HOWTO: Softmod your Xbox

~ Inquisitor ~ 260 Comments

It’s easy and it’s quick and it works surprisingly well, although you wouldn’t know it from most of the tutorials and forums out there. So I’m going to add one more to the pile – the way I did it, and how to replicate my findings.

[Update 8th May 2007: a video going through this guide is now available on YouTube. Thanks Ben!]

You need:

  • an Xbox (quite easy to get hold of, new or second hand)
  • a memory card (the hardest bit to get hold of)
  • Action Replay/Xploder/GameShark/etc. USB to Xbox memory card converter
  • the original version of “Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell” (£2 or less second-hand at your local Game, GameStation or pawn shop, not any of the sequels, some “Platinum Hits” or similar versions may not work)
  • Halo 2 or a later Xbox Live game
  • mininova.org or your favourite Xbox-containing torrent site
  • few hours download time, about 10 minutes modding time
  • the content after the break

Continue reading “HOWTO: Softmod your Xbox” →

A new acquisition

~ Inquisitor

I've just bought a second-hand Xbox.

I've never actually been able to justify a console before – I have a high spec PC with a high spec video card. Game consoles really lend themselves to a more social gaming experience; I play strategy games and single-player storyline FPSes.

So what am I doing buying an Xbox? Well, the clue's in the category title – modding the thing is the cheapest possible way to build a media centre in my front room without putting a full-size PC in there. I'm not modding so I can run pirate Xbox games, so no-one need worry about that; I buy few games, but I buy legit (albeit second hand). I'm modding so that I can run XBMC and stream MP3s and Xvids off the large hard drives in the other room, pure and simple.

My trials in modding the thing will be posted on this blog as a warning to all that follow… 

Thank you WordPress!

~ Inquisitor

New themes – and one of them’s actually stylish. I have now switched to Emire 1.0 for, hopefully, the forseeable future (unless they add K2 or a K2 clone.)

Somehow…

~ Inquisitor

I managed 127 hits yesterday (Saturday). Thank you all.

And, of course, Lordi (the Finnish monster-metal band, singing a song called "Hard Rock Hallelujah") managed to win the Eurovision Song Contest by the simple tactic of having the most tuneful and most impressively performed and choreographed song. Wish I'd put a bet on it – agnetha on the DVD Forums is boasting she'd won £170.

Why can't we do that? My own personal thoughts: if Robbie Williams, a consumnate entertainer and fantastic live performer, was to enter he'd walk it. Instead, we enter Daz Sampson, and we end up 18th. Just a small consideration.

Watch Eurovision. 8PM.

~ Inquisitor

Just you wait until you see Finland's entry. (That is, if you haven't already been spoiled by the news or Eurovision's website.) Just you wait…

Shame about ours, which is the first single of ours to actually deserve nul-points for a long time (and so, of course, will score big), but that's life.

They call it sick…

~ Inquisitor

I call it "pure dead brilliant". [via: Fark.]

One slogan, in huge white letters, said: "Al-Quaeda [sic] land here", with an X.

Another appeared to give the initials of the culprit.

Now, educations [sic] chiefs in Inverness are trying to track the person who targeted the city's Millburn Academy.

I've been to Millburn Academy, for inter-school competitions. It's a 60s dump; not entirely the most fulfilling place to have an education. And besides, this is much more literate and humourous than most graffiti, especially the idea of doing it on the roof… if they find the kids that did this, they should really let them off.

Oh, and… if a newspaper reporter doesn't get that the plural of "education chief" is "education chiefs", it's obvious that they didn't get that good an education either.

Change in comments policy

~ Inquisitor

Since I'm seeing people double-posting because of the moderation lock, and so that I don't have to delete them in the comment queue, I have disabled pre-comment moderation for first posters for the time being.

Spamming will be deleted; anything that hits Akismet, hits the WordPress word list or has more than two hyperlinks in it will be held in the comment queue for moderation. If I get more spam, pre-comment moderation for first posters goes back on.

Hopefully, that won't be necessary!