Be Excellent To Each Other

Its proper out now, replacing your normal iOS xbox Live app. Integrates well, works cracking with browser, launch Halo 4 and it morphs into a waypointesque stats jobbie, no questions asked.

Not flawless but nice first impression.

Get thee testing, sirs and madams.

Is this only just out on iOS?

Mine could do it six months ago, loser.

Bit harsh, Cras.

Smooth!

Ta

What the fuck just happened?

Basically, you were a bit of a cunt to GovernmentYard.

I have access to logs, remember. Mind you, I'm completely pissed and can't remember how to go about doing so.

Yeah, Yule ones.

Are you on a Windows phone, Cras?

Aye. Smartglass is...unimpressive.

Unimpressive? I disagree... I think it's very clever and very impressive.

Meh. Could just be me, but it's constantly reconnecting and I struggle to come up with a single reason why I wouldn't just reach for the 360 controller.

I haven't got reconnection problems, so it might be something routery knacking yours. Its much better for messaging and explorer if surfing round the telly for something, plus the automatic invoking of Halo Waypoint has been most handy tonight.

Its a better thing than Kinect, anyway. Looking forward to it working with more games in the future, hopefully in glance when you need it ways, a la stats etc. i think mapping and so on is quite likely. In any case I already have a tablet or netbook by my side when gaming for faqs and cheevo guides and hidden object directions etc, so this just offers more integration.

In tactical games, a series of shortcuts might be handy, in GTA the map would be a cracking 'always on' thing. Taking a few non-critical bindings off joypads frees up the d-pad, I would like to lost the radio and mobile phone stuff from GTA, both would fit nicely on smartglass.

My housemate did this the other day, and said "I've seen the future and it's shit".

I'm not too bothered to give it a try.

It's handy when you need a keyboard, but otherwise I'm on board with the "it's a bit shit" crowd.

It'd be good in a wiiu style setup. Multiple private screens for quiz games might be cool. As a touch controller for casual games also.

I hope you at least hesitated for a moment before clicking 'Submit' on that one.

I haven't seen it, but I can be pretty sure it's better than Playstation Home, even if it is underwhelming.

I did hesitate, as I typed Chocolate first. Then I made the quip much more seasonal.

I downloaded this for my iPhone last night.

Then I went to bed.

It could be nice for inventories / maps etc.

I seriously doubt i'll use it for anything else.

Bearing in mind that you'll have to put your controller aside to use it (or at least take one hand off the controller) it'll be of limited use.

How long until it's a quicktime event

In BF3. An always on map, that I can touch to put down a waypoint that shows up for the other members of my squad.

That would be quite nice and useful, mainly because I suffer from temporary anomia when i'm gaming "Go there, to the thing! That thing, with the thing coming out of it!" but then we get into the aspect of people using it having an edge over those who don't.

But you could use that in the single player campaign mode? Either way, I welcome the new technology with open arms.

Single player BF3? What's that?

...after putting your pad to one side.

I have a desk next to the chair where I normally play games so I'd happily have my iPad/phone next to me on there to use Smartglass.

But I appreciate that I'm in the minority there...

I'll get this downloaded now so I can try Halo 4 with it.

It does sound totally wizard, but it sort of reminds me of when they told me I could plug my Gameboy into my GameCube. Which I did. Once.

Was that to play Pac-Man Vs? That was awesome that was.

I did that for Animal Crossing and the disappointing Final Fantasy Chronicles. It could have been a useful addition, but was just a gimmick in the end.

It was for Wind Waker, which suddenly had a minimap. That's why it reminded me of Smartglass.

I reckon I did it for Billy Hatcher too as you could download a couple of rubbish mini games. Great game that though.

I used to use the VMU display all the time when playing Dreamcast games, it was excellent and well used by all the developers...

... oh, wait.

I didn't know this! I loved that game... When I worked for Game we had it playing throughout the store for an entire day. The 45 second intro music was looped for 8 hours. It was ace.

I do a cracking impression of the noise made when you'd smack one of the big birds. Sorta like the mental patient woman from Little Britain.

I've got a feeling that one of the mini games was chu-chu rocket. I might be wrong. Sub-check please...

I did that for Animal Crossing (to visit the island) , for Pacman VS (although only 2 player so it never really had the draw it was suppose to) and for Zelda 4 Swords which again I think would have worked better with 4 actual people rather than 2 + 2 AI

There's a minigame in Nintendoland for Wii U that is basically a new version of Pacman VS.

http://www.samurainintendo.com/gameboy/gcpowered.html

Here's all the GC games and their GBA links.

The Billy Hatcher games sound more interesting than I remember! Chu Chu Rocket, NiGHTS Score Attack, Puyo Pop and Billy Hatcher Hyper Shoot Easy/Hard.

That's excellent.. but it doesn't tell you how to get them? Hmmm.. I'll have a play this weekend if I can find my connection cable.

If you had a GBA flashcart, you could find those minigames somewhere on the internet, and play them that way. That's how I played NiGHTs score attack. I had Billy Hatcher too, but there was no way of keeping it on the console other than leaving it on.

Something to do with collecting secret eggs. Team Sonic ones, I think. There must be a walkthrough somewhere in the ether.

There you go!

Forza Horizon and Smartglass. I'll give this a go I think.

That's the way to do it! Awesome!

I like that.

That's pretty neat, but if I was doing that with my 360 setup (which I'm pretty sure is normal - I'm sat on a sofa and the TV is on the wall and there's a small coffee table somewhere in front of me) I'd need Mrs Grim... to hold the iPad up for me

Fair enough, but it isn't an essential item, so you've (currently) lost nothing by not having it.

If MS have any sense they'll get a great user base of this and also have it incorporated into games and then remove the Apple and Android licenses forcing people to buy a Windows phone or a special extra controller for it.

It'd give her a sense of involvement in the game.