• Go to xbox.com and sign in
• Go to support and click on the repair agent box (right side of the screen)
• Click on register a new device and enter your Xbox 360s serial number (found next to the USB ports, under the white falp on the front right of the console)
• Now click on your newly registered device (under manage devices) and click request a new repair
• Follow all the on screen instructions to “order” a repair from Microsoft
• Ignore the bit about being sent a shipping box as you will never be sent one (in the UK anyway). I confirmed with Xbox customer support that Microsoft doesn’t send out shipping boxes. You will only recieve an email containing the UPS pre-paid shipping labels



• Now check your email address (the one attached to the Xbox Live account)
• You should see an email called UPS delivery label. Click on the “retrieve UPS returns label” link and print it
• Also click on the “get the receipt” link and print it too (more about this later)
• Now find a box and pack your Xbox 360 inside it. Obviously use packing materials to protect your Xbox 360 during transit
• Attach the UPS delivery label printed earlier to the top of the box and make sure its either in a plastic pouch or covered to prevent damage. UPS need to scan it after all
• You can either request UPS to pick up your package, or you can go to a UPS drop off location
• Important: If you go to a UPS drop off location don’t forget to take the receipt that you printed out earlier. The UPS person will stamp this as proof that your Xbox 360 has been received by UPS
• Wait 2 weeks for the console to be repaired and sent back

Our repaired Xbox 360 came with a 1 month’s free Xbox Live gold membership and a letter identifying what the fault was and what they had done about it.

I hope that Microsoft has corrected the inaccurate and misleading information relating to sending you a shipping box. It caused a 2 week delay in getting our Xbox 360 fixed as I was waiting for a pesky box that was never going to arrive.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Popularity: 8% [?]

Did anyone actually test this prior to release? Truly shocking UI design.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Whilst waiting for the official release of Condemned 2 on the 4th of April 08, you can practice your forensic skills on the PS3 demo that’s available on the US PSN store. The demo weighs in at 714mb and unless you live in North America you’ll need to create a US PSN account (tip: use google to find an American address).

On with the Dexter like blood splatter analysis and the scary looking characters.

Condemned 2 is released on the 4th April 08 on PS3 and Xbox 360

Popularity: 12% [?]

Microsoft has now made the Halo 3 Heroic map pack available free of charge on Xbox Live Marketplace. Originally released in Dec 07 this triple map pack previously cost 800 Microsoft points.

The Heroic map pack consists of the following maps:

STANDOFF

FOUNDRY

RAT’S NEST

How to download the Heroic map pack:

• Sign into Xbox Live
• Go to Marketplace
• Select Game Store
• Find Halo 3
• Select the Heroic Map Pack
• Select confirm download

The next Halo 3 map pack (called Legendary) will be released on the 15th April 08 for 800 Microsoft points.

Popularity: 10% [?]

You may remember that last week I found out that Microsoft were still charging me for my Xbox Live Gold subscription, even though I cancelled the debit card they were using back in November, at the behest of my bank. I stopped by a branch the morning after writing my previous post and spoke to a “Personal Banker”. She told me that customers have been known to sign up for goods or services and then cancel their cards in order to avoid the charges. She then claimed that Barclays sometimes roll over the charges to the replacement card in order to prevent customer fraud of this sort. I asked if it was a certain type of charge that would be rolled over. This would explain why my web hosting companies had sent me invoicing emails when their charges to my old card were rejected. She said that that information was confidential to prevent people gaming the system.

Personal Banker then got rather shirty and started interrupting me with phrases like “Well, there’s no official policy” when I tried to repeat this back to her for confirmation, so I called the telephone banking team to verify her given reason. According to Barclays Debit Card Services, companies can set up charges based on the first 12 digits of your card number, ensuring that they still get their payments when you change cards. Debit Card Services Woman said that this is what Microsoft would have done, whereas my hosting companies would have been charging the entire 16-digit card number.

Make of that what you will.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Age Rating:

12 (BBFC)

What is it?

A Bioware RPG witha futuristic space-colony setting and third-person-cover combat

It is fun?

Hell, yes.

Is it worth the money?

(£39.99)

Yes, yes, yes. At £1 per hour, it’s very good value for money.

Why?

I love western-style RPGs. I love sci-fi settings. And I love taking cover during combat. I love Mass Effect. This game is almost made for me :)

There are flaws. I talked about Mass Effect’s dialogue issue back in December. The inventory interface is quite possibly the worst I’ve ever seen, as is the party selection menu. Still, I had so much fun playing the game itself that I don’t really care.

The Good:

• Purpose - You have actual goals throughout the game that aren’t simply “shoot everything in sight”. Sure, that’s generally the means to your end, but at least there’s a purpose behind it.
• Combat - The combat system is great. It’s like Gears of War but less frustrating. Gears feels like you’re wearing a huge chunk of magnetic armour and everything else is made of iron. Mass Effect gives you more control when running and it’s far easier to go around things.
• Breadth - You have a giant world to explore. This isn’t a sandbox game but you can spend hours just exploring the Citadel and pick up lots of side-quests
• A useful journal! Longtime readers will know, I’m a bit fanatic about RPG journals. This one does the job, though could have done with listing the target locations more prominently. Iinstead, you’re forced to open up every single item repeatedly, to find the nearby missions.
• Force powers Biotics - These mysterious powers are great fun. There’s a little something for everyone - healing, direct damage, disabling, shields, sharpshooting… I love it. None of them look quite as spectacular as KOTOR2’s Force Storm, but the combination of Lift and an assault-rifle-wielding teammate looks impressively violent.
• Advancement - I’m not sure if BioWare did a sneaky enemies-level-up-with-you but if they did, it was very subtle and much more satisfying than Oblivion. In Oblivion as you got more powerful, it never felt that way because even the lowliest grass-dwelling bandit mysteriously sprouted glass armour and would kick your sorry ass unless you specialised in combat. In Mass Effect, you can do the majority of the game in any order and it’s always challenging, but you still get the feeling of becoming more powerful.

The Bad:

• The interface and dialogue system. The interface will need a whole post to explain, so I’ll save that for another time. Just trust me, it’s rubbish.
• Uncharted worlds - These are fun to start with. The first time you get dropped on an uncharted world, it’s a breathtakingly beautiful scene. The next hundred and fifty seven times start to grate. Ultimately, the uncharted worlds all feel the same - drive around from way point to way point, drive in circles shooting something, fall off a mountain, find building, kill everyone, search back room (or for variety, upstairs back room), play unlocking mini-game, The End. But it’s the only way to get that level 50 achievement so, for some insane reason, I did them all. There’s no way I’m going for level 60 on another playthrough.
• Repetition - The endless combat in corridors for the main quest does get a little samey after a while.
• Achievements - If you collect gamerpoints compulsively, Mass Effect will swallow you for days. Assuming that you play as efficiently as possible, you’ll have to play the game all the way through twice and the middle four planets at least once more with different allies. Considering it took me around 40 hours to hit level 50 with almost all the sidequests, that’s something in the region of 80-100 hours to get all the gamerpoints. I’d advise you to rent Avatar: The Burning Earth instead, but you probably already did.
• Tower of Hanoi - Has BioWare ever made an RPG that didn’t feature the Tower of Hanoi? I’ve been solving this puzzle for at least 15 years now. I know it was in KOTOR and I’m sure I saw it in another BioWare game. Here’s a compromise; show us the puzzle and have a character ask what it is. If we answer Tower (or Towers) of Hanoi we get a free pass, okay?

In summary:

It’s a brilliant space-shooter RPG. Mass Effect would get my vote for Game of The Year 2007.

Mysteriously HUD-Free Screenshots

Popularity: 13% [?]

At approximately 22:15 this evening, our Xbox 360 froze whilst browsing the Xbox Marketplace. Upon reboot the dreaded red ring of death (RRod) appeared, with a message on the screen to contact Xbox Support. Great.

I suppose should be reasonably happy as our 360 has lasted since March 2006. Wow, that’s nearly 2 years. Hang on a minute, our 360 sits next to a working Gamecube and that’s 6 years old! Not forgetting my working PS2 (7 years old), PSOne (12 years old) and BBC Model B (22 years old).

Thoughts that crossed my mind when I saw the RRod:

• Arse, arse, arse.
• Wait, rebooting the console should sort out the problem, it is Microsoft after all.
• (After reboot) Arse.
• Eeek, what about my Xbox Live profile and my achievements/saved games?
• Phew, they are on the HDD, should be safe.
• But what if the HDD has died?
• Oh hell, Xbox Support. Weeks, maybe months without a 360, aggghhhh.
• Wait, my PS3 and Wii will do instead. Yay.

After further investigation using the Xbox-scene.com forums error code guide our secondary error code is 0102 which means:

Error in the “Digital Backbone” (CPU/GPU/RAM), this is usually caused by a cold solder joint between the GPU and the mainboard

Looks like I’ll have to get Microsoft to fix our console. Problem is that to date my experiences with Xbox Support have been awful. I’m still waiting for the saga of removing credit card details from my Xbox Live account to end.

Has anyone else had a 360 fail as it could involve up to 30% of consoles according to this RRoD article?

Update 21st Feb 08: 8.30am - Reports of our Xbox 360s death have been greatly exaggerated. Lazarus-like, it’s ALIVE! Woke up this morning, poked the power button and the 360 booted up fine. No RRoD, just the green ring of life. However, I’ve placed the 360 on death watch as I think it may fail again pretty soon. But for now, the 360’s back baby.

Update 21st Feb 08: 9am - Its died again. Sniff. I quickly downloaded some XNA creators club demos, turned off the 360 and then when I turned it back on the evil RRoD was back. Boo.

Update 26th Mar 08: It’s back from it’s trip to the Xbox repair centre and it’s ALIVE!!!! It took 2 weeks from sending it off to getting it back. Pretty speedy. The problem was the motherboard, as I suspected, so it has been replaced. Although the Xbox does sound different now, and emits a sound like a slightly asthmatic duck sleeping when you turn it off. Oh, and Microsoft included a free 1 months Xbox LIVE gold membership to sort of say sorry for the crappy 360 build quality.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Bioware have announced that the first Mass Effect content pack called “Bring Down The Sky” will be released on Xbox Live Marketplace at 7am on the 10th March 2008. It will cost 400 Microsoft points.

So what do you get for your points:

• ~90mins of game play
• 1 new achievement (worth 50 gamerpoints)
• 1 new uncharted world
• 1 new alien race - The Batarians
• Millions of innocent citizens to save

However, in order to access this new content (planet) Commander Shepherd must be in command of the Normandy spaceship. For this you will need a save game either a couple of hours from the start (or end) of the game. I know Weefz usually has about a bazillion different saves on every game she plays (if the game allows it), so she’ll be fine. I expect that future content packs will also have the same prerequisite; a (working) spaceship.

Look out for Weefz’s forthcoming review of Mass Effect.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Bizarre Creations The Club gets to see the light of day tomorrow, 8th Feb 08. Many of you will have already played the demo which has been kicking around on Xbox Live since early Jan 08.

Whilst the demo was fun whilst it lasted, I’m just not enough of a high score Nazi to want to buy it. I appreciate what Bizarre are trying to do and bring the whole style of killing as something else to try and perfect. Whilst this does add quite of bit of extra spice to running down a corridor and shooting people it does get a little dull after a while. When it comes down to it, I like to play and complete games, rather than to just obsess over high scores. Mostly.

Like all the Project Gotham Racing games, The Club will probably keep you happy for a while before you just can’t be arsed any more.

The Club will be released on 8th Feb 08 for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360

Popularity: 13% [?]