Video Game Consoles
After many trials and tribulations, I bought a new XBox 360. The other one will keep going back to MS until I get a working one. I really don't like the Red Ring of Death. At least I can slot my old HD into the new console and enjoy my old saved games.
Microsoft apparently thinks that Achievement Whores are more important that regular people. If you have a local profile on your console and then create a live profile (presuming that your original profile name is already taken), you get screwed. All of your saved games and Achievements are tied to the old offline profile. You can move the saved games one by one to the new online profile, but you must do so one by one. You also can never gain any Achievements for that game on that profile. It's good that I'm Achievement agnostic (I do them if they're fun or if they get me something I care about), but it's really lame.
On the bright side, Halo Wars is a pretty good game. I never thought that I'd enjoy an RTS on a console, but they really got the UI down. I've enjoyed the campaign (I'm on the last mission), though it was short for the $50 price point. I'm hoping that it has replay value or that I get more value from playing online with friends.
On the brighter side, Netflix's "Watch Now" on the XBox 360 is awesome. You can access your "Watch Now" queue on the XBox and watch all of your shows in the comfort of your living room. The picture quality is surprisingly good, though it probably varies depending on what you're watching.
I also got a PS3 a while ago. It is a superb DVD and Blu-Ray player. If you buy one, get the remote - it's a very nice bluetooth remote. I can use it anywhere in the downstairs area of my apartment.
So far, I've played two games on it.
Heavenly Sword is a lot of fun, though short (about 8 hours on to get through all but the last two boss fights). It plays a lot like God of War. Heavenly Sword has one of my favorite video game intros: The main character dies; everything fades to black, then it says "5 days ago..."
Madden 2009 is maddening. I give them credit for achieving the design goal of making the game just like watching a football game. Sadly, that includes advertising. Apparently the "Sprint game summary" and the "Snickers drive summary" and so forth are more important than my enjoyment of the game. There is no reason why you shouldn't be able to skip those ads, but they have a minimum time on the screen. After playing a couple of hours, Madden is going back to Gamefly. That is a series which will never grace my consoles again.
I've said it before, I'll say it a again. Gamefly is a good service - it's like Netflix for video games. It's great drawback is that you get the highest available game in your queue. New games are really hard to get, so I've gotten my 6th priority game a few times. As long as you can live with that, I recommend Gamefly for your game needs.
Gamefly also has the "keep it" feature. Any game that you really like, you click "keep it" on their website, pay the used game price, and they send you the manual and case for the game. I've used it several times over the years and have nothing but good things to say about it.
Microsoft apparently thinks that Achievement Whores are more important that regular people. If you have a local profile on your console and then create a live profile (presuming that your original profile name is already taken), you get screwed. All of your saved games and Achievements are tied to the old offline profile. You can move the saved games one by one to the new online profile, but you must do so one by one. You also can never gain any Achievements for that game on that profile. It's good that I'm Achievement agnostic (I do them if they're fun or if they get me something I care about), but it's really lame.
On the bright side, Halo Wars is a pretty good game. I never thought that I'd enjoy an RTS on a console, but they really got the UI down. I've enjoyed the campaign (I'm on the last mission), though it was short for the $50 price point. I'm hoping that it has replay value or that I get more value from playing online with friends.
On the brighter side, Netflix's "Watch Now" on the XBox 360 is awesome. You can access your "Watch Now" queue on the XBox and watch all of your shows in the comfort of your living room. The picture quality is surprisingly good, though it probably varies depending on what you're watching.
I also got a PS3 a while ago. It is a superb DVD and Blu-Ray player. If you buy one, get the remote - it's a very nice bluetooth remote. I can use it anywhere in the downstairs area of my apartment.
So far, I've played two games on it.
Heavenly Sword is a lot of fun, though short (about 8 hours on to get through all but the last two boss fights). It plays a lot like God of War. Heavenly Sword has one of my favorite video game intros: The main character dies; everything fades to black, then it says "5 days ago..."
Madden 2009 is maddening. I give them credit for achieving the design goal of making the game just like watching a football game. Sadly, that includes advertising. Apparently the "Sprint game summary" and the "Snickers drive summary" and so forth are more important than my enjoyment of the game. There is no reason why you shouldn't be able to skip those ads, but they have a minimum time on the screen. After playing a couple of hours, Madden is going back to Gamefly. That is a series which will never grace my consoles again.
I've said it before, I'll say it a again. Gamefly is a good service - it's like Netflix for video games. It's great drawback is that you get the highest available game in your queue. New games are really hard to get, so I've gotten my 6th priority game a few times. As long as you can live with that, I recommend Gamefly for your game needs.
Gamefly also has the "keep it" feature. Any game that you really like, you click "keep it" on their website, pay the used game price, and they send you the manual and case for the game. I've used it several times over the years and have nothing but good things to say about it.