Why I am WISHING for an RRoD...

Keegan got up a bit early this morning and since I was off today, I decided I'd take him downstairs to watch a DVD with me while mommy slept. Since we had a finite space for entertainment components (and the DVR takes up three quarters of it), we decided to sell our DVD player and just use the Xbox 360. This little arrangement had worked out fine... until today. I went to turn on the 360 to put in a disc and that's when I saw it...

(Sign you are about to have an 8 lb paperweight)

Now at first this didn't bother me, because I saw this same error message (E74) the other day and just took the Hard Drive off and put it back on and then everything was fine. Not this time though. It has now been a full 12 hours and every time its the same result. I looks like its officially dead.

So that got me a little upset as it was, but I remembered Microsoft had automatically extended their warranty period for the 360s because of their horrible failure rate (around 16.4% last year when they extended the warranty). So I did a little research and found out the extended warranty only covers the infamous Red Ring of Death (RRoD), which is three red flashing lights. My error is covered under the standard warranty... which expired JANUARY 2ND!!! So now I have a few options here:

• Pay the out of warranty repair fee ($95 or approximately HALF the cost of a new system)
• Buy a new system (yeah... right)
• Try to fix it myself (voiding the extended warranty)
• MAKE it get the Red Ring of Death (oops! shit! I thought that was a bag of microwave popcorn)

Regardless, I always kind of felt like I was biding my time with the console until it crap out on me.

Wait... what's this dusty white thing with the glowing blue light? /Sings: Baby comeback...

Winning Wednesday: SSF2THDR

Ahhh... this game brings me back. Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix is exactly what it says, a remake of the old Street Fighter II with updated graphics and "more balanced" characters (exempt Cammy who now apparently has super powers). It features the original eight characters, the four boss characters, and the four added characters from Super Street Fighter II. The added online play is a nice addition and seems to work flawlessly. It is sometimes hard to find a "quick match", but if you host a match it usually takes only a few seconds to find an opponent. On the downside its not possible to just invite a friend and play them directly. You can get around this by hosting a player match and then inviting them. You'll end up playing with strangers also, but you actually get to watch the fight of the people who are playing. The biggest draw back is not the games fault, but the crappy US Xbox controller's D-Pad. Once you get used to it the game is definitely worth the points. Available for 1200 MSP ($15) on Xbox LIVE arcade.

Help Wanted: Game ideas

So last week when the new Xbox 360 UI debuted, a feature I forgot to mention also debuted: XNA Community Games. These are games created by smaller developers (from teams of 2 - 20 people) with tools available from Microsoft, and sold on the Xbox marketplace. One of my dreams has been to take my passion for video games and translate that into a game I helped create. I've been taking some time (about the past 6 months) learning C# and the XNA framework, and have a pretty good understanding of how to code (program) games now. My brother is really good at Adobe products and has also been learning 3Ds Max (a 3d modeling program) and other graphic programs to do art/assets for the game. Our only problem, and this is where you can help, is we need an idea for the game.

What would you like to see in a game? What did you really like about some of the games you played? Any ideas would be appreciated and of course credit would be given. :)

Tech tuesday: NXE (Xbox Update) a day early!!!

A few weeks back the director of programing for Xbox LIVE, Major Nelson, announced a preview program of the upcoming "New Xbox Experience" which is the new UI with added features for the Xbox 360. There was quite an interest and the application process was completely filled within a few hours. A hand selected group of people, based on their geographic location, ISP, and router make and model, were added to the preview program, which allowed them to download the update early and check it out. I was not selected.

Then about a week later the a "second wave" was announced, this time from the same pool of people, but randomly selected. I was not selected.

Last Thursday an unexpected third wave was announced. My brother, and my friend were both selected. I was not. (The thing that was most disappointing was that I told my friend about the program, and actually filled out my brother's form).
I had pretty much given up on getting it early since it is released worldwide Novemeber 19th (tomorrow).

Last night some friends were over for dinner and I wanted to show my buddy the new Call of Duty game (Call of Duty: World at War). As I signed in I was greeted with a notification of a system update. Confused, I checked my phone (I subscribe to Major Nelson's twitter), and lo and behold there was a tweet indicating that even though it was only a day and a half early everyone who successfully applied to the preview program was now getting the update. Yea!

Other than the UI being updated there are a some cool features added to the 360 now. Here's a list of my favorites:

• Ripping games to your Xbox Hard Drive (quicker load times, and quieter play since the disc drive doesn't have to spin)
  
• Streaming Netflix movies through the Xbox (all of the Netflix "instant queue" is available to view on the TV instead of the little computer screen)
  
• Avatars (á la Mii for the Wii, but better looking)

Here's the new dashboard (kinda like the Xbox homepage):

And here's my avatar (what do you think?)

Tech Tuesday: Vat to do...vat to do

Yesterday it became extremely apparent that I am all to dependent on the digital age. Both the Xbox LIVE and the Zune Marketplace servers were down for maintenance. That meant two of the three things I like to do when the kiddo has gone to bed and the wife is busy chatting with friends or reading a book, were unavailable. Despite being warned via email, LIVE message, AND dashboard announcement of the impending hiatus I was caught unprepared. So basically I had to resort to play all alone with no friends and stale music. *sigh*

Thank God Heroes was on last night or I might have withered away.

I'm sorry this post is passing on the boredom I experienced. (I'm not even going to put a picture to whet your imagination.) :)

ETA: Everything is up and running now, except for a small glitch with the Call of Duty 4 matchmaking (which makes playing online IMPOSSIBLE.)

Too human... too repetative

I apologize before hand to those of you who know (or especially married to) someone who enjoys the field of interactive entertainment (video games). Its something I really enjoy as a chance to exercise problem solving and cooperation. I recently picked up the game Too Human. It is basically nerd fare, as it involves an elite soldier who is revered as a god and is set in Norse mythology. Its actually a pretty cool story (I was really into some of the Roman/Greek mythology as a kid). However, the game itself starts out pretty fun, as you hack and slash through wave after wave of robot attackers. The problem is that after five hours of game play, you are still doing the same thing. I was originally pretty excited by the game, but now its been put on the "Just pass it to get it over with" list. Seriously... I haven't had this much fun since I separated ten pounds of M&Ms by color... (consumer science project). If you haven't picked it up... don't! Just rent it.