Ask X3F: Dreamcast 360 edition

Dear X3F,

How come on games like Rock Band, sometimes the DLC can't be the master tracks? I've never been able to comprehend a logical reason for this so I thought maybe you could help. Thanks.

- Messs17

While we certainly can't speak for Harmonix or MTV Games, it probably boils down to legalities and money. Someone has to pay to license all the tracks used in Rock Band, and there are legal differences between a written song and a recorded performance of a song. The differences between who owns the rights to what (and how much money they want to license them) is trickier than we'd care to detail (assuming we could actually make sense of it all). Suffice it to say that sometimes, for whatever reason, MTV and Harmonix can score the rights to use a song but not the rights to use the original band recording.

I just bought a new HDD and i was wondering if there was anyway to transfer my old saves and themes and stuff from my old HDD to my new?
And if so how do I do it?

Thanks,
Trevor

If you bought the 120GB hard drive, it should have come with a cable to transfer the data from a 20GB hard drive. You should know that this can only be done once, as it will erase the info on your 20GB hard drive after the transfer is complete. If you don't want to do that (or if you bought an additional 20GB hard drive for some reason), you can always use a 360 memory unit to transfer game saves and the like to another hard drive. Considering memory units can only story 512MB, it could take some time if your hard drive is full. Keep in mind that some things, like title updates, can't be transferred to a memory card.

Dear X3F Chimeras,

You are chimeras, right?
Anywho, I have a quick question about the up and coming Fable 2 due to release sometime.. this year hopefully.

I can never get a straight answer, and now I'm all confused with searching the internet for the answer. So I sacrified the lamb you asked for in hopes of the answer.

Question: Does your dog eventually die somewhere within the game's plot? And if so, is there a way to stop it from happening?

Thanks,
Phoenix.

WARNING: We have no way to know if we're actually spoiling Fable 2 -- it's not out yet, you see -- but the following answer contains potential spoilers.

Chimeras? No. We're more like Hooloovoos. Also, leave the lambs alone, unless you plan to eat them and make a sweater. As for your question, we don't have a definite answer but signs definitely point to yes. There was definitely chatter about the topic during E3 2007, though we can't confirm it. We can, however, confirm something James Silva (creator of The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai) told us during GDC 08. When speaking about Fable 2 maestro Peter Molyneux, he told us:

"Well he is going to kill my dog. He told me that, told everyone that. He said, "I'm going to give you a dog, you're going to love it, and then I'm going to take it away."

So, um, you might not want to get to attached to your friendly pooch.


End (potential) spoiler

hay,
ive been seeing all kinds of questions lately about games that have been canceled or not heard about for a long time. one of the launch games i was really looking forward to was frame city killer. a long time ago i think i remember seeing some rumors about it beeing canceled. is that true?

thanks,
eddie (fat santa eater)

Yup. Frame City Killer, once one of the more intriguing titles headed to the 360 back when it was still new, is officially dead. It's been so since May of 2006. It ain't coming back. C'est la vie.


Why doesnt the xbox originals have achievement points? they take the time putting them on the market place but dont add a few achievements in it that could probably double the sales.

Kristian (pronouned like christian)
Gamertag: PWN5TARR

Quick answer: because it's easier this way. Long answer: adding achievements would require futzing with the code for each game headed to Xbox Originals. This, in turn, would require the companies that made the original games to revisit their old code and implement the achievements retroactively, something we're guessing most companies aren't keen to do. As it stands, the games require no changes as they are already backwards compatible. Changing anything would make things more difficult (and possibly screw up backwards compatibility that can already be temperamental).

Hello X3F,

I've been reading your blog non-stop, every time hoping there is new info on NG2. In preparation, I've decided to play through Black again. However, I no longer have my original Xbox, so I'm playing on my X360 in BC mode. This is the first time, so there are no save files on my HDD. To my horror, the only mode available out of the box is normal. I completely forgot that I had to beat the game at normal to unlock anything remotely challenging. So my question is this: are there any cheats that unlock harder difficulties? Of course, if there aren't, then I'll just have to beat the game twice =)

Thanks,

Michael Cooper
Gamertag: NummNutts

Michael, listen up. Ninja Gaiden Black is one of the hardest games released for the last generation of consoles and arguably one of the most difficult games ever made. It was intentionally designed to be so. It even goes so far as to include an easy mode that makes fun of you for selecting it. Now ask yourself again: does this game have cheat codes? No. No it doesn't. Just take comfort in the fact that it's still one of the best playing games of all time and plow through it again. It should get you nice and warmed up for (Game of the Year 2008) Ninja Gaiden II.

Wouldn't it be awesomely spiffy if Sega released a emulator via the market place that would let you play your legally purchased Dreamcast (or Saturn) disks on the 360?

Given that code is out there for computers running windows, it should not take that much effort for Sega to create a nice legal one for the 360.

Awesomely spiffy? Hell, yes. But, we have to ask, why would Sega let gamers play all their old Dreamcast games for free when they could just have them buy them all again on Xbox Live Arcade? Trust us, if Dreamcast games ever wind up on the Xbox 360 it will be the result of Sega re-releasing titles. That is, of course, unless someone can successfully hack a Dreamcast emulator onto an Xbox 360 (so close...).

Hi guys

I recently got myself a spiffy 46" Bravia XBR (1080i) and I noticed when I initially started playing the colors and black was a bit out of whack (was set to 'vivid'), but I managed to tone it down to something acceptable after mucking around with 'standard' for a bit.

Now the other week Lifehacker had an article on HDTV calibration

I don't have any of those utilities at the moment...

I guess what I'm wondering is how people configure their HDTV for optimal Xbox 360 gaming? What are some of the display features that should be turned on for games? Do you recommend any of the calibration DVD's out there?

Regards
PH

If you happen to have the Collector's or Legendary edition of Halo 3, it actually includes an HD calibration tool. We can vouch for its effectiveness, but it's an option if you already have the game. Bungie seemed to think it was good enough that it deserved a special blue filter. If you're planning on using this tool, you can still get blue filters for free from Bungie whenever you make any other purchase.

As for other calibration DVDs, we'll leave that one to the readers to answer. How about it, readers? What calibration DVDs would you recommend?


That's it for this week, folks. Keep sending your questions to: ask [at] xbox360fanboy [dawt] com.