Well, for a start, i'm really not into blogging. Be it forgetfulness or simply a lack of care, I never seem to stay on top of blogging for any reasonable period of time. That said, i'm only making this entry because i'm mildly pissed off at my Xbox 360, hence more of a rant than an actual blog entry..

The 360 I own was purchased around January of '06, meaning it's still a relatively new machine. I was hoping I escaped the initial bad batches with problematic heatsinks, but i'm not entirely sure if I did. Several games I own are either completely or virtually unplayable. I've attempted to make Saint's Row play for ten minutes without freezing on several occasions, to no large success. The same fate befalls Crackdown, Viva Pinata, Command and Conquer 3, and a few occasions with Prey. I don't mean that it freezes once an hour, or even once every few hours. These games freeze on a two-minute basis, save Prey and Crackdown on certain occasions. Sure, I expected problems with any new console, but not being able to play games is a bit of a stretch.

The demons for Crackdown, C&C: 3, Viva Pinata, and Rainbow Six: Vegas have given me problems, which I should have taken as a warning sign. Crackdown puzzled me the most, as I tried both downloading it and playing it from the OXM demo disk, with both freezing equally often. Sound like hardware problems yet?

I've followed Microsoft's troubleshooting to the letter. Exchanging the disks twice, every single one of them, didn't fix it. Even contacting customer support only resulted in an e-mail with a copy of the troubleshooting page. I've tried all matters of cooling the console down, from elevating it to powering it down and letting it cool off. As I type this, my console and power supply are both kept from touching the ground directly, suspended between supports.

I can't complain about it all, though. My other games have never frozen once. Apparently, if a game is going to freeze, it's going to do it hard and often, or not at all. I've been able to play through and beat Call of Duty 2, Enchanted Arms, Far Cry Instincts: Predator, Condemned: Criminal Origins, Dead Rising, (noted for its lovely freezing issues), Gears of War, Project Gotham Racing 3, and even Perfect Dark Zero, another notorious freezer.

I'm not really too angry at the console. Anger at inanimate objects is pointless. I'm not angry at Microsoft, either. Customer support is aggravating, though. I'm just tired of trying to play games that I pay too much for in the first place, only to find out I wasted sixty dollars on a game I waited a year to get my hands on. At least it partially works, I suppose.