Be Excellent To Each Other

My 360 froze up on me last night, but as I was about to go to bed anyway I just switched it off and thought nothing of it. This afternoon after booting it up, it's frozen again twice while trying to sign into Live, resulting in me having to switch it off using the power button each time.

At this point I was feeling a bit worried, but after unplugging the wireless dongle and rebooting it, it seems to be fine. I'm hoping it's linked in with the Live problems. Is this anything I should be worried about?

I had mine lock up a couple of times, it must have been a year or two ago now though and it hasn't happened since.

Nghhh, tried signing into Live again after plugging the dongle back in - it signed in and showed 3 friends online, then froze again.

Does it still work without the dongle, then?

Does it work ok if you don't even attempt to sign in to Live and just play a game?

Yep it's fine and I can play a game offline. It's just when trying to sign into Live that it's happening.

I don't suppose you can wire it up temporarily to bypass the dongle?

It'd be a complete PITA as my router's downstairs.

Just searched and found this:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index ... 600AAzRoFU

Some things to try there

I'd try that, later on.

If it's a case of swapping out the dongle it's better than swapping your xbox or crashing every few minutes.

I just slapped a wireless access point on mine, so everything thinks it's wired.

I've possibly got a spare Linksys one sitting in a drawer if it turns out you need a replacement dongle, but it only supports wireless B and WEP.

I was downloading the PES demo when it happened last night! To the delete-o-tron!

Sounds like that's the problem.

Mark, you're a star! It was showing as an incomplete download, so I deleted it and I can now sign in fine. Thanks to you both for your fine suggestions.

I kept meaning to make a new topic on this - FIFA or PES?

I've always preferred FIFA myself.

PES.

I tried FIFA 3 yeears ago or something when people and reviews started saying that it was getting better than PES. It was still shit

I'd rather eat my own eyeballs than play PES - it's so unbelievably soulless.

Of course I'd rather play SWOS than either of them.

hi-five! *with borat accent*

It's a good job everyone else answered your query before I got here! My Xbox froze just before getting the RROD!!

Downloading the demo for Ange were you?

PES is clearly the better football game. Or rather it was, it doesn't seem to have gone anywhere for a while now and the PES 2009 demo doesn't inspire me much.

I really, really want to like FIFA. I love football games, on the spectrum I bought any old shit as long as it was a football game. I even bought MUPLC on the amiga (not football glory though), but everytime I try to play FIFA it's just a complete pile of shit. It's always had the presentation, but the football itself was a joke. Until last year.
I still didn't like FIFA 08, but you could tell it was getting somewhere, Euro 2008 very nearly got there, and I think FIFA 09 has made it, and if I could find a shop that had the bloody 360 version in I'd buy it, but everywhere seems to be packed to the rafters of PS2, PS3 and Wii copies.

You're right about SWOS though.

Sorry for the massive thread derail, but I did have a relevant post typed up ages ago, but my pc locked up and I lost it and was then thoroughly beaten on all worthwhile suggestions.

Incidentally, perhaps you could all visit my tech support thread and tell me what on earth is wrong with my pc, because I haven't a clue anymore.

The review in 360 is by a PES head.

He describes Fifa 09 as being "So far in advance of PES as to make Konami's series pointless".

I've tried both demos, PES was just lifeless, clunky, atmosphereless.

Fifa has better modes, flows brilliantly, implies scoring from more than just "Lucky spots" and has massive extra atmos.

Obviously I have to keep up with developments to keep my opinions informed. You wouldn't judge ISS 2 vs Fifa 2002 before deciding which football game to buy for the 360, would you?

So you keep your opinions informed by playing the latest version of PES, but you'd rather eat your own eyeballs than play PES?
I hope you can understand my confusion.

Shall I qualify it by saying "I'd rather eat my own eyeballs than play any version of PES that I've already tried."?

Whatever you think best.
Even though you're wrong, as PES has been the best up until about... now.

Now if I could just find me a shop with FIFA 09 in it, I'd be sorted.

In your opinion. I'd rather etc, etc.

This years crop of EA $port$ updates seem to be really fucking excellent. Madden and Tiger 09 are pretty awesome.

Aw, I want Madden bad, I can't justify it just yet though. The demo is aces.

I got FIFA 09 from Tesco, £29.97. Might be worth a try if you haven't already.

It was definitely Pro Evo all the way before the next gen hit. It's just not progressed at all. I've been playing FIFA 09 a fair bit this evening and it's superb, probably the best FIFA since, well, the first one in all its isometric glory!

The PES demo is alright but it's too arcade-y for me now. It'll probably be a good laugh in multiplayer though.

The Madden 09 demo was excellent. I've just picked up Tiger Woods 08 cheaply, and that's good too.

You're just trying to annoy me now.
Tesco are doing it for £30 and Asda £32, but every supermarket I've been in didn't have any copies for the 360. Back to the PES 2009 demo for me.

Bugger! Hope you have more luck finding it over the weekend.

Nascar too is very, very close to being there.

PES is the most cynical series in gaming. Seriously it's so fucking blatant. They change nothing. All they do is tweak each game and then remove the tweaks for the next one.

PES4 and PES6 (PS2 versions) are practically identical. PES5 added more slowdown and took away the ability to dribble effectively. PES6 on the 360 was PES5 on the PS2 but with slightly less features. I hate Seabass so much.

Euro 2008 has been my game of the year so far. Once I get back home this sunday I'll be all over Fifa 09.

new PES demo has apparently not improved anything from what I could tell.

Oh, bloody heck. And there's me feeling slightly pleased with myself for picking up FIFA 09 from Sainsbury for £34.97.

If anyone with FIFA 09 hasn't yet tried the online mode where you play as one player (one actual player, in one position) in a twenty-player online match, you really, really should, It's a marvel. In my experience, you might have a couple of false starts in this mode (the quick start "everyone pick your team now" screen can be buggered up by one person refusing to press their 'ready' button, and the five minute countdown seems to reset at random), but once you get past the 'choose your position' clusterfuck for the glamour roles (I generally go for central midfield - attainable, yet useful) it's really good fun. The in-game handling of affairs is done really well - even down to cancelling out action replays once 9 out of 20 players vote to skip them, and I didn't even mind being on the wrong end of a six-nil drubbing at the hands of Athletico Madrid. The people who reluctantly find themselves stuck at left-back are encouraged to behave by receiving a digital bollocking from the in-game player rating cursor, meaning that a proper game of football generally occurs (as opposed to about twelve players running around after the ball like idiots).

In summary, it's really good fun. A bit like playing pub-league football, only without the half-a-dozen psychopaths twelve times harder than you making threatening insults to you every time you misplace a pass to the wing*. I've been there, man.

(*Actually, there's every chance this could still happen, but as you're at the other end of their Xbox Live headset, you're pretty safe.)

Infuriatingly for me, the DVD drive on my 360 is now so knackered, I'm lucky to make it to a match without it going eerily quiet and reporting a phony "the disc may be damaged or dirty error" (which it also does with GTA4 with alarming regularity). Does anyone here know if this is covered by the extended Microsoft warranty? Or is that just for the RROD?

Damn, was it only £35 in Sainsbury? That was the only place I saw a 360 copy yesterday, but there was no sign of a price and they were making loud noises about the PS3 copy being "only" £40, so I assumed the 360 was the same and I was too much of a rush to be able to find someone and find out.

Edit - sorry didn't take in your DVD woes. The extended warranty only covers the RROD and I think the dvd drive breaking is about the only other thing that can go wrong where you can't just try and force an RROD and get it fixed that way.

I'm not sure if they repair yours, or just send you an identical refurb. If you try and force an RROD you run the risk of them fixing it, but not your drive so you'll be no better off.

downloaded both demo's, got bored with the pes one in the first game, still think the pes normal pes was the WE6F on the gamecube, whuch gave me loads of fun, and of the modern iterations PES Wii is inspiring

The fifa'09 was quite fun, but not much more so than fifa 08 (although a bit faster), do wonde rif the live season thing will be fun in practice, think i would find it very irritating if i make a perfect pas to ronaldinho, but he misses it, because it downloaded an update that he lost his form..

and swos rules, natch, yesterday i played it on the wii, with snes9x, and the megadrive version on my iphone

Maybe it's on a store by store basis - the PS3 version was the same price as the 360 version in my local Sainsbury.



That's pretty annoying. "We'll fix one type of problem on our shoddily made product, but not another." It seems they charge £85 for repairing a DVD drive, even though you could pick up a brand new 360 Arcade for not a lot more. Now I've got the option of waiting until the new firmware comes out, with the option to install games to the hard drive, or to try repairing it myself.

I totally agreed with this comment and was dead set on buying the FIFA game after playing the demo. But now Ive played the PES demo too Im not so sure. PES 2009 is a million times better than 2008 but since 2008 was total gash then perhaps that isnt really surprising. I havent bought a FIFA game for over 10 years due to them being pretty crap but I was pretty impressed with Euro 2008 and Im very impressed with FIFA 09 so I think I may settle on that.

Im glad that finally PES have some competition and cant be content at regurgitating the same game out year after year and may have to actually try and make it better.

I'm loving the atmos of the be a pro mode. Calling for a pass out wide, collecting it, breaking and finding the cpu controlled striker ahead getting in positions and waving for the pass back. Little human reactions like that are super for immersion and something Fifa is starting to do very well even down to the little custom celebrations when goals are scored.

I'm certainly with Ramsea. I think you'd have to be a massive die hard in either direction to deny that this year we've got two very, very good games and if the teams realise this, the two "2010" games (surely they won't just call it Fifa 10) should be massive.

yeah I liked the PES demo aswell, I found the fifa demo a bit boring although I found the last one boring aswell when playing against the computer but the online mode is pretty fucking damn good and I cant see pro evo being that good until Playstation 4 or soemthing daft like that.

Anyway yeah I enjoyed the pro evo demo, its a fair bit similar to last year but theyve seem to have got rid of game spoiling super players who were twice as fast as good defenders. Also all the niggly fouls and collision detections seem to have disappeared which makes the game a whole bundle less frustrating and the legends mode looks quite good with its ratings system thing. Although really I think purchase of the game will depend on if the actual internet mode works this year since thats the best thing about football games, playing other people.

Oh people who have bought fifa is the perks mode thingy still in it?

I had FIFA 08, and it just annoyed the fuck out of me. The crossing was awful, and the passing and player selection even worse. I haven't played a PES game since PES4 on the Xbox, and that annoyed the crap out of me aswell, FOR THE SAME REASONS! Come on, how fucking difficult is it to actually improve the game, rather than just the graphics?

I've not bought a Fifa since 03 but I've not seen the word "Perks" in 09. What is said mode?

it should be a multiplayer mode think it may have been called lounge mode.

It was a mode where you could add players at will and it would keep a record/league table of all the results youve had with different people. Thing there an overall skill point score or something that sorted it out.
Anyway a couple of the modes used perks that you would get after every match like, give your opposition 20% less stamina than normally or start with a couple goal head start.

Really good mode except you couldnt pick any team you want, either you had to choose your favourite which you pick when you amke your player or you had to have random teams. Although random teams kept it quite fresh.

Ah yes, that's still there.

So the new Fifa's good then? I might put it on my Christmas list. I haven't bought one since 2005.

I think so, lots of tiny touches, like wagging the right stick after the goal triggering different celebrations. I never thought I'd see Didier Drogba doing the robot.

After extenisve playtesting of the demo this morning (well, 4 or 5 games), I am willing to betray PES and declare my love for all things FIFA.
I'm a fair man and I'm trying to give the same amount of time to the PES demo, but making me watch an unskippable video after every game isn't exactly endearing me to it. You stupid idiots. (Obviously I take this back if there is a way to skip it, and if there is, can someone let me know, ta.)

Yup, this is rather annoying...and its exactly the same on the PS3 version too. Quickest way I found was by quitting to dashboard as soon as the final whistle blew.

I'm still pretty undecided which to go for as both games appear to be excellent. The one touch stuff is pretty sweet on both games and I think the online play will be the deciding factor.

Does anyone know if either game have a custom online league as this would be amazing.

I played the PES09 with my mate.

We played PES2008 whilst waiting for post-update Live to download the demo at modem speeds.

Fired up the demo. No adjustment needed whatsoever (as usual). Had a tight game decided, predictably, by a rebound from a rubbishly spilled shot. The keepers in PES literally need to fuck off.

Same old PES.

Be a Pro mode is great fun, but I wish I'd just done the same as everyone else and been a striker. My midfielder is constantly being told he's out of position (we've lost possession, get back, get back. Wait, we've won it back, what the hell are you doing all the way back there).
Also, I've had 3 0-0 draws in a row.