There have been a lot of Wii hacking developments this week. The Twilight Hack was released, which is the first exploit of it’s kind. It’s a classic gamesave exploit triggering a stack buffer overflow. This essentially allows us to hijack the system and run our own code. In it’s current state, the hack isn’t much more than a proof of concept and a promising sign of things to come. Since that release, two additional demos have seen the light of day. There is an unplayable pong game (no controls), and a more classic “hello world” app complete with demo-scene graphics:
This may not be anything to write home about just yet, but the cat is officially out of the bag. It’s only a matter of time before more usable homebrew hits, along with loaders, linux, and more. You can follow along at the WiiBrew Wiki, or I will keep you posted on the major developments here.
You may have noticed the site was a little strange lately. Some spamming hackers exploited a Wordpress vulnerability and injected some javascript (popups) into the site. I updated to the latest version of Wordpress (which I should have done sooner) so that hole is now plugged. In doing so I alse threw out the old design. I never liked it. For now, this will do… nice and simple. I want to design a simple logo, but I’m out of ideas. Drop a comment or email (justin a@t 360insider d.o.t net).
How are you, friends? It’s been a long time no see, I know. As of lately I’ve taken a somewhat extended hiatus from gaming. Many of you know I’m majoring in film, and it has redirected many of my interests to movies. And it’s no surprise gaming has accelerated those interests, with the Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on drive introducing me to High-Definition media, followed by the Playstation 3 with it’s Blu-ray drive. Between you and me, I’ll tell you it’s like a crack addiction. I just can’t get enough high-definition content.
I had been toying with the thought of starting a new website dedicated to HD, and with one sleepless night, it was so. I present to you: High-Def Junkie
If you read this website, chances are you too are a high-def junkie. Many of us went through the transition from standard def together. I bought my first HDTV in late 2005 in preparation for the Xbox 360 launch. Then after a YEAR of relentless nagging (by yours truly), our friend Tarun went HD. And now, it has completely spoiled me. It actually pains me to watch anything in standard-def.
So I extend an invitation for you to join me over at High-Def Junkie. Since gaming is very much a part of the high-def addiction along with movies, I’m planning to in someway tie these two sites together. I’ve already set up forums over at High-Def Junkie, with a section dedicated to gaming. Perhaps I will make them the official gamerawr forums? Any input is appreciated. See you there!
Am I the only one who was led to believe the Legendary Edition would be hard to get, and likely be sold out even before launch? Turns out, it was just a push to get more preorders. Who would have thought. Regardless, if you are looking back and wishing you got a shiny Master Chief helmet to call your own, Halo 3 Legendary Edition is Amazon’s Deal of the Day. It can be yours for $109.99 with free shipping. Get it here.
Do you remember back in 2005, there was a stink about PGR2 and Perfect Dark Zero not running at a full 720p? They are rendered at a lower resolution, and then upscaled to 720p (or whatever resolution you have your 360 set to). So here we are, almost a full 2 years later, and the consoles biggest game even suffers from the same affliction. The smart people at the Beyond3D Forums got out their digital cameras and started counting pixels, and this is what they found:
Now before you call shenanigans, let me explain how this works. This has been confirmed using multiple stills from different sources. Here is how the math goes: Each “step” in a jaggy alias line equals one vertical pixel at the images native resolution (for angles beneath 45 degrees). In this example there are 16 steps in the jagged line. This means in the native rendering, there in a 16 pixel height difference between step 1, and step 16. This picture was taken on a 720p native LCD, running Halo 3 at “720p.” So when you have an alias line with 16 steps, there should be a physical height difference of 16 pixels. But instead here, there is an 18 pixel height difference!
What this means is the native image is only 16/18, or 88.88% (repeating), of the 720p outputted image. That means Halo 3 is only internally rendered at 640p, and the image is upscaled by the 360 to 1280×720.
More examples (on a 1080p display, so the math is slightly different)
Running at only 1138×640, that means there are 728,320 pixels. That’s a full 193,280 pixels LESS than 720p. In fact, it is even less pixels than your very average 1024×768! Hardly what anyone would consider “high-def.”
Again, these conclusions are not just being drawn from this one image. It has been verified on multiple displays running in 1:1 mode. When an LCD is running in 1:1, that means ever pixel in the image is mapped to it’s own pixel on the display. In every instance it is conclusive that Halo 3 is running at precisely 640p. This of course does not change how much fun the game is, or even how good it looks… even if we’re getting robbed of a few (hundred thousand) pixels.
On the bright side, Halo haters can no longer call Halo 3 “just Halo 2 graphics in HD.”
Side note: Before anyone accuses me of Halo hating… I’m enjoying the game thoroughly. I just think it’s sad the 360’s flagship game isn’t even running in high-def, let alone with anti-aliasing. I’m not a graphics whore though, and I still believe gameplay comes before graphics… but come on. Don’t put 720p/1080p on the box, and tell us everything on the 360 is in HD.
And not just the ending, either. The whole game. As in to download and play. This of course isn’t unusual by any means, especially with a few stores breaking street date, rebel employees, and a flood of copies on ebay. In the right hands (or wrong, depending on your perspective) that equates to a scene release or torrent.
From the looks of it, at least two groups have released Halo 3 in the past two days, with ccclx the only making it onto nforce (nfo).
Today Microsoft has released a minor update to enable support for the future “big button” remote. There is already speculation this update has something to do with Halo 3, and “the banhammer.” While there are currently hacked firmwares to play this release and others on your 360 undetected, Microsoft could once again up the ante and ban all modded consoles that connect to Live. There haven’t yet been any reports of banned consoles after todays update.
I know this is an old issue, but only now is it affecting me (I’m selfish like that). I recently brought home a gorgeous HP w2207, wide screen 1680×1050 monitor. That translate into a 16:10 aspect ration, which differs slightly from the typical HD 16:9. Despite a variety of odd output options for VGA users, 16:10 resolutions are lacking. Looks like our friends Ana and Hana have been slacking. So Microsoft, please add some 1680×1050 support. Most all 22″ monitors run this native resolution, and 22″ monitors are the new hot ish.
Even if this doesn’t effect you now, it may some day. Sign this petition for 16:10 support. So far there are over 700 signatures. And if you think online petition’s never work, they brought you the BioShock collectors edition. While there was never a HDMI cable release, our very own 360 HDMI petition garnered a good amount of signatures and now we’ve got HDMI in the Elite and Pro. Miracles do happen!
The press release arrived in my inbox just moments ago. The game has officially gone gold and has been released to manufacturing. Here is the full press release:
Most Anticipated Title of 2007 Released to Manufacturing, Begins Final March to Xbox 360
The wait is almost over. “Halo 3,†the final chapter in the groundbreaking “Halo†trilogy and the most anticipated game release of 2007, has been released to manufacturing.
Three years in the making by renowned developer Bungie Studios, “Halo 3†is now finished and will begin its journey to store shelves around the world in less than four weeks. “Halo 3,†which has already set new records as the fastest preordered game in history, has exceeded one million presales in North America alone. The title is set to shatter day-one entertainment sales records when it is released worldwide beginning Tuesday, Sept. 25.
“This is a huge milestone for us and a big cause for celebration at Bungie and Microsoft Game Studios,†said Harold Ryan, Studio Head at Bungie Studios. “This is the game we’ve always wanted to make and certainly the best game our studio has developed. We can’t wait for gamers to get their hands on it on Sept. 25.â€
Created by legendary developer Bungie Studios and exclusive to the Xbox 360™ video game and entertainment system, “Halo 3†will set a new standard for interactive storytelling and social gaming by engaging consumers worldwide in Master Chief’s epic battle to save humankind. In November 2004, the world’s view of video games changed forever with the release of “Halo 2,†which generated a record-setting $125 million (U.S.) in sales within the first 24 hours and changed the way people think about interactive entertainment. Three years later, it remains the most-played game on Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE® online gaming and entertainment network, with nearly 1 billion hours of online gaming logged to date.
If it follows in Halo 2’s footsteps, this means it could hit the pirate channels any day. I can’t imagine the security they must have on it this time around, though. September 25th is officially imminent.
The internet exploded yesterday with videos of the Halo 3 Guardian map from the PAX Omegathon. Here is the second and final map shown, Narrows. Now excuse my newbishness for a second, but what was the green blob shooting gun?! I checked the Halo 3 wikipedia entry, but there is no mention of it in the weapons category. Whatever it is, it looks like it can do some massive damage. Even in the hands of that rather bad player, it got some quick kills. So did the fire bomb.
