On Wednesday evening this week I hit the eject button on my 360 to get the 300 DVD out of the drive and was greeted with my second remediless E74 hardware error.

For the uninitiated, an E74 is a general hardware error. Not a "red ring of death" per se, but just as bad. No recovery, console is bricked. You get a single flashing red LED in the lower right quadrant. I called up XBox customer support and got the process started. It's changed a bit since last time.

When I previously got the E74, I was playing the not-so-graphically-intense Beautiful Katamari when the right side of my monitor started doing what seemed like a graphics check. The console became unplayable at the end of the level when it loaded the King of All Cosmos, so I had to restart. There was the E74 saying that my first Elite was at the end of its life cycle.

:(

Prior to that, I had my first XBox 360 Premium for two months (this was back when Microsoft only had a 90 day warranty on them) and got a Full RROD. They replaced that console and the one they sent me has worked fine ever since, except no longer ejects the DVD tray if it is empty. Have to take the faceplate off and use a paperclip or something. For the next three weeks or so, I've moved that console to my living room where I more actively watch Netflix or other DVDs.

They changed the return method for whatever reason - no longer sending you a coffin with the UPS return label. Now, it's just a label, and you have to get your own box and packing material. I've got a UPS center about half a mile from my house so that's no problem. Thankfully, the shipping and the repair / refurbishment / replacement are all going to be free, for a third time. Somehow, it doesn't make me feel "lucky."

The manufacturing date on my currently dead Elite is 10/31/2007. It only lasted about 18 months, then. :|

Being my third dead console since they launched in... 2005? I guess that makes sense, but it doesn't speak well for failure rate. I share my fellow users' frustrations though. Your box ever die on you? Send me a comment to ease my suffering. Till next time!

Another level named after another obscure Japanese game that I had to look up in Wiki. I know, some gamer I am... never even owned a Sega Saturn. Looks a lot like Ikaruga, which I am familiar with, also made by Treasure.

Anyways, I am a sad excuse for a gamer. I don't even get an hour a week in anymore. XBox Live has turned me into a Netflix whore, and I watch more movies and series now than I did when I paid for DirecTV. That's also off, for now, through July at least. It's not that I don't like gaming, it's just that with all the other expenses and uses for my time, I don't get to do much of it anymore.

On that note, I'm 116 days from being married. Looking forward to it - the freedom from having to spend so much time in transit, the wear and tear on my vehicle, the constantly having to be on show in front of so many people. Maybe after that I'll get "less QQ and more pew pew." Certainly would be a welcome change.

Let's see how long Level 29 lasts...

Thank you, GameSpot / Blizzard for FINALLY giving us some more SC2 meat to chew on. HOpefully this won't be thr ONLY vid for the next year, and that many more will follow!

[video=6208174]

I guess that level 27 was one of those slow ones. Here I am, more than three months later and finally made it up to a 28. So what's happened in the past 100 days?

Housekeeping and Depreciation

In light of my recent situation, posted earlier, I figured it would be a good time to start culling my collection of the games I no longer play. I took a rough dozen to GameSpot today for trade in. I think I'll update my collection on here once I get a few quiet moments at home, but until then, here's a list of what I traded in, what I'd give it on a 1-10, and how much store credit (not even cash) it yielded me.

NCAA Football 2007 - 7.3 - $0.50
Project Gotham Racing 3 - 7.5 - $1.50
Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter - 8 - $2.00
Sneak King - 3 - $0.10
Rock Band - 9 - $10.34
Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball - 6 - $0.35
Ghost Recon 2: Summit Strike - 8 - $1.50
Test Drive Unlimited - 7 - $8.34
Saints Row - 8 - $8.34
Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow - 6 - $0.40

All for a grand total of $33.37, less the $2.75 refurbishing charge nets me a walloping $30.40 towards my next purchase. Let's put that number into perspective: those 10 games cost me about $533 new or used, depending on the condition I bought them. That means that the trade-in value for them was about 6.26% of what I paid for them, or a 93.74% loss of value for being used or traded in.

Sheesh. And I would have gotten less money if I walked out of the store with cash...

Now Playing On a Console Near You

I'm finding my gaming time dramatically reduced as of late. I'm still trying to finish up Star Wars: The Force Unleashed on Sith Master difficulty. Not sure if I have the patience to ace this one or not. Will likely try to trade that in for store credit too. Fable 2 is treating me well in the achievements department; all I need is Dollcatcher to finish my orginial set and then maybe purchase the Knothole Island pack in the near future. Gears of War 2 gets most of my multiplayer time slot. I'll probably start working through Viva Piñata soon, determining if its worth keeping or not.

On The Horizon

I'm still not 100% certain if I want to dole out that store credit for Halo Wars this coming March. I did purchase a fairly decent powerhouse of a laptop, an Acer Extensa 4425 if I remember correctly. Named her Aphrodite and is on indefinate loan to my girl for at least the duration of this semester. Why do I mention a new laptop? StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, of course... the one game that can get me back into PC Gaming perhaps.

I guess that's about it for this update. Nothing else much to say other than I like the level name: Bionic Commando. Finally, one I know plenty about and still enjoy to this day!

I feel like a completely different person. Since I last wrote, the boring news is that I'm switching my dramatically decreased time playing games to two current titles, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and naturally, Rock Band 2. If you noticed though, I said 'dramatically decreased.'

Reason being, after many years of trying and looking and stressing about it, I finally have a great lady in my life. More than that, she's a gamer herself and is unquestionably the best part of my life.

So yeah, priorities shifting. I'm not really playing as many games as before, opting rather to do two hours of driving or more round trip to spend time with her. She's worth it though.

I've backed my GameFly plan down to a single rental, and will make other adjustments in my expenses over the next few months to compensate for spending more gas. Life is good right now, really good. Hope things are good on your end too. Take care, see you next level!

Finally bridged the 25 gap just after E3. I didn't catch the reference for Cyber Lip, so I ended up looking up the wiki for it. Side scrolling SNK shooter. Precursor to Meatl Slug. Now you know.

Still branching out in my library. Current rentals are Earth Defense Force 2017 (stupid fun, more than it probably should be) and Eternal Sonata. The latter is shaping up to be a decent RPG, though I get a lot of ridicule for the lightweight, more child friendly fare. Nothing new in the way of purchases though - saving up for later this year. If there's one thing that E3 makes me do every year, it's prioritizing my budget. There's simply too much good stuff to buy, and with the two locks on my cash - Guitar Hero World Tour and Rock Band 2 - I really have to watch the cash flow, and possibly relegate some od the games to rentals.

In movies, the hot ticket is, natually, The Dark Knight. I've taken... 3 people to see it so far. And moreover, Gadget, Seamonkey and I all made it to the midnight showing at the local IMAX, and that was sweeeeeet. Check it out if you haven't done so. Hope that you're all enjoying what you do, and if you aren't, change things up until you can smile consistently. Until next level, keep on keepin' on.

I guess that I no longer "Feel Asleep." Much to my surprise, this AM I hit level 25, which apparently is named after something in WoW. I find this ironic since I have never nor do I intend to ever play WoW.

Courtesy of GameFly, I'm currently REALLY enjoying Beautiful Katamari in all its simplistic goodness. I know it's a really niche game - people either love it or hate it. This is my first actual foray into the Katamari series and while the concept seemed quite alien from the start (Not in a xenophobic 'I hate Japanese games' way, either), it's kind of grown on me. One of the things I don't particularly dig about the game is that you have to purchase all the downloadable levels (between 2-300 points each, and I'm guessing about half a dozen or more of them) to get the "all cousins" achievement. This makes a game that costs $30 new actually run for about $55 after all the short downloadable levels. I guess if I get it with GameFly, perhaps even purchasing it, I can use that 'saved money' to buy the levels and complete the experience.

In other gaming news, I've rekindled an old love. Many props and thanks to Gadget for keeping her SNES in tip top working condition. On more than a few nights in the past month or so playing everything from Super Mario World to Super Mario Kart to Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past to Tiny Toon Adventures Wacky Sports Challenge. I hadn't played SNES in so long I forgot that it uses a UHF jack instead of an RCA composite. Still, the secret of the games and how to complete them came back to me pretty quick. My brother and I were even able to introduce her to Soda Lake, and she'd never seen that level before, as long as she'd been playing. Hope she brings it back soon!

Till next time, peeps.

This should be the last day I'm on Level 23. Things got kind of hectic in life for me towards the end of October so I hadn't been regular about posting here. :|

Well, the game I'm playing most now (though it won't be reflected in the "Now Playing" section, largely because I'm too lazy to keep updating it, is definately Rock Band. I know, I know... EA published it. The part of me that feels like a heathen traitor is supressed by the quantity and volume of group fun it is producing. I actually bought a mic stand so that I can start mastering doing two things at once. Take that, all you would-be walkers and gum chewers!

Out for now, catch you around.

I did kind of blow through level 21 significantly faster than level 20 took me. I figure that as of tomorrow, I'll be sitting comfortably at level 22, and what better time to do that than right before the launch of Halo 3!

I'm actually more pumped about this than most people can imagine. On the night of Wednesday, September 5, I was sent a link to http://pontiachalo3.onlinepromo.com/ where I unscrambled a city name, CAMBRIDGE, MA, before thousands of other people did and answered that the Pontiac G6 has 252 horsepower under its hood. Low and behold, that netted me one of the first 250 pre-release copies of Halo 3 from the contest. Score!

What was even better than that was that after sleeping through the second wave, and failing to get in the third one, I answered "YAKIMA, WA" on the fourth one thi s past Friday evening and was able to get another one, this one sent to my brother's home address. I actually guessed blind on the trivia question, since "Stabilitrak" was the only term of the four answers that I was familiar with. It was a good gamble, and it payed off. So 2 of the 1000 copies were one by Pale, and that's not bad for a week's work.

The bonus side is that they are going to make a "best effort" to deliver those on Monday, September 24th... one day before launch. I figure its more like a few hours by the time the delivery gets there. I'm expecting a 2:00pm one, but I can't be sure, so I plan on being ready all day Monday for it.

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On the work side, I have 8 days off, starting Monday. I have plans, naturally, so I'm very enthusiastic about finishing off my final 16 hours of work. Plentyy to do, but I'm starting to care less about getting it done. Happy gaming, everybody. See you again after launch.

So I was pumped yesterday when I got an email at 4:17pm saying that I had been given atoken into the Call of Duty 4 MP Beta. I downloaded it, ran some quick errands and came back, and spent a goodly amount of time on it last night (somewhere North of four or five hours). I rather enjyoed it, and I think that the perks are done quite well in it. Several months back, I predicted that COD4 would be a must-have for 360 owners in other posts I make in forums. I'm glad to see the Beta didn't disappoint in that area.

It does, however, not count towards gaming streaks, much like the Halo 3 MP Beta didn't count (but putting in Crackdown did...) So, after 12 days of rebuilding my dynasty, I learned another thing that doesn't worktowards keeping the numbers running.

How will COD4 compare to Halo 3? I'm not going to say that Call of Duty 4 is a shabby game. It's fast paced, fun, and works much the way you'd expect a COD game to play... at least in MP. Well, no. I take that back. When Call of Duty 2came out, it was a lagtacular fustercluck. I never actually got to play COD2's MP after the lag patch came out - I'd traded the game in having completed the awesome looking and playing SP on Veteran. Yet, as much as I liked that game and as much fun as I'm having with the MP Beta so far, I dont' see COD4 passing Halo 3 up in popularity on online replayability.