19th November xbox 360 releases

Introduction
Welcome back to the 360 releases threads, I said last time that things would be winding down and indeed they appear to be (region free versions of Left 4 dead 2 and assassins creed 2 have appeared) but to save a big rush on Saturday morning you can have a thread now.
Old threads linked at the end of the post as usual.

I know I said this last time (and the time before and the time before that) but a post will hopefully appear by the end of the day but so as to lighten the doom and gloom the 360 scene finds itself in with bans, wave 4 and updates I am hoping we can get a 360 reviews of the year going on.

For those just joining us the general idea behind these posts is in each post the days (or time since last post if nothing much happens on a given day) summarises the state of the 360 scene, it is done in the subforum as GBAtemp is mainly geared to towards the GBA and current Nintendo consoles but there are a substantial amount of 'tempers familiar with other consoles as well who discuss such things on the 'temp.
We cover big releases (a short writeup, release name, region locking information and NFO), the smaller releases (those without English in are usually covered here although we will cover a big Japanese release on the rare occasions one happens), any nuke information and likewise any confirmed games added to the 360 game verification tool ABGX360 as well as any homebrew news.
We tend to avoid covering the P2P game releases as they are not especially reliable when they beat the scene to releasing (previous years have seen several big releases made ahead of street dates which were later found to not be up to scratch, this has been repeated this year as well) and afterwards there is not much point, this being said if any are of note they will be mentioned in passing.
If you have any suggestions for the format of the post or things we should add please chime in, things will calm down now but if you want to help out have a look at the recruitment thread:
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=179009

For the time being I will leave this warning section in
Wave 4 (and supposedly wave 5) which has workarounds available is upon us, see wave 4 thread for more: http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=185528
While wave 4 is now nearly certain in a release there are the odd handful of games slipping through the cracks, I am having trouble finding an up to the minute source that tells me what wave a release is (abgx360 lags a few days for obvious reasons) but I will share any info I can get.

A wave4 supporting iextreme (version 1.61) is now available for benq and samsung drive users, spoofing is still entirely possible and thanks to tools like jungleflasher or even dosflash it is very simple to pull off if you should you have a spare/old drive around.
1.51 hitachi users should be able to boot without any special measures at all.
1.6 users (available to all but Hitachi) can still use the one shot boot disc.
No ETA on liteon or other drive models although a even newer version of the hacked firmwares was announced as in testing for liteon drives.
ABGX360 has now been updated to support wave 4 games as well.
Many people who have also been banned and that have older drives have also gone back to the xtreme firmwares or non stealth iextreme.

Guides to and tools to patch a game to a given wave are also available but we strongly suggest you do not use them and certainly do not get to rely on them at this time (even if you are not on live we would say think twice) as updates to iextreme will probably render your discs useless.

MS have started their ban wave (the term wave is looking a bit incorrect mind as it seems to be detection rather than the usual ways) for Autumn/Winter 2009, no word on who how people are being targeted (people with all drive models, all drive firmwares, abgx360 checked games, before release and after release playing have reported bans while others are carrying on business as usual). c4e/commodore4eva has stated that some tests are ongoing to try and determine what goes.
Note that banning is no longer just a lack of live (system link still works and a lot of you will find you are able to use VPN to play with local friends) but a lack of hard drive installs and a few network streaming abilities so it might be worth pulling the network cable for a while.
Thread here:
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=188...t=0&start=0
Some people have taken to trying to see if they have been banned by starting a recall order, if it fails a ban is probably to come shortly after. Good news is that if you restore a NAND dump from before the ban your hard drive abilities will return for the most part and everyone should now have the ability to do such a thing (you can backup NAND regardless of kernel but be careful if you update and try to restore an old backup as fuses might have been blown and the 360 will fail to boot).
It might have been mentioned in passing but there is also a relatively simple hardware tweak you can do but be prepared to reverse it in months to come.
http://www.eurasia.nu/modules.php?name=New...r=0&thold=0

This happened a little while back now but they apparently cracking down on games being played before street dates as well (a change from their actions in the past), more here:
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=186000&hl=

Nukes and related news as well as less notable releases.

Nukes
A couple of nukes since last post (ABGX now lists 216).

Left.4.Dead.2.MULTI6.PAL.XBOX360-RoME- Nuked for missing a rar in the SFV file (fairly petty but valid according to scene rules). Will still appear in the less notable releases below.
bad.pack_r57.missing.in.sfv [FRENCHNET]

Assassins_Creed_II_NTSC_XBOX360-GameStop- In the NFO the group state the release is for "For those who don't feel comfortable playing PAL RF games on their NTSC console." but ignoring things like lips and the note below region free is region free. The release has not been questioned from a quality standpoint though but will none the less not be appearing in the main post.
It seemed to have undergone a bit of a nuke/unnuke thing so here is the blow by blow
Nuked on 2009-11-18 02:27:04 dupe.DNL.2009-11-12 [LocalNet]
Unnuked on 2009-11-18 20:48:29 DNL.is.PAL.source_contains.different.DMI.and.SS [oneNET]
Nuked on 2009-11-18 20:48:30</strong><br>DNL.is.PAL.source_contains.different.DMI.and.SS [oneNET]
Unnuked on 2009-11-18 20:48:31 DNL.is.PAL.source_contains.different.DMI.and.SS [oneNET]
Nuked on 2009-11-18 20:48:33</strong><br>DNL.is.PAL.source_contains.different.DMI.and.SS [oneNET]
Unnuked on 2009-11-18 20:48:35</strong><br>DNL.is.PAL.source_contains.different.DMI.and.SS [oneNET]
Nuked on 2009-11-18 21:35:37 dupe.DNL.2009-11-12_doesnt.contain.more.languages_both.are.RF_SS.and.DMI.different.just.means.its
another.rip.that.could.be.from.same.region_its.impossible.to.determine.region.wh
n.game.is.RF [LocalNet]
Ludibria NFO link

Pro_Evolution_Soccer_2010_USA_VERSION_PROPER_READNFO_NTSC-XBOX360-RRoD
The first release was not bad but a quote from the NFO says
Our release is the *VERIFIED* REAL PROPER USA version (English and
U.S. Spanish commentary files)

XorCist release is a mislabeled Canadian (Bilingual) version
(English and Canadian French commentary files)

See rrod-pes10-proof.png for proof and further details/differences

Nothing is wrong with the quality of the xorcist release (indeed it has not even been nuked) and thus probably making this an invalid reason for a proper (although it is still a valid reason for a release). This is also a rare example of the US having multiple releases from the same "region". This release courtesy of the extra languages should not get nuked.

Ludibria NFO link

If you recall not last time but the time before some strong words were had over the group xbox360, some have also now removed the group xbox 360 from their network but the should still be active within the scene. ABGX still seems to be listing them though and we will continue listing their releases.

No new unnukes.

Homebrew

Nothing much to report on here, I think it was mentioned somewhere on the forums but http://www.eurasia.nu/modules.php?name=New...r=0&thold=0 have a hardware tweak you can do to stop the NAND being written and so retain hard drive capabilities for a soon to be banned machine (the banning process seems to send a one time flag to shut down the hard drive abilities that can be worked around in this way or by restoring a pre ban backup*).

*The 360 features something called efuses which are logical fuses internal to the CPU that can be blown at will and thus prevent you from downgrading to an older kernel (it is why you can not have homebrew on newer kernels despite having hardware level access). Flashing an older kernel (read backup) to the NAND will see the xbox fail to boot and unless you have your "current" one backed up beforehand you can a brick for your troubles.

In other news the original xbox saw an update to the xbox port of final burn (a cps2 and cps 3 emulator as well as megadrive
Have a read of the NFO for a very extensive changelog/featurelist:
http://www.xbins.org/nfo.php?file=xboxnfo1750.nfo

http://team-xecuter.com/ also apparently have their take on the 360 mouse and keyboard adapters and did some ban tests with interesting results.
Thanks to xbox-scene for the heads up there.

Less notable releases

A couple of less notable releases.

Left_4_Dead_2_JPN_XBOX360-Caravan Japanese region release of Left 4 Dead 2 although it is region free according to the NFO.
Ludibria NFO link

Lips.Canta.En.Espanyol.SPANISH.RF.XBOX360-RABO- Spanish version of Lips (a karaoke game), not sure if like other versions the track list varies between releases (it is a good bet though). NFO has basic listings.
Ludibria NFO link

Pro_Evolution_Soccer_2010_USA_VERSION_PROPER_READNFO_NTSC-XBOX360-RRoD Same as the other NA release but with Spanish instead of French for the second language. More in the nukes section above.
Ludibria NFO link

Left.4.Dead.2.MULTI6.PAL.XBOX360-RoME Multi6 featuring the four of the big European languages (English, French, German, Spanish), Russian and "lv" according to the NFO. Despite naming ABGX has it as region free, the other versions were region free so this counts as a language dupe as far as these threads are concerned.
Ludibria NFO link

Additions to ABGX360
We suggest you use the link below and the abgx360 tool as the site does not use scene naming meaning it can be quite hard to tell entries apart, this is just for reference really (RF= region free)
ABGX360 ( Web frontend to verified database ) added:

Tropico 3 RF (4th wave)
Madagascar Kartz RF (4th wave)
Cabela's Alaskan Adventures RF (1st wave)
Assassin's Creed II RF (4th wave)
Raiden IV NTSC/U (3rd wave)
Tornado Outbreak NTSC/U (3rd wave)

Presently the ABGX360 database is the only source we have other than NFOs for determining what is 4th wave or not (we do not love you enough to download every ISO and check it), if you have a better source for us PM FAST6191 or reply in the one of the relevant posts. With 1.61 and other wave 4 compatible firmwares available or on the horizon now this message will probably go when everyone can easily play wave 4 games.

Releases

Release dates can be found here: http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/xbox360/ although the dates on gamefaqs seem to be slightly "off" and as usual are subject to change at the last moment.
The year has now been essentially finished releases wise, there are still a handful of games from reasonably popular (or once reasonably popular) series but all of the big hitters have been released or pushed to next year (albeit the first few days of January). We will be keeping up with these threads although courtesy of this fact they may not be as common as they have been (Saturday morning roundups maybe) or they may be reduced to simple posts with info as necessary.

As an aside if possible the NFOs are being sent as unicode/some encoding that will not lose the format if possible which means we may not lose the ASCII art any more (I am far too lazy to make up picture NFOs not to mention I like text), for old ones perhaps http://shailendra88.blogspot.com/2009/02/h...in-firefox.html is of some use.

In order of most recent to pre:

Sherlock_Holmes_Versus_Jack_the_Ripper_PAL_XBOX360-STRANGE
Region locked PAL only.

The PC version was released back in May (late September on the scene).
It is an adventure game of sorts although it will probably play more like a point and click adventure (perhaps if any of you played Discworld Noir- similar idea). It marks the developer Frogwares' first foray into home consoles but their PC games have been generally well liked by those who like adventure games.

[spoiler][/spoiler]


Scene.It.Bright.Lights.Big.Screen.USA-XBOX360
Region locked US only according to the NFO.

A film trivia game, not sure how great a market there is with Trivial Pursuit Silver Screen Edition available for next to nothing or even how many people would be inclined to play this on a console but some people like this sort of thing I guess.

[spoiler][/spoiler]


SpongeBobs_Truth_Or_Square_PAL_XBOX360-SPARE

The region locked PAL version of SpongeBobs Truth of Square (US release was a little over two weeks ago now). Unknown wave (US release was wave 3).
Despite being available for over two weeks now in the US a quick search turns up no reviews and what few posts about the game there are show a divided opinion.
It is a action/platformer and apparently some of the earlier entries in the series have been more than passable.

[spoiler][/spoiler]

Useful things to know

First the current WIP GBAtemp 360 FAQ (not the same one that is stickied), it should cover most questions you might have on the 360 although it too is looking a bit out of date right now:
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=157263

XBOX360.Release.Standards.2007.v1.340

Click on the image and it will load up the full picture.
Some sections of the scene also use the general console release standards as well as the 360 ones.

As many of you know modding your xbox can lead to a ban from xbox live (more or less the only recourse Microsoft have), we do not know the exact methods used to detect modding but it is a fair guess that it is related to the games not appearing as originals for various reasons.
While playing games prior to street dates has been considered and indeed as of mid October 2009 MS have been seen to be targeting those who have as yet "unreleased" games on their profiles it is still somewhat up in the air.

On the other hand prerelease games can sometimes be bad dumps, dumps from non retail sources, bad packing of dumps like any other dump but without a retail copy it is markedly difficult to verify a release beyond the basics. The tool AGBX360 is used to verify isos, directories and games burned to disc and can fix isos and directories if necessary but requires this data (a basic check using the data the game holds is still possible though).
Those who do not care about being banned from live or are willing to risk it then not much need to worry unless otherwise mentioned (as an example the first leaks of Halo 3 ODST were bad which meant while they would run a good chunk of gameplay was missing).

Little bits of 360 release history will be covered from time to time but if you want to delve into the substantial back catalogue of games for the 360 then
http://www.abgx.net/filename/?ch=6 has release names and a great deal of info.
Another site that is also very useful is (they are frequently a source of the NFOs posted with these releases)
http://www.ludibria.com
Other sites with useful tools and info are
http://abgx360.net/ (the homepage for a tool to verify and fix games, once a game is added to their database a more thorough check can be performed).
http://www.xbins.org/ the web frontend to an FTP site dedicated to homebrew for the original xbox and 360, easyxbins is a nice tool to access the FTP site ( http://www.360mods.net/index.php?name=Down...tails&id=29 )
We will leave info on how to flash xboxes for games and/or homebrew to other threads as it occasionally moves fast and is better left to them.

As mentioned in the first big paragraph the 360 supports region locking leaving it to developers and publishers to choose what is done (other than German releases what will be done is very unpredictable).
Those without a homebrew enabled 360 (even then it takes a bit of effort) will find region locking is not able to be bypassed on the 360.
There is no great worry unless you are sporting a Japanese 360 (English language games are often region locked out and Japanese xbox games can take months to appear) as game releases usually fall very close together region wise these days. Close together means usually within a week and this still usually means before street dates in respective countries.

It has not come up here but it has in other places; region free is region free and it does not matter what territory the game that was ripped comes from so if there is a region free NTSC sourced release and you are in a PAL country do not wait on a PAL release unless you are waiting for a given language as it will not happen (and if it does scene rules tend to mean the release is nuked), similarly we are going to shift to just stating the regions a game is locked to rather than sources to try and eliminate some confusion unless it is unknown at the time of posting.
There are four regions as far as the 360 is concerned being Japan (NTSC-J), USA (NTSC-U), Europe (PAL) and China (NTSC-C), Australia counts as PAL and anyone anywhere else in the world will probably have an imported 360 so I will leave that to the owners to figure out. China and Japan usually overlap along with the rest of Asia but not always (there are not all that many Chinese releases anyhow).

As mentioned there is now a homebrew method that works on new consoles (previous ones would only work on consoles without HDMI) provided you have not done the August 11th 2009 update or any subsequent ones. Many versions of Xell (the homebrew loader) have now been compiled so most 360 models are now hackable (it is mainly just the ones with large nand to go now) and the rest should fall shortly.

There are two main options being considered:
1) Flashing a different region code- unless you have a dual nand chip (one region on each) this is a fairly long winded process but it does work.
If you can ignore the text speak xbox scene has a guide (we suggest you use it as a rough guide to understand what is going on):
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=693753
If you should manage to have your motherboard/cpu key and provided you do not downgrade then you should even be able to do it on a post august the 11th xbox, this is probably a very small subset of people but if you were hanging on with the intention of doing this sort of thing you might be in luck.
Chip development (NAND chips this is) is also progressing once again.

2) A "rebooter" app- The general idea is to (soft) reboot into a custom kernel/similar which handily ignores things like region checking.
A few early stage hacks exist for older homebrew methods but recently a tool called freeboot appeared (it is still far from complete) that allows soft rebooting into a different kernel which is the first stage on the road.
NFO from the release http://www.xbins.org/nfo.php?file=xboxnfo1743.nfo

A handful of 360 homebrew sites and guides exist (our own forums are also filled with knowledgeable people too) so for the curious
Free60 (the base of the current homebrew work)
Euraisa writeup of the new hack and how it works
Xboxhacker.net (forums frequented by the Free60 crew and many others)
Any discussion on those sites will be of a highly technical nature and a similar level of knowledge/ability is expected of you if you decide to join in.

Previous 360 release threads
The follow links are to the older release threads, if there is some time between threads anything that happened between threads will be covered.

12th November 2009
12th November 2009
10th November 2009
4th November 2009
31st October 2009
28th October 2009
26th October 2009
21st October 2009
20th October 2009
17th October 2009
16th October 2009
14th October 2009
11th October 2009
9th October 2009
7th October 2009
6th October 2009
4th October 2009
2nd October 2009
28th September 2009
25th September 2009
23rd September 2009
17th September 2009
16th September 2009
15th September 2009
14th September 2009
12th September 2009
11th September 2009 and the summer releases

Pictures that make you despair for the world/certain people

Today I was doing some scanning and what should appear but this thing:



It is a section of some proper plans from a proper chartered architect costing the people who ordered it a considerable amount as such things generally do......


For those that have been spared such a thing (in which case welcome to the internet/computing) the fools used comic sans as a font on supposedly professional drawings.

15th November xbox 360 releases.

Introduction
I am sure most reading will have already seen by region free versions of Left 4 dead 2 and assassins creed 2 have appeared along with a handful of other games, it means the year has been more of less rounded out (there are a few more niche appeal games still set for release).
Old threads linked at the end of the post as usual.

I know I said this last time (and the time before) but a post will hopefully appear by the end of the day but so as to lighten the doom and gloom the 360 scene finds itself in with bans, wave 4 and updates I am hoping we can get a 360 reviews of the year going on.

For those just joining us the general idea behind these posts is in each post the days (or time since last post if nothing much happens on a given day) summarises the state of the 360 scene, it is done in the subforum as GBAtemp is mainly geared to towards the GBA and current Nintendo consoles but there are a substantial amount of 'tempers familiar with other consoles as well who discuss such things on the 'temp.
We cover big releases (a short writeup, release name, region locking information and NFO), the smaller releases (those without English in are usually covered here although we will cover a big Japanese release on the rare occasions one happens), any nuke information and likewise any confirmed games added to the 360 game verification tool ABGX360 as well as any homebrew news.
We tend to avoid covering the P2P game releases as they are not especially reliable when they beat the scene to releasing (previous years have seen several big releases made ahead of street dates which were later found to not be up to scratch, this has been repeated this year as well) and afterwards there is not much point, this being said if any are of note they will be mentioned in passing.
If you have any suggestions for the format of the post or things we should add please chime in, things will calm down now but if you want to help out have a look at the recruitment thread:
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=179009

For the time being I will leave this warning section in
Wave 4 which has workarounds available is upon us, see wave 4 thread for more: http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=185528
While wave 4 is now nearly certain in a release there are the odd handful of games slipping through the cracks, I am having trouble finding an up to the minute source that tells me what wave a release is (abgx360 lags a few days for obvious reasons) but I will share any info I can get.

A wave4 supporting iextreme (version 1.61) is now available for benq and samsung drive users, spoofing is still entirely possible and thanks to tools like jungleflasher very simple to pull off if you should you have a spare/old drive around.
1.51 hitachi users should be able to boot without any special measures at all.
1.6 users (available to all but Hitachi) can still use the one shot boot disc.
No ETA on liteon or other drive models although a even newer version of the hacked firmwares was announced as in testing for liteon drives.
ABGX360 has now been updated to support wave 4 games as well.

Guides to and tools to patch a game to a given wave are also available but we strongly suggest you do not use them and certainly do not get to rely on them at this time (even if you are not on live we would say think twice) as updates to iextreme will probably render your discs useless.

MS have started their ban wave (the term wave is looking a bit incorrect mind as it seems to be detection rather than the usual ways) for Autumn/Winter 2009, no word on who how people are being targeted (people with all drive models, all drive firmwares, abgx360 checked games, before release and after release playing have reported bans while others are carrying on business as usual). c4e/commodore4eva has stated that some tests are ongoing to try and determine what goes.
Note that banning is no longer just a lack of live (system link still works and a lot of you will find you are able to use VPN to play with local friends) but a lack of hard drive installs and a few network streaming abilities so it might be worth pulling the network cable for a while.
Thread here:
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=188...t=0&start=0


This happened a little while back now but they apparently cracking down on games being played before street dates as well (a change from their actions in the past), more here:
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=186000&hl=

Nukes and related news as well as less notable releases.

Nukes
Three nukes since last post (ABGX now lists 214).

Left.4.Dead.2.Region.Free-XBOX360-LaGarTiJa- A "one time" scene group gets a release shortly after the game was first seen on p2p... we have seen many of these over the last few months. Nothing has been questioned on the quality front though and this another rar size nuke:
Official reason "invalid.rar.size_103809024.bytes [LocalNet]".

Assassins.Creed.2.PAL.XBOX360-MegaWare- nuked for being p2p but someone sending it out on the pre channel/network anyway.
First nuke reason:
"p2p.rls.MegaWare.is.a.well.known.x360.p2p.group.i33.tinypic.com.f3xd86.png"
Some have un nuked it and it with
"UNNUKED: dont.nuke.for.p2p_delpre.it"

Not sure where the other nuke that apparently exists comes into play.

If you recall last time some strong words were had over the group xbox360, some have also now removed the group xbox 360 from their network but I have nothing official or unofficial to share here. ABGX still seems to be listing them though and we will continue listing their releases.

Also Need.for.Speed.Shift.PAL.DIRFIX.ITA.SPA.FR.GER.RUS.XBOX360-VATOS appeared in one of my sources.

Long story short nothing that I can see has been nuked for being a bad release.

Homebrew

Nothing much to report on here.

Less notable releases

Nothing today, all is being reported on in the main section.

Additions to ABGX360
We suggest you use the link below and the abgx360 tool as the site does not use scene naming meaning it can be quite hard to tell entries apart, this is just for reference really (RF= region free)
ABGX360 ( Web frontend to verified database ) added:

Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 NTSC/U (4th wave)
SpongeBob's Truth or Square PAL (3rd wave)
Dragon Ball: Raging Blast PAL (4th wave)
Jurassic: The Hunted NTSC/U (4th wave)

Presently the ABGX360 database is the only source we have other than NFOs for determining what is 4th wave or not (we do not love you enough to download every ISO and check it), if you have a better source for us PM FAST6191 or reply in the one of the relevant posts. With 1.61 and other wave 4 compatible firmwares available or on the horizon now this message will probably go when everyone can easily play wave 4 games.

Releases

Release dates can be found here: http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/xbox360/ although the dates on gamefaqs seem to be slightly "off" and as usual are subject to change at the last moment.
We have the last few big releases in this thread although a few interesting games are still to appear. We will be keeping up with these threads although courtesy of this fact they may not be as common as they have been or they may be reduced to simple posts with info as necessary.

As an aside if possible the NFOs are being sent as unicode/some encoding that will not lose the format if possible which means we may not lose the ASCII art any more (I am far too lazy to make up picture NFOs not to mention I like text), for old ones perhaps http://shailendra88.blogspot.com/2009/02/h...in-firefox.html is of some use.

In order of most recent to pre:

Left.4.Dead.2.XBOX360-MARVEL

Region free, some have called "wave 5" but I can confirm 1.61 working and others have already confirmed activate.iso on 1.6 working.
There is also what I imagine to be a p2p repack in Left.4.Dead.2.Region.Free-XBOX360-LaGarTiJa as mentioned in the nukes section.

The sequel to the somewhat popular co-op zombie apocalypse FPS title.
This version sees new characters, some new weapons (most have two of the same time: two sniper rifles, two assault rifles, two pistols....), several melee weapons instead of just the butt of your gun, new enemies (special and regular), tweaked gameplay (there are some more mission based objectives at given points), several new campaigns, several new modes (as well as the standard story and versus mode you have real mode (no game hints/highlights, headshots preferred...), survival mode (think horde mode and whatever knockoff every FPS game since has done), scavenger mode (remember those mission based objectives mentioned earlier)), enhanced local co-op gaming (before lack of online made it suffer a bit), weapon upgrades (explosive and incendiary bullets as well as lase sights), new grenade type weapons, new support items (defibrillators to resurrect dead characters, adrenalin to speed you up in various ways).

I have played it and it is good, it suffers a bit in my opinion for not having a mouse but not to the point where it detracts from the game.

[spoiler][/spoiler]


Cobra.11.Highway.Nights.PAL.XBOX360-SWAG
Region locked PAL only.

Those who read the last 360 releases post would have seen the shots I fired at the publisher RTL games, it seems I need to do it again as there is next to no info out there on this game. It seems it is based on the German fictional TV show about car chases, using the incredibly scientific method of my comparing my opinion of the theme music (some soft Jazz) it is nowhere near as good as The Sweeney or The Professionals and therefore suffers for it.
Looking at the game trailer it looks to be a fusion of games like burnout, need for speed most wanted and what I can find on previous entries points to a sharply divided set of opinions. I have no idea how this will turn out and I can find little on the game.

[spoiler][/spoiler]


Saw.PAL.XBOX360-LoCAL

The region locked PAL version of Saw (US release was just over a month ago). Unknown wave (US release was wave 3).

A survival horror (think Silent Hill) set in the Saw universe, not sure how that works as what little of the saw series (could not have been more bored on the entry of the series I saw) I have seen says it is nothing to do with survival horror. It is probably considered canon in the saw universe but it is not a retread of any films. On all the reviews of the US version combat was panned but the rest of the game supposedly stood up quite well.

[spoiler][/spoiler]


Chaotic.Shadow.Warriors-XBOX360

Region free. XBOX360 got a sort of scene ban/no trade suggestion the other day so it may or may not filter down to some circles and it does not appear on some pre databases.

I saw this as upcoming the other day and did a bit of research then. Based on a cartoon/trading card game it looks to be a fairly good Lost Kingdoms knockoff, the 360 does not have so many of these sorts of games so it might be worth a look if.

[spoiler][/spoiler]


LEGO_Indiana_Jones_2_The_Adventure_Continues_XBOX360-STRANGE
Region free.

Part of the lego games series from developers Travellers Tales (star wars, rockband and batman previously having had the lego makeover treatment with lego Harry Potter set to appear at some point as well) and sequel to the somewhat popular Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures, this version sees the recent film also appear in the game and like the games before it co-op is the way forward. They are usually relatively easy/simplistic having kids as part of their target audience but that tends not to stop the older people from enjoying them.

[spoiler][/spoiler]

Final_Fantasy_XI_Online_Ultimate_Collection_NTSC_XBOX360-ZRY
Region locked US only.

Call it what you will this is a game of the year edition of Final Fantasy 11. For those new to this Final Fantasy 11/XI is a massively multiplayer game rather than a single player RPG like the other entries in the final fantasy series. To keep things slightly fresh new (paid for) content appears from time to time and this is a bundle of the lot. I am guessing it works by itself but prospective users note that it requires a few to play (you should not need gold though).
Listing of expansions inside spoiler

[spoiler]
Stealing quotes from searches
Expansions:

* Rise of the Zilart
* Chains of Promathia
* Treasures of Aht Urghan
* Wings of the Goddess

Add-on scenarios:

* A Crystalline Prophecy — Ode of Life Bestowing
* A Moogle Kupo d’Etat — Evil in Small Doses
* A Shantotto Ascension — The Legend Torn, Her Empire Born.

[/spoiler]

Assassins.Creed.II.PAL.XBOX360-DNL
Region free. Wave 4.

After several p2p releases we have the scene release thanks to DNL. Along with Left 4 Dead 2 Assassins Creed II represents the last of the big releases for 2009.
It is a direct sequel to the 2007 game Assassins Creed although rather than crusades era holy lands you are now in renaissance era Italy and playing as a new character* (there have been a couple of handheld titles set in the first game's timeframe). My afternoon was spent playing Left 4 Dead 2 and I missed my chance to see this so no further comments from me but others on the 'temp in the various discussion threads are saying it is a big improvement over the first title.

*anyone mentioning the whole animus thing meaning you are playing someone playing as someone gets a slap.

Those new to the series it is probably best to play the first title at least but you play as an assassin back in history whose job it is to take out various targets. The games are noted for their open ended levels you navigate free running and climbing.

[spoiler][/spoiler]


Useful things to know

First the current WIP GBAtemp 360 FAQ (not the same one that is stickied), it should cover most questions you might have on the 360 although it too is looking a bit out of date right now:
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=157263

XBOX360.Release.Standards.2007.v1.340

Click on the image and it will load up the full picture.
Some sections of the scene also use the general console release standards as well as the 360 ones.

As many of you know modding your xbox can lead to a ban from xbox live (more or less the only recourse Microsoft have), we do not know the exact methods used to detect modding but it is a fair guess that it is related to the games not appearing as originals for various reasons.
While playing games prior to street dates has been considered and indeed as of mid October 2009 MS have been seen to be targeting those who have as yet "unreleased" games on their profiles it is still somewhat up in the air.

On the other hand prerelease games can sometimes be bad dumps, dumps from non retail sources, bad packing of dumps like any other dump but without a retail copy it is markedly difficult to verify a release beyond the basics. The tool AGBX360 is used to verify isos, directories and games burned to disc and can fix isos and directories if necessary but requires this data (a basic check using the data the game holds is still possible though).
Those who do not care about being banned from live or are willing to risk it then not much need to worry unless otherwise mentioned (as an example the first leaks of Halo 3 ODST were bad which meant while they would run a good chunk of gameplay was missing).

Little bits of 360 release history will be covered from time to time but if you want to delve into the substantial back catalogue of games for the 360 then
http://www.abgx.net/filename/?ch=6 has release names and a great deal of info.
Another site that is also very useful is (they are frequently a source of the NFOs posted with these releases)
http://www.ludibria.com
Other sites with useful tools and info are
http://abgx360.net/ (the homepage for a tool to verify and fix games, once a game is added to their database a more thorough check can be performed).
http://www.xbins.org/ the web frontend to an FTP site dedicated to homebrew for the original xbox and 360, easyxbins is a nice tool to access the FTP site ( http://www.360mods.net/index.php?name=Down...tails&id=29 )
We will leave info on how to flash xboxes for games and/or homebrew to other threads as it occasionally moves fast and is better left to them.

As mentioned in the first big paragraph the 360 supports region locking leaving it to developers and publishers to choose what is done (other than German releases what will be done is very unpredictable).
Those without a homebrew enabled 360 (even then it takes a bit of effort) will find region locking is not able to be bypassed on the 360.
There is no great worry unless you are sporting a Japanese 360 (English language games are often region locked out and Japanese xbox games can take months to appear) as game releases usually fall very close together region wise these days. Close together means usually within a week and this still usually means before street dates in respective countries.

It has not come up here but it has in other places; region free is region free and it does not matter what territory the game that was ripped comes from so if there is a region free NTSC sourced release and you are in a PAL country do not wait on a PAL release unless you are waiting for a given language as it will not happen (and if it does scene rules tend to mean the release is nuked), similarly we are going to shift to just stating the regions a game is locked to rather than sources to try and eliminate some confusion unless it is unknown at the time of posting.
There are four regions as far as the 360 is concerned being Japan (NTSC-J), USA (NTSC-U), Europe (PAL) and China (NTSC-C), Australia counts as PAL and anyone anywhere else in the world will probably have an imported 360 so I will leave that to the owners to figure out. China and Japan usually overlap along with the rest of Asia but not always (there are not all that many Chinese releases anyhow).

As mentioned there is now a homebrew method that works on new consoles (previous ones would only work on consoles without HDMI) provided you have not done the August 11th 2009 update or any subsequent ones. Many versions of Xell (the homebrew loader) have now been compiled so most 360 models are now hackable (it is mainly just the ones with large nand to go now) and the rest should fall shortly.

There are two main options being considered:
1) Flashing a different region code- unless you have a dual nand chip (one region on each) this is a fairly long winded process but it does work.
If you can ignore the text speak xbox scene has a guide (we suggest you use it as a rough guide to understand what is going on):
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=693753
If you should manage to have your motherboard/cpu key and provided you do not downgrade then you should even be able to do it on a post august the 11th xbox, this is probably a very small subset of people but if you were hanging on with the intention of doing this sort of thing you might be in luck.
Chip development (NAND chips this is) is also progressing once again.

2) A "rebooter" app- The general idea is to (soft) reboot into a custom kernel/similar which handily ignores things like region checking.
A few early stage hacks exist for older homebrew methods but recently a tool called freeboot appeared (it is still far from complete) that allows soft rebooting into a different kernel which is the first stage on the road.
NFO from the release http://www.xbins.org/nfo.php?file=xboxnfo1743.nfo

A handful of 360 homebrew sites and guides exist (our own forums are also filled with knowledgeable people too) so for the curious
Free60 (the base of the current homebrew work)
Euraisa writeup of the new hack and how it works
Xboxhacker.net (forums frequented by the Free60 crew and many others)
Any discussion on those sites will be of a highly technical nature and a similar level of knowledge/ability is expected of you if you decide to join in.

Previous 360 release threads
The follow links are to the older release threads, if there is some time between threads anything that happened between threads will be covered.

12th November 2009
10th November 2009
4th November 2009
31st October 2009
28th October 2009
26th October 2009
21st October 2009
20th October 2009
17th October 2009
16th October 2009
14th October 2009
11th October 2009
9th October 2009
7th October 2009
6th October 2009
4th October 2009
2nd October 2009
28th September 2009
25th September 2009
23rd September 2009
17th September 2009
16th September 2009
15th September 2009
14th September 2009
12th September 2009
11th September 2009 and the summer releases

12th of November 2009 xbox 360 releases.

Introduction
A few games appeared since last post so we are back, most of the big releases were released ahead of time or were already region free but a few games that might be worth looking at have appeared.
Old threads linked at the end of the post as usual.

I know I said this last time but a post will hopefully appear by the end of the day but so as to lighten the doom and gloom the 360 scene finds itself in with bans, wave 4 and updates I am hoping we can get a 360 reviews of the year going on.

For those just joining us the general idea behind these posts is in each post the days (or time since last post if nothing much happens on a given day) summarises the state of the 360 scene, it is done in the subforum as GBAtemp is mainly geared to towards the GBA and current Nintendo consoles but there are a substantial amount of 'tempers familiar with other consoles as well who discuss such things on the 'temp.
We cover big releases (a short writeup, release name, region locking information and NFO), the smaller releases (those without English in are usually covered here although we will cover a big Japanese release on the rare occasions one happens), any nuke information and likewise any confirmed games added to the 360 game verification tool ABGX360 as well as any homebrew news.
We tend to avoid covering the P2P game releases as they are not especially reliable when they beat the scene to releasing (previous years have seen several big releases made ahead of street dates which were later found to not be up to scratch, this has been repeated this year as well) and afterwards there is not much point, this being said if any are of note they will be mentioned in passing.
If you have any suggestions for the format of the post or things we should add please chime in, if you want to help out in the coming months when things get really busy (we are sure you have all seen at least one summer games drought followed by a packed autumn/winter release schedule which is usually made even worse by being able to move in these circles) we are recruiting people to help post these up.
Recruitment thread:
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=179009

For the time being I will leave this warning section in
Wave 4 which has workarounds available is upon us, see wave 4 thread for more: http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=185528
I am having trouble finding an up to the minute source that tells me what wave a release is (abgx360 lags a few days for obvious reasons) but I will share any info I can get- we did first expect a short lag where wave 4 games would be less common (similar to the wave 3 stuff) but despite being in a Christmas run up full of big releases wave 4 is now nearly certain in a release.

A wave4 supporting iextreme (version 1.61) is now available for benq and samsung drive users, spoofing is still entirely possible and thanks to tools like jungleflasher very simple to pull off if you should you have a spare/old drive around.
1.51 hitachi users should be able to boot without any special measures at all.
1.6 users (available to all but Hitachi) can still use the one shot boot disc.
No ETA on liteon or other drive models although a even newer version of the hacked firmwares was announced as in testing for liteon drives.

Guides to and tools to patch a game to a given wave are also available but we strongly suggest you do not use them and certainly do not get to rely on them at this time (even if you are not on live we would say think twice) as updates to iextreme will probably render your discs useless.

MS have started their ban wave for Autumn/Winter 2009, no word on who how people are being targeted (people with all drive models, all drive firmwares, abgx360 checked games, before release and after release playing have reported bans while others are carrying on business as usual). c4e/commodore4eva has stated that some tests are ongoing to try and determine what goes.
Note that banning is no longer just a lack of live (system link still works) but a lack of hard drive installs and a few network streaming abilities so it might be worth pulling the network cable for a while.
Thread here:
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=188...t=0&start=0

This happened a little while back now but they apparently cracking down on games being played before street dates as well (a change from their actions in the past), more here:
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=186000&hl=

Nukes and related news as well as less notable releases.

Nukes
Technically only a single nuke since last time (ABGX now lists 211).

Hasbro.Family.Game.Night.USA-XBOX360- had a bit of a nuke/unnuke thing going on.

not.a.scene.grp_dont.trade [Nuclear]
provide.proof.to.back.up.such.claims_if.group.is.not.scene.then.do.not.nuke.delp
e.instead [oneNET]
100.percent.nuke.rate.for.grp_nonstandard.rars_not.a.scene.grp_dont.trade [Nuclear]

For those not familiar with how the scene works the short version is that some are claiming the group XBOX360 are not a scene group.
Someone unnuked requesting proof.
The release was then nuked again for nonstandard rar sizes and a claim the group has a 100 nuke rate (not true although they have a lot of nukes for wrong rar size) and then calls either for a scene ban or just to ignore them.
At no point is the release called into question so it will be appearing in the main post. If any more news on this state of affairs appears it will be relayed in these posts here.

Call_of_Duty_Modern_Warfare_2-XBOX360-DAGGER- not nuked yet but the RRoD release was region free (as is this) and has not been nuked either, no proof has yet been provided that the RRoD release is bad so we may see a nuke for being a dupe.

No un nukes beyond the Hasbro stuff up above.

Homebrew

The big news of the day is that ABGX360 got an update with a large changelog. War was kind enough to post up a thread in this forum section http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=190293
The big two changes though as far as most people are concerned are
- Added support for 4th Wave PFI/Video
- Added support for SS v2
Homepage of the app: http://abgx360.net/ (also has a nice explanation of wave 4 below the release notes).

Nothing else of note.

Less notable releases

Once again we have a few region dupes.

Need_for_Speed_Shift_JPN_XBOX360-Caravan- the "US" release was compatible with Japanese consoles so this is a language thing really. Region locked Japan only.

ludibria.com NFO link

Dragon_Ball_Raging_Blast_JPN_XBOX360-Caravan Japanese region dupe of Dragon Ball Raging Blast. According to the NFO region locked Japan only, the games often feature Japanese voiceovers when they make it to the west though so probably no loss there.

ludibria.com NFO link

We also had a few game guides released. We do not make a great effort to cover these but as they were they for the copy and pasting.
Dragon.Age.Origins.Official.Game.Guide.XBOX360.PS3.PC-Unleashed
Bakugan.Battle.Brawlers.Official.Game.Guide.XBOX360.NDS.PS2.PS3-Unleashed
Sonic.The.Hedghog.Official.Game.Guide.XBOX360.PS3-Unleashed
Lost.Odyssey.Official.Game.Guide.XBOX360-Unleashed
Forza.Motorsport.3.Official.Game.Guide.XBOX360-Unleashed


Additions to ABGX360
We suggest you use the link below and the abgx360 tool as the site does not use scene naming meaning it can be quite hard to tell entries apart, this is just for reference really (RF= region free)
ABGX360 ( Web frontend to verified database ) added:

Dragon Ball: Raging Blast NTSC/U (4th wave)
Fairytale Fights (US and PAL) (4th wave)
Dragon Age: Origins PAL (4th wave)
LEGO Rock Band RF (4th wave)
Medal of Honor: Airborne PAL (2nd wave)
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 RF (4th wave)

Presently the ABGX360 database is the only source we have other than NFOs for determining what is 4th wave or not (we do not love you enough to download every ISO and check it), if you have a better source for us PM FAST6191 or reply in the one of the relevant posts. With 1.61 and other wave 4 compatible firmwares available or on the horizon now this message will probably go when everyone can easily play wave 4 games.

Releases

Release dates can be found here: http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/xbox360/ although the dates on gamefaqs seem to be slightly "off" and as usual are subject to change at the last moment.
Unless any edits appear today was mainly to cover a handful of releases that might interest people in an otherwise fairly quiet week on the scene.
Chaotic: Shadow Warriors, Final Fantasy XI (the MMO final fantasy rather than the series proper) is set to see a ultimate edition (game of the year by any other name) and Stoked Big air edition is also up. The week after sees most of the remaining big releases for the year at least so the possibility of a pre release is always there.

As an aside if possible the NFOs are being sent as unicode/some encoding that will not lose the format if possible which means we may not lose the ASCII art any more (I am far too lazy to make up picture NFOs not to mention I like text), for old ones perhaps http://shailendra88.blogspot.com/2009/02/h...in-firefox.html is of some use.

In order of most recent to pre:

RTL_Winter_Sports_2010_PAL_XBOX360-REV0

Looks to be region locked PAL and no word of a US release.

Rev0 bring us a couple of releases today, first up is at least according to gamefaqs a massive pre release (street date is 27th there).

The developer is 49Games who have been around a few years now, mainly make competitive sports games and do not have a very impressive track record at all. RTL need to fire their marketing department as well as there is next to no info out there on the title other than a few articles in German and their flash ridden website, still boardercross, ski flying (I assume this means ski jumping), Alpine skiing, freeride skiing, short-track speed skating, figure skating, bobsledding, and biathlon.

[spoiler][/spoiler]


Tropico_3_XBOX360-REV0
Should be region free.

Quote from the product blurb:
"Tropico 3 lets players take the reigns of a small, but strategically positioned Caribbean island and challenges them to stay in power for more than 50 years.

As the famed “El Presidente,” players ward off political opposition while choosing to either lead their country into peace and prosperity, or rule their banana republic through fear as a tyrannical dictator."

A strategy game with some nice looking graphics (the game plays a bit like sim city but looks more like the sims), not sure how well such things translate to consoles or more specifically console controllers (historically they have not fared well once we left the realms of simple/slow paced games). The PC version has some good reviews (great reviews for a strategy game- they usually do not fare so well outside of their niche).

[spoiler][/spoiler]


Tornado.Outbreak.PAL.XBOX360-SWAG

As the NFO and name say the previous release was region locked US only.

Tornado outbreak is one of a recent glut of action platformer games and is the first game from Loose Cannon, it got some fairly good reviews and is probably worth a look if you like these sort of games. Some have called Katamari Damacy knockoff but I shall confess to never having seen Katamari Damacy played let alone indulging in it myself so no further comment there.


[spoiler][/spoiler]


Hasbro.Family.Game.Night.USA-XBOX360

Region locked US only. Nuked for invalid rar sizes but that does not cause any problems for the end user, see the nukes section for more.

As the name would suggest you get to play a computerised selection of classic and not so classic board games.
Listings of the games vary a bit but "CONNECT FOUR, BATTLESHIP, YAHTZEE, BOGGLE, SORRY! and the all new, SORRY! Sliders" seems to be a common theme and there are supposedly several remixes of those games bundled as well (whether this just means common alternative rules or something genuinely new is up for debate).
I suspect if I was asked for a one word summary "inoffensive" would be it.

[spoiler][/spoiler]
Call_of_Duty_Modern_Warfare_2-XBOX360-DAGGER
Region free- wave 4.

Included for whatever reason (as far as we know the RRoD release is still good and nothing to suggest otherwise has been offered up).
You have probably heard of this by now, if not it is a fairly hyped FPS title, for me at least while it was never going to live up to the hype I would not rate it among the best games either. Others will probably disagree but I saw most of the other FPS titles from the last few months were as good if not better.

[spoiler][/spoiler]

Useful things to know

First the current WIP GBAtemp 360 FAQ (not the same one that is stickied), it should cover most questions you might have on the 360 although it too is looking a bit out of date right now:
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=157263

XBOX360.Release.Standards.2007.v1.340

Click on the image and it will load up the full picture.
Some sections of the scene also use the general console release standards as well as the 360 ones.

As many of you know modding your xbox can lead to a ban from xbox live (more or less the only recourse Microsoft have), we do not know the exact methods used to detect modding but it is a fair guess that it is related to the games not appearing as originals for various reasons.
While playing games prior to street dates has been considered and indeed as of mid October 2009 MS have been seen to be targeting those who have as yet "unreleased" games on their profiles it is still somewhat up in the air.

On the other hand prerelease games can sometimes be bad dumps, dumps from non retail sources, bad packing of dumps like any other dump but without a retail copy it is markedly difficult to verify a release beyond the basics. The tool AGBX360 is used to verify isos, directories and games burned to disc and can fix isos and directories if necessary but requires this data (a basic check using the data the game holds is still possible though).
Those who do not care about being banned from live or are willing to risk it then not much need to worry unless otherwise mentioned (as an example the first leaks of Halo 3 ODST were bad which meant while they would run a good chunk of gameplay was missing).

Little bits of 360 release history will be covered from time to time but if you want to delve into the substantial back catalogue of games for the 360 then
http://www.abgx.net/filename/?ch=6 has release names and a great deal of info.
Another site that is also very useful is (they are frequently a source of the NFOs posted with these releases)
http://www.ludibria.com
Other sites with useful tools and info are
http://abgx360.net/ (the homepage for a tool to verify and fix games, once a game is added to their database a more thorough check can be performed).
http://www.xbins.org/ the web frontend to an FTP site dedicated to homebrew for the original xbox and 360, easyxbins is a nice tool to access the FTP site ( http://www.360mods.net/index.php?name=Down...tails&id=29 )
We will leave info on how to flash xboxes for games and/or homebrew to other threads as it occasionally moves fast and is better left to them.

As mentioned in the first big paragraph the 360 supports region locking leaving it to developers and publishers to choose what is done (other than German releases what will be done is very unpredictable).
Those without a homebrew enabled 360 (even then it takes a bit of effort) will find region locking is not able to be bypassed on the 360.
There is no great worry unless you are sporting a Japanese 360 (English language games are often region locked out and Japanese xbox games can take months to appear) as game releases usually fall very close together region wise these days. Close together means usually within a week and this still usually means before street dates in respective countries.

It has not come up here but it has in other places; region free is region free and it does not matter what territory the game that was ripped comes from so if there is a region free NTSC sourced release and you are in a PAL country do not wait on a PAL release unless you are waiting for a given language as it will not happen (and if it does scene rules tend to mean the release is nuked), similarly we are going to shift to just stating the regions a game is locked to rather than sources to try and eliminate some confusion unless it is unknown at the time of posting.
There are four regions as far as the 360 is concerned being Japan (NTSC-J), USA (NTSC-U), Europe (PAL) and China (NTSC-C), Australia counts as PAL and anyone anywhere else in the world will probably have an imported 360 so I will leave that to the owners to figure out. China and Japan usually overlap along with the rest of Asia but not always (there are not all that many Chinese releases anyhow).

As mentioned there is now a homebrew method that works on new consoles (previous ones would only work on consoles without HDMI) provided you have not done the August 11th 2009 update or any subsequent ones. Many versions of Xell (the homebrew loader) have now been compiled so most 360 models are now hackable (it is mainly just the ones with large nand to go now) and the rest should fall shortly.

There are two main options being considered:
1) Flashing a different region code- unless you have a dual nand chip (one region on each) this is a fairly long winded process but it does work.
If you can ignore the text speak xbox scene has a guide (we suggest you use it as a rough guide to understand what is going on):
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=693753
If you should manage to have your motherboard/cpu key and provided you do not downgrade then you should even be able to do it on a post august the 11th xbox, this is probably a very small subset of people but if you were hanging on with the intention of doing this sort of thing you might be in luck.
Chip development (NAND chips this is) is also progressing once again.

2) A "rebooter" app- The general idea is to (soft) reboot into a custom kernel/similar which handily ignores things like region checking.
A few early stage hacks exist for older homebrew methods but recently a tool called freeboot appeared (it is still far from complete) that allows soft rebooting into a different kernel which is the first stage on the road.
NFO from the release http://www.xbins.org/nfo.php?file=xboxnfo1743.nfo

A handful of 360 homebrew sites and guides exist (our own forums are also filled with knowledgeable people too) so for the curious
Free60 (the base of the current homebrew work)
Euraisa writeup of the new hack and how it works
Xboxhacker.net (forums frequented by the Free60 crew and many others)
Any discussion on those sites will be of a highly technical nature and a similar level of knowledge/ability is expected of you if you decide to join in.

Previous 360 release threads
The follow links are to the older release threads, if there is some time between threads anything that happened between threads will be covered.
10th November 2009
4th November 2009
31st October 2009
28th October 2009
26th October 2009
21st October 2009
20th October 2009
17th October 2009
16th October 2009
14th October 2009
11th October 2009
9th October 2009
7th October 2009
6th October 2009
4th October 2009
2nd October 2009
28th September 2009
25th September 2009
23rd September 2009
17th September 2009
16th September 2009
15th September 2009
14th September 2009
12th September 2009
11th September 2009 and the summer releases

10th November 2009 xbox 360 releases

Introduction
Welcome back to the 360 releases threads, as far as notable new games only Dragon Ball Z Raging Blast (PAL version and US version) was released and those were taken care of on the forums by Maz7006 and Rock Raiyu respectively, we do have a whole bunch of less notable releases though and some homebrew stuff worth mentioning so a post appeared.

A post will hopefully appear by the end of the day but so as to lighten the doom and gloom the 360 scene finds itself in with bans, wave 4 and updates I am hoping we can get a 360 reviews of the year going on.

Old threads linked at the end of the post as usual.

For those just joining us the general idea behind these posts is in each post the days (or time since last post if nothing much happens on a given day) summarises the state of the 360 scene, it is done in the subforum as GBAtemp is mainly geared to towards the GBA and current Nintendo consoles but there are a substantial amount of 'tempers familiar with other consoles as well who discuss such things on the 'temp.
We cover big releases (a short writeup, release name, region locking information and NFO), the smaller releases (those without English in are usually covered here although we will cover a big Japanese release on the rare occasions one happens), any nuke information and likewise any confirmed games added to the 360 game verification tool ABGX360 as well as any homebrew news.
We tend to avoid covering the P2P game releases as they are not especially reliable when they beat the scene to releasing (previous years have seen several big releases made ahead of street dates which were later found to not be up to scratch, this has been repeated this year as well) and afterwards there is not much point, this being said if any are of note they will be mentioned in passing.
If you have any suggestions for the format of the post or things we should add please chime in, if you want to help out in the coming months when things get really busy (we are sure you have all seen at least one summer games drought followed by a packed autumn/winter release schedule which is usually made even worse by being able to move in these circles) we are recruiting people to help post these up.
Recruitment thread:
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=179009

For the time being I will leave this warning section in
Wave 4 which has workarounds available is upon us, see wave 4 thread for more: http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=185528
I am having trouble finding an up to the minute source that tells me what wave a release is (abgx360 lags a few days for obvious reasons) but I will share any info I can get- we did first expect a short lag where wave 4 games would be less common (similar to the wave 3 stuff) but despite being in a Christmas runup full of big releases wave 4 is now nearly certain in a release.

A wave4 supporting iextreme (version 1.61) is now available for benq and samsung drive users, spoofing is still entirely possible and thanks to tools like jungleflasher very simple to pull off if you should you have a spare/old drive around. No ETA on liteon or other drive models although a even newer version of the hacked firmwares was announced as in testing for liteon drives (more in the homebrew section).
1.6 users (available to all but Hitachi) can still use the one shot boot disc and 1.51 hitachi users should be able to boot without any special measures at all.

Guides to and tools to patch a game to a given wave are also available but we strongly suggest you do not use them and certainly do not get to rely on them at this time (even if you are not on live we would say think twice).

MS have started their ban wave for Autumn/Winter 2009, no word on who how people are being targeted (people with all drive models, all drive firmwares, abgx360 checked games, before release and after release playing have reported bans while others are carrying on business as usual). c4e/commodore4eva has stated that some tests are ongoing to try and determine what goes. Note that banning is no longer just a lack of live but a lack of hard drive installs and a few network streaming abilities so it might be worth pulling the network cable for a while.

Thread here:
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=188...t=0&start=0

This happened a little while back now but they apparently cracking down on games being played before street dates as well (a change from their actions in the past), more here:
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=186000&hl=

Nukes and related news as well as less notable releases.

Nukes
Technically only a single nuke since last time (ABGX lists 210) but a few other nukes depending on what parts of the scene you follow appeared.

Call.of.Duty.Modern.Warfare.2.PAL.SPANiSH-XBOX360-ChaTo- nuked for being a dupe of the other Spanish release, nothing technical though.

Official reason is "dupe.RanGer.2009-11-07".

Call.of.Duty.Modern.Warfare.2.PAL.SPANiSH-XBOX360-RanGer- not seen a nuke on abgx but some sites have it as "mislabeled_german.inside [Sheep]". Not sure how to play it here.

Mentioned in passing but some pre sites list Assassins_Creed_JPN_XBOX360-Caravan as having just pre'd despite the exact same release from the group also having pre'd about this time in 2007.

No un nukes.

Homebrew

We mentioned a wave patcher a few posts back, it seems the final version appeared along with a pack. Again we do not suggest using them at all unless you can argue otherwise.

An unofficial version of abgx360 which supposedly has wave 4 support is doing the rounds, official ABGX will still work but the iso will be flagged up as stealth uncertain. Safe to wait for an official release.

Free60 JTAG Hack Jasper
As the name implies a version of xell now exists for Jasper motherboards although only the 16 megabyte ones (those with larger nand sections are not so lucky).

Finally if you venture over to #fw (the efnet network IRC channel for 360 firmware hacks discussions) then you will see
"[c4eva] new fw in dev/test - ixtreme LT (Lite Touch) - more efficient , minimal patching , all aspects of fw indistinguisable from orig, no more bans, No ETA!"
A new hacked firmware is in the works with liteon drives being the first version to come (before saying anything know that 1.51 hitachi already has wave 4 support and beng and samsung iextreme 1.61 also with wave 4 exist) although no eta.

Less notable releases

A whole slew of less notable releases since last time.

Call of Duty modern warfare 2 got many region dupes.

Call_of_Duty_Modern_Warfare_2_PAL_FRENCH_XBOX360-ZER0 Call.of.Duty.Modern.Warfare.2.PAL.SPANiSH-XBOX360-ChaTo Call.of.Duty.Modern.Warfare.2.PAL.SPANiSH-XBOX360-RanGer Call.of.Duty.Modern.Warfare.2.PAL.ITALIAN.XBOX360-DNL Call.of.Duty.Modern.Warfare.2.PAL.GERMAN.XBOX360-DNL

As mentioned above ChaTo's release got nuked for being a dupe but otherwise you have the French, Spanish, Italian and German releases.
NFOs in said order:
http://www.ludibria.com/nfo.php?sys=x36&sysid=1940
http://www.ludibria.com/nfo.php?sys=x36&sysid=1938
http://www.ludibria.com/nfo.php?sys=x36&sysid=1937
http://www.ludibria.com/nfo.php?sys=x36&sysid=1936

NBA_Live_10_JPN_XBOX360-Caravan- Japanese version of NBA Live 10. The "PAL" release also supposedly supported Japanese region 360s but I guess this version has Japanese language where the other did not.

ludibria.com NFO link

Colin_Mcrae_Dirt2_JPN_XBOX360-Caravan Apparently DiRT 2 still bears the Colin Mcrae name in Japan. Other releases were region free so this is most likely a language thing.

ludibria.com NFO link

Pro.Evolution.Soccer.2010.iTALIAN.PAL.XBOX360-RoME- Italian region dupe of the 2010 iteration of Pro Evolution soccer.

ludibria.com NFO link

Namco_Museum_Virtual_Arcade_JPN_XBOX360-Caravan- A region locked Japanese version of a collection of arcade titles (in both senses of the word: they were originally arcade machine games and also were seen on the 360 arcade).
Allstars and xbox360 have had a version out for PAL and US area for 6 and 12 months respectively although the US version may need to be run through ABGX360 first.

ludibria.com NFO link

World_Soccer_Winning_Eleven_2010_JPN_XBOX360-SuperX360- Japanese region locked region dupe of the Pro Evolution Soccer series.

ludibria.com NFO link

Additions to ABGX360
We suggest you use the link below and the abgx360 tool as the site does not use scene naming meaning it can be quite hard to tell entries apart, this is just for reference really (RF= region free)
ABGX360 ( Web frontend to verified database ) added:

Indianapolis 500 Evolution NTSC/U (3rd wave)
Fable II RF (2nd wave)
Backyard Football '10 NTSC/U (3rd wave)
Band Hero RF (3rd wave)

Presently the ABGX360 database is the only source we have other than NFOs for determining what is 4th wave or not, if you have a better source for us PM FAST6191 or reply in the one of the relevant posts. With 1.61 and other wave 4 compatible firmwares available or on the horizon now this message will probably go when everyone can easily play wave 4 games.

Releases

Release dates can be found here: http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/xbox360/ although the dates on gamefaqs seem to be slightly "off" and as usual are subject to change at the last moment.
This post was mainly to cover the region dupes that appeared since last time, the following week should be fairly quite unless we get a pre release but expect a few region dupes (including PAL region Tornado Outbreak and SpongeBob's Truth or Square).
Tropico 3 as well as Chaotic: Shadow Warriors, Final Fantasy XI (the MMO final fantasy rather than the series proper) is set to see a ultimate edition (game of the year by any other name) and Stoked Big air edition is also up. The week after sees most of the remaining big releases for the season.

The was only one game (region locked so two releases) since last time and those were taken care of on the forums by Maz7006 and Rock Raiyu
As an aside the NFOs are being sent as unicode/some encoding that will not lose the format if possible which means we may not lose the ASCII art any more (I am far too lazy to make up picture NFOs not to mention I like text), for old ones perhaps http://shailendra88.blogspot.com/2009/02/h...in-firefox.html is of some use.

Dragon_Ball_Z_Raging_Blast_PAL_XBOX360-STRANGE and Dragon_Ball_Raging_Blast_NTSC_XBOX360-SPARE

Region locked PAL and US for the respective releases (Japanese release should be within the next few days), unknown wave but almost certain to be wave 4.

I can not say I have played a console Dragon Ball Z game since the megadrive/genesis (there was a really good 2d fighting game) but the game series appears to have fans outside of the fans of the anime or manga series (others are more than happy to ignore it). Based on the manga/anime rather than the recent film it features in the order of 70 faces from said series.

[spoiler][/spoiler]

[spoiler][/spoiler]



Useful things to know

First the current WIP GBAtemp 360 FAQ (not the same one that is stickied), it should cover most questions you might have on the 360 although it too is looking a bit out of date right now:
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=157263

XBOX360.Release.Standards.2007.v1.340

Click on the image and it will load up the full picture.
Some sections of the scene also use the general console release standards as well as the 360 ones.

As many of you know modding your xbox can lead to a ban from xbox live (more or less the only recourse Microsoft have), we do not know the exact methods used to detect modding but it is a fair guess that it is related to the games not appearing as originals for various reasons.
While playing games prior to street dates has been considered and indeed as of mid October 2009 MS have been seen to be targeting those who have as yet "unreleased" games on their profiles it is still somewhat up in the air.

On the other hand prerelease games can sometimes be bad dumps, dumps from non retail sources, bad packing of dumps like any other dump but without a retail copy it is markedly difficult to verify a release beyond the basics. The tool AGBX360 is used to verify isos, directories and games burned to disc and can fix isos and directories if necessary but requires this data (a basic check using the data the game holds is still possible though).
Those who do not care about being banned from live or are willing to risk it then not much need to worry unless otherwise mentioned (as an example the first leaks of Halo 3 ODST were bad which meant while they would run a good chunk of gameplay was missing).

Little bits of 360 release history will be covered from time to time but if you want to delve into the substantial back catalogue of games for the 360 then
http://www.abgx.net/filename/?ch=6 has release names and a great deal of info.
Another site that is also very useful is (they are frequently a source of the NFOs posted with these releases)
http://www.ludibria.com
Other sites with useful tools and info are
http://abgx360.net/ (the homepage for a tool to verify and fix games, once a game is added to their database a more thorough check can be performed).
http://www.xbins.org/ the web frontend to an FTP site dedicated to homebrew for the original xbox and 360, easyxbins is a nice tool to access the FTP site ( http://www.360mods.net/index.php?name=Down...tails&id=29 )
We will leave info on how to flash xboxes for games and/or homebrew to other threads as it occasionally moves fast and is better left to them.

As mentioned in the first big paragraph the 360 supports region locking leaving it to developers and publishers to choose what is done (other than German releases what will be done is very unpredictable).
Those without a homebrew enabled 360 (even then it takes a bit of effort) will find region locking is not able to be bypassed on the 360.
There is no great worry unless you are sporting a Japanese 360 (English language games are often region locked out and Japanese xbox games can take months to appear) as game releases usually fall very close together region wise these days. Close together means usually within a week and this still usually means before street dates in respective countries.

It has not come up here but it has in other places; region free is region free and it does not matter what territory the game that was ripped comes from so if there is a region free NTSC sourced release and you are in a PAL country do not wait on a PAL release unless you are waiting for a given language as it will not happen (and if it does scene rules tend to mean the release is nuked), similarly we are going to shift to just stating the regions a game is locked to rather than sources to try and eliminate some confusion unless it is unknown at the time of posting.
There are four regions as far as the 360 is concerned being Japan (NTSC-J), USA (NTSC-U), Europe (PAL) and China (NTSC-C), Australia counts as PAL and anyone anywhere else in the world will probably have an imported 360 so I will leave that to the owners to figure out. China and Japan usually overlap along with the rest of Asia but not always (there are not all that many Chinese releases anyhow).

As mentioned there is now a homebrew method that works on new consoles (previous ones would only work on consoles without HDMI) provided you have not done the August 11th 2009 update or any subsequent ones. Many versions of Xell (the homebrew loader) have now been compiled so most 360 models are now hackable (it is mainly just the ones with large nand to go now) and the rest should fall shortly.

There are two main options being considered:
1) Flashing a different region code- unless you have a dual nand chip (one region on each) this is a fairly long winded process but it does work.
If you can ignore the text speak xbox scene has a guide (we suggest you use it as a rough guide to understand what is going on):
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=693753
If you should manage to have your motherboard/cpu key and provided you do not downgrade then you should even be able to do it on a post august the 11th xbox, this is probably a very small subset of people but if you were hanging on with the intention of doing this sort of thing you might be in luck.
Chip development (NAND chips this is) is also progressing once again.

2) A "rebooter" app- The general idea is to (soft) reboot into a custom kernel/similar which handily ignores things like region checking.
A few early stage hacks exist for older homebrew methods but recently a tool called freeboot appeared (it is still far from complete) that allows soft rebooting into a different kernel which is the first stage on the road.
NFO from the release http://www.xbins.org/nfo.php?file=xboxnfo1743.nfo

A handful of 360 homebrew sites and guides exist (our own forums are also filled with knowledgeable people too) so for the curious
Free60 (the base of the current homebrew work)
Euraisa writeup of the new hack and how it works
Xboxhacker.net (forums frequented by the Free60 crew and many others)
Any discussion on those sites will be of a highly technical nature and a similar level of knowledge/ability is expected of you if you decide to join in.

Previous 360 release threads
The follow links are to the older release threads, if there is some time between threads anything that happened between threads will be covered.

4th November 2009
31st October 2009
28th October 2009
26th October 2009
21st October 2009
20th October 2009
17th October 2009
16th October 2009
14th October 2009
11th October 2009
9th October 2009
7th October 2009
6th October 2009
4th October 2009
2nd October 2009
28th September 2009
25th September 2009
23rd September 2009
17th September 2009
16th September 2009
15th September 2009
14th September 2009
12th September 2009
11th September 2009 and the summer releases