NViRT

For some time I’ve been needing another 360 for another entertainment center and I’ve had a voucher for a new unit just sitting in my lap. The thing is, I couldn’t take advantage of the damn thing until Monday because since Christmas it’s been impossible to find 360 Pro units in stock anywhere. Anyway, the local “Sell Shit Now” chain had 360 Pro falcons in stock yesterday so of course I mobilized my ass and got one. My verdict? Frickin’ sweet. Not only does this thing run cooler, it’s a bit quieter too. While still not as quiet as the PS3, the 360 falcon is still noticeably quieter then previous 360 units, especially in idle mode. The previous models made this loud “RRRRRRR” noise that was especially annoying when trying to play a movie on the 360. The Falcon still makes noise in idle mode but now its a much more tolerable “FWWOOOOOOO”. The DVD drive seems to be of noticeably higher quality as well. So if you’ve been undecided, now is the time to buy your first or second Xbox 360.
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A while ago I wrote about the XFPS 360 units that allow you to connect a keyboard and mouse to your Xbox 360. These boxes man-in-the-middle attack a wired 360 controller’s protocol to bypass the 360’s peripheral security. Once connected to the 360, the XFPS unit allows you to plug in ps/2 (protocol) keyboards and mice, usb keyboards and mice, or PS2 (gaming system) DualShock controllers. Sounds great huh? Well, it’s not. It’s horrible. Accomplishing anything greater than minor aiming tricks sits near “why bother” even with the sniper model of the XFPS.

If you remember my original review of the XFPS, I talk about how the unit translates input from a keyboard and mouse and literally pukes the translated input at the Xbox 360. So, in exorcist green projectile vomit fashion, you’ll be frolicking around Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4 worse off than you were with those barbaric analog sticks that made you purchase the XFPS in the first place.
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…Unless you’re somehow blessed with divine righteousness and the very fingers of Jesus himself. I like to think of myself as a reasonable man…a somewhat OCD reasonable man, but a reasonable man nonetheless. However, there a few things in this world that make we want to don a green fedora, sling an iron musket over my shoulder and slink off into the woods to loudly murder Bambi-esque forest dwellers until my bloody thirst for retribution is quenched.

My failed attempt to properly install a screen protector on my brand-new ceramic white PSP falls neatly into this category. Here’s the skinny: I purchase the Darth Vader-edition PSP and return it to Best Buy three times before I manage to come into possession of a model without any dead or stuck pixels. Overjoyed that I had finally managed to cheat the Fates, I promptly did a bunch of research on PSP screen protectors so I could protect my Precious.
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Despite my fierce love for most things Metroid, I was extremely disappointed with Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. Gathering all those keys made the whole game feel like a giant fetch-quest, and I hate fetch-quests. I also hated being in Dark Aether. I mean, I didn’t expect the Ing to dwell amongst cupcakes and rainbows, but spending half the game in a truly ugly dimension became a spiritually draining chore. And, most importantly, the game did little to actually improve on the basic Metroid formula. It was a fine game, but considering my expectations of Retro Studios, it was ultimately underwhelming. Hence my nervousness at the prospect of playing Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.
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These are the original instructions from the cable I built back in November. This “howto” was originally posted on my personal blog so if you think you’ve seen this before then your probably right.

Using a bud’s component cable I duplicated the pins with a regular AV cable from Nintendo. My cable is switchable so that it is both component and composite at the flip of a little switch.

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