Never Thought I'd See the Day...
For those who may not be aware, I came into possession of an Xbox 360 Core system last month. Since then, despite having a couple of 360 games, Halo 2 has become part of my regular gaming rotation. In fact, some days, I would play it to the exclusion of all else.
Something weird started happening last week, and in retrospect it started when I got a second confirmation about my Xbox Live Gold membership almost a month after my original. It was about that time that Halo would freeze up a few minutes after booting.
Microsoft has this weird PC-esque approach when it comes to console backwards compatibility. First, you NEED to have Live so you can download whatever patches are necessary to get the game in question to run on new hardware. Second, you NEED to have the hard drive (which is one reason the Core system is a horrible, terrible, no-good idea) in order to store said patches. Without both these things, you'd be better off buying the original Xbox, and -- really -- who wants THAT? Especially when those games run so much better on the new hardware... assuming they work.
Halo won't even boot up any more, so the theory that it had something to do with Live is chucked out the window. I briefly considered wiping said hard drive and starting over by downloading the patches and maps again.
Then I thought better of it when I realized that's the sort of bit-twiddly crap one has to do with a computer, not a gaming console. And unlike a PC, I have no recourse if the process goes totally south.
So I started playing the 360 games I had, but got bored with them (both are shooters, and moderate ones at that), and instead went out and bought Guitar Hero for my PS2. That's a much better use of my gaming time, even if I have to suffer through Medium mode in order to get enough rock star money to unlock all the goodies. I beat it on Hard, but my Rock God sk177z are still too weak to get high enough reviews on the later sections. But what's that, you say? A challenge in a video game? Perish the very thought!
So, I guess it all worked out in the end...
~Sean
Something weird started happening last week, and in retrospect it started when I got a second confirmation about my Xbox Live Gold membership almost a month after my original. It was about that time that Halo would freeze up a few minutes after booting.
Microsoft has this weird PC-esque approach when it comes to console backwards compatibility. First, you NEED to have Live so you can download whatever patches are necessary to get the game in question to run on new hardware. Second, you NEED to have the hard drive (which is one reason the Core system is a horrible, terrible, no-good idea) in order to store said patches. Without both these things, you'd be better off buying the original Xbox, and -- really -- who wants THAT? Especially when those games run so much better on the new hardware... assuming they work.
Halo won't even boot up any more, so the theory that it had something to do with Live is chucked out the window. I briefly considered wiping said hard drive and starting over by downloading the patches and maps again.
Then I thought better of it when I realized that's the sort of bit-twiddly crap one has to do with a computer, not a gaming console. And unlike a PC, I have no recourse if the process goes totally south.
So I started playing the 360 games I had, but got bored with them (both are shooters, and moderate ones at that), and instead went out and bought Guitar Hero for my PS2. That's a much better use of my gaming time, even if I have to suffer through Medium mode in order to get enough rock star money to unlock all the goodies. I beat it on Hard, but my Rock God sk177z are still too weak to get high enough reviews on the later sections. But what's that, you say? A challenge in a video game? Perish the very thought!
So, I guess it all worked out in the end...
~Sean