Joe Dynamite

Yesterday was a big day for Microsoft, they held their press conference at the E3 convention and made some really exciting announcements that had the web buzzing. Out of the whole presentation, only two things really bothered me, but I am incredibly excited for the rest of the updates they announced for my favorite console this generation.

Netflix Software Enhancements

When they originally announced the Netflix integration for Xbox 360 I went and signed up for both a Netflix account and an Xbox Live Gold account. Honestly, I think I use Netflix on my Xbox just as much as I play games on it. It is by far one of the standout features that make the Xbox more useful than its competition.

The upgrade to the software will now let you browse the entire Netflix catalog on your Xbox and add movies to your queue without having to first log in to your account on your computer to add them. I think this is an incredible improvement, as someone who uses the service, having to add movies on my computer was by far one of the most annoying parts of the system. This upgrade is going to make a shining feature even better.

Full Retail Game Downloads

This I’m kind of on the fence about if for no other reason than the prices. Starting this fall you will be able to download full Xbox 360 games straight to your hard drive, similar to how they already offer Xbox Originals. This feature seems only possible because of their choice to stay with regular DVD discs instead of going with Blu-Ray or HD-DVD because a 4.7 GB full DVD game won’t kill all of the space on your drive, just some of it. Apparently they will be the same price as the full retail versions, and this is what bugs me. Yeah, you are getting the convenience of just downloading the game and not having to go out, but you aren’t getting a manual, or box, and there is no freight involved. I think that they should have at least dropped the price of the game a couple of bucks if you downloaded them.

Last.fm Integration

There is now going to be a Last.fm section on your Xbox 360 dashboard. It will allow you to stream millions of songs straight from the Last.fm servers to your Xbox. You can create and share radio stations, and mark tracks that you do and don’t like. It seems to be a very full-featured app but requires a Gold account to access.

Project Natal (Pictured Above)

This is one of the other things I’m not really feeling. Project Natal allows for controller-free gaming on the Xbox system. It utilizes a camera type device with many sensors and it detects your movements without you having to wave a remote around like on the Wii. In Microsoft’s words:

Compatible with any Xbox 360 system, the “Project Natal” sensor is the world’s first to combine an RGB camera, depth sensor, multi-array microphone, and custom processor running proprietary software all in one device. Unlike 2D cameras and controllers, “Project Natal” tracks your full body movement in 3D, while responding to commands, directions and even a shift of emotion in your voice.

It sounds very advanced and I’d like to see what they can do with it, but as far as right now, I’m not very interested. I much prefer a controller when I’m playing a video game. I can’t see myself standing up and moving all around the room while playing something.

Being that it is supposedly very sensitive and powerful, I would much rather see it integrated into a computer interface rather than a video gaming system. Imagine controlling your computer with touch and gestures like the Microsoft Surface but without having to touch the screen you could mount it on the wall and still interact with it. Hopefully, Microsoft sees this potential and re-purposes the device at some time in the future.

Getting Social With It

Also to be released are integrated Twitter and Facebook clients for the Xbox dashboard. They are both completely custom apps built for the Xbox with the controller rather than the mouse and keyboard in mind. The Facebook app looks like it covers the full breadth of features that Facebook offers, and it looks like it does it well. You might never need to log into Facebook on your computer ever again, as it is I use it more on my iPhone than on my computer. With the Twitter client, you will be able to read, post, and reply to friends’ tweets from the comfort of your couch.

On another social note, they are going to allow movie and music sharing with your Xbox friends with Netflix and Last.fm respectively. I think the Netflix movie sharing will allow 7 friends to all watch a movie together.

Rebranding of the Video Store

Xbox Live Video marketplace is going to be rebranded as the Zune Video Store. It is going to include all the same features as before with a few notable upgrades. The cross-branding of Zune and Xbox is just what Microsoft needs to get the Zune name in a lot of households, which in turn might help them sell more Zunes, I’m very surprised they haven’t tried something like this before. The notable new feature for the Zune Video Store is the ability to stream 1080p HD video right to your television without having to download it. They have outlined the compatibility of this new feature and you will first need a 1080p television, your Xbox hooked up with an HDMI cable, and at least 8 Mbps download speeds from your Internet service provider. If you have all of those you are good to go.

Odds and Ends

Other than what I’ve outlined above they also announced some new games. The ones I am most excited for are Left 4 Dead 2, and Crackdown 2. They also announced a digital TV service for some areas of the UK provided through Sky Networks. I really like what they’re doing with this system and look forward to using these new features when they drop. The Xbox 360 was already my favorite console of the generation and these updates look to push it even farther ahead of the pack.

Microsoft made the Zune HD official last week with a press release. Some details they’ve kept hush about, but they announced just enough juicy details to get everyone interested. The announced features are:

• 3.3 inch, 480×272 pixel, 16:9, OLED capacitive multi-touch screen
• Built-in HD Radio receiver
• 720p video output through Zune AV Dock which can be purchased separately
• Built-in web browser based on Internet Explorer with on-screen full QWERTY keyboard
• Buy content on the device over Wi-Fi, no need for wires or a computer
• Scheduled to be released sometime this fall (rumored Sept. 5th)

To be honest I was a fan of the original Zune even though I never owned one. I like to root for the underdog and I think the Zune was an interesting device I just think it was improperly marketed which is why it never sold. I probably would have purchased one if I didn’t have an iPod at the time, and if the iPhone wasn’t announced the Zune might have been a replacement for when my iPod died.

I really love the design of the device, I think it looks great. I like the sharp squared edges more than I like the rounded edges of the newest generation iPods. The screen looks amazing, and I would love to see it in person with some HD content playing.

The Zune HD looks to be Microsoft’s answer to Apple’s iPod Touch which is quickly taking over as the most popular iPod model. To compete with the iPod Touch, Microsoft is going to have to come up with some kind of app/game store so that people can do whatever they want on the device. It is quite possible that they could allow XNA community games to run on the device, but they need to do something for regular non-gaming apps. Apple makes all the developer tools freely available as long as you have a Mac and charges you a one-time fee to release your apps to the public. Microsoft needs to do something similar if they want any hope of competing.

One problem I foresee is the Internet Explorer-based web browser on the device. IE renders pages horribly on a full-sized monitor, I can’t imagine how mangled they will look on a small 3.3″ screen. The screen size also bothers me a bit. I saw a picture of the device on Engadget in the hands of Steve Ballmer, and either Ballmer has huge mitts, which is entirely possible, or the device is in fact fairly small. If anyone has tried to play games on the iPhone or iPod Touch they can attest, even on their slightly bigger 3.5″ screens, it is hard to control with the touch screen. Your fingers have to be in the way of some of the screen otherwise you can’t use it and it makes for awkward gameplay. I’m wondering how this is going to work on the 3.3″ screen if Microsoft wants to get games on the Zune HD.

When all is said and done I think this looks to be a fairly solid media player and looks to create some pretty solid competition in that market. And now with Microsoft cross-branding Zune on the Xbox 360, this generation Zune could be much more profitable for them than any of the last and put them in a better position to compete with Apple, the market leader. That being said, I still don’t think this will dethrone Apple, but if you are in the market for a media player that doesn’t have a built-in phone, this could be the next one on your list. I for one already have an iPhone (and will probably buy the new rumored one) so I won’t be getting the Zune HD, but if they turn this into a Zune Phone somewhere down the road I would have a hard time making up my mind especially if the price point is low enough. So here’s hoping the rest of the details are as good as what they’ve let out so far.

The PSP Go is Sony’s newest generation handheld system. It leaked over the weekend before its formal announcement which would have been during Sony’s conference at the E3 convention this week. So far the leaked info is:

• 3.8″ sliding screen (smaller than the previous generation’s 4.3″)
• 16 GB of built-in flash memory
• 43% lighter than the PSP-3000
• Bluetooth compatible
• MemoryStick Micro slot for expandable storage
• All digital downloads, no physical media
• A planned Fall release

There are things about this that I like and then a couple of things I don’t like. For starters, one thing I don’t like is that there doesn’t seem to be any external controls, everything is housed under the sliding screen. This might be a problem for people who want to use this as an all-around media device. Let’s say you were listening to music and you wanted to change songs, you would have to take the device out of your pocket, slide the screen open and then change songs. I know this can all be fixed by adding inline controls on the headphone cord. Hopefully, they can think of a more elegant solution than the inline controller they made for the original PSP, it was big and ugly, they should try to model what Apple has done with their newest lines of earbuds with inline controls.

The new device is much slimmer than past versions, probably mainly due to the removal of the UMD drive. Other than its weight loss, the device looks shorter and stubbier than the older PSPs, which I think makes it look awkward. It looks more like a video gaming version of Sony’s ill-fated Mylo Internet device. Hopefully, a PSP Go-2000 model will look a little better.

They say that this is going to live side-by-side on shelves with the PSP-3000 and isn’t meant to replace it. That is the same thing Nintendo said about the DS and Game Boy brands and we all know what happened there. There haven’t been any leaks concerning the price point of the PSP Go but I have a feeling they will keep the PSP-3000 at $169, and make the Go somewhere in the ballpark of $199 to $229. At $229 it puts it at the same price as Apple’s iPod Touch which they seem to have some crossover in the marketplace.

I don’t like how they still stuck with a proprietary memory card format, but it is Sony after all and I don’t think they will ever give up on proprietary formats, it’s just not their thing. It would have been nice to maybe see a touchscreen on this device because it looks like that is where the market is heading, but that may have been cost-prohibitive and might not have added too much to the gaming experience. It would have then just been a direct competitor to the iPod Touch, and to be honest I still don’t like the way most games control on a touchscreen.

I like where they are heading but I don’t think this is the device that will push them ahead of the juggernaut that is the Nintendo DS/DSi. I don’t see many parents getting down with the whole digital downloads thing so this might do better in the teen and adult markets. The problem being I think the teen and adult market for handheld games is much smaller, and the DS has the majority of the teen, adult, and kid markets. I’m gonna keep my eye on things but since I have a PSP already I’m not really interested in getting one unless they announce a bunch of awesome features that didn’t leak yet.

Playing with Dynamite is a new technology site by me, the guy behind old project name, and another old project name. I’m kind of new at this, so cut me some slack and leave feedback via email.

I have no resources or industry contacts so I won’t be able to get any breaking news. I’m going to cover a wide range of topics that could be considered technology related, such as gadgets, software, video games, web technologies, etc. I will try to categorize and tag the content as best I can to make it easy to find what you want.

In the next year or so I would love to see the site grow, maybe bring on new writers, start a podcast, and make the right contacts to get pre-release info or devices to write about. For the site to grow I need your help! If you like the site, subscribe to the RSS, tell your friends about the site, post on Twitter or Facebook, link to us from your site, do whatever you can to help, but most importantly just read and enjoy the site. Thanks.

I remember way back when they were announcing a next-gen Star Wars game I was full of excitement, and then with every tech demo, screenshot, teaser, or trailer that was released that excitement grew. Then, finally a demo was released on Xbox Live. The demo was great, showing off many of the Apprentice’s powers, a lot of the game play elements, and even a battle with an AT-ST.  Did the final game deliver? I say yes, in almost all aspects it delivered. First I would like to talk about a couple things that disappointed me though.

First of all, no multiplayer at all! What is this? The game has a pretty deep combat system, a lot of moves, and a great dueling system built in. This would have been perfect for a multiplayer component. I remember playing Jedi Knight and Jedi Knight 2 for the PC online only to have lightsaber battles, I almost never touched the single player campaigns. I think an online versus mode in The Force Unleashed would have had fans playing online for many months after the launch. Why they didn’t include it, I will never know.

A few other smaller things I noticed, a couple of times I had enemies get stuck between walls and railings. There was one Imperial Guard I had to fight, and to defeat him you needed to deplete his health and then hit a sequence of buttons sort of like in God of War. Only the guard got caught in the wall so even though I got his health down to nothing I could not initiate the button sequence to kill him. I had to try everything to try to free him so that I could kill him. It didn’t ruin the experience of playing the game, but it was kind of annoying. In the final level if you went to the Mission Objectives menu, it didn’t total up my Force Points or how many Holocrons I collected, and for the Bonus Objective it just said “* Default Text”. Maybe a little more time before launch could have fixed these issues.

Also, I think there could have been more environments in the game.  You really only visited three different planets in the game, and then a couple of interiors, like space stations and whatnot. It would have been cool to see more of the Star Wars universe in this game. It was also a pretty short game, I beat it in a weekend, it didn’t keep a timer so I don’t know how many hours, but I would assume 10 or less. If they added more environments they could have extended this which could have fixed two problems in one.

As for what I did like; The story was very well written, it takes place between Episodes III and IV during the formation of the Rebellion, and Vader’s purge of all the Jedi. You are Vader’s secret Apprentice – sometimes referred to as Starkiller – who was trained in the Dark Side for the purpose of hunting down the remaining Jedi. As good as the story was, a lot of it didn’t come out in the game. The cinematics they had between levels served the purpose of explaining what was going on. I think if they were extended a little bit they could have made the story shine through a bit more and made it that much more of an engrossing experience.

I really enjoyed the combat system in this game. I read that some people found it repetitive and boring, but I found it no more repetitive than God of War or any of the new action games out there. You had Lightsaber combos, and an arsenal of Force powers to choose from – my favorites being Force Lightning, Repulse, and the Lightsaber throw – so I never found it boring.

The customization was also a cool addition. You would occasionally find lightsaber crystals around that you could embed in your lightsaber to change either it’s color, or you could give it beneficial effects. There were also different costumes that you could wear to change how the Apprentice looked. You got to choose which Force powers you leveled up, so only the ones you liked using would get more powerful. It made for a more rewarding experience. Especially when I found the black lightsaber crystal was this made all the more so apparent.

All in all I really enjoyed the game, and that is why I am giving it a 4 out of 5. It is a must have for any true Star Wars fan. I truly hope that Lucasarts continues with The Force Unleashed series by crafting new fiction and introducing us to more very powerful Jedi and Sith. My vote is on making the next one take place after Episode VI, and have the character be someone from Luke’s Jedi Academy on Yavin 4. You heard it here first! If Lucasarts does that I want a cut.

This is honestly one of the most under-hyped pieces of software for the Mac. You almost never hear it mentioned, at least I don’t, yet it is one of my favorites. There is always some Mac user ready to tell you about Quicksilver or a myriad of other Mac apps, but I find Growl to be one of the most satisfying of the bunch.

In its simplest, it is basically a notification system for the applications that run on your computer. It interfaces with a lot of applications and displays messages in the corner of your screen, not unlike the AIM pop-up notifications, only a lot less annoying. There are a number of styles for you to choose from to customize what the notifications look like, and you can change how long they are visible.

I have Growl display messages for Adium, Transmit, Firefox, Twitterrific, and Last.fm. It shows the name of the artist and the song title when a new song comes on in iTunes. It tells me when downloads are done in Firefox. I get alerted when a transfer session is done in Transmit. When new tweets are downloaded they are displayed on the screen. And with Adium, it does just about all the same things AIM does. It lets you know when buddies sign in/out and when you get messaged. It does this all without being intrusive or disturbing what you are currently in the middle of. The messages show up on the screen and slowly fade after a few seconds unless you hover your mouse cursor on them in which case they stay until you move your mouse.

It even works when the application is minimized, hidden, or if you’re using Spaces and it’s in a different space than you are currently working in. The notification from Growl comes up no matter what you are doing or what Space you are working in. This saves you plenty of time and prevents you from having to switch back and forth while you’re waiting for your file transfer to finish. You can continue to work and not worry that you’ll forget about the transfer.

I highly suggest Growl as it has made it a lot easier to get things done. It has also made my switch over to Mac OS X that much more pleasant. It’s a subtle tool that has such a profound impact. Growl is available online for free, you can go to www.growl.info to get it.

I’ve come to notice that I use fewer and fewer of the applications that ship with the iPhone and mostly use ones I’ve downloaded. I use the Notes app, Calculator (only in a pinch), Mail, and Safari the most often. But I never find myself using any of the others, mind you I don’t count the Phone, iPod, and text messaging features as applications. Weather, Stocks, and Clock seem to just be thrown in and they aren’t super useful anyhow. They just took the basic dashboard widgets from Mac OS X and threw them on the iPhone.

Has anyone else noticed themselves doing the same?

I figured that since I don’t really do too much with this blog, I might as well try and do at least something with it. I’m going to start reviewing all kinds of stuff. Gadgets, video games, software, web services, and applications, maybe even some movies and music. I’ve never really done anything like this in any kind of semi-professional way so it might be a little rocky at first. As I go, I will decide on the format of my reviews, and how I will rate things. Maybe a 1-10 scale, maybe 1-100. Since I’m new to this and I know I don’t have any readers or advertisers, I will start off by reviewing things that I already own and have paid money for. Also, if that is the case you will know that the reviews are unbiased and not compromised in any way. So stay tuned and hopefully I will have a pack of reviews up soon.

I am writing this from the new WordPress app for the iPhone. It is actually really cool. I really am impressed with some of the apps that have come out in the past couple weeks. If I were to be honest this one is pretty high up on the scale. If you have a blog and an iPhone I would definitely recommend trying it out.

I’ve been fighting the urge lately to spend money and buy new video games (I won’t be able to resist buying Grand Theft Auto IV, but that’s a must). So instead of buying new games, I have decided to beat all the ones that I have purchased already and never even player, let alone beat. I’m starting with Psychonauts for Xbox. I heard it was really good, so here’s hoping I enjoy myself.