Memory Card Breaker. You know what I'm talking about, right? It's those stupid memory card holders they put in the PS2 Game Cases.

Here, let me refresh your... "memory":

I swear, last time I entrusted my hard-earned save data to one of those things, I had to fight like the devil to get it out. I nearly snapped the card in half in the process. I could feel it flexing as though it had been grasped by some abyssal raven's claws and then anchored in space by their terrible might!

Therefore, I've decided to rechristen these holders "Memory Card Breakers". Lord knows that Sony's probably made millions from the unfortunate souls who made the dire mistake of sticking their memory cards into these things, only to require a replacement after failing to retrieve it in one piece!

I've been incredibly busy lately... oh, you know... the usual:

- Playing through Skies of Arcadia for the Dreamcast... again.

- Playing through MGS3. I decided to restart since my save data was over a year old and I wasn't about to cheat and adjust the clock. On a side note, I'm obviously not the kind of guy Kojima made the game for. I haven't any... well... stealth. When I play as Snake, everything dies. Everything.

- Playing Halo 2 on Xbox Live... as usual.

I've basically been slacking off. Well, you know how that is.

Damn, I can't wait 'till I get my Xbox 360! I just ordered a stupid Core system, since I had concluded that although the Premium was the cost-effective choice, it's usually only available as part of ridiculously overpriced online bundles, or as an untrustworthy eBay auction. I'll just do the Core & Upgrades thing. With these shortages, some people have had no choice but to settle for less.

Actually, to tell you the truth, I have some interesting plans for my Core system, once I get it. Later on in the year, when the Premiums are capable of sitting idly on store shelves without people buying them up left and right, I'm going to get one to use as my unmodified "primary 360". After that, I'll take out the guts of my ol' Core system and paint the case Lacquer Black using Acrylic car paint. And then, I'll use masking tape to make green stripes in a chevron pattern on the case's side, with a cool center emblem to boot!

Neat idea, huh?

Allan_X, out.

Honestly, Forza Motorsport is like... the best racing game ever. You can go "Gran Turismo this, Project Gotham Racing that, etc.", but I'll still be defending the Xbox's best damn racer, period. Don't get all "objective data states that (insert franchise of choice here) is better" on me, because my opinion is my opinion and it won't be changing anytime soon.

What other games do you know of where you can practice high-speed powerslides in an American muscle car, do a hillclimb with a custom-tuned and painted 800hp Mercedes, and install an RB26DETT from a Skyline R34 GT-R in a frickin' 1972 Nissan 240ZX!?!? All with awesome Xbox graphics!? OMG!

Forza owns, end of story. Here's to a sequel!

That said, any race higher than level 20 or Professional-level is near-impossible with all difficulty options set to their highest possible levels. Yes, I was playing 'till that point with every difficulty setting at maximum.

Since I was sickened by the prospect of having to race over and over and over to amass the dough needed to get a decent collection of cars, I got into the "engine reselling business"... if you know what I mean. ;)

Well, that and the B-Class Professional race on the Road America track really ticks me off. The AI shouldn't be able to do anything that's impossible for the player to do, like... recover from the entire grid crashing. You know what I did to win on the Blue Mountain course, B-Class, Professional, all difficulty settings at max?

On the last lap (and the last corner, too), I took my Lancer Evo, rammed it into the rear quarter of a hapless Porsche, and sent him careening into the idiots behind me, snatching first place from the AI's clutches! I even saved a replay of the glorious event.

I don't take that profile online, though. You know, the whole "engine reselling" thing ain't entirely fair. I'll give you a hint, the engines are stuffed with cocaine... all six pistons have been replaced with pure crack. Not really, but you get the idea.

"Oh no, officer! I got that Jetta from a used car dealer! Is it alright?"

Heehee...

Right, A, A, Left, A, A, Right, X, A, Right, A, A, Left, A, A, Right, X, A...

*Buys Jaguar XJ220 and tunes it to the max*

*Buys another*

*Commences Diabolical Laughter*

Just installed Far Cry after not having played it in quite a while. With most settings on high, the game runs just fine... until you get into a firefight. Then, the game starts chugging like crazy. I could feel the CPU in my gaming laptop turning the case into a surface suitable for frying eggs on. Trust me, that computer ain't no joke, it's an Acer Ferrari 3400. AMD Athlon 64-powered, with ATI Radeon 9700 Mobility graphics and 512MB of RAM. Its only true weakness is its inherently inferior cooling. The games I run on it actually have better performance during the first few minutes of play... before the CPU heats up. Quite unlike your standard Desktop PC, where the proper combination of cooling components can keep the CPU heat stable in any situation.

I have determined that the ULTIMATE gaming machine, right now, costs an average of around $7000-$8000 (adding up the price of individual parts). For that much, you could buy a pair of used cars... but we all know what I would prefer! ;)

DFI LanParty Motherboard, AMD Athlon 64 FX-57, two Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB cards in SLI, two gigabytes of OCZ Platinum Rev. 2 PC3200 RAM... Thermaltake Kandalf case and a PC Power & Cooling 1KW power supply. Four 500GB Hard Drives (Hmm, tough choice between the Seagate or the Hitachi) in a RAID array. Samsung LCD screen with high response rate and a 1280x1024 native resolution... It's my ultimate dream machine.

With a computer like that, I could play Far Cry, F.E.A.R., Half-Life 2, and even Doom III on their highest possible settings!