Again, in case noone has noticed, my blog may have appeared to die. While I am not blogging as frequently due to life work and all, I still do on occasion on my myspace page www.myspace.com/sircalmar
Some of the blogs are locked only to my friends, but if you are that interested, just hitt me up and I"ll let you know.
Marc
out
Well a couple of days have gone by and I haven't updated you all on the status of the 360.
As of Friday, it was enroute back to me via ups, although the only reason I found out was because I called xbox support. I recieved no notification that it was sent out. All the rep was able to tell me about the repairs was that any that needed to be done were done/they may or may not have replaced my system.
Well it is supposed to be here tuesday, so lets see what happens (I work mon/tues night so hopefully I will hear the knock on the door)
I hope so though because I want to play crackdown!!!! In the meantime I had to reactivate my WoW account, and as you know that's dangerous...of course my new BE Mage is already lvl 18 after only about 5 days of play (around the baby's naps after she has gone to bed at night...)
Marc, out...
Hmmm...
Well, Monday morning I recieved email confirmation from UPS saying that my package was delivered. I gave until this morning before I called, figuring there was a good chance that it wouldn't be inputed into the computer for at least a few hours.
Well, when I called the support line, the rep there told me that as of yet, they had no record of it recieving, and to call back after 72 hours. When I mentioned I had been told that it would be a 1-2 day turnaround, she said that it normally takes 7-8 days for the diagnostics and at that point they make a decision to repair/replace. So either she or the original person is lying to me. Unfortunetly, I have to head to work, so I won't be following up today, however tommorow I will call back and ask to speak to a supervisor if they don't have a better update to the story.
7-8 days, +4-5 shipping...March 5th?
Just a quick note today..due to poor weather, shipping was rescheduled, due to arrive in texas Monday...guess we will keep watching and waiting...
Marc, out...
2-13
1600 Called XBOX support again, and actually got processed fairly quickly. Despite the annoying fact of being put on hold every two minutes while the rep checked on 'that' and each time when he came back recapped the entire call.
I was given the instructions to ship my 360 (no coffin sent despit the 'official' forum rumours), and a new reference number (don't know why they couldn't use the same one...).
So I ran to my local office depot, let them pack it and insured my box just in case (of course, I half hope they do lose it so I can buy one of the new 360's with the quieter drives...sorry, still not interested in the ps3 yet). It was packed, insured and shipped for about $25 and was told MS would recieve it Friday.
Now the rep told me it would take them 1-2 days to diagnose and fix/replace my 360 then another 4-5 days for shipping back. I will start my count on Monday as the first day (I am sure the repair guys work banker hours and get all the extra days off :P) and start looking/praying the Monday after that. Of course I will be checking my UPS tracking number daily in case it gets there early.
Anyhow, until they get my box,
Marc, out...
As the song goes, 'it was bound to happen and one night it did...' Of course I am not talking about a trucker and his promiscous wife, but the death of my 360.
I was one of the foolish people that sat outside Best Buy all night almost a year and a half to get one of the first 360's that came out. In fact I was lucky enough to get one of the last 2 premium systems that my store had. Until July (1 week shy of 9 months later) of last year, my original 360 gave me much pleasure, then one day I turned it on and...blink, blink, blink...the red lights.
Luckily I had gotten the product replacement plan at Best Buy and took it back. The problem was I didn't have all the original cables (I upgraded the video cable and used a wifi connection so I got rid of both of those.) The manager was understanding though and allowed me to swap the system itself out. Unfotunetly, since I didn't have all the original parts, he would not allow me to purchase another replacement plan (just in case I was selling black market ethernet cables and 360 hd cable :P)
This morning, it happened again (also 1 week shy of 9 months...coincidence?) Looking at the date on the back of my 360 I noted that it was most likely a launch 360, being produced in 2005. So I called the 18004MYXBOX number and after speaking to a rep discovered that to my suprise...I had a hardware failure! (big surprise, right?). We went through the steps I remember from last summer and that I had already taken myself (disconnect everything, what color is the light on the brick, reconnect the power and video...hmmm, still 3 lights...) and she told me that I needed to have it repaired. After placing me on hold for about 10 minutes, she came back on the line and said the system for repairs was down for upgrades (how ironic...). My only recourse was to call back in 24-48 hours.
For the next few weeks I am going to chronicle my journey on replacing my 360 here, for your fun and amusement. Additionally I have one important point with game systems...KEEP ALL WIRES and buy the Product Replacement Plans!
Marc, out
Well, this morning I downloaded the long awaited demo for Crackdown on the 360.
Before I get into it, let me just say I was interested in the game long before the Halo3 beta was announced (in fact I will likely just stick my head in once on the beta...I have little to no interest in the game).
For the 2 of you who don't know what Crackdown is, the easiest way to describe it is GTA/Saint's Row with you as the 'good' guy. Oh yeah, and you have superpowers. Strength to throw cars? Check. Leap tall buildings? Check. Face off with 30 thugs and walk away with all of them in the dust? Check.
The demo gives you access to 4 of the bosses and one area of the game. It also gives you a timer. If you don't raises any of your attributes to skill level 2, you get an hour total. If any of them hit level 2 you get a half hour from that point. The timer really didn't bother me because an hour is a lot of time to have fun, and you can make some really nice explosions in the course of an hour.
Things I did in the demo...
Killed all 4 bosses and countless enemies.
Went on a rampage through the Agency, killing many of my peacekeeper allies (couldn't kill them all though, they kept coming)
Went on one of the superbridges and began shooting the tires off cars. Those that remained on the bridge were then tossed into a large pile that I blew up (about 20 cars total...nice explosion).
Drove the agency SUV, Semi and Sportscar...all pretty sweet and handled decently (forget real world physics on them though ;)
Stole countless cars from the badguys, civilians and even a few agency cop cars (don't handle as well as the above vehicles).
Climbed the sides of a few buildings (couldn't get to the roof of the agency tower though :(
Liberated 3 supply points and loaded up 4 or 5 gangster guns in them.
Died several times (normally because I threw a grenade off a wall...) and was cloned.
Had FUN, and played it 3 or 4 times through so far.
Overall, the gameplay is straightforward and a lot of fun. Using strategy helps a lot, but by no means is required if you don't mind the occasional death. Based on the demo the game is at least a 9/10, but we will have to see when it is released (and the coop play looks like a blast)
Marc, out....
Ahhh, the lovely old war, in flames again due to the rumor that Bethsoft will be putting Fallout 3 on the 360. I love reading the comments that so many post, with the liberal flaming and the arguments that consist of 'the consoles suck' or 'you can't put a good game on a console'.
Having played pc and console games for as long as I can remember (the old King's Quest on my CoCo3 and Pong on the Atari to Medieval 2 on my pc and Marvel Ultimate Alliance on the 360), I have my own view on the matter, one that could likely earn me flames as well.
First, let me open with this one line...a wish if you will. IF games enabled USB mouse/keyboard for the 360, ANY game would work as well on it as the pc with a more reasonably priced system. Obviously, this isn't in use YET, but hopefully soon (keyboard support is in for entering text so...)
For the price of a top end gaming pc that will play the newest games, you could easily buy yourself a 360, a moderate sized HD tv, and all the connections. Additionally, the 360 will last approx 5-6 years until the next-next gen consoles release. Your new gaming pc however, will be struggling to play the games that release just a year after purchase without buying a new graphic card ($400+) and more ram (2gb sticks @ $150 each) at the minimum. Economically, the 360 makes more sense (and yes I know some of you get great deals, but for those of us that don't work in computers or have contacts...)
While the 360 may not have the power of the top end pc, it does have the advantage of a much more streamlined build, more of it's power is dedicated to gaming, making it more than equal in most aspects. Additionally, since every 360 is made the same with the same hardware, developers can focus on a single configuration as opposed to trying to test and develop for 36 different graphic cars, 8 different processors and multiple OS version and make it work for all of them. And heaven forbid you have a NEWER card than what the game was tested for...it might not work either.
But, I am not here to bash pc's. Some of my favorite games have been on the pc. Fallout, the Total War Series, Civs, Warcraft, Diablo, NWN, Vampire the Masqarade (the older one...the newer one was two buggy), I have lost countless hours enjoying them and many others. Currently, they do a lot of things better than the consoles. For example, I love RTS's. The Battle For Middle Earth 2 was decent on the pc (nothing spectacular, but a nice attempt), and while the control scheme on the 360 was workable, it was nowhere near as conveinent as the keyboard and mouse layout. Again, something easily fixed by adding just a little bit of code, but at the moment...
A lot of people claim that the consoles are filled with Halo clones and that is what console gamers want. While that may be true with some subgroups, the same could be said of the pc's and Doom...afterall, some of the top games/companies out there are FPS's, which of course started with Doom all those years ago.
It's a matter of what the developers desire to make. If the gaming industry began making RTS's with mouse and keyboard access on the 360, can you really tell me that you wouldn't leap to the thought of playing Warcraft 4 on your bigscreen TV? If they had enabled the mouse and keyboard for Oblivion, would they have had to 'dumb down' the PC interface and options? I doubt it, infact they could have probably done more, again due to the univeral build of the 360's.
With the power of the current gen consoles, it is a matter of time before developers begin to try placing more traditional pc games on them. Once they enable the right tools (mouse and keyboard!), consoles should be able to surpass the pc games in quality (read Should, not Will). At that point, would you retire your pc for gaming and use it just for school/work, or would you still insist that pc's are better?
Just my 2 cents, and sorry for the rambling...
Marc....out!
Well, eventually it had to happen. With a small child and with, my game time has dwindled. As such I had to do somethin unthinkable even a year ago. I sold my PS2 and games without planning on buying the PS3 for at least a year. After watching it collect dust as I play my pc and 360 games, I figured it was time for it to move on.
Anyhow, that's why all my ps2 games are gone off my list...but I am off...Enchanted Arms calls...
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