Well...it had to end one day. What happens when your 360 breaks twice in a row? Well, once it is fixed you go crazy. 117 days and 60 additional XBL friends later (Thanks to AGE:D) I finally took a break. I was tempted to play an arcade game for a few minutes just to keep the streak going but fell asleep before I could execute my plan :roll:

Plus my PC and my Wii were beginning to feel a neglected.......

THanks to my Xbox 360's blog, I know that I have gamed on it for 41 straight days. Guess that's what happens when you have to go a whole month waiting for it to get back from getting repaired. My refurb unit is still going strong (with the exception of a weird DVD drive noise every once in a while) although I am very curious about MS's plans to allow users to move all their content from an older premium to a new Elite model. That announcement might push me over the edge to get one.....maybe.

BTW here's the link to my Xbox 360's blog. If you have a 360 you might want to check the site out and see if you want to get a blog for your machine.

Wokisan's Xbox 360 Blog

On the Wii front I bought Tiger Woods 07 but just couldn't take the graphics (too many jaggies) and sold it on eBay. After all this time our favorite game is still WiiSports. No one has played it much lately but with the release of Super Paper Mario that might change.

Got my 360 back...well actually got a 360 back. My original 360 has evidently been sent to pasture. MS sent me a refub unit made in Nov '06 and so far so good. It has the 2nd gen DVD drive (would have been nice to luck up and get the 3rd gen BenQ model...) which is ALOT quieter than the one in my former Jan '06 xbox. Hopefully thisone will last....:?

Well, I haven't blogged in 2 months. You probably figured because I have been simply playing the Wii all the time....Uh......no.

Not to say that the family and I are not enjoying the Wii (we really are) but it's my 360 that has me bent out of shape and out of blogging mood.

Look, I really like the Wii. Its fun, its neat, its different (in a good way) but it isn't my 360. It isn't GOW, Lost Planet, Oblivion and games like that. At my core, that is what I still enjoy the most...games like those.

But I'll tell you one thing the Wii is.....much more dependable than my 360. My 360 is off again to lovely McAllen, TX where hopefully this time the MS service center there will actually FIX my 360 instead of sending it back with a new problem.

So there you have it. I was one of those people who used to say, "hey, my Jan '06 360 is still going strong....no problems here" when a forum post about 360 problems would pop up over at avsforurms......not anymore......

I ain't that mad (yet), I just want my freaking 360 to WORK. This is the only console I have ever bought an extended warranty for....now I am glad I did. Fingers crossed.........

I have a cousin in Roanoke. His name was Courtney.....I now refer to him simply as...."The Man". He found a Wii, snagged it for me at an area WalMart, and I now have it in my possession. :D

All hail Courtney....THE MAN!

Get to Best Buy a couple of hours before they open...

#19 in line but I figure, "they got 40 on launch day. I should be ok....."

Store gets 18 Wiis.....................


Story of my life.

  Despite growing up mainly on Nintendo games I was a little skeptical about the Wii....until I played it. A relative of mine snagged one from a guy he works with (had to pay $50 extra to get it) and invited me and a few other cousins of mine up to his crib to play. We were instantly hooked! I had been worried that the Wii would be gimmicky and that it would get old.....but it was such a refreshing and different experience.

I decided right then and there to get one but that hasn't been that easy. I had to resort to eBay to get my 360 earlier this year and I have been tempted to do the same for a Wii. But it appears I will have one last chance this year to snag one from a B&M store....on the 17th. Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart, EB Games, and Gamestop are all getting shipments this week and will begin selling them early Sunday morning. I hope to get up early, snag one, and avoid having to go back to eBay.

Just like with my 360 I already have extra controllers, a component cord (had the VGA one for my 360 before I got a system), and a game  all ready to go. Now I just need a Wii.  

What is that you ask???? Zuma has gotten my wife to play alot more on the 360.....now...I think it is a good thing...so far. She's becoming addicted to Zuma and if it progresses to 'Animal Crossing-like' levels I might feel differently. She even joined Xbox Live.....go figure.

I just finished Half-Life 2: Episode One (PC) and I am STILL not sure if I care for the idea of releasing several-shorter-separate 'episodes' instead of a more traditional length expansion pack. In general I don't like the idea of the shorter episodes. They seem too short and not quite worth the $20 price tag to me.

***In my best Steven A. Smith voice** HOWEVER!

I think for HL and Valve it maybe a good idea. Why? Because otherwise we would probably have to wait forever for the next Halflife expansion pack/game. This way we get our HL fix every 6 months. Interestingly enough during that same time period Maxis will release 12 expansion packs for the SIMS 2.... :P

I guess the question is would you rather get a 4hr episode every 6-7 months for $20 or get a 10hr expansion every 12-15 months for $30 or ***gasp*** $40?

Hmmm, I'm still undecided...:? but I must admit I did like the way the original HL releases laid out. And $20 while not 'alot' or money seems a bit much for something you can play through in 4 hours (some say 2 or 3 is possible.) How about selling it for $20 and giving HL2 owners a $5 credit????

GameFly Update
I sent back TR:Legend on Monday evening and got an email on Wednesday that Gamefly was shipping out my next game! 2 days.....woah. Awesome news for us East Coast guys. I'm hopeful that my game will be here later today (it is 2am EST on Friday...guess I should get some sleep...:P). I will keep ya posted.

GameFly Update (6.12.06)
I got my new game from Gamefly on Friday, just 2 days after receiving notification that it had shipped. Very nice! A total turn around time of 5 days from shipping the old one to getting the new one. Not bad at all IMO.

Renting video games has changed SO MUCH over the years and clearly for the better. I can remember years ago renting SNES games and spending way too much money doing so. As the years passed I eventually got to the point on not even bothering to try to rent a game.

Why? The cost of renting didn't represent that good of a value. You could just buy a game...finish it...and sell it on ebay....or simply buy your games used in the first place. Also you could never find the one game you really wanted to try out. All the kids would get out of school, force their parents to drive them to Blockbuster immediately, and suck up all the good games every Friday it seemed. (I didn't have much time to play during the week of course)

Well years passed...BLAH BLAH BLAH, and I finally decided to try out an online renting service to see if all the hype I had been hearing was for real or not. I tried Gottaplay at first because they had a distribution center reasonably closeby in Atlanta. Unfortunately it seemed that every game I rented would come from their Cali or Texas distribution centers which meant a LONG turn around time anyway. I had originally stay away from Gamefly for that very reason. It's all West Coast...no love for us East Coast Playas. Still I continued to use Gottaplay and enjoyed a relatively pleasant experience. But after I received the 6th pick on my gamer que I decided to try another service.

Against my 'better judgement' I went ahead and tried out Gamefly and I have been pleasantly surprised. I got my top 2 picks instantly (Tomb Raider : Legend and GRAW) and one arrived in only 3 days. However the other took another 3 days to arrive :-P. They were shipped the same day....so what happened to the other...waHOO knows. Still spending $20 a month instead of dropping $60 on a new game or searching forever on eBay to find one at around $40-45 is the way to go in MHO.

However once NetFlix decides to rent video games...the renting game universe as we know it will change forever...I can't wait ;)