Because I know you care

I know everyone has been concerned about my Xbox, I know I have been. It has been nearly a month since my Xbox 360 was stricken with the dreaded Red Ring of Death. The flashing red lights mocked me while I was trying to watch some Netflix streaming.

For those who don’t know, the flashing Red lights on the Xbox indicates a hardware problem, a frequent problem for 360 owners. I had mine for a little more than a year before it went Red. That seems a little quick in my opinion.

It has been shipped and Microsoft has confirmed that it’s on the way back home. In fact according to UPS it should be back here Monday.

I know I’m not alone in the whole loss of my Xbox 360 for a long period of time and in the pantheon of problems this isn’t really a big problem but I do miss the ability to pop in a new game and have fun.

I have been playing my original Xbox off and on, going through some of the games that don’t play on the 360 but it just isn’t the same. Come home soon Mr. 360, we have missed you.

My Xbox 360 just died

As I am sitting on my sofa watching some television, I have a box sitting next to me that should be a part of all those nice shinny electronics near my television. Today my Xbox 360 finally succumb to the RRoD.

For those who don’t know, the RRoD (Red Ring of Death) is a problem the 360 has been known to have for quite some time. It’s a hardware crash that requires repair. It is supposed to be a easy fix, but for some reason it doesn’t feel as painless as Microsoft would like us to believe.

I got my Xbox 360 last February. I’m disturbed that only a year and change into the console’s working life it would fail like this. If it had a couple years under its belt I would feel better about the whole thing.

Microsoft had been spending the last few months gaining some good will from me. Windows 7 was looking good, the new Zune HD was a compelling product and everything they were showing at E3 with the 360 was looking exceptional.

I’m not ready to give up on the 360 as a platform. I have put a lot of money into games and the service in general, but it is disheartening to have these kinds of problems in what could be a all in one movie/game/television/music device. Shame on you Microsoft. You could have spent a little more time early on and addressed these problems before they ever were problems.

My repair request is in and I just received my confirmation. It shouldn’t cost me anything which is nice, but it’s still a major annoyance. At least I’ll have it before Halo 3 ODST comes out. This just reminds me why I find Microsoft’s products to be less than some of its competitors (cough Apple, cough).

The cake is a lie

For the gamers out there …

Found via Neil Gaiman’s Journal

Musings for July 2008

The month of July seems to really be flying by and I still haven’t seen “The Dark Knight.” For most of my co-workers, they would have thought I would be first in line for the flick, I have been talking about it for years now.

I just don’t have faith that I won’t end up in a theater with some jerk talking through the whole thing. It seems to happen to me every time. I will see it though. That and the X-Files movie.

Just watched “The Mist,” the latest Stephen King story to make it to the big screen. It’s been sitting on a long wait from Netflix for a while but it finally showed up in my mailbox earlier this week. I kinda saw the ending coming but it was still quiet shocking. Not really the movie I originally thought it would but, but well worth the rent. I have “21″ and “Awake” sitting on my coffee table now for my next viewing.

The Xbox 360 continues to get a work out. I’m starting to play Halo 3 with the difficulty level turned up a notch or two. I’m beginning to think this will end up being a mistake as it is taking me three times as long to progress through the first stage, but my gamer score/pride needs some achievements.

I’m looking at a week in August to take off from work. Things have been crazy at work, many of you probably know the editor for the Independent left recently. We’re still working hard but no announcement for his replacement has been made.

The majority of my vacation will be spent relaxing and letting nothing be my road trip. My Dad is trying to get me to come with him to a battlefield or some other excursion but we’ll have to see. I need some time to just stand still for a change.

I have a new gadget, a SlingBox A/V sitting atop my TiVo. It’s pretty sweet. It allows me to watch and control my TiVo on my MacBook from anywhere I have a broadband connection. I haven’t tested it out too much, but I’m planning on giving it a good work out this weekend.

Current music: Saves the Day “In Reverie”

Liberty City, here I come

After work on Friday I rented Grand Theft Auto IV. I’ve played most of the previous titles (going back to GTA II, before the game most people recognize as the start of the franchise GTA III). I’ve always been a passive gamer when it came to the series and the whole humor/over-the-top attitude of the series never struck me as worth spending a lot of time with.

With GTA IV, there is something different going on. The game still suffers from the horrible driving scheme, hand-to-hand combat and shooting are still wrote with problems, but the story — really makes up for things.

You play as a eastern European immigrant who drops into the world of Liberty City over the promise of riches, only to find it’s not the place he thought it would be.

From that point on you meet friends and develop relationships that actually feel like they matter.

I’m only about 5 hours into the game really so I have a long way to go, but I know this is a game I’m going to buy eventually. Sure it’s still violent, the people are crude but the world is beautiful. Like nothing you’ve ever seen in games before.

Halo 3, or a good reason to spend too much money

Confession: I’m addicted to Halo. If it wasn’t for this first person shooter, I would have little interest in the Xbox, as I am a Nintendo fan from way back in the day (which by the way was a Tuesday back in 1986). However the Halo series is too good to pass up.

Halo 3, the final game in the story trilogy was released earlier this week and I didn’t buy it. The problem is, I don’t have an Xbox 360. I do have an original Xbox with the first two games, but that doesn’t help me playing the third game.

Lucky for me I have a friend with a 360 and he was nice enough to let me give the game a spin. I was able to quickly make my way through the first level yesterday and follow that up with some death match gaming. After about 2 hours with the game I can honestly say it’s a fantastic addition to the series and increases my interest in the second Xbox.

It’s still going to be a while before my next Xbox goes into my system, so my time with the new Halo will mostly be spent over at friends places. If you want to buy me a 360, I wouldn’t (probably wouldn’t) say no.

Some day, some day.

I Believe

From Joystiq via Derek.

Mario meets his maker

Why can't Wii be friends

It looks like the Nintendo Wii will continue to be a hard item to find through at least the holidays. What? It’s been out since last November and I could understand a few months of shortage, it’s pretty popular after all, but by now I should be able to walk in the store at any time and pick one up.

A friend of mine had a Wii, he has since sold it. The few hours I had with the console was pretty cool. I’d like to get one. The only problem I find with the system is – it’s almost exclusively a social system. It’s difficult to get the motivation to play a single player game on it. I could be wrong, but that was my impression.

I’m disappointed in Nintendo. One would think production of the system would have been ramped up by this point. The company is risking loosing that “it” factor that helped build its must have status.

We’ll see how things play out, but with Xbox 360s failing left and right and the PS3 stalling out before selling out, the Wii is the only strong contender for the winner of the race.