Posts by Alex:
Exclusive Concept Art for Jurassic Park
June 14th, 2011
We’ve been given an exclusive piece of concept art for Jurassic Park from Telltale Games. The picture depicts the scene that Telltale showed off at E3 where Nedry’s body is discovered in the search for the missing Barbasol can. Please remember that this is only concept art, so it is much more graphic that what appears in the game.
What do you think of it? I have faith in Telltale and am very excited for the game. Will you be picking up Jurassic Park?
Head past the break for the full size image.
E66: Targeted Xbox Patch Packs Pitfalls [Update]
May 29th, 2011
[UPDATE] I was contacted by Stephen Toulouse (@stepto), Xbox Live Director of Policy and Enforcement, who said “@alexrubens you were given incorrect information. I’m looking into it now. We do not disable consoles. Just ban them from Live.”. Interesting. I will update as more information comes in.
[UPDATE 2] Stephen has commented below clarifying that ” We do not disable consoles. We only ban them from LIVE. I suspect the support people were reading from some outdated or incorrect documentation.” “But to be clear, we DO NOT disable consoles. Whatever information the support people had was totally incorrect and I will take care of that separately.”. He has offered to look into my case, hopefully this can be resolved.
[Update 3] Below is a video of Alex trying to update his console and subsequently being hit with the E66 error (ed. note: Third and fourth updates written by Eric Smith):
[Update 4] Several people that have unmodded consoles have contacted SideQuesting reporting the same problem as Alex. Also, an Xbox 360 owner that has admitted to modding his console claims that he has not been banned. More details forthcoming.
[UPDATE 5] According to users in this thread on GameTrailers.com, the picture is photoshopped and the “Xbox 360, Comp, 480i” box in the corner of the screen means that my console is modified. This is due to the TV trying to find the input when the console went into error mode. There are even more posts on this topic on Xbox.com with other users having the same issue. When they attempt to contact Xbox Support, they are treated with the same attitude. Users with consoles that have been modified are reportedly not having issues according to @LOKIOLR on twitter, ” You want to hear the ironic part. I have a modded console that updated just fine with the last live update. Not banned either.” followed by “oh, and their added security has already been defeated. All in all, quite a successful update Microsoft.”.
[UPDATE 6] I went to Microsoft today and handed my Xbox over to Stephen Toulouse so that he can investigate the problem.
[UPDATE 7] According to the comments and message boards that I have been looking around on, the speculation is that the firmware is not compatible with Samsung DVD drives. No official word on this though.
[UPDATE 8] I just got off the phone with someone at MS who is investigating my console. The console was tampered with and they are looking into how. Before you say, “A HA! I knew he tampered with it!”. The things that he described, I have nowhere near the capabilities to do. He said that while there are people who do that intentionally, some people get caught up in it unintentionally. Besides the case intrusions, there was signs of the ODD (Optical Disk Drive) being moved and installed with a custom firmware. I’m not saying that this is the case. This is a scenario that happens though, as in, someone mods their Xbox, returns it, and it gets put back out on the shelf. This is always a possibility.
NOTE: Before I continue to just update this post with new facts, please think about this, before you say “Oh, he is modded and is just mad that he got caught.” Think about it, modded consoles are not affected and they have already found a work around for the update system.
On Friday I received my copy of Dirt 3 for Xbox 360 in the mail. When I turned on my Xbox to put the aforementioned game in, a prompt came up, “An update is available from Xbox Live. Please install to connect to Xbox Live.” Thinking that this was normal, I did as it instructed and right near the end of the update, the screen cut out. When it came back I received a system crash error message stating “Error Code: E66 Contact Xbox Support for more information.” I found this vague error message to be very odd. I retried the update process a few more times with the same outcome. I eventually decided that I should do as the message asks and call the Xbox Support line. This is where the madness began.
GAME BYTES: Outland
May 28th, 2011
In this edition of Game Bytes, I take a look at Outland. Outland is published by Ubisoft and Developed by Housemarque. While I played this on Xbox 360, it should be live in PSN as soon as the store goes back online. Outland reminds me of Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands with the frantic switching of colors in mid-air.
Modern Warfare 3 – Gameplay Trailer is out
May 23rd, 2011
A gameplay trailer for Modern Warfare 3 was just released. This shows battles taking place throughout the world in rural and city areas. At the end of the trailer, WW3 is shown before changing to MW3. This confirms that the story of Modern Warfare 3 will put players in the middle of a world wide battle. I am personally excited and the Call of Duty series often has some of my favorite trailers. Read the rest of this entry “
Underdeveloped Characters 24hr. Charity Gaming Marathon
April 29th, 2011
[SideQuesting's Alex Rubens and our friends at Underdeveloped Characters are hosting a special gaming marathon. We want to help, and we hope you do too. Read on for more information on this great event that benefits the Children's Miracle Network and the Red Cross, and please share the links with as many people as possible that might be interested.]
Here’s the deal. We all love video games, that’s something that we have in common. Something else that we have in common is that we realize that children in hospitals and people in Japan are in dire need of help. We at Underdeveloped Characters have decided that we want to be a part of the solution, so starting on Friday April 29th at 6PM, we will be hosting a 24hr. charity gaming marathon. We won’t stop playing until 6PM on Saturday April 30th. As of right now, both Alex and Jay will be live streaming their gameplay as well as a combine commentary throughout the duration of the event. We want to help support two different causes: the Children’s Miracle Network and the Red Cross in it’s aid for Japan. We want to give you the option of who you donate to so it is up to you to tell us.
Game Bytes: The Burger King Games
April 9th, 2011
This is the second in a series of videos titled “Game Bytes”. In this series, I will play through a section of a game and have my running commentary going throughout the video. Basically, I’m doing this so that you know whether a game is worth your time or not, hey, you might even find that a game is really cool!
The second game that I am doing for Game Bytes are the Burger King games, which are Big Bumpin’, Pocket Bike Racer, and Sneak King, for the Xbox 360. YouTube has a 15 minute limit so the videos are split up into two different parts. The Audio is fixed in this episode! YAY!
Videos are after the break.
Game Bytes: Warriors: Legends of Troy
April 8th, 2011
This is the first in a series of videos titled “Game Bytes”. In this series, I will play through a section of a game and have my running commentary going throughout the video. Basically, I’m doing this so that you know whether a game is worth your time or not, hey, you might even find that a game is really cool!
The first game that I am doing for Game Bytes is Warriors: Legends of Troy by Tecmo Koei for the Playstation 3. YouTube has a 15 minute limit so the videos are split up into two different parts. Please note that the my audio is significantly quieter than the game’s audio, this will be change in future episodes and was due to an error in rendering.
Videos are after the break.
Underdeveloped Characters: Episode 5 – Judge Judy Edition!
April 7th, 2011
Editor’s Note: Underdeveloped Characters is a podcast co-helmed by our very own Alex Rubens. While not necessarily a SideQuesting project, we still want to help promote the little guy’s show. Hey, it’ll give you more to listen to, so it can’t be THAT bad, can it?
In this week’s episode, we are joined by Anthony Gallegos of Rebel FM, IGN, and The Gamespy Debriefings. Join us as we discuss WWE All-Stars, Crysis 2, Need For Speed: Shift Unleashed 2, Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars, The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile, and Islands of Wakfu! Alex finds out that Judge Judy is not a real judge, his mind is blown.
