the achievements on a game for the first time.

I've got to admit that my opinion of Rare really has turned around recently. While many people respect and love them for titles like Banjo Kazooie, Perfect Dark and Golden Eye and I really missed all that due to be PC gaming.

Until Viva Pinata, Rare's games didn't really impress me that much as I felt PDZ was an average FPS and while Kameo did some interesting things, it didn't really capture my imagination.

So, I'm now working on getting a Roario which is going to be tough because I need Zumbugs!

BXB 2006 Awards!

Yep, they're back again and this is a blog entry about it because I feel it's a kind of duty to replicate stuff on BXB on here when the same people will read it.

Click here to get involved in the BXB 2006 Awards.

Viva Pinata FTW!

1519

So, the count keeps increasing and I'm finding waiting five minutes for my e-mails to finish receiving pretty boring now (but still worth a blog entry).

I've got to laugh at some of the comments on BXB about this Halo 3 Beta Competition as the thread has turned into select groups of people moaning insessantly about how BXB is running the competition despite the fact they have no idea how we're running it!

It's the usual crew kicking a storm up about it being unfair because we should reward the forum regulars. I'm not sure why these regular trollers think they deserve a Beta access code more than the people that routinely contribute positively to BXB!

Or, infact, anyone that decided to visit BXB over the six other sites that were listed as XCN sites taking part in the competition! The most important thing is that the competition will be run fairly and everyone has equal chance to win one of the places.

Mind-Boggling Stuff!

If you haven't already heard then BXB is the place yo be if you want to get onto the Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta in spring! It's not me saying this, it's sites like Xbox.com and IGNuk!

Once again, BXB has stolen the headlines and gone totally global with our 360 antics thanks to a mind-knunbingly good competition from the XCN. The guys behind the Xbox Community Network really have pulled out all the stops for this one and I'm proud to say that I've backed them all the way.

You can enter the competition for your chance to get into the Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta by clicking this link!

Of course, all this excitement has been added to with the awesome new trailer for Halo 3 which features all sorts of madness like John and Kelly as kids on Reach and an awesome new shield grenade! It's breath-takingly good to watch!

We've got screens and wallpapers up on BXB right now and plenty of places to talk about just how damn exciting Halo 3 is going to be.

Perhaps the most amaing thing is that we've had over 400 entries to the Halo 3 Beta Tester competition since it went up at 2:15am this morning making it another European Exclusive for BXB!

I'm a bit tired now.

5000 Members

Pretty chuffed to say that BXB's forum has reached the 5000 members mark!

Obviously, it's not a great indicator of how many people really use the forums or the site due to annoying bots and duplicate accounts but I still think it's a nice achievement to be celebrating.

Some people didn't share the same view, however, and the ugly green eyed monster made an appearance on the front page until we removed the nasty, hypocritical comments. Shame on that person!

Also, we've launched BXB's Most Awesomest Viva Pinata Competition today with a chance for our users to win themselves a whole Pinata Party Pack plus a copy of this amazing game!

Click Here to find out more and enter the competition!

Pinata Party!

So, I've been playing Viva Pinata to death. There's been literally thtree things in my life since I got the game. Work. Girlfriend. Viva Pinata. I just cannot put it down. It's on my TV right now, I've just bred two Whirlms.

So, I'm getting quite good at it and have decided to put my talents to good use and start a small Pinata Trading business! Based on the BXB Trading Forums I'll have a thread which will feature my latest Pinata sales or trades.

Check out my first sale here in the form of five Barkbarks!

I really hope this idea takes off on BXB as I'd love to start trading Pinatas when the game is release over here tomorrow!

Region Free Pinata Collecting Action!

So, my copy of Viva Pinata just arrived all the way from Canada and I've already spent most of the morning playing on it. Just to confirm to everyone that it is an awesome game!

I spent a mere £35 and got the game around two weeks before the release in the UK! The only downside is that the DVD that came with the Special Edition version I bought is region encoded and doesn't work on my 360. However, just slap it in a region free DVD player and the job is done.

I think it's a sad state of affairs that despite the fact Microsoft are championing the fact they treated all three territories equally at launch, they still held back Gears for two weeks and Viva Pinata for a month from Europe.

Further to that, it's actually cheaper to buy and import the games from America than it is to buy them in this country.

Finally, it's a total joke that sites like BXB (and Hexus.net), that are well established and reliable, didn't get copies of these games to play on when they were released in the States - REGION FREE!!

I could have had the (shining) Gears of War review I'm currently writing up in time for launch to sway those people that hadn't decided whether or not to buy the game and I'm still in two minds about publishing the Viva Pinata review before launch.

Microsoft claim to treat each territory equally but actually don't in terms of both consumers and press.

Anyway, I'm going to chase up that bloody finance company that lost my documentation meaning my sodding HDTV hasn't turned up yet!

If you'd like to get a copy of Viva Pinata early and cheaper than in the UK then go to http://www.videogamesplus.ca/ and if you'd like to hear more about Viva Pinata's awesomeness we have a thread on BXB here.

Full of Goodness!

Well, I'm currently working on my review for Gears of War and while it's definately a little late compared to other sites, I'd much rather it be done properly than not and hence I've been putting plenty of time into Gears.

As suggested, I've been playing it on hardcore difficulty on Co-op and it's certainly quite challenging this way. I've spent most of the day on the game and completed chapters 3 and 4 with the fifth and final saved for tomorrow.

It's an incredibly intense game that keeps surprising you over and over and never really gets boring. The story line really isn't up to the quality of the Halo plot but it's good enough for the game.

It's getting closer and closer to Xmas now and naturally BXB is just getting busier and busier! We're just concluding our F.E.A.R. competition where the first place winner lands a copy of the game plus an exclusive faceplate and there's another copy of the game up for grabs! It closes tomorrow but you can still enter here.

The XCN have continued their great work this week as well with a cool Bungie Q&A session available for you guys to get involved in, we've been looking over some of the questions already submitted and my personal favourite was "Do you realise that the term "Man Cannon" caused quite a few sniggers among British gamers?"

While someone else submitted the rather worrying: "Will there be any female Covenant in Halo 3, and if yes, will you be able to choose what sex to play in multiplayer for Spartan or Elite?" Definately thinking WAAAAY outside of the box with that question. You can still submit your own questions until November 21st by clicking here.

And we've also got another great competition up and running at the moment which is to win a copy of Tony Hawk's Project 8 which you can enter by clicking here.

And one thread thats worth a look is the Ghosts of Onyx Discussion Thread which also features my review of Eric Nylund's latest Halo novel. Some serious Halo fanatics feature there!

We'll also have more reviews coming up soon including the awesome Viva Pinata, World Championship Poker and Sonic the Hedgehog...

Viva Pinata

So, Gears decided to finally turn up and it's great. 9/10. Review done.

Sadly, I now have no excuse for what I'm really, excited about this Christmas and that's the awesome Viva Pinata.

So excited that I'm risking the Import Tax Lottery and the paranoia of buying a "Region Free" game for the first time in my life. Maybe, if I had been more excited about Gears I would have imported that too. I was very excited about Gears but I must be MORE excited about Viva Pinata.

Well, I picked up the Special Edition of Viva Pinata for a mere £36 from an American website which exports games out. So, I end up spending less on the game than if I'd bought it here and got it early and all the way across the Atlantic.

No wonder Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo like this whole Region thing, it lets them charge Europeans (and mainly British people) stupidly large amounts of money for the same game as everywhere else in the world.

So, I think I'll skip the Ebay whoring 10k PS3s this Xmas (and indefinetly) and stick with Gears of Pinata!

Gears of War

God Dammit! I still haven't got this yet. Despite the fact I could have imported it from the States last week!

I, once again, made the mistake of relying on someone else (e.g. Microsoft's PR people) to get the game to me at least five or six days before release so I can get the review done. They've done it in the past with numerous games but haven't this time.

What annoys me is that despite me asking TWICE when I'll be getting a review copy they haven't even bothered to reply. Yet they replied to my mail about Peripherals. So they obviously read some of my mail and ignore choice sections.

If I'd have know I'd be waiting this late to get it, I'd have imported it from America.

Now, I wonder if Viva Pinata is region free!?

2006 Winning Console Innovation...

If you've not been following my blog then you'll probably not realise that the BXB DNA 2006 Console Innovation Award is something that I've only just made up on the spot and might think I've had some form of nomination process or voiting scheme going on...

Well, I haven't. I'm just making this up right now. Right, the winner of the BXB DNA 2006 Console Innovation goes to the Xbox Live Vision Camera for it's brillaint "Remake Early 90s Rave Video" feature upgrade to the visualiser which can be seen in action below!



Oh my God, I put another Youtube video on my blog, soon I'll be whoring them as badly as UKR are!

We love Youtube!

On a slightly more serious note, I've still not got Gears of War and it's royally annoying me. If I'd known I'd have to wait till this close to release to get my press copy I'd have just imported the bloody thing and then traded it for cash at Gamestation!

*Spoilers* Ghosts of Onyx

Eric Nylunds latest Halo novel has been keeping me away from my 360 recently. I've read all four of his Halo novels now and really enjoy the extra insights they give into the universe even if they're not the most beautifully written novels I've read.

I like to try and gleam to interesting tit bits of information about the Halo series from his novels and with both Halo 3 and Halo Wars on the horizon it's certainly time to begin uncontrolled speculation!

First up, we can probably make a whole bunch of assumptions about some of the new units which will be appearing in Halo Wars. Plus, the potential of having humans, Covenant and new Forerunner forces for us to control which would be really cool.

The new Spartan III's are awesome with their reflective stealth armour and could take the role of scouts and the new Forerunner Sentinels that can fuse together and make increasingly large Forerunner units have a lot of potential for some interesting gameplay elements.

Onto the main plot of Halo. It's pretty easy to determine that Onxy was meant to be a place to hide from the effects of the Halos for the Forerunners but obviously something went wrong there and none of the Forerunners survived.

The massive structure we see in the Halo 3 trailer is "The Ark" and is probably another safe haven for the Forerunners to hide in as the controllers of the Halos would be pretty useless if they were killed as well.

So, Halo 3. Potentially, we could see John fighting his way down into The Ark and perhaps finding another Slipspace portal thing into another mini-dyson sphere suspended in slipspace which was inhabited by the Forerunners.

Personally, I think the Forerunners left The Ark after the Flood was gone (lots of great biblical references here) and started their lives again on Earth. The one big flaw in this theory is that why aren't humans really technologically advanced? Perhaps, they stored genetic material in the Ark!? I dunno.

Again, I found the climax to the book all together too fast and not detailed enough. The end of "First Strike" when they took of the Unyielding Elephant or whatever it was called was just too fast and gave now real insight into the Covenant and the end of this book was the same.

If you're a big Halo fan then it's well worth picking this book and his other three up!

Catching Up with Duties!

Well, Call of Duty 3 landed through my post box on Friday and I've managed to put a couple of hours in on it this afternoon and generally have quite mixed feelings about it.

While it's as intence and dramatic as Call of Duty 2 (and as tough), it feels more like a high definition upgrade rather than a true sequel. They've added a couple of interesting gameplay elements like hand to hand combat and the ability to cook off grenadges but (so far) there's not been much more than COD2 offers.

I'm about to shoot off and get some more time on it and we'll be posting our review as soon as possible as we've got the game well early!

Also, I finally did my duty and ordered a HDTV today. I'm over a year late but until now I've not really been noticing that much of a difference between my SDTV gaming and my brothers HDTV gaming. One game that really struck me as looking much better in HD is Dead Rising and that planted the seed of doubt.

So, I've picked up a Samsung 32" HDTV from Dabs. Most impressively, under £700 and a model up from the one my brother has. So, I think waiting 12 months has been a good idea as I've landed myself a more refined model for a lot less than I would have paid at the launch of the 360.

I reckon it looks swish and it'll look even better wall mounted, in front of my brand new double bed!

Updates-Schmupdates!

Just got the latest update for my 360 dash and it's got some nice features but I've also got two major (and admittedly spercific) gripes.

Windows Media Player 11 now shares my ENTIRE music collection which is incredibly unorganised due to them being Limewire downloads with all the info mixed up. Finding a song is almost impossible and because you can't make playlists made up of songs from your PC, you can't just make a set of songs you want to listen to.

The other is that it won't play my Battlestar Galactica episodes which is probably something to do with the file format.

Is it too much to adsk for these tiny little problems I have to be corrected?! Is it?!

Doing What We Do Best!

So, I've spent the summer months bricking myself because the forum has been so quiet. The funny thing is, I go through this emotional journey every summer of panicking because everyone's on holiday or out playing football but this summer seemed especially bad.

Because we're on the brink of this huge next-generation conflict there was literally f*ck all to do over the summer in terms of games and that only improved when Dead Rising hit.

Choosing to release a great game at the end of Summer was a master stroke, it got more coverage than every game of the summer combined and sold better thanks to it.

But now it feels like the forum is waking up again. The hardcore early adopters are selling 360's to those who were undecided and more of the "old skool" BXB crew are returning from console obscurity.

With hundreds of awesome games coming out over the next few months, I have no doubt that our forums will be full of many new and old gamers a-like, enjoying a good chin wag about all things gaming related.

We've also had a massive influx of new people over the last week (partly thanks to the Xbox Live Vision Camera competition) and they've been getting involved in the forum too.

Raising Awareness

In the past, I've not really strived to raise the awareness of BXB using popular online methods and preferred to get our exposure through print media and TV thanks our events, which has proven very successful.

Well, being as we're undecided whether we'll be hosting anymore LAN events, I've taken to using established means of raising awareness about BXB online.

Firstly, I've been striving to actually secure and follow up on real news stories that concern our community such as the SmackTalk Device and I also recently added our Xbox Live Vision Camera competition to sites like ThePrizeFinder.com. I've just charged Andy with finding review portal sites like Metascore to get our reviews out there!

I guess for some webmasters, this is all pretty standard stuff, but I've never been a fan of doing things the standard way and I think that BXB has grown greatly from my different approaches to self-promotion.

Cameras and Gears

I think it's time for an update on stuff on the front of BXB, despite the fact that if you're reading this, you've probably already seen it.

First up we have a cool Xbox Live Vision Camera to give away in our latest competition! Your chance to win can be found here. Get e-mailing that answer!

We've also just posted our Hands on Preview of Gears of War which can be found here. Gears had to be the most popular and frankly awesome game at X06.

I played both co-op and multiplayer modes and was impressed by both greatly. The stop and pop cover system is great fun and it's still a game with a great amount of action and drama.

Of course, it's the best looking game ever.

Can't wait for its release next month!

Don't Mind Waiting?

Well, I read an interview on GameIndustry.biz with Jamie McDonald from Sony who said that he was gutted the Playstation 3 had been delayed but "European consumers have shown that historically they don't mind that".

What!? We don't mind being treated as second class citizens?! I don't even want a PS3 as I'm happy with the 360 but this is taking the piss?!

Has he asked anyone in England? I'm sure there will be plenty of people who are annoyed that they have to wait for the PS3?

Why do these big gaming types believe that they can tell us what is best?

Crack the Smack Goes Global!

BXB's Crack the Smack Campaign has already hit headlines across the world including the massive gaming site Joystiq.com who say that the device will "let the pre-recorded sexism, racism and homophobia flow like the Nile".

Sadly, some less responsible sources are promoting this pointless and annoying device! IGN delights in the fact that the SmackTalk device "adds massive powers of annoyance" to Xbox Live. Even Gizmondo gave the device a fair review without even stopping to think that maybe it isn't such a good idea.

But we still have some support! Check out fellow XCN site 360Monster which is full of people moaning about this stupid peice of technology!

Not sure what Smacktalking is? Check out this useful YouTube video which I'm embedding onto my blog for the first time and hoping that it works!



So despite a few comment deleting nay sayers (This isn't racism by the way), BXB's latest campaign is taking off with a storm! And I've just got an e-mail back from Microsoft who have said they are looking into whether this device breaks the Xbox Live Code of Conduct!

Anyway, I'm off to re-read "Out of Harms Way" by Jack Thompson!

Crack the Smack!

As a journalist you do have to do a certain amount of meddling in other people's affairs to actually get a good story. Recently, I've been pretty annoyed at this SmackTalk device from Digital Innovations.

So, I've decided that BXB could run a month long "Crack the Smack" campaign to help try and root out and expose the worse smack talkers on Xbox Live.

Basically, my idea is this, when someone on BXB encounters a bad smack talker they add this person's gamertag to a thread on BXB. They leave them negative feedback and then ask other people on BXB to do the same.

At the end of the month, I e-mail all the gamertags off to Microsoft and complain about them smack talking!

The potential for pun headlines alone means this is something worth running! Here's a few initial ideas:

Smack Users Xbox Live Crackdown

Smacktalk gets Smacked down

Yanks Use Smack the most on Xbox Live

Keep your eyes on BXB for future developments and remember: Don't tolerate Smack Abuse in your Community!

And I'be just made a logo:



I'm totally serial.

Good Idea, Bad Idea

Ripping this idea from Animanics I've created my own Good Idea, Bad Idea feature for this blog entry.

Good Idea: Making Xbox Live regional spercific, so the Brits play with Brits, the Germans with the Germans and (most importantly) the Yanks with the Yanks.

Bad Idea...

Now, seriously, just stop and think for a minute. We witnessed the horror which Halo 2 Xbox Live play unleashed on the world (and is one big reason I barely play Xbox Live anymore) but to encourage the loud mouthed yanks to actually insult everyone else in the world more is down right irresponsible.

Doesn't this little gadget actually break the rules of Xbox Live? Well, after a few seconds of checking, you'll find it does...

"8. USE OF COMMUNICATION FACILITIES

Your use of the Service is subject to the Code of Conduct. You also agree not to do any of the following while being connected to the Service:

Defame, abuse, harass, stalk, threaten, or otherwise violate the legal rights (such as rights of privacy and publicity) of others."

How can this company sell this product when it clearly breaks the terms and conditions of Xbox Live use?

Exhausted and Ill...

Well, I'm getting towards finishing the content for X06 now! Got maybe two or three more articles to write and be published on the site over the next few days.

Since returning from Barcelona I've written a two part feature on X06, a hands on preview of Viva Pinata, made a video montage of footage and games from the event and written my favourite article called "The Untold Tales of X06".

I've since caught my brothers God awful cold and I'm now going to have end todays draining work on BXB and go and relax for a while and possibly eat lots of really unhealthy chocolate and sweets.

You can check out a round up of all my articles so far by clicking Here

Oh and one more thing, BXB's Reviews Editor Andy Gardiner also launched his own blog recently and that can be found here

Named and Shamed....

Well, I've no responce from the guys who are rpping off BXB's reviews so I'm having to take further action. The person responsible has now been banned from BXB and I've named and shamed him on the forums.

The offending website is the small clan website www.xglclan.co.uk. They have copied our Dead Rising by myself and our Saint's Row revew by Leigh Sherval.

Here are their "reviews" of the same two games:

Dead Rising by Potleg

Saint's Row by Potleg

Now, other than the blatant theft, the thing that annoys me the most is that Potleg has been part of the BXB Community for sometime now and seems to have absolutely no problem utterly ripping us off for his own gain.

The people that work tirelessly and often thanklessly on BXB deserve better than to have their work just stolen and passed off as someone else's work on someone else's site. It's not even like it's a big website but it's the principle that matters.

People like this that are holding back honest websites like BXB from reaching their full potential by abusing the trust other people put in them.

It's a shocking way to behave and shows and utterly lack of maturity or consideration.

Frustrations and E-drama....

Well, I've managed to get some words down about X06 now since I got back last night. I've written the first part of coverage which basically covers day 1 and you can find up on the site front page now.

I've also written a cool peice which is like a behind the scenes look at all the funny stories and rumours I heard and saw while over there which will be published later.

I'll also be writing hands on stuff about Viva Pinata, Gears of War and Crackdown but sadly not much else because time was so short at the event I barely got a chnace to play on any of the games substantially.

That was the most furstrating things about the event for me, the fact I could cover so little ground well. I could probably write 20 hands on previews but they'd all be pretty rubbish because I had no more than 5 minutes tired and pressured play on most of the titles at X06.

This lack of time wasn't helped by the fact that the transfers were so long. It seems that MS decided to spread the event all over the city and I spent most of my time on buses getting to places!

I could have done with another whole day to get to grips with more of the games.

And, to top it all off, on top of my monstrous work load today and for the weekend, someone was kind enough to e-mail me because another site had blatantly stolen our reviews of Dead Rising and Saint's Row. I've already been onto the site but had no responce. It's most annoying.

Anyway, I'm trying to put BXB's video diary together but it's hard because I'm struggling to get all the videos I need.

Who'd be a spare time journalist eh!?

Post X06 Update

So yeah, I'm off on a jetplane tomorrow for X06!

I've been sent my interview schedule this morning by Crissie and I get to chat to Shane Kim and CliffyB which is quite nice. I'd have liked to spoken to Peter Moore just because of the whole British connection but I'm not down for that. Perhaps I'll meet him later, that'd be kinda cool.

So, I've spent the morning writing out questions for various people and asking the BXB Community to submit their own (some of which will get me shot).

I've got almost every peice of equipement I can think of on charge at the moment and I'm still wondering whether I should take the laptop on with my hand luggage or not. I'm still not allowed liquids (which I'm sure is just a scam by the airlines to sell me stupidly priced drinks on the plane) but I've got just under half of a very good book to keep me occupied on the way over.

I've been instructed to meet up with Rob Cram (MSxboxworld) in the lobby of the hotel at 16:45! Which means I'll only have about an hour to kill before all the madness kicks off. Looks like it'll be a quick blog update then!

I've kind of reached a point where there doesn't seem much else to do until tomorrow. All I have to do now is wait.

Oh, I'll get some written directions to Heathrow incase Tom Tom fails me!

My next update will be from Barcelona!

Excitment Factor off the scale...

So, there's really only one day left until I got to X06. Count out tonight because I'll be busy being excited. Then count out tomorrow morning because I'll be asleep for most of it. The count out tomorrow night because I'll be asleep again, that means there's really only about 6 hours until I get to meet Bill Gates! YEAH!

Woah, slow down, you're a professional Mike.

So, here's a list of jobs I've got to do before I go to X06:

1) Get Euros.
2) Get petrol.
3) Pack My Bags.
4) Check Heathrow Airport website for hang luggage guidelines.
5) Repack bags.
6) Steal my Mum's Sat Nav.
7) Panic.
8) Pack all of the charging leads I could possibly ever need.
9) Pack my hair wax.
10) Unpack my hair wax remembering that I need it for the morning.

So, I feel utterly unprepared and totally over-excited.

Sony Bashing

Now, I don't use this blog as a weapon for bashing Sony as I believe it's just painfully fanboyish of me to do so, BUT, seriously, I couldn't resist it this time round.

Some of the stuff that Ken Katuragi has been rabbiting on about at the Tokyo Games Show has been a joke. I actually think that his keynote was an actual practical joke aimed at showing up the Japanese Media for being the Sony ass kissers they are.

Basically, he went on for ages about anything but what games will be on the PS3. Spoke at length about things he really wanted to see on the PS3 and showed a few trailers.

Then he dropped these gems which I read on the IGN transcription of the keynote.

"Sony is considering having the retail kiosks used as arcade-style units, so people can pay 100 yen or so to play a game." Is this a joke? So, when I go into Game or HMV I can either choose to play on third generation 360 titles for free or to pay (probably a quid) to play on first generation PS3 titles (including one about Africa?!)

"A question on why HDMI only is in the high level version of the PS3 only. Kutaragi explains that Sony was worried that if they put the HDMI in the lower version, some would complain about having to pay for something they don't want." Now, I know Japanese culture is very far removed from ours but has Ken never heard of irony?

The Blu-Ray drive has caused the PS3 to be delayed in Europe and Universal Studios have just dropped their support for the format. I mean, are the guys at Sony deluded?

£89!?

Now, Microsoft have just revealed that the HD-DVD player will cost 19,800 Yen which converted into real hard English Pounds Sterling comes to a here £89.

Now, am I wrong? Is the currency converter I used wrong too? Is that not shockingly cheap and over one hundred quids below the rumoured price?!

I'm going to be very annoyed if the HD-DVD costs more than like £100 because otherwise it'll be such a massive rip off for Europe. Again.

Achievement Whoring

It really was inevitable. With the idea of putting achievements in Xbox 360 titles, it was bound to happen. Achievement Whoring has gone mad. Getting that extra Gamerscore is what everyone wants to do.

Combine that with a highly addictive game like Dead Rising, a massive hang over and a free Sunday afternoon and you're off reading up how to get the Outdoorsman achievement and leaving poor Frank in his pants (nothing to do with the achievement, but that's how it loaded) standing out on the roof of the mall.

Now, I don't achievement whore like some people. I just really like Dead Rising and I feel extra motivated to unlock some of the trickier achievements. I was doing pretty well with over 5000 zombie kills but then I got ghosted by some green mask/yellow mac wearing psycho.

So, I'm about 15 minutes into earning the Outdoorsman achievement. Time to read my book.

Dead Risen...

Finally put the main story of Dead rising to bed tonight. It's currently number 1 in the multiformat game charts, beating all other Xbox 360 titles and all other games available at the moment.

I'm really happy that I slapped my big stamp of approval on this game all those months ago and that's it turned out to be a massively popular and high quality game.

Hopefully, we can expect the same from the likes of Lost Planet! Capcom are the new coolest publishers on Xbox 360!

Roll on the rest of the winter's games!

My Arms!

So, I've recently been playing with the Xbox Live Vision Camera and Totemball and it's certainly an interesting experience.

I dragged my Dad upstairs to have a go as well (in an attempt to help J Allard achieve his dream of seeing the family playing video games again) and he found it quite tough to play. I also found it quite tough to play but it was fun in short bursts.

Right now there's only two games that support the camera and Microsoft really need to get more out onto the market in a very short time to capitalise on the hype that's surrounding the camera at the moment. They need to be really cheap, mini-party games that everyone can pick up in seconds. Totemball just seems too involved.

Of course, this is all part of Microsoft's master plan to bag that mainstream audience and make the Xbox 360 a massive success. How are they doing this? By copying Sony's Eye Toy. So, please, fanboys, no more comments about Sony copying Microsoft.

It seems that the gaming industry has awoken once more. There's been loads of new stuff up on BXB and it's almost weird to see it updating with great content as often as it does. We've had plenty of 360 reviews with more on the way as well as continuing our support for the original Xbox plus we'll have an Exclusive hands on preview of Totemball and the Camera up soon.

X06 preparations are also in full swing. I've decided to nab my Mum's sat nav and drive myself down to Heathrow as everything else is expensive and/or tricky.

Public Relations 101 from Sony

Here's a quick guide on how to land a top job in PR at Sony:

1) Ignore your customers: If people are saying that they feel second rate when you release a console in waves starting with Japan and then America, followed last by Europe. Ignore them. What do they know? They're not trying to launch a doomed format. The best bet would be to cut your losses in Europe because they all speak different languages and include the French.

2) Lie. Constantly. If you're competitor has achieved a world wide launch, say you'll do the same but then later change your mind and get the relevant people to say they're "disappointed".

4) Copy your opponents. Your opponents come up with a better idea than you? Well rip it off without even trying to do something original yourself. Entitlements plus gyroscopes equals big profits.

5) Totally ignore European events. They have the worlds biggest gaming event these days now E3 is changing in the form of Leipzig but that doesn't matter because the Germans organised it and they were rubbish Allies in World War Two.

6) Over price the console and then tell people it's because it's good. Well, it worked for Stella Artois...

7) Ignore the developers. They don't need software that's easy to program with! They get paid for fucks sake.

8) Employ a good rendering company. (See no. 2 and no. 9)

9) Remember to lie.

10) If you're ever asked "Who's the greatest man in Gaming History?" say Ken Katuragi, it is actually part of your contract to say this and saying anyone else could lead to dismissal.

Europe - Third Again?

So, once again, Europe gets the short straw. While Microsoft at least tried to treat all three of the major gaming territories equally, Sony have decided to give Microsoft another four months free ride in what I think is the most crucial territory now.

Microsft's failure in Japan and massive success in the States means that Sony have an easy ride on their home ground (hence the 100,000 consoles at launch) and a very tough battle in the US of A (hence the 400,000). However, with Europe still kind of in the middle it's pretty obvious that the territory Microsoft needs to throwing their weight at is Europe.

Europe will be crucial in taking control of the market as a strong 360 in both America and over here will mean a strong Xbox 360 worldwide. Japan is a whole different story. Yes, Microsoft failed there again and, yes, that is a little embarrassing.

But Microsoft trying to succeed in Japan is like Bush trying to single handedly invade Iran.

Europe is the territory to be conquered. There's a growing community movement over here that's getting increasingly supported but is still lacking compared to America.We don't have characters like Trixie or Major Nelson despite the best attempts of some people who fight for the little man.

Sony seem to rank Europe as third while I'd put us in second. Europe is where Micrsoft need to focus now. Make us feel like we're important while Sony tread on us.

*giggles alot*

Look at the stupid zombies with horse heads on their heads!

Timeless.

Wanted: One Game Where You Kill Thousands of Zombies!

Why haven't I got Dead Rising yet? Where is it? Why isn't it in my hands right now? I've been following this game from very early on and played it in its early stages at Capcom a few months ago.

I've been threatened with harassment charges by the Capcom press office since because I just won't leave them alone. WHERE IS MY COPY OF DEAD RISING!?

In a slightly more relevant note. BXB and XGZ are hosting their first Poker Night on the 7th of September and you'll be able to get your hands on some lovely free games (Not Dead Rising, I want that all to myself).

Apparently the table buy in is $2000 and the binds are $10-$20 so it won't impact on your fictional bank roll that much! More information here: Poker Night

Losing My Way

I'm pretty whacked. I've just enjoyed a marathon watching of the first season of the new Battlestar Galatica and I'm very impressed, however, I've also spent a lot of the day reflecting on the last few months of my life.

MSXboxworld recently posted their Dead Rising review before BXB; Clubskill had their Saint Row review up on the day the embargo was lifted and there are already a few Xbox sites out there with reviews of the Xbox Live Camera.

BXB has none of these things despite the fact we could have, very easily could have each one of them. Why not? Because I've become complacent. Rather than striving despite personal costs to give to our community I've started sitting back and expecting things to happen for me.

"Why should I spend £60 on a Xbox Live Webcam from Ebay?" I asked myself the other day. "I can just wait until they send me one." How rubbish is that? I should get one because I want one and because I want to provide a service to our Community.

Getting the Dead Rising review weeks early would have simply been a case of importing a copy from America or just getting an American freelancer to write the review and finally the Saints Row review should have been done on the day of embargo but wasn't because it spent time languishing around in and not being forwarded to the reviewer.

I'm beginning to question my own dedication to the role. MSXboxworld's Ade said to me when I announced my break that he thought I was "BXB until I die". I used to be. What am I now?

How long has it been since I lost my way with BXB? When did I lose my focus with the site?

More XCN Woes...

While it seems that everyone else has accepted that Microsoft's claims at Leipzig that PES 6 will be Exclusive to the Xbox 360 for a year was false, the European Xbox Community Network seems to be simply ignoring the fact that the games creator has said the statement at the event was misleading.

In a recent Exclusive Q&A with Chris Lewis (Regional Vice President, Home and Entertainment Devices Division, Microsoft Europe) the comments remain thus: "...it's great to be able to say that for next-gen football gaming there's only one place for the next year: Xbox 360". When the game's Producer and Creator Shingo 'Seabass' Takatsuka is quoted on a number of sites as saying: "The presentation [at Leipzig] was misleading. We never said exclusive for one year on the next-gen platforms. We said this year. We were agreed that it was this year."

Seems odd that despite a number of e-mails to both Microsoft's PR company in the UK and the XCN Admin, I've still not had an official response about this discrepancy in what Microsoft and Konami are saying.

We did actually post the full interview up on BXB last night but I asked for it to be taken down because I'd rather not post up content which appears to be incorrect. It's another rather embarrassing gaff from the XCN that, despite my desire to support the venture, makes me question how well it's being run.

In a recent Q&A with Ubisoft, the XCN as a Community submitted a question that featured the word "configurate" instead of 'configure'. A small trifle of a matter? No. I've got plenty of experience from BXB that shows that small things like that can make a big difference in the perception of the people responsible. Why aren't the questions being submitted being vetted or proofed?

One question recently submitted from an unknown website about Dead Rising read as this: "What is the online side like, is it player v player or do you team up with people across Live? Or is it both?" Dead Rising isn't multiplayer. It's never been marketed as multiplayer and the grammar of the question is shot to pieces. Why was this question even submitted?

In a world that all about perception then these questions look very bad on the XCN and all of the sites involved.

So, I'm awaiting the response of DO to what I have to do with the problems in the Chris Lewis Q&A and I'm still having to give the team the OK to submit questions to the XCN Q&As and even post them when they return.

The other big rumour I've heard about the XCN recently is that they failed to supply MSxboxworld with a prize and ended up costing the site over two hundred English pounds. While I'm not privy to all the details, if this is true, it's well out of line. Fansites have enough problems getting funding without having to fork out hundreds of pounds of our own money.

Panic Over. New Panic Starts now!

So, my itinerary arrived finally. The flights aren't as bad as I expected thankfully and I've got to figure out how to get to Heathrow as cheap as possible now! (Asking the neighboroughing Taxi man to take me down on the quiet sounds like a plan).

The list of people I'm flying with reads (well, I presume it reads) like a hitman's list of top UK based Xbox Journalists like Steve Brown the Editor of OXM! To be honest, that's the only name I recognise. I wonder if all these print media types will be a bit snobbish towards me a mere XCN Community site Editor...?

So, now that the "AGH, WHERE'S MY ITINERARY" panic is over, I've got to start panicking about other stuff like what am I going to ask all the important Microsoft people I might meet; how the hell am I going to record myself to do the video diary and finally how on earth do I get all this stuff to the people on BXB without a 24 hour gap.

The trip is going to be intense. I depart Heathrow at around 11 and arrive in Barcelona at two-ish at which point I'm whisked straight to X06 without any time for sight seeing!

Then it's straight to the mystery hotel! Now, I was told that the itinerary would have hotel details but I can't see them for the life of me. Fingers crossed MS splash out big time and slap us in a real Ritzy place! I'm praying they have an internet connection...

After a few hours of sleep it's straight back to X06 before being flown back to London for 6 o'clock. I'm going to be very tired.

Anyway, I'll update DNA with more of my preparations for X06 in the coming days as long as I'm not playing Burnout Revenge or Dead Rising...

Preparing for X06...

At least, I would be if they had sent me my itinerary. They said it'd be yesterday and that was a Bank Holiday so it should have been today.
*quickly double checks his e-mail*

Nope. Well, I'm not alone Ken from Rewiredminds hasn't got his yet. Patience is a virtue but when I'm this excited I tend to be rather lacking in that virtue!

So, what plans do I have for X06? Well, try to stay awake is top of the list because it's going to be marathon. Secondly I want to ask Major Nelson some down right silly questions and finally I'd like to meet the XCN Manager and have a good chat about the XCN.

Oh yeah, play some games too.

More Important MS Types blog...

Just stumbled across the blog of the new Xbox Community Network Manager "Aceybongos", to be honest, it's just full of typical Microsoft sentiments and a few comments on community but I hope it'll get a bit more interesting in the future.

Barrie from 360monster already has his name on there as he's part of the VIGs program which sent a few XCN sites to Leipzig which is quite cool!

I look forward to meeting him at X06 this year. I've noticed that someone has already taken the opportunity to slag off the XCN (something I'm not innocent of) but they did it without really trying to make it any better.

Check the blog out, it uses the new Windows Live Spaces feature which seems to be a bit slow loading at the moment! AceyBongo's Blog.

Shame I can't grab him on MSN. That sort of ease of accessiblity would be great.

Forum Move

Just a quick update really. I've got back from my holidays and there's not really been much happening on BXB due to the massive lull this summer. Dead Rising will be the first game worth playing out in September and I'm looking forward to then until that point I'll have to keep occupied with the copy of N3 that finally dropped through my letter box.

One thing to mention is that we'll be rearranging the BXB forums tonight in the very early hours of the morning. We're going to be combining a few old forums, hiding a few more and maybe launching a few new ones in the near future.

Ash is very interested in having an XNA forum which could be an interesting option to have though I'm not sure how popular it'd be but it's definitely something worth looking into as the XNA could become massive.

Our Tournaments forum will be taking a higher position underneath Everything Xbox and General Gaming to put more emphasis on a service that I think is excellent but could be more supported by the BXB Community.

The new layout may look like this:

"Gaming"
Everything Xbox
General Gaming
Tournaments
"Off Topic"
Off Topic Lounge
Music & Film
Sport
"Help & Advice"
Technical
XNA Forum
Game Help

The changes will be happening late at night so if you see any problems give Ash a shout via PM or e-mail and he'll take a look!

Content...ment?

Well, looks like I've started blogging again.

What has driven me to start writing about BXB again is basically my pride in how well the team are doing in my absence. Bill is doing a cracking job securing some great content for the front page and I'm going to give you a little sneak preview here.

We've got an Exclusive Interview with the guys over at Eden Games about their M.O.O.R. title Test Drive Unlimited. It'll be up on the site in the next few days but you can read a little right here.

BXB: "There was a rumour going around the Internet a while back stating that gamers would have to pay for fuel using Microsoft Points, therefore bringing the global warming issue into gamer's living rooms. Was there any truth to this?"

Eden Game's Producer Ahmed Boukhelifa: "Ah yes, the global warming rumour. No, in Test Drive Unlimited, it's a paradise where you don't ever have to worry about filling your car up with gas."

Our Splinter Cell Double Agent Multiplayer Hands on Preview is still doing the rounds on the site and well worth a read. And we'll have a previews of N3 and Saints Row along with our review of "I don't remember it being this hard" Street Fighter 2.

So much for the break.

Re-Birth?

So, things are starting to move forward. Some very early, tentative steps have been made and concepts are being pulled together into something more tangible.

Obviously, at this point, I can't go into massive amounts of detail but it seems that with some fresh input from a few people we're making strides in the right direction.

I will give you a very small teaser of what I'm talking about.











Another chapter in BXB's long history is being drafted.

Testing Times

Right now, BXB stands on the edge between growing, changing and becoming something more than it was and crashing and burning. The caterpillar that is BXB will either bloom into a new butterfly or be squashed under the foot of some inconsiderate rambler.

We all know that change is good but change is never easy. BXB's format looks old, the colour scheme is tired and our competitors are offering more contemporary, modern and fresh looks for their users.

However, our content is always improving. Recently the interview with Ninja Bee proved to be very popular and we've got more interesting stuff coming up soon. At the same time, the forums are still going strong. Undoubtly feeling the pinch of the hot summer weather it's not as busy as it could be but it shows no sign of failing.

Right now, the internal management of BXB is wrangling with itself. Asking itself questions like: "What should our focus be?" and "Are we all really committed to moving BXB forward?"

These are hard questions that will take a lot of soul searching and discussion to answer but we have a very strong advantage right now. Our competitors have all shown their hands and there's no end in sight to the Xbox 360.

We know what we have to beat and we have all the time in the world to do it. Whether it takes months or years for this inner turmoil to be resolved, we'll come out of it proving, once again, we are the leading Xbox site out there.

Sega Rock!

My first blog entry in a little while and I seem to have turned into UKR!

Well, I was taking a break but cutting myself off from BXB has been almost impossible due to the fact that I have spent so much time and commited so much to the site over the last few years that me just not being there is literally an impossible feat to achieve.

I've been keeping myself busy by watching the World Cup, reading a few books, enjoying the sun and continuing to work my arse off for Mr Tesco. As I am still acting as a reviewer on BXB, I recently got my hands on Chromehounds from Sega.

Now, it seems that Sega sent out early retail code on a silver so we could all meet up for a game on Live to show the multiplayer aspects of the title. Sadly, it was too short notice for me and I couldn't make it.

However, this meant that I got the game over a week before release allowing me to play, review the game and post that review up on BXB before the release of the title this Friday.

I'd like to salute Sega for making the effort to get their code out early. They've secured themselves a great review and a thread full of discussion and enthusiasm on BXB after a demo that left a lot of people feeling pretty unhappy about the game.

You can see from my review that I feel the game does lack that certain something but overall I love it. Mechs, guns, explosions and other manly stuff just makes me happy.

Anyway, I'm struggling to not get involved in BXB again, although, I will admit that I have enjoyed the couple of weeks off.

Taking a Break.

So, I've decided to take a short sabbatical kinda thing from BXB.

Over the last few months I've felt increasingly like BXB has been taking over my life while at the same time, I feel, the site is really going nowhere.

This is no one's fault. Everyone involved in BXB works as hard as they can for saying they are volunteers and we've all achieved so much in the time this site has exsisted.

The last few months have been quite difficult for me as I've wrangled with the fact that I'm not really happy putting so much into BXB and seeing a lot of that effort wasted because of things that are outside my control and outside the control of everyone that works on the site.

More than anything, my own ambition, impatience and desire to see this site a success has left me feeling frustrated and dissapointed with the progress made over the last 12 months.

Also, inter-site bitching has turned this fun job into a real nightmare. In the last twelve months I've been embroiled in a battle against people that I believe are only interested in exploiting and abusing thier positions of trust within the gaming community and I feel this goes against my own strong set of moral values I try to live to. Regular readers of this blog (if there are any!) will know more about these problems.

Finally, I've like to thank everyone in the BXB community as you've all been just bloody nice over the last few years and the wider gaming community that have helped me out.

I'll be taking a break from my full job of Editor and Events Manager and I will have a reduced role as a reviewer rather than until September at the earliest.

I'll be handing the reigns of content management to Bill Bennett and Andy Gardiner. So good luck to them. I won't be a stranger on the forums and I hope that things are better when I come back.

Hence, BXB DNA will be put on hold until I return.

Copy/Paste

You've got to laugh really.

As I mentioned in my blog post Industry Leaders I'm really happy that other websites are taking inspiration from BXB's unique Join The Ghosts press event which I'm still harping on about four months later.

But there's a difference between "inspired by" and "down right copying".

Still no hard feelings and good luck Pro-G!

Clantastic...

Well, our latest round of hiring on BXB has come to an end with the appointment of forum regulars Samantha Gardiner and Deadeye Dan as Co-Managers for the new BXB Clan.

Clan BXB was originally started by myself in the early days of Xbox Live as a Mech Clan which played Mech Assault where we won many a great victory and suffered only a couple of defeats. We later evolved to play numerous other games and have quite a long history.

We really excelled at Halo 2 with only two defeats to the mighty TTK but sadly the clan split into two groups and clan BXB never really got going again. The other group went onto found CFU or The Clan from Uncle which is still going strong today.

Well, now it's coming back with Sam and Dan at the helm. Sam is a long standing member of BXB and has been part of the site since it launched. She's always been a great member of the community, involved in clans and has been really helpful in running our LAN events.

Dan is another long standing member of the BXB Community and has been in a number of clans include the now defunct PXL and BOX and someone I've enjoyed many games of Xbox Live with.

This looks like the beginning of a very interesting new concept for BXB and I look forward to what it brings.

Frustration Distilled

Since I was added to the EMEA Reviewers Kit list at launch of the Xbox 360, I've been trying to hunt down my first proper piece of preview code. Some people told me that now I have been added to this list everything will be easy that turned out to be false.

I've found that, as usual, I've got to start at the bottom of the pile and work my way up. I've fired off hundreds of e-mails over the last few months to try and secure preview code for games like DOA4, N3, The Outfit and loads more all without any success.

So, I was pretty happy when the PR and Marketing Manager of KOEI in the UK got back to me with a chance for me to get a preview copy of Dynasty Warriors 5: Empires. I've spent the last few days waiting patiently for the game to arrive.

It came through this morning and much to my disappointment it didn't work. I played around with the settings but still no joy and hence I've sent off confused e-mails to both KOEI and Microsoft to try and find out why it didn't work. Of course, no-one's at work until Monday and them returning to work doesn't guarantee an immediate response or solution.

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of all this is that there aren't any guidelines or instructions provided by Microsoft and I've had to rely on the good nature of other people on the EMEA Reviewer Kit List for advice and guidance.

I've done some googling with a little help and it seems that I might have had to be sent updated software on a monthly basis but I've had nothing at all. I don't even know if I'm supposed to or not, or wether it refers to devs only.

I seem to be reading over and over that Microsoft is a great publisher to work for that really understands the development process and even assists third party development teams both technically and financially yet they fail members of their community so completely.

This is going to have a part two to it.

State of Play 3

I got my post this morning and there sat a copy of Moto GP 2006. I immediately sent the game off to one of the guys on the reviewing team to get the game played and reviewed. The review will then be published on BXB and the URL sent back to the publisher as proof of our coverage. This is what I call the "PR loop".

But Moto GP wasn't alone. I also had a bundle of four games which have been very kindly sent over to me by Digital Outlook who run Microsoft's Xbox Community Network. There's been a lot of focus on the role and ability of the XCN of late and I've chatted with a couple of Community Managers and PR types recently about their perception of the XCN and, sadly, many said they'd never heard of it.

One way to raise awareness of the XCN is to include itself in the "PR Loop". Some of the games sent by D.O. we're already sent to us from our publisher contacts and hence already covered on the site and the other games will follow the same path as Moto GP 2006 except with one vital difference.

URLs for both sets of already published reviews and reviews being written at the moment will be returned to the publisher via the XCN and hence help raise awareness. While the games I've received that BXB has already covered will be bundled up as a prize and given away to the winners of our Wimbledon 360 Tournament.

This simultaneously improves what we offer our users and what we return to the XCN as now they're involved in running what is turning out to be a great tournament. This in turn will impress publishers and increase the amount of support for the XCN. It's a self-replenishing process.

Sadly, this theory only works if D.O. supports the largest XCN sites first and the smaller ones second which would no doubt rub up the smaller sites as they perceive the larger XCN to not need the review copies. What these people need to realise that this self-replenishing process will help the XCN to grow and hence there will be more opportunities for growth of smaller sites.

I've had the criticism thrown at me recently that I'm only saying these things because it benefits BXB first and everyone else second, and to an extent that's true, I want the best for BXB but I also want to see the XCN grow and this method of getting D.O. into the "PR Loop" and encouraging the self-replenishing process is the best way for that to happen.

Playing Make Believe!

I've booked a week off Tesco and spent the last few days chilling out with my girlfriend, we've been holiday shopping and went to Alton Towers but today I've been focusing on BXB and getting the hundred of little jobs done that need doing.

As I said, I've been playing on Street Fighter: Hyper Fighting and we've already posted our Exclusive Hands on Preview of the game which is well worth a read.

If that wasn't cool enough, we've got some incredible content coming up over the next few weeks. We'll be sitting down and having a natter with the developers behind Xbox Live Arcade titles like Outpost Kaloki X and the soon to be released Cloning Clyde, the legendary Ninja Bee.

Plus, we'll have an exclusive Q&A session with Gastronaut, the guys behind the forthcoming Xbox Live Arcade title Small Arms which looks incredible.

I'm a big fan of the Xbox Live Arcade and think it's a massive source of some great content and some great games and BXB will be giving the service some much deserved focus over the next few months to really push how cool it is.

But we're not neglecting normal Xbox 360 titles and we'll have Exclusive content up on the site about a couple of games heading to the Xbox 360 over the summer soon.

How-Doo-Ken?

After a bit of a delay, I finally got my hands on Street Fighter: Hyper Fighter!

I've got to say it's pretty damn good with some cool new features like a new tournament mode and tons of meaty achievements to get your hands on. The game does support HD but the graphics are the same as the original version.

Both Pac-Man and Galaga are the same and to be honest I'm a bit dissapointed because I'd prefere them to beef up the graphics.

The gameplay is also really tough and at the easiest level, it was still a challenge.

Check out some Exclusive screens here.

N00bs!

It's been a bit hectic recently with a few new changes to the staff and structure around BXB which I'll give you a quick run down on now.

First up our News Editor Bill Bennett will be taking part in a slightly shifted and expanded role of checking and posting articles submitted as front page content (which aren't reviews) and also looking at gaining more exclusive content direct from developers and publishers along side me.

We've brought two fresh news boys on board so I'd like to welcome Bobby "Crimson" Grayson onto the team. He's been on the forums for a while now and he spent some time with Lionhead last year and it's always cool to get someone on board who's worked with developers.

The second news reporter is Paul "Nightstalker" Sterrett who's another long standing member of the forum and showed very natural talent when it came to news reporting. Welcome to the team both of you.

I've also just filled our vacancy for a review with Ali Own who has an impressive CV and history working on sites like the now closed www.xboxrules.com and www.xboxsolution.com and hence I'd like to welcome Ali on board the BXB team.

Ali represents a slight change in recruitment tactics from myself as I've historically always recruited from our forums but after some discussion a couple of weeks back with the community, I decided to bring on board an experienced writer to try and boost our content quality.

Finally, while not permanently enamoured with BXB, I'd like to thank James Woodcock for helping to contribute to the site as he'll be working on a voluntary freelance basis in the future and his first review will be up shortly!

No doubt, he'll deliver the content he promises unlike other freelancers I've worked with!

Gaffs, Cock Ups and Lies

Incredible. It's been another afternoon of drama in the XCN and I'm beginning to really despair about some people's perception of what's going on. All I'm trying to do is tell the truth and expose the blaggers and the liars for what they really are.

Sadly, some people have been so caught up in the web of deceit that they can't even see the truth when it's laid out in front of them. The party involved has asked not to be mentioned on my blog and I'm going to respect that.

I simply cannot get my head around the fact that I showed this person hard evidence that our web-spinner was using them for his own good and they refused to believe me. It's like I was banging my head on a brick wall.

I learnt the hard way and I just want to help others not have to go through the same. Does that make me a bad person?

It seems that I'm not alone in my attempts to do what's right and expose the people that are causing dissent, chaos and problems within the Xbox Community. MSXbox-World's Ade has posted more interesting evidence on his blog which you can have a read of here:

1304 days since Xbox LIVE launched. So, 200 Tournaments must be a typo?

Who's promoting, when is it and who's supporting it? "Top Spin 2 Tournament announced!"

Amazing, the same company that claims to have run 200 Xbox Live Tournaments, can't get a simple news post about a tournament right...?

It's been an incredible weekend of gaffs that would be funny if they weren't so serious.

Speculate/Accumulate

Well, looks like the final nail has been driven into Game Network TV and with it goes BXB's affiliation with the channel.

News that Dan Scammel left the company last week Whoops! Looks like my sources were wrong! Dan is still working hard filming babes! has pretty much ended speculation about the return of the channel since it was closed down a few months ago. When I recently met Dan in London for a few drinks I heard the alarm bells ringing but like a true optimist Dan stayed positive.

Ash and I took the decision to remove the Game Network tag from our General Gaming forum earlier in the week and I was sad to see it go.

A lot of people would level the same sort of criticism at Game Network TV that it was a load of rubbish and Sky 1's rather shocking Gamesville is actually better but I always believed that Game Network could have become much more than what it was with the right backing and the right people.

I felt that if the channel had been given another chance to move forward then I'd have been able to help improve the content of the show, sadly, it now looks like I won't be making my TV debut.

It's a shame to see this potentially beneficial affiliation end but you have to speculate to accumulate!

Unravelling the Web

Once again, I've been courting more than a little controversy within the Xbox Community with a recent blog entry about piracy sites being promoted in the XCN but in another instance I'm going to have to hold up my hands and admit that I may have been wrong.

So, to follow up the private apology I sent tonight, I'd like to back that up with an apology on my blog for my attitude which resulted in some rather heated and ill conceived words being exchanged on MSN earlier this week. It was an attitude born from a paranoia and distrust that I've learnt the hard way in this industry.

It seems that an intricate web of lies has been spun around every single Xbox Community Network website out there. Over time, the spider at the centre of this web has ensnared various different site editors with lies which played on their very basic desires to succeed in this cut-throat industry.

The web coats everyone and everything that encounters it whether they want it to or even without them knowing they have been captured. The spider uses people without their express permission or willing to bend others to their own means.

So deep; so intricate is this web that the people ensnared in it or those striving to break the threads still struggle to see the truth. It was this web of lies that's led me to have a heated argument on MSN earlier this week because everyone involved with the XCN or this spider can become a victim.

Such massive webs of lies can only be created by often insecure, compulsive liars and with so many lies being told, it's easy to snag onto a loose end and unravel the whole knot. It seems I've snagged one of these loose ends and began to unravel the whole web of lies and what I've discovered really is very disturbing.

It's certainly not how I'd expect a man who claims to be the "UK Operations Director for the Xbox Life Brand" to act.

Pushed to the Limit?

Piracy. Not a big fan myself. In terms of movies the general lack of quality rarely compares to a cinema visit or a nice official DVD watched on a big screen with lots of extras while in terms of gaming it puts a strain on an industry that's increasing stretched thin.

BXB has always held very strong rules around Piracy and Modding discussion which we enforce to the point of annoying some of our users, but we believe that promoting or condoning piracy is just wrong.

Hence, imagine my shock when a former OXM Journalist and member of the Xbox Community Network started promoting a new site which claims to have hacked the Xbox 360. Luke "The Duke" Newcombe, a self-styled community expert that works for two Xbox Community Network sites including www.news0r.com (a site we've had a problem with before.) and www.totally360.com has recently began promoting a website which conducts illegal Xbox 360 hacking operations called www.devil360.com.

Devil360 has appeared on Engadget and claim that due to the amount of traffic, that their site's server is currently down despite the fact we can still veiw the website.

Newcombe has posted an article on his blog which openly supports the website and says that "a devil will be unleashed upon the Xbox Live community". Newcombe is supported by numerous publishers as well as Microsoft and their Xbox Community Network and condoning illegal piracy not only breaks the law but is also a massive abuse of the trust publishers put in journalists to not encourage activities which are detrimental to the industry.

I've also done a quick screen grab of the blog entry in case the Newcombe decides to try and cover his obviously guilty tracks by editing the entry. It can be seen here

This sort of behaviour really crosses the line and in my opinion can only be resolved by the removal of all support for Mr Newcombe and any publishers that have NDA's signed by this man to alert their legal teams.

It's a real shame that some people don't have respect for those that work so hard in this industry.

Genesis Part 1

I've been running this blog entry around in my head for a while as it's definitely a story that's worth telling and I hope would provide a little insight into the genesis of BXB.

Before I carry on, BXB isn't the first website myself and Ashley had a crack at creating. It's actually the third. The first site we ever decided to work on was a Community based venture based around our home town of Coalville. It was going to be organised much like BXB is with content written by myself, the site managed by Ash and a community forum.

I even blagged a little coverage for the site in the local rag I was working for at the time. www.theville.co.uk never went live. (I'm surprised to see that the holding page for this early venture is still up).

The second website we tried out was gotmashed.com which was another Community focused website which was similar to clubbing websites like Gurn.net. Gotmashed launched, we promoted it and gained a small community but despite this it never really took off.

Gotmashed.com held regular "Board Meets" in clubs like Passion in Coalville and my experiences at these meet ups and others like it later inspired me to launch BXB's own Community LAN events. It's funny how an ideal evolves.

Click here to see a photo from the first ever Gotmashed forum meet up which happened at Passion in Coalville on the 21st of July 2001. You can see Ash in the back being flanked on his right by Drakau.

BXB wasn't planned to the level that the previous two sites we worked on were and it was more of a reactionary launch but still quite an interesting story. It's really two stories which converge into one. I'll tell you, to the best of my knowledge, Ashley's side of the birth of BXB.

It basically all began with Halo and Xbox Connect. Before Microsoft had launched Xbox Live, Ashley used to host mini-LAN events at his house where five or six of our friends would get together and slog it out on Halo:Combat Evolved for hours.

Then, tired of the same competition, Ashley signed up to Xbox Connect and we started playing Halo over the Internet with other Xbox fans including such long standing forum members as Little Cheif.

With appetites wet for online gaming Ash secured himself a spot on the Xbox Live Beta testing team. After hours on an MotoGP online demo, he'd made plenty more friends including some that are still working as part of BXB Editorial Team to this day.

Looking around the Internet, there was no dedicated British gaming forum. The original OXM had a reputation for spamming and being full of abusive kids and many more mature online gamers chatted over at Xbox365.com. One day, Ash set up a phpBB forum called www.britxbox.co.uk and the rest really is history.

And the second story? Well, that's my story and naturally that's worth a novel on its own! ;)

Wimbledon 360!

Wimbledon is almost upon us and to celebrate BritXbox and XboxGameZone have teamed up to bring you Wimbledon360.

Wimbledon360 will bring gamers together not only on the lush green centre court at Wimbledon but indoors as Table Tennis hits the scene, one thing’s for sure rain wont stop play this year.

During the course of this years Wimbledon we will be holding 2 tournaments side by side on 2K Games Top Spin 2 and Rockstar Games Table Tennis.

So if you think you have what it takes to be the racket ace of 2006 check out the details below:

Top Spin Tournament

Table Tennis Tournament

Gamers are welcome to take a shot at both tournaments, the only thing we ask is you keep those stamina levels up because demands will be high and you must fulfil your commitment if you’ve any chance of succeeding.

Industry Leaders?

Britxbox has shown it's industry leadership abilities in the past when we organised and launched our own brand of casual gaming LAN events which have been a massive success and appeared in numerous Xbox print and online media publications.

Since we did our first, we've seen a fair few copy cat events spring up around the UK including the BOX LAN events which were very strongly community focused as well as Last Man Standing Live which was due to happen this Febuary but, sadly, seems to have gone all wrong.

I'm pleased that our events have been the inspiration for other people to create their own unique LAN events.

Our Join The Ghosts event this year again proved that we are industry leaders in this type of Community focused event and history has repeated itself as another gaming website has started working with publishers to create community events for press and consumers.

Hexus.net's latest venture into Community events is to work with Atari on their Test Drive Unlimited title and they are offering members of the public the chance to get their hands on Test Drive Unlimited at Atari's headquarters in Hammersmith.

Interested? Find out more by Clicking On This Exciting Looking Linky Thing!

I swear there's some cash to be made here.

Jump In

It's been rather interesting on BXB over the last week as our users have been spontaneously giving us feedback and ideas on the future of the website in the latest IMO thread. It features some pretty harsh opinions of our editorial team which were a bit tough to read because I know how hard it is for everyone that works on BXB to keep passionate about the site. Such negative comments aren't helpful, more constructive criticism is.

Myself and Ashley have worked so hard on BXB that we're a little afraid of scaring people away with money making schemes like affiliates and advertising. We both know that too many adverts will drive people away while no adverts means we can't make enough money to improve the content. It's difficult to try and balance the desire to remain slightly underground and the need to go more mainstream.

Anyway, we've had a listen to everyone's feedback and I pretty pleased to say that no-one really said anything that myself, Ash and the rest of the team hadn't already discussed ourselves in the past. We've certainly got ambition for the site and we want to achieve that.

Onto the point of this post. If you did read that thread and felt that you wanted to get involved with BXB and contribute in a positive way then I've just started advertising two new positions on the team.

The first is a standard Reviewer position that I need to fill after someone left from the Editorial Team. Details below:

"We currently have a vacancy in our Editorial Team for a Reviewer.

An ideal applicant for the reviewing team would be an active gamer, who regularly buys games and would be happy to review them and take an active interest in the BXB community.

Successful applicants will receive copies of games to review, get free entry to our LAN events, be allowed to enter all competitions and the chance to visit both National and International gaming events like E3.

BXB is one of the top sites in the UK's Xbox Community Network and has appeared on numerous gaming sites, in several top magazines and on television.

Writing for BXB would also look excellent on a CV and successful applicants will receive training on how to use our back end systems plus constructive feedback on how to improve their writing style.

If you're interested in writing for BXB then please e-mail your details and a work sample (A review you've written will be fine) to mike@britxbox.co.uk

The closing date for applications is the 11th of June."

The second vacancy is something a little different. Have a read:

"BXB has created a new and unique position within our website and we're looking for someone to take on the role as "Clan BXB Manager" from our clan community. Clans have always been a strong feature of BXB and I feel that's waned a little in recent months and want to try and re-energise the clan section on the site.

What I'm looking for is someone who's willing to drive a new initiative around a new website wide clan which would be open to all BXB's users. The new Clan BXB would not only be a chance for people to play in games with their forum friends but to also help promote BXB out in the wider Xbox community.

An ideal candidate would have an obsessive desire to play online games; have experience in running a successful clan or have been involved in a clan in the past; have good management skills and basic writing skills.

I'll be putting a job description together in the near future over what I'd like to see from the new Clan BXB but if you're interested then please drop an e-mail to mike@britxbox.co.uk with your details, clan history and, if possible, ideas for how to organise the clan.

Date for applications closes on June 18th."

The most exciting thing about this position is that whoever gets the job will have almost free reign on which direction they take the concept. I've been sitting and brain storming a few things that I'd like this role to achieve but I'm open to all ideas.

It's an opportunity for someone to get involved with our community; to interact with our users; play lots of games; and win lots of games. A driven, passionate online gamer with a talent for organising would be ideal and I'm very interested in see what reaction the position will get.

Everyone Wins!

It's funny how things turn out really. Xbox UK approached BXB about two weeks ago with an offer of rewarding us with 1000 Microsoft points for every Xbox Live Subscription we sold through an affiliation with Play.com.

We initially turned the offer down because Microsoft points don't pay for hosting costs, however, Ashley decided that we could use the points to reward our staff for working on the site. We accepted and the ball began rolling a bit like Mouse Trap.

Obviously, our requests for the deal to be changed from points to pounds sterling have been heard by the chaps up at Xbox UK and they came back to us with an offer of rewarding us at a higher comission than Play.coms own affiliate scheme.

At the end of the day, this is a better deal for everyone. 1000 Microsoft points costs £8.50 to buy from Xbox Live and giving away £2 is going to save Microsoft £6.50 on every reward given. Plus, it helps us raise more money to pay for hosting costs.

Keep your eyes on the front page for your chance to win an Xbox House Party thanks to this new deal and if you're lucky, myself and Ash might come along and inject some of our LAN goodness into the day! (Plus, we're kinda wondering what the promised "Xbox Ladies" are.)

Blaggers Part 2

You may remember I recently vented my frustration about people in the gaming industry who are here just to blag stuff in my blog entry called Blaggers

Well, it seems that Msxboxworld's Ade shares my feelings and has recently posted his own anti-blagger commentary on his blog. It's pretty indepth and tells the story of one well know blagger that operates within the Xbox Community.

It's well worth a read and is an interesting portrayal of a problem with affects the gaming industry all the time plus it shows just how useful Gamercards are!

Hit the link below and witness the sort of behavoir that drains resources away from places that deserve them!

A Blagger or Not?

Venting Now!

The 22nd of July 2005. It's almost been a year since all this nonsense within the XCN kicked off and after months and months of trying nothing has been resolved. It's absurd that I can't even talk openly about it all on my own blog because I'm afraid of getting personal abuse and threats of legal action again.

Ok, so the threats have never been followed through and that's no surprise but regardless, the trouble I had last year was very distressing and to this day it still distresses me. Is it so bad that I was just trying to do what I thought was right?

Ashley's wise words to me at the time were: "Ignore it, he's just a cock. Whenever I run into people like that with my business I just ignore them and they go away." It's good solid advice, advice that I took and in a sense the direct problems for me have stopped.

But the XCN is divided. The lines are drawn; the soldiers and politicians are making their moves and I'm sitting here thinking: "How the fuck did it come to this?"

I've always wanted unity within the XCN because we're all not going to achieve what we want on our own. Sure a couple of us have had a good go at it, but we'll all plateau out eventually and progress no further.

I want to see the XCN working together, but while there are people within it who I believe have other motives for being there then I'm not prepared to put BXB's full support behind it. I cannot see a way forward for the XCN if the people that perpetrated the lies and abuse of myself; BXB and many other people and websites are included.

Retro-Fantastic!

No rest for the wicked! With a few updates on the Partnernet today I've been busy enjoying some retro gaming on Namco's classic titles Galaga and Pac-Man. You can find mini-reviews of both titles on BXB right now.

I found Galaga a little tedious really and I hoped that Namco Bandai would have jazzed up the graphics because they're presenting the game in HD but sadly they didn't and it's basically what was released in the arcades originally. Still, if you love retro titles then it's well worth the purchase.

On the other hand, Pac-Man still oozes retro appeal and hasn't aged a day and is still a lot of fun today! Again, I was a bit disappointed that they didn't improve the overall look of the game.

I'll also be reviewng these titles in the next issue of Retrofusion magazine along with Cloning Clyde!

To be honest, I'm still waiting for Street Fighter. It seems that Gamespot have got access to a cut down version of the game thanks to the partnernet but I haven't. A little confusing and frustrating but who am I to question mighty Microsoft? Erm...

Version 2.0

I've been feeling this little soapbox rant growing inside me for quite a while and now I think I can finally put pen to paper in a digital style and vent my frustrations about this topic. What is the topic? Well. Xbox.

I'm sure I've recounted this story before but I'll tell the story of how I got my Xbox again. It all started when Ash once mentioned that Microsoft were doing a games console, he told me about it and I was pretty impressed. I'd been turned off console gaming thanks to Sony's dominance of the industry and the lack of anything new and interesting.

I've always been a console gamer but had a long foray into PC gaming because of the lack of interesting console games. When I heard that Microsoft was getting into the console market I was intrigued. So, I saved up, pre-ordered my Xbox and waited.

The turning point where I knew I'd decided to get involved with something special was when I saw a video of Halo on an old VHS and was mesmerised by the gameplay. Sticking grenades onto grunts, seeing Elites dodge your gun fire and the sheer beauty of the graphics had me hooked.

The day the Xbox arrived I was actually redecorating my bedroom and it spent most of the day in its box until I took it round to Ashley's house, set it up in his front room (along side his) and played it on an old TV. I played Halo for ages, then got into a little Bloodwake (which was a great concept but poorly executed) and then some Halo multiplayer. It felt like a revolution in my life.

Jumping to now, I've just finished reading Dean Takahashi Opening the Xbox, it's a great read, and tells the story of those men that created the original Xbox and their struggle to get the console accepted by Microsoft and the struggle to launch it. It's a tale of biblical proportions.

So, in my own small way, I shared their vision and their experience with the Xbox and it makes me feel proud that I've been behind Microsoft every step of the way with their massive gamble. It saddened me to learn that many of the original people that created the Xbox are no longer involved with it and I've realised that I'm no longer involved with it.

Microsoft has cut support for the Xbox off. That's it. Done. Dusted. The console that redefined the gaming industry has been reduced down to getting a bunch of PS2 ports like Urban Chaos and The DaVinci Code. The console which brought us amazing experiences in the form of Xbox Live and incredible franchises like Halo, Splinter Cell, Rainbow Six and many more great games like Full Spectrum Warrior, The Chronicles of Riddick, Beyond Good and Evil, Fable, Knights of the Old Republic and literally hundreds more is gone.

I pitched a bunch of ideas to a print magazine a few months ago and one was: "The Xbox Is Dead." They replied that they weren't interested because there are still plenty of games coming out for the Xbox and sighted Black as a prime example. Well, it's pretty obvious that he was wrong because the Xbox is dead.

Microsoft have killed off their console like they killed off Windows 95 with Windows 98 and as Activision's CEO Bobby Kotick once said: "Microsoft is a version 2.0 company."

And my god isn't that a shame. They clearly don't care about backward compatibility and didn't even think it would be an issue before they launched the Xbox 360 because they're running the console business like the Windows software business.

It's wrong that the Xbox was cut down in its prime. When games as gorgeous as Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and Jade Empire we're showing just what the Xbox can truly achieve. Now it's been demoted to a handy second platform for Publishers to make the numbers add up on games sales.

So, I for one, salute the glory of the Xbox and still display my green Xbox below my TV in it's rightful place. Long live the Xbox.