ArtisticallyChill

It was bound to happen. The Nintendo Wii has the Virtual Console and the Playstation 3 has their Home Arcade so it was inevitable that the Xbox 360 develop their own online arcade called the Game Room. Utilizing your Xbox LIVE Avatar, you’ll be able to walk through the Game Room and play some classic arcade and console games.

The games shown in the trailer above include:
• Centipede (arcade)
• Asteroids Deluxe (arcade)
• Tempest (arcade)
• Crystal Castles (arcade)
• Lunar Lander (arcade)
• Jungler (arcade)
• Road Fighter (arcade)
• Scramble (arcade)
• Finalizer (arcade)
• Tutankham (arcade)
• Shao-Lin’s Road (arcade)
• Super Cobra (arcade)
• Red Baron (arcade)
• Gravitar (arcade)
• Battlantlis
• Astrosmash (Intellivision)
• Mountain Madness Super Pro Skiing (Intellivision)
• Armor Battle (Intellivision)
• Space Hawk (Intellivision)
• Sub Hunt (Intellivision)
• Sea Battle (Intellivision)
• Space Armada (Intellivision)
• Astrosmash (Intellivision)
• Star Raiders (Atari 2600)
• Outlaw (Atari 2600)
• Yar’s Revenge (Atari 2600)
• Millipede (Atari 2600)
• Football (Atari 2600)
• RealSports Tennis (Atari 2600)
• Combat (Atari 2600)

No waiting in lines here as you challenge your friends’ high scores this Spring in 30 games. With the line-up supposedly reaching up to 1000 games, the Xbox 360 looks to add one more fine point on why it’s one of the best consoles on the market. It looks to have a rather impressive line up of games like the Wii’s Virtual Console and none of the virtual waiting-in-line seen in Playstation Home’s debut. If Microsoft can get more classic console games (i.e. Sega Genesis and Turbo Grafx titles), they definitely lock themselves into 2nd place for bringing retro-gaming into more households. The Wii’s Virtual Console will always be number 1 because of the classic Nintendo line-up they have from the NES to the N64.

~ LoneWolf

For this tutorial, I will be using a Linksys router that supports DMZ. Please note that your router may be of a different brand so it would behoove you to have some familiarity with your router’s GUI. Also, not all routers support DMZ, consult your router’s website or owner’s manual to confirm this if no DMZ section is present in your router’s GUI.

Prior to going on, you’ll need your Router IP address (aka your Gateway to the Internets) usually it starts out with 192.168.x.1 (where x is dependent on your router).

Phase 1: Configuring your Xbox 360′s NETWORK SETTINGS

In the dashboard go to My Xbox/System Settings:

Scroll down and select Network Settings

Select on Configure Network

Select IP Settings

Manually enter the following addresses:

• IP Address: 192.168.x.(y)z (where x is dependent on your router and y is dependent on your router’s DHCP settings: i.e. if y is set to 100 then z will be any number after 100 and this will be your IP address’ last number). For this example, I picked 150.
• Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
• Gateway: 192.168.x.1 (where x is dependent on your router)

Why are we doing this? Well, because we want your console to have a static IP and not a random IP dynamically assigned by your router. When we get to Phase 2, your Xbox 360′s Static IP Address will be needed for Port Forwarding and/or DMZ settings.

When finished, move down to DNS Settings and enter the following:

• Primary DNS Server: 192.168.x.1 (where x is dependent on your router). If you haven’t noticed, this is exactly same as our router’s IP aka your Gateway.

We will not bother setting the Secondary DNS Server address. At this point, Phase 1 is complete. Now we will move onto Phase 2 and configure the router for Port Forwarding and/or DMZ.

Open up your browser and enter your router’s IP address. Once logged in, you’ll want to access your Port Forwarding section of your router

Once there, set up the following Port Forwarding settings:

• Name: LIVE1 – port: 88 – protocol: Both TCP and UDP – IP: Your Xbox’s IP address
• Name: LIVE2 – port: 3074 – protocol: Both TCP and UDP – IP: Your Xbox’s IP address

When finished, save these settings. Your router may need to reboot in order for the changes to take effect. Once it has rebooted, the page you were on may auto refresh. If not, get back into the the router’s GUI.

If your Router features a DMZ section, Enable it and enter Your Xbox’s IP address. Using DMZ allows the router to let your Xbox to be excluded from the router’s firewall. If you’ve already done Port Forwarding, this is completely optional. But I would enable DMZ anyway just to be sure your Xbox LIVE Connection detects your NAT as OPEN. Again, if your router doesn’t support DMZ don’t worry. The Port Forwarding we did earlier should cover what the DMZ was suppose to do. After saving, the Router will reboot. Once it does, double check all settings that were changed. If all looks good, then we are done with Phase 2 and can proceed to testing your Xbox LIVE Connection.

Testing your Xbox LIVE Connection:

• In the dashboard go to My Xbox/System Settings
• Select Network Settings
• Select Test Xbox LIVE Connection

If your test is successful, there will be no pop-ups and your Status will read: Xbox LIVE is up and running.

If you get an error, double check all the steps listed above.

~ LoneWolf

That’s what she said. LOL

;p

Now for Teaser 1.

Now for the details:

1. It’s based on the Dreamcast code base – While the PS2 and Xbox versions of MvC2 were great, there are a few niggling issues in them that have caused the competitive community to continue using the Dreamcast version of the game. We wanted to bring you the very best version of the game, so we listened to the community and started with the Dreamcast.

2. There is online – With the game being developed by Backbone, we are using largely the same, critically acclaimed net code that we used in Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix and with that will come our player match quarter mode/lobby system that has proven so popular. Naturally leaderboards and some form of stats tracking (details to be provided at a later date) will also be in the mix. So on the net code side, you’re pretty much assured the best fighting game net code ever created for consoles.

3. HD upscaling options – Given that most people play Xbox 360s and PS3s on HD TVs, it’s important to help make the game look better. We’ve refined our real-time sprite filtering to use even more advanced techniques and we’re providing two upscaling options for the sprites… one we’ve termed “Crisp” the other we’ve termed “Smooth”. It’s a matter of personal preference for which one you’ll enjoy more. For purists, if you’d like you can use the “Classic” setting, which leaves the sprites completely unfiltered. Because the filtering is applied in real-time, you can change these settings on the fly, mid-match if you choose. Our producer will be showing you some comparison screenshots in the coming days to better clarify the differences. The backgrounds in MvC2 are all 3D, and when rendered at higher resolutions look fantastic. The original textures and assets from the Dreamcast were actually much higher quality than the Dreamcast could really display at the time and when shown in HD, the impact is really quite amazing.

4. Widescreen – Again, with most people playing on HD displays, we wanted to figure out how to implement widescreen support. To do so, the camera field of view was widened (which we’re able to do because of the 3D backgrounds effectively running off the “edges” of the 4:3 scenario) and there are a few camera tricks that minimize any impact on the gameplay. Play area is unchanged, and this is not a zoom and crop like HD Remix was. To put it simply, the gameplay area will be in a 4:3 field, while the viewing area will be widescreen. At the same time, for purists and competitive play, a 4:3 option (with vertical bars on the left and right) still exists.

5. No unlocking – While we love giving people unlockables in games, for this outing, there’s not a lot of surprises in terms of what characters are in the game. All 56 characters will be unlocked at the start for immediate play, again great for tournament play where players won’t need to mess with save game data or hacked versions (/shame).

6. Music Options – We love MvC2 but the original “jazzy” music has long been criticized even by ardent fans. Independent music volume controls and support of custom soundtracks on PS3 and 360 we deemed an important feature. Purists will still have what they love and fans of customization are also served. ~ Capcom Unity/Sven’s Blog

I was sold at the first bullet point. The DreamCast version was by far the best and THE DEFINITIVE MvC2 console port. Also, not having to grind away at unlocking all the characters is a SWEET bonus!

It would have been frillin’ cool if Capcom got back in bed with UDON to do an HD REMIX, but this release is just as good. Looks like MvC2 will be the first Xbox LIVE Arcade title I’ll purchase since SFII Turbo HD REMIX!

~ LoneWolf