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XBOX Live game play questions...


ataridave

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Can you play online without using a headset? That's my first question, because I really don't want to get cussed out. I don't have any friends lists; can you just jump into any online matches?

 

The reason I ask all of this is that first-person shooters these days have no replay value for me, and if I can do these things, I would gladly fork over the money for a hard drive for my 4gig XBOX 360, because I would get more replay value out of my games. (And other things, like Netflix, of course.)

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Yes, you can definitely play without using a headset. An alternative would be to adjust your settings/chat channel so that you only have to listen to folks on your own team.

 

But to do that you don't have to have a hard drive....I don't think that having one adds any replay value to games, at least to speak of that I can think of.

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Yes, you can definitely play without using a headset. An alternative would be to adjust your settings/chat channel so that you only have to listen to folks on your own team.

 

But to do that you don't have to have a hard drive....I don't think that having one adds any replay value to games, at least to speak of that I can think of.

 

I thought you had to have a hard drive to get on XBOX Live??

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only Halo 4 requires a hard drive for online multiplayer. The others didn't need it. Halo Reach never needed it for online multiplayer either. But it did initially need it for co-op campaign and firefight. Later, it was patched to not need the hard drive at all.

 

Very few games (less than 5) require a hard drive.

 

even without a headset, unless you mute people, you can hear them. without a headset, of course they can't hear you (unless you have a Kinect). to totally have silent gaming, you can either mute them on a game-by-game basis or easier yet, put yourself in a 1-person party. when you're in party, only the party can hear you and you can only hear the party. this is what most online gamers on Xbox do. they play in party so they only hear their friends and their friends are the only ones that hear them. the problem becomes if you actually do need to hear the people in the online match (like you're coordinating a team), you have to switch your chat from party chat to game chat. at that point, it's better to get out of party and just go to game chat unless you need to keep your spot in the party in case it becomes too full (there's a max of 8 people in a party). because once the party is full, you can't get back into it (unless the group boots someone or someone leaves).

 

you can use USB flash drives for additional storage space (the drive can be up to 32GB each for a total of 2 flash drives totaling 64 GB) though they are recognized as flash memory and not as hard drive space (which is critical for the few HDD games). if you need a hard drive, wait for the sales at Gamestop. I think 3 times a year, they have a 50% off refurbished hardware which includes hard drives. That's how I got my 250 GB HDD for $30 and a 120GB HDD for $20. You can use them on the newer 360 S systems (just remove the external casing).

Edited by onlysublime
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That isn't correct.

 

In fact I didn't even know that Halo 4 required one, so why would I of posted what I did? The series has required one since Halo 3 and that includes Reach and ODST that shared their multiplayer.

 

After doing a search just now, it looks like the only difference is that Halo 4 took it a step even further. There is a mandatory installation in Halo 4 if you want to participate in multiplayer. That wasn't present with previous titles even though the mandatory HD presence for multiplayer was required.

Edited by Atariboy
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From what I experienced, if you don't plug in the headset to your controller, the voices come through the speakers with the sounds - harder to understand and mostly just an annoyance. I used to plug in the headset but not wear it when playing multiplayer games, so I wouldn't have to heard some drunk idiot say "effin this and effin that" the whole time.

 

the games I played , I never played with anyone from my friends list because I never developed a friends list. There are lobbies and you just join into them.

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only Halo 4 requires a hard drive for online multiplayer. The others didn't need it. Halo Reach never needed it for online multiplayer either. But it did initially need it for co-op campaign and firefight. Later, it was patched to not need the hard drive at all.

 

Very few games (less than 5) require a hard drive.

 

even without a headset, unless you mute people, you can hear them. without a headset, of course they can't hear you (unless you have a Kinect). to totally have silent gaming, you can either mute them on a game-by-game basis or easier yet, put yourself in a 1-person party. when you're in party, only the party can hear you and you can only hear the party. this is what most online gamers on Xbox do. they play in party so they only hear their friends and their friends are the only ones that hear them. the problem becomes if you actually do need to hear the people in the online match (like you're coordinating a team), you have to switch your chat from party chat to game chat. at that point, it's better to get out of party and just go to game chat unless you need to keep your spot in the party in case it becomes too full (there's a max of 8 people in a party). because once the party is full, you can't get back into it (unless the group boots someone or someone leaves).

 

you can use USB flash drives for additional storage space (the drive can be up to 32GB each for a total of 2 flash drives totaling 64 GB) though they are recognized as flash memory and not as hard drive space (which is critical for the few HDD games). if you need a hard drive, wait for the sales at Gamestop. I think 3 times a year, they have a 50% off refurbished hardware which includes hard drives. That's how I got my 250 GB HDD for $30 and a 120GB HDD for $20. You can use them on the newer 360 S systems (just remove the external casing).

 

I haven't ever seen sales on this hard drive: http://www.gamestop.com/xbox-360/accessories/xbox-360-250gb-internal-hard-drive/83934 which is the only one that will fit into a slim 4gig 360, like what I have. There are cheaper 3rd party options, but I don't want to damage my console.

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I haven't ever seen sales on this hard drive: http://www.gamestop....ve/83934 which is the only one that will fit into a slim 4gig 360, like what I have. There are cheaper 3rd party options, but I don't want to damage my console.

 

I think what only is saying is that you can actually use any Xbox 360 hard drive, including the ones from the original model, it's just that you'd have to take the actual drive out of the original Xbox 360 HDD case and put it into a replacement Xbox 360 S (the new model) HDD case. You can get these pretty cheap on ebay.

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you don't need Halo 3 or Reach or ODST to be installed on the hard drive in order to play it online. I just played them again in preparation for Halo 4.

 

you can use any Xbox hard drive on any Xbox. the actual hard drive is the same. the only difference is the external casing. if you buy an old hard drive, just remove the external casing. you can then plug it in bare or you can buy the new casing for the 360 S system. if you buy a new hard drive for an old 360, you can remove the 360 S casing and stick the hard drive into an old external casing so it can be used on the old system.

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here's me and friends playing Halo 3 online co-op. no hard drive.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZZ02SEq1eM

 

again, Halo 3 ODST and Halo Reach needed a hard drive for online co-op campaign and firefight (I think, about the firefight part) but not for online matches. Halo Reach has since been patched to require no hard drive at all. I don't know about ODST (I hate that game).

Edited by onlysublime
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Nobody ever said anything about any of the Halo 3 engined games requiring game installations.

 

Anyways, the point wasn't to quibble, the point was to let him know that there is the occasional exception where a HD is required for online multiplayer.

Edited by Atariboy
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you don't need Halo 3 or Reach or ODST to be installed on the hard drive in order to play it online. I just played them again in preparation for Halo 4.

 

you can use any Xbox hard drive on any Xbox. the actual hard drive is the same. the only difference is the external casing. if you buy an old hard drive, just remove the external casing. you can then plug it in bare or you can buy the new casing for the 360 S system. if you buy a new hard drive for an old 360, you can remove the 360 S casing and stick the hard drive into an old external casing so it can be used on the old system.

 

I think I'll just get this 3rd party one: http://www.amazon.com/Black-250GB-Hard-Drive-Disk-Xbox/dp/B006SVUQNQ/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1355934388&sr=8-4&keywords=xbox+360+250gb+hard+drive

 

There's been no bad reviews of it.

Edited by ataridave
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In case it's relevant to you, be aware that 3rd party hard drive's typically omit the partition where original Xbox emulation profiles reside. So you likely won't be able to utilize the backwards compatibility feature if that's any interest to you.

Edited by Atariboy
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yes, unofficial hard drives (there are no licensed third party hard drives, only Microsoft officially sells hard drives for the 360) do not have the hidden partitions. and there are tons of fake Xbox hard drives out there, especially at Amazon and Ebay.

 

so every once in awhile, there'll be a modern game you can't run. as well as the inability to run any original Xbox1 games (due to lack of emulator profiles stored in one of the hidden partitions).

 

there are tutorials out there on how to install the hidden partitions. but there's always the buyer beware warnings.

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As someone who literally has MONTHS of playtime over the past number of years under his belt playing only Call of Duty. I'll say

 

1. Headset not needed. Matter o' fact 90% of the time I never put one on. And even if I do put one on, I aint even talking into it.

 

2. You can't hear the other team in Call of Duty. So "getting cussed" out doesn't really happen.. although, maybe in the lobby it does.

 

3. Even if you do get cussed out.. so what? Not to mention, you can MUTE single people, or entire teams with a single button press.

 

Maybe it's the fact that I'm a friggin 44 year old man, but you can be a stranger on xblive calling me all sorts of rapid fire putdowns and it will fail to even make my bored eyes move. If you want to talk, just reply in some Indian/Apu voice something like "WELCOME MY FRIENDS. i LOOK FORWARD TO PLAYING VERY NICE GAMES WITH ALL OF YOU AND I HOPE WE CAN HAVE A GOOD TIME FOR ALL".. and be upwardly cheery. Who cares. :lol:

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In case it's relevant to you, be aware that 3rd party hard drive's typically omit the partition where original Xbox emulation profiles reside. So you likely won't be able to utilize the backwards compatibility feature if that's any interest to you.

 

It is; thanks for the warning! BTW, how well do original XBOX games play on the 360? I've heard some people say that the quality sucks, but I've got a friend who has a 360 and said he's never had any issues with original XBOX games.

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Ask your friend if he ever played more than Halo and Halo 2 on his 360 then. For obvious reasons they saw a lot of TLC from Microsoft and the results show. And for many a 360 user, their idea of 360 backwards compatibility was playing Halo 2 online on their 360.

 

It's a very hit or miss proposition with Xbox 360's backwards compatibility. Approximately 50% of the original Xbox library is compatible with the 360. And of the amount that's compatible, my experience suggests that perhaps 20% of it plays well enough on the 360 to recommend to someone else. The rest has everything from nagging issues like very inconsistent frame rates and random crashes all the way to just being plain broken.

 

So I'd say about 10% of the original Xbox library is done justice on the Xbox 360.

 

Here's a thread that was revived a day or two ago with a lot of comments about the quality of Xbox 360's backwards compatibility, games worth playing on it, and games that should be avoided. It's hardly an exhaustive overview of the 360's BC but I think many of the best performers have been mentioned at the very least and there's some good information in it.

 

http://www.atariage....-compatability/

Edited by Atariboy
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Ask your friend if he ever played more than Halo and Halo 2 on his 360 then. For obvious reasons they saw a lot of TLC from Microsoft and the results show. And for many a 360 user, their idea of 360 backwards compatibility was playing Halo 2 online on their 360.

 

It's a very hit or miss proposition with Xbox 360's backwards compatibility. Approximately 50% of the original Xbox library is compatible with the 360. And of the amount that's compatible, my experience suggests that perhaps 20% of it plays well enough on the 360 to recommend to someone else. The rest has everything from nagging issues like very inconsistent frame rates and random crashes all the way to just being plain broken.

 

So I'd say about 10% of the original Xbox library is done justice on the Xbox 360.

 

Here's a thread that was revived a day or two ago with a lot of comments about the quality of Xbox 360's backwards compatibility, games worth playing on it, and games that should be avoided. It's hardly an exhaustive overview of the 360's BC but I think many of the best performers have been mentioned at the very least and there's some good information in it.

 

http://www.atariage....-compatability/

 

OK, thanks! I might just get an original XBOX, then. Because I could get one from a top-rated seller on Ebay for about 50 bucks or less.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Like Atariboy said, the backwards compatibility on the 360 sucks. Just pick up a cheap Xbox so you can play all of the old games like Hunter: The Reckoning, Morrowind, and Rallisport Challenge 2.

 

As for the headset, I'd suggest that you pick up a cheap one for chatting with friends online, which is mainly what I use it for.

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The best setting is on the main dashboard. Friends Only. No matter what game you play, you will only hear people that are on your friends list, either through the headset or speakers.

 

Another option is to create a Party once you sign on. Then you will only hear people in your party. If it's only you, then you're golden.

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Yeah, used Xbox's are the way to go to play original Xbox titles. They're so dirt cheap now. You can probably pick up a system with a controller or two and some games for around $30 on Craigslist. That's how I ended up having 4 Xbox1's. that's the hoarder in me. They're all modded with HDD's ranging from 80GB to 320GB, stocked full of games, emulators, and apps.

 

if anyone wants to play any of the games online, let me know!

 

Though the apps are antiquated at this point. XBMC is great but it's limited to SD content. So I can't play any of my 720P or 1080P MKV files. There is a way to get some HD media to play but it requires re-encoding the video to lower bitrates and lower quality settings which just isn't worth it. The PIII 733MHz CPU just doesn't cut it for modern stuff and there's no dedicated video decoder for h.264 which is what allows mobile devices to show HD material even though mobile devices have crappy ARM processors.

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Like Atariboy said, the backwards compatibility on the 360 sucks. Just pick up a cheap Xbox so you can play all of the old games like Hunter: The Reckoning, Morrowind, and Rallisport Challenge 2.

 

As for the headset, I'd suggest that you pick up a cheap one for chatting with friends online, which is mainly what I use it for.

 

What about the quality of the XBOX games that you can purchase and download onto your 360, from XBOX Live?

 

I'm really bummed that the Splinter Cell HD Collection is not available for the 360. I really want to play through all of those games, and they were on the original XBOX to begin with!

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What about the quality of the XBOX games that you can purchase and download onto your 360, from XBOX Live?

 

I'm really bummed that the Splinter Cell HD Collection is not available for the 360. I really want to play through all of those games, and they were on the original XBOX to begin with!

 

Also, the worry that I have with getting an original XBOX from Craigslist, as opposed to one from an Ebay seller that's been refurbished, is that I won't know how old/used the thing is-and it would be played heavily by me.

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I'm pretty sure the Xbox1 game you can purchase as a digital Games on Demand option via Xbox Live on the 360 is an exact copy to the disc. So whether you get that or you pick up a disc secondhand doesn't matter. It still is up to the quality of the emulator profile created for that game.

 

As for Craigslist or refurbished via Ebay. I doubt this "refurbished" is anything special. I doubt it's refurbished by Microsoft so it's probably just a regular guy booting it up and seeing if it works. Whereas a professional refurbishment requires more testing than just turning it on. Every refurbished product I've ever bought, whether it's from Garmin or Microsoft or Western Digital or whoever has been near perfect (and that's being nitpicky). New instructions packet. Totally spotless body. I don't know about a refurbished original Xbox1 which is pretty old at this point and not backed by any company certification process.

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