Super Puzzle Fighter hits the Xbox Live Arcade on the 29th

According to these sites anyway. Shame coz I thought it was sensible world of soccer on the 29th.

http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/815/815378p1.html
http://uk.gamespot.com/xbox360/puzz...emix/index.html
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/48574

Sensible World Of Soccer - Official Xbox 360 Release Date

It's been confirmed today by Codemasters at the press event. Thanks to my buddy Studiosonic who attended the event.

August 29th 2007

Still a way to go but at least we have a date!!

More info including screens, reviews and videos to come.

Sensible World Of Soccer - New Hands-On Review

Eurogamer have done a hands-on preview plus an interview with Jon Hare. Makes for interesting reading. Looks like we're still on for a late July release:

Check out the full details here

A New Look for Xbox.com

The Xbox.com website is has undergone some changes which will be going Live on Tuesday.

According to Major Nelson new features include:

- A new look for all of the content pages.

- Redesigned navigation

- One click access to the My Xbox section (see the examples on Flickr)
- New search function using LIVE search
- A bunch of other little things to make it easier to use

More Details

Sensible World Of Soccer Release Imminent??

This has been reported on the 360 gamer website:

Germany's USK board rates footie game Germany’s USK board has rated Sensible World of Soccer, meaning Codemasters’ much anticipated footie game should be with us in the next few weeks.

According to the latest age rating released by the Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle board, SWOS has been cleared for all ages – and as we’ve said many times before, usually once a game (especially those of a downloadable variety) has passed USK certification, it’s released shortly after.

Much like several of you guys, we’ve been looking forward to this one since it was announced last year, and it’s good to know the long wait is slowly drawing to a close. We certainly hope it lives up to its promise

Rock Band on Xbox 360 - Photos and Info

Some photos of the guitar for the forthcoming Rock Band game have surfaced.

You'll be able to buy the guitar, a drum set and a microphone (all separately). Also we're told the guitar from Guitar Hero 2 on the 360 will work.

The game's still a little way off yet but these shots give us something. I really like the sound of this game - if you can jam online over xbox live it'll be amazing!

"A ton of new details on Harmonix's Rock Band have swaggered onto the internet, revealing the likes of four-player online play on both PS3 and Xbox 360 and that the game's drums are insane. Apparently."

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=165999

Fire at Sheffield's Gatecrasher Nightclub

Just heard this on the radio - Gatecrasher nightclub in Sheffield has been on Fire.

Was a great place - went there a few times. Hope it was an accident.

More Info Here

This week on Xbox Live Arcade - Band Of Bugs

It's been on it's way for ages and here it is. Looks good.

http://www.ninjabee.com/bob/index.html

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/livearcadexbox360/?WT.svl=nav

http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2007/06/18/this-week-on-arcade-band-of-bugs.aspx

Sensible World Of Soccer Xbox - Hands On Preview

IGN.com did an article a couple of weeks ago about Sensible World of Soccer on the Xbox 360 Arcade. It was written after a hands-on play of the new game. Makes for really interesting reading.

All I can say is July can't come quick enough!
Full article here

Halo 3 Merchandise

Check out these photos of some of the cool Halo 3 merchandise - specifially geared up for 360 gamers. Oh, and the spartan figure too which looks pretty cool.

I wouldnt mind one of the spartan controllers and the master chief model.

More info on xbox.com

New Gears of War Update

The new Gears of War update is being released today. Also included are 250 points worth of new achievements as well.

Quoted from Major Nelson:

"It has just been announced that Gears of War will be getting a title update tomorrow, June 14th after 0200 GMT. Inside the Title Update, you’ll find eight new Achievements for the "Annex" gametype and the "Hidden Fronts" Multiplayer Map Pack on Xbox LIVE.

In addition to adding new Achievements, worth a total of 250 points, Epic has improved the Roadie Run controls so players have greater control of their movement. The title update will also help squash multiplayer exploits and provide general housekeeping.

The "Annex" gametype is now available for free and the "Hidden Fronts" Multiplayer Map Pack is available on Xbox LIVE Marketplace for 800 Microsoft Points. All four multiplayer maps will be available for free after Sept. 3, 2007."


I'm still addicted to Forza so I wont be playing Gears for a few weeks yet. Good to see they're adding new features to it though.

The dashboard figure from the new Seat Rituals TV ad

I've been looking for one of these since I first saw the ad a couple of weeks ago:

And thanks to a couple of forums posts I was sent HERE where they sell them. Cool.

Xbox Live vs Playstation Network

I found an interesting article on the next-gen.biz website about the Xbox Live service and how it compares to the Playstation Network. It's an interview with the group product manager for xbox and xbox live. He talks about the differences between Xbox Live and the Sony online service.

I personally think that Xbox Live will take some beating for any service to be as good as it is. The price we pay for Xbox Live (around £40 in the UK) I reckon is excellent value for money for what you get. I know the Sony online service is free but as the chap in the interview says this isnt an issue.

Check out the interview here.

Speedball 2 Coming To Xbox Live Arcade in August

This is great news (especially for old school Amiga gamers!). Speedball 2 is coming to the live arcade in August. Quoted from c&vg website: "The XBLA version is said to be a perfect conversion of the original Bitmap Brothers classic, with the addition of new teams, download content and an obligatory high definition version."

Ice Cream anybody?? (only the old schoolers will understand this).

Screenshots:






more info here

Sensible World Of Soccer 360 - Official Achievements List

Here we go then - hot off the press from the swos forum on the codemasters site the official achievements list for Sensible World Of Soccer on the Xbox 360 Arcade.

Some of the achievements look a bit easy I have to say. I guess they're not really aimed at the old school sensible world of soccer fans from the Amiga days.

Hoping for a late-June release for this and I can't wait.



Thanks to Rubber Genius for updating us on the achievements.

(click on image below for full size picture)

Prince Of Persia coming this week to the Xbox 360 Live Arcade

That's right. I was a big fan of Price Of Persia on the Commodore Amiga years ago. Good to see it's been updated and released again on the 360. Looking forward to this one.


More info and video here: http://www.n4g.com/xbox360/News-44560.aspx

Xbox Live Arcade Montage

Came across this link via the oxm forums thought you might find it interesting. It's basically a 3 minutes or so long video with clips of various xbox 360 Arcade titles - some already out (Rush n Attack) and some upcoming.

I especially like the look of track and field!

Link to the video: http://www.insidegamer.nl/hardware/xbox360/videos/2410

A couple more of my Forza 2 custom car designs

Check these out. The General Lee took me over an hour to do.

Forza Motorsport 2

All I can say is that it's brilliant. If you're not into driving games this might make you get into them. There's so much to do - not just racing! You can buy and sell cars via an ebay type auction site within the game (and view online) and you can also create custom designs and graphics on your cars. After you've done a design you upload it to the forzamotorsport.net website where you can show it off and download it to your computer.

Below are some of my designs. To see them all go to my Flickr page.

Sensible World Of Soccer on the 360 - some more screenshots

Found a couple more SWOS 360 screenshots on the net. I really am looking forward to this game.

Only one day to go until Forza Motorsport 2

Cant wait for this. I've been checking the forzamotorsport.net website and this really does look like an excellent game. Not just the driving part but you can also create custom paint jobs and sell your cars online in auctions.

Well worth a look!

This week on the Xbox Live Arcade....

is a game we already have.

Wel almost - it's Pac Man Championship Edition. It's annoyed a lot of people including those who've commented on Major Nelsons Blog about the new release. I can't say I blame them - there's already the original pac man game on the Live Arcade and now they release another version of the game with basically enhanced hd graphics and some new mazes.

I can understand people getting angry with Microsoft about this - they'll be releasing a new version of Root Beer Tapper next.

Pac Man Championship Edition on Xbox.com

Sensible World Of Soccer dissappointment...

Found out today on the Codemasters SWOS forum that the date and location of the community day has been changed.

Whilst the date wouldn't have been a prob the location is. It's now going to be in London which from where I live in the Midlands isn't a cheap day out - £100 or there abouts return on the train which is a bit too much even for Sensible World Of Soccer.

Never mind - it'll be out soon on the 360 arcade anyways.

Xbox Live Most Popular Titles

Major Nelson has published in his blog the latest top 10 most popular xbox live games.

Gears of War is still top of the 360 titles list (I'm sure it'll be there for a while yet) with Forza Motorsport at number 7. I reckon that'll go up near the top come friday when it's released here in the UK.

Halo 2 still remains the top Xbox 1 title (that'll be there forever) with Rush n Attack at the top of the 360 arcade chart (you wait till Sensible World Of Soccer arrives in August!)

Catch the full charts here

Shadowrun

Picked up Shadowrun today. I like first person shooters so this looked like the game for me.

How wrong could I be!

It's basically the same as perfect dark zero except with different weapons and skills. It's not in the same league as gears of war, ghost recon or any of the other 360 shooter games and never will be.

My advice is to avoid this game - if you are unsure then rent it first - I sure wish I did!

I played a few matches against bots to get the hang of things but when I went to play a Live game it took about 4 attempts to find a game to join.

If you have Shadowrun and want to chat to others about it check out these forum links:

Official Xbox Magazine forum

360Voice.com forum

PlanetXbox360 forum

Sensible World Of Soccer on the Xbox 360 Arcade

Received confirmation today that I'll be going to the SWOS community day in July to get a full day hands on preview of Sensible World of Soccer on the Xbox 360 Arcade.

Cant say when/where it is as it's top secret but I'll report on the day afterwards.

Guitar Hero 3

IGN has a preview of Guitar Hero 3 - they mention some new gameplay modes such as Battle Mode which sees you battle against boss characters. The guitar will also be wireless.

They don't mention much about the online play just that it will be present. Good stuff!

Full Article on IGN

American Dad

My American Dad Season 1 DVD's arrived today from Amazon. Absolutely brilliant. Watched the Pilot episode tonight and it was excellent. I've only seen random episodes before.

American Dad link on Wikipedia

Another weird gadget...

Some Hong Kong based company is selling these pill shaped usb flash drives. What will they think of next??

16 ways to drive traffic to your blog

Was doing some research during my lunch hour today on increasing traffic to your blog and came across this site which featured an article about driving traffic to your blog.

It's worth a read. Some of the points are obvious but others to me were well worth knowing.

Microsoft unveil 'Surface'

Microsoft have been working on this top secret gadget for a number of years now and finally unveiled Microsoft Surface yesterday.

It's looks like a coffee table styled computer that uses the table top to display a high-resolution desktop image. The technical term for this sort of stuff is 'surface computing'.

Whilst it looks really clever I'm not sure if it'll catch on long-term. Who knows.


Some more info and impressive videos HERE

Official website HERE

Mad Tracks hits Xbox Live Arcade tomorrow (30th)

After a long wait Mad Tracks is at last coming to the Live Arcade tomorrow (30th May). Looks pretty good.

Some info here and here, and discussion on the official xbox magazine forum here.

Some screenshots:

badboyhouse.co.uk downtime

Unfortunately the web forwarding service at my host 123-reg has been down for most of the day which has resulted in www.badboyhouse.co.uk getting a page cannot be displayed error.

www.badboyhouse.blogspot.com (where my domain forwards to) remains unaffected.

Sorry for any inconvenience if you tried to view the site whilst it was down.

If anyone's got any ideas as an alternative to web forwarding let me know. I'm all ears.

At the minute I dont pay for hosting with 123-reg - I just have the domain registered with them and web forwarding enable to point to my blog.

Colin McRae Dirt and Dead Rising

Whilst the graphics in Dirt are some of the best I've seen on the 360 it doesnt work at all well with the Microsoft wireless steering wheel - which is a real shame. With a regular 360 controller it's fine. They might issue a patch to make it better but it's not for me at the minute.

Roll on Forza 2!

I also picked up Dead Rising at the weekend. Excellent game and very very gory/gruesome. If you like the chainsaw kills in Gears Of War you'll love Dead Rising. It's a tough game especially with the way that you save your progress but well worth picking up.

Dead Rising and 100 hits

Picked up Dead Rising today. I checked out some reviews and some videos on youtube - especially this one with the lawnmower and it looked pretty good.

Gonna play it after doing the blog.

Also the hitcounter is showing 100 unique hits today.

Thanks to all that have stopped by to look at www.badboyhouse.co.uk it's much appreciated.

I've also added my Twitter rss feed which should show all the recent entries.

Cheers for now!

badboyhouse.co.uk is now collecting traffic stats

After a bit of research and messing about with some code I've managed to get badboyhouse.co.uk set-up with statcounter.com to start collecting traffic info for the site.

I've had 80 unique visits to the site so far since the site went live on Wednesday (thanks to all that have stopped by!) so having the additional stat counting will help show where visitors are coming from.

The Karate Kid

Came across this site last night. As a fan of the Karate Kid movies this was a great find.

To this day I still watch the Karate Kid movies whenever they're on TV even though I can pretty much remember each scene and the script.

In my opinion only the first 3 KK movies are worth talking about (with Mr Miyagi and Daniel Larusso). I didnt like the other one (or was there two) at all.

Colin McRae Dirt Screenshots

Some screenshots from Colin McRae Dirt on the Xbox 360

thanks to forum.oxm.co.uk for these.

Promoting the blog

Received some pointers on increasing traffic to my blog (thanks to the folks at www.bloggerforum.com).

These are the sites to visit:


www.spicypage.com
www.mybloglog.com
www.alexa.com

Give your Xbox 360 it's own blog!

Came across www.360voice.com today.

Apparently their site communicates with your Xbox 360 whilst you're using the console which in turn creates a blog/feed based on your gaming activities.

I signed up so I'll see if it's any good. Might be able to put the feed on my main blog.

There's also a forum which seems quite busy.

Leicester Races

Went to Leicester Racecourse last night for a corporate race evening. I spent my entire lunch hour checking out the form and tips on the Racing Post website.

First 5 races our horse either came second or third each time.

Last race of the evening...our horse last all the way until the finishing straight. Made a last minute attempt and won it!! Penang Cinta netted me about £30 which basically paid for the whole night's betting.

Xbox Live Buddies...

Thanks for visiting. What do you think of the site?

By the way for £2.59 a year you can have your own domain name. I registered badboyhouse.co.uk with 123-reg (see banner at bottom of page) who were the cheapest I could find.

Sensible World Of Soccer on the Xbox 360....more news

SWOS fans and forum regulars are getting the opportunity to try out sensible world of soccer on the xbox 360 before it's release date. Codemasters are hosting a community day although places are limited and I guess will be given out 'lucky-dip' style.

I signed up the minute I saw the message on the forum. Fingers crossed!!

Top Of The Leaderboard!!!!

For about 2 minutes tonight I was top of one of the leaderboards in Project Gotham Racing 3. It was in offline career mode - cant remember which trophy race it was.

Anyway by the time I realised I should have taken a snapshot of my success I'd slipped down to something like 270th if not lower.

Never mind. I'll be quicker next time and get a photo.

badboyhouse.co.uk is finally mine!

I originally registered badboyhouse.co.uk for free via the OfficeLive program. The actual host of the domain was MelbourneIT.

Well as it turned out you get what you pay for. Whilst the domain was free you were tied in with the OfficeLive program for at least 60 days. This meant having a rubbish template based website all tied in with Microsoft.

To cut a long story short I managed to cancel the whole badboyhouse.co.uk domain registration via Microsoft and MelbourneIT (the domain host). I contact Nominet in the UK and just got the domain cancelled (rather than transferred). I just then had to keep a close eye on the nominet site so that I could re-register the domain and own it all myself. 123-reg took care of this for me.

A lot of hassle just to save the 2.50 yearly domain registration fee!