Year in consumables: 2007 games

Time to finish this series off for 2007. The first two parts were music and movies. Also, I just read my 2006 games post and damned if I wasn’t entertained by it. Maybe you should read it (again?)… for added incentive, I make fun of Mookie a little bit.

Speaking of which, I heard via Ed that his 360 finally red-ringed him. (Did we have a pool somewhere about this?) Well, I’m actually sorry to hear that. I thought it was going to beat the odds, but it might have finally succumbed after being subjected to the indignity of the Bee Movie game. I mean, a 360 that thinks it is owned by a man can only take so much girl/kidz games over the course of a lifetime, right?

(I kid ya Mook, you knows I luvs ya!)

Back on track, the good news of the year was Ed got back into the 360 fold and we did a lot of good co-op gaming together. As I referenced in last year’s post, we did play Gears of War together, twice, so that was fun. Insane was… insane, but utlimately beatable. Anyway, that game doesn’t count for this list.

The bad news of the year was my 360 red-ringed me having just broken the 10k Gamerscore boundary. That put me out ... Continue reading »

Twelve K

Well, Halo 3 has vaulted both Ed and I over the 12k Gamerscore mark almost three months earlier than our goal. I’m glad I was able to make it given I had no 360 for a month. Pretty cool.

Ed, Jason and I completed the Halo 3 campaign cooperatively on Legendary this past Thursday night. That had me 40 points away from 12k and I picked up the Marathon Man achievement for exactly 40 on Friday. We have now moved on to playing the campaign again with the meta/scoring turned on to complete those achievements.

Broomed

Sweeping out another month here. I started off stronger this month, but again, fell off with the posting. This was going to be a Sox-centric post, but let’s get some catching up out the way first since it has been two weeks since my last post.

Well, over those last two weeks, I have had to do a good amount of writing at work, so that saps my will to write here. While I don’t mind the occasional need to write a piece of technical documentation, mostly because I’m good at it, I must give kudos to the full-time technical writers out there. I don’t know how you don’t just drink yourselves into oblivion in preparation for work each day. Oh, wait… you probably do.

Anyway, today I had to update my appraisal/review form with my six month results towards my objectives. That’s fun. Especially since we’re really doing eighth month results… and, why am I writing this myself again? I’m sorry, but if I am a manager, there’s no way I have my folks doing this themselves. It is time better spent on their job and something I should be tracking myself. They read it, we meet and they provide feedback. Done.

While... Continue reading »

Remove your hard drive

But what if that is the broken bit?

I got a follow-up e-mail from the Microsofties today. The packaging to service my Xbox has been shipped (which is a little funny when you think about it). They are sending me a box to box and send the 360 back to them. Ed commented on the way Nintendo is handling their hardware failures and I totally agree with him; they are doing it the right way.

Microsoft should send me a loaner console so I can continue gaming while they fix mine. I’m even losing money on the deal because I can’t use my Xbox Live subscription without a console. I read some posts in a message board that some people are being credited an extra month for longer repairs, but it wouldn’t be an issue if I had a loaner, right?

Now, here’s the kicker: “Once we have received your Xbox console at our Service Center. Your Xbox console will be serviced and you should receive it within 4-6 weeks.” Never mind the poor grammar there (or my own), it says six weeks!

I figured on four, but if it takes them the full six weeks to fix it, then I might not have it back in time to play Halo 3! That ain’t gonna happen though. If... Continue reading »

Red ringed

Well, it finally got me. I am now a victim of the so-called Red Ring of Death.

Of course, this has already happened to both Ed and Jason, so it is not exactly new, just new to me. Kind of funny that it would happen just after I posted about going over 10k with my gamerscore and so did my Xbox. Of course, one wonders how it continues to post blog entries.

Perhaps it is when I can get it to run for a about a minute before it freezes. You see, after getting the ring, it hasn’t happened again, but it will freeze almost exactly a minute after booting up. I have tried the suggestions on support page for both issues with no joy. I am going to have to finally contact Microsoft about this as my hopes that it will go away on its own don’t seem to be working out. I figured I’d wait a few days and keep trying it to be sure. I thought maybe it was just the heat we’ve had recently, but I don’t think so now.

Anyway, I figure this is just karma coming back on me. You see, it failed the same night I busted on Mookie for being, well… here just read it:

He has a commitment to playing more [kid] games on his 360 while leaving... Continue reading »

Ketchup

So, I just wanted to post a little quick hit about not much of anything. Feel free to read anything about nothing.

Let me start with last weekend’s Sox and Yankees series at Fenway… our Sox dropped two of three to the Limping Empire. In case you missed it, that means they have dropped four of the last six, even before Roger rockets in to save their season. True enough, the Bombers — hey… Bombers and a Rocket… never mind — were still twelve and a half out at the end of that, but it has to have boosted their morale, yeah? The good news is we are still up on them seven to five for the season and we won’t meet again until August. Tough for them to make up ground on us if we aren’t playing against one another (and we don’t tank).

Anyway, dropping the first two to a decent Oaktown team — Haren? Yes. DiNardo? Really? — doesn’t have me brimming with confidence. I guess it is just losing the last three in a row is tough to take. Wonder if they’ve done that this year (I’m not checking)?

Speaking of Sox, I’ll get more photos up from the Braves game at some point this week. I also... Continue reading »

Beta beta beta

Remember that robot on Buck Rogers? I don’t think it ever said anything else or my brain remembers nothing other than that — which is true of the entire show really — and yes, it wasn’t quite “beta” but more likely “bitta.”

Don’t worry, this post isn’t about that robot or betta fish or math or physics or fraternities or the Greek alphabet. It is about the Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta test. The one I mentioned a bit in my Crackalackin post.

For the uninitiated — I’m willing to bet you didn’t get this far — “beta” is a term attached to software that isn’t quite finished and tested, but needs some wider end-user abuse and use. It comes after an “alpha” test, which is usually a really rough build that the developers muck around with. Google and Yahoo users may be familiar with the term as all their products seem to be forever in beta while everyone is using them.

Oh, and should you wonder what the heck “beta” really is, you aren’t Greek or a math/science prodigy and don’t know it is the second letter in the Greek alphabet after ... Continue reading »

Crackalackin

You know, I finish building a Biggerboat and think I can spend some time on my blog for a while, but then a game like Crackdown gets my dollars and that idea goes straight out the window. I swear, I can’t really multi-task at home anymore, work has sucked all that out of me.

At most, I get to do two things when I get home during the week: eat (always) and watch TV or play Xbox 360. Weekends are a little different, but again, I have a hard time doing more than a couple things on a given weekend day lately. I don’t really know why other than think it has something to do with addiction. I feel like I get on little stretches of being addicted to a certain activity and that causes me to neglect all kinds of other things. This is no way for an adult to live… I think.

I suppose that’s a larger subject than what this post is all about, and it is all about Crackdown.

I have had the game for a little under a week and I am totally addicted. I’m shocked at how addictive it is and I know I am going to be sad when it is all done (seems to have little replayability once you are maxed out and completed the story and Achievements). In fact, I hate... Continue reading »

Halo 3 Trailer

Well, I finally was able to watch the trailer just now. My Media Player was barfing on it last night. There’s a MS joke there, but that’s not the point. The point is, I just had chills as I watched the trailer. The same thing happened when I watched the Halo 2 trailer from E3. I predict another week’s vacation to play this one too…