This is a great set of little known and undocumented features for your Xbox 360. I’m definitely going to try out a couple soon, including the iPod support. I also setup my Xbox 360’s blog as well.

10 Xbox 360 Tricks Microsoft Won’t Tell You

The more I read on Rock Band’s sequel, the more excited I get about its coming release. Then I looked, and it’s coming out in less than a month (September 14th, according to Amazon). Earlier today, they announced you could pay $5 or less to get an option to export music from the first Rock Band disc to utilize them in the second game. I’m cool with that, as long as it’s a one-time fee. Hope you upgraded your hard drive.

It sounds like the online and single player modes have been upgraded as well. Sorry Amanda, but the end is no where in sight for the Rock Band evenings in the Keefer household.

The second page of the article below also makes brief mention of a jukebox mode where you can possibly import your own songs. If that’s true, not sure how it’s going to work logistically, but I look forward to giving it a try to get my favorite Van Halen, AC/DC, etc. tracks into the game, if that is in fact what the Jukebox mode is meant to do in reality.

Rock Band 2 Updated Hands-On - Exclusive Single-Player and Multiplayer Details

Great article about where old Xbox Live-enabled games go to die. Bret and I experienced this playing NHL ‘07. While we weren’t looking for other opponents, the lobbies were almost always vacant sans us.

The other piece the other article doesn’t mention is the evolution of the lobbies, and matchmaking of these games. NHL ‘07 was so clunky, slow and painful to utilize over some of the newer games process for setting up opponents and online matches.

Xbox 360’s Dead Online Games

Yesterday, after my 100K ride, I went out to my friend’s bachelor party barbecue in Raleigh and hung out with friends and had some good grilled grub.

We were introduced too to a game that we didn’t know what it was called, but it was easy to pick up and play. It consisted of two “racks” with three horizontal bars – one of in red, blue and white. Two people (or teams) alternately toss three sets of balls with a string between them at these horizontal bars. The blue is valued at 3 points. The red is 2 and the white is 1. The first to 21 wins.

Well, I really enjoyed it and thought it’s be the perfect addition for our back yard for barbecues, gatherings, and just for Amanda and I to duel. It turns out it’s called by several names including ladder golf, ladder ball, hillbilly horseshoes, hillbilly golf, redneck golf, etc. Whatever it’s called, it’s fun.

So while we were out for lunch and running errands we picked up a set at Dick’s Sporting Goods. We only got a couple rounds in, but it’s a lot of fun and look forward to using it when friends and family are over. I wouldn’t mind having this scoreboard for it as well.

Ladder Golf Entry at Wikipedia

So soon after we got Rock Band in the Keefer household, we had friends over to play Rock Band. That first weekend, the included guitar’s strum bar went soft and almost completely non-functional. That guitar also was iffy with lifting the guitar to activate “star power.” I contacted support and sent it back and got a replacement guitar a few weeks later.

Fast forward a few months later and this replacement guitar won’t activate star power at all, without hitting its back button. So I sent that one back. Last week, I got its replacement. Same problem. How about some 1) testing before bringing this stuff to market? 2) How about testing the replacements before sending them out to people that have already had problems?

I’m on my third Rock Band guitar and still don’t have a fully functional guitar. Meanwhile, my guitar from Guitar Hero II is working as well as the day it came out of the box.

Anyone else having defective Rock Band equipment? Please comment below.

Yesterday, Harmonix announced the full 86-song setlist of on-disc tracks (to obviously be vastly supplemented with lots of tracks in the form of downloadable content, like the original Rock Band).

It’s also cool because it’s been confirmed that tracks from the first game can be ripped from the original disc into the sequel, basically doubling the possible setlists you can have in Rock Band 2 for all of us many Rock Band original owners.

I’m loving the setlist from the 60’s - 90’s. It’s great and features varied music styles throughout! Most of the stuff from the 2000 is crap, but I guess that is kind of reflective of the music industry as a whole. Overall though, this is going to rock to play.

My only other complaint is one that people have had since the original Guitar Hero. Sometimes, the game includes strange entries from bands. I don’t know if it’s a cost of licensing, or the band’s choice or whatever. But we finally get AC/DC, but instead of an anthem like “Back in Black” or “Thunderstruck,” we get “Let There Be Rock.” It’s a decent song, but not one that everyone in the room is likely to know. Here’s to hoping for a DLC AC/DC “Back in Black” album track pack (or the entire album) consisting of “Shook Me All Night Long,” “Back in Black” and “Hells Bells.”

Rock Band 2 Track List Revealed

This is great – another way to get movies to the TV quicker. We tried doing the unofficial plugin route. We got that working, and while I give them credit for making a free plugin to stream from a Media Center PC to the Xbox 360, it was close to unusable in our network setup.. very laggy to the point that movement on the joystick translated to multiple seconds until there was an-onscreen response at best.

Regardless, this new official support will be great and will keep all of us Netflix/Xbox 360 users from having to shell out another $99 for the Roku Netflix Player.

Can’t wait for this *free* update to show up in the fall.

Netflix & Microsoft Partner to Bring Watch Instantly to The Xbox 360

So it sounds like Rock Band 2 is going to build onto the super-smooth and successful original. I love the fact that they’re adding a battle of the bands mode and that the world tour mode will go to Xbox Live. This next round of music games should have even better set lists as more and more bands realize the popularity and revenue stream potential of these games. Sign me up for a copy upon release (sans the instruments):

Rock Band 2 Hands-On