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That's the Xbox 360's version of the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). Microsoft says the frequency of this has been blown out of proportion. At the mall yesterday, out of the 3 game retailers we visited, all 3 had display units which were out of order. 2 of them had the RLOD, and one was off with an 'Out of Order' sign. I did get the 2 year service agreement and hopefully wont have to use it since there is a good chance I will get a refurbished unit. [Crosses fingers]

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First of all, this game is not Resident Evil. It may look that way at first glimpse, but it plays more like a 2D Mario game with a little investigation minigames thrown in. What do I mean? You start at point A, get to point B, kill enemies on the way. Sometimes they throw in an objective, like a switch you have to flick, or a trail you have to follow, but Mario did have those keys you had to find too.

The story was good enough, even with my short attention span I was able to play all the way through, which took about 7 hours or so. One thing it has in common with Resident Evil is the lack of ammo, but to a higher degree which has you fighting with melee weapons most of the way. Sometimes you pick up guns with on average 2-6 bullets and that gets you a few easy kills.

There were a few scares which caused me to jump, and you do have the 'on your toes' feeling through the whole game.There are a few times per level that you have to use your investigative tools to collect information. There will be a big popup which means you have to point the tool at something to take a picture or sample. This is really done to continue the story and there's no occasion where you actually have to figure out something, which is a little dissappointing.

Hand to hand combat is average and repetitive. There's block and attack buttons. Basically you block, then attack when the enemy is stunned. Graphics are not bad, the characters look a little weird, but the environments are pretty detailed from what I could tell with the limited lighting they give you.

In conclusion, the game is a good rental. I don't see myself playing through again, but the story held me to the end.

One last thing, if you get motion sickness with games, you might want to pass on this one. I get sick on boats and planes, but not usually on games, but there were some levels that I had to take a rest when I started to get that feeling.

Video explains it.

This is what happens (sometimes?) when you call to cancel an AOL Account.

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Heat in 6! Woooooooooooo. I'm fired up!

Wade is MVP for sure!

Here's a fish I caught a while back.

I switched services to Gamerang and the turnaround time seems to be much quicker than GameFly. Unlike GameFly, which ships its games from CA, Gamerang has 4 different distribution centers, one of which is in OK, which cuts the distance by half. The price is about the same too, which made switching worthwhile. I don't think they have as much games, but the only one I couldn't find was Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.Weird, since it is such a popular game.

I may still consider a switch to RedOctane (I was a member a few years back when the GameCube was released), which allows 3 games out at about the same price as the other 2 services, but I would have to deal with the longer shipping times to CA. But with one more game out, it may not matter. They also don't rent any DS games. We'll see.

I feel the opposite of him.

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Heat are up 3 games to 2. They haven't won one in Dallas all year. Lets see what happens.

After watching the Halo 2 Special Edition DVD, which shows behind the scenes, I think I'm going to go back into some 3D programming. I also finished Halo 2 which has a bad ending.

I'm trying to play Halo 2 on my 360 but this big blue thing keeps taking over my screen.

Sorry for the bad pic.

Just testing my new image uploader. [I took this pic]

Series tied 2-2. Two wins in a row. We still need to win an away game so we still have a hard road ahead but the Heat played an awesome game. Wade was good, Shaq was good, and Posey made a bunch of good plays. Lets see if we can win the last home game.

One of the best games I've seen live. And Heat won! I just got back home and I'm still fired up. GO! HEAT! GO!

I'm going to my first playoff game. Woot. Go Heat!

I have to admit, from what I heard, and from experiencing it myself in the demo, I did not have high expectations of this game. From all the memories of Goldeneye 007 on the N64 (although not even Goldeneye could live up to its memories), anything short of breathtaking would be a disappointment. This is Rare we are talking about.

But...

Multiplayer is fun, even co-op. Which is funny because the first few missions (5 or so) in the single player campaign felt uninspiring. I guess multiplayer fixes everything. The best mode so far is capture the flag, with rocket launcher. There was one round of deathmatch where a friend and I were camping opposite sides of the map both with rocket launchers. We were in tunnels overlooking the main battlefield picking off 'noobs'. Since we were on the same Xbox we both had the same name (except second player has a "(1)" next to their name) and we could hear people getting pissed at the both of us, thinking we were the same person. Good times. I recommend this game only for Live subscribers.

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I just have to get the bad stuff out the way. I have to admit I only got past the first King Kong scene and boy did that make me see the light. It made me realise how boring the first person level are. Burn trees, kill giant scorpion, kill giant worm, burn trees. Amazing King Kong scene. Back to burning trees.

I would have played more of the game if I didn't feel tortured by the first person levels. Not only that, but the King Kong scene was maybe about 1/10th of the game so far. It was a Gamefly rental so back it went.

Coming soon: Impressions of better games!

Game 1 tonight. GO HEAT!

Ok, I'm not sure if this is really a rant on the Xbox, or more about games in general. Other than the heat issue, disc scratching, expensive downloads, loud DVD drive, dashboard crashes and the MS fanboy friend I have, the hardware is not too bad. I have played it once on an HDTV (don't own one yet) and it made a pretty big difference, especially in Lost Planet (the snow doesn't impress me although the explosions did).

Onto the games. Nothing really impressed me, even games that are fun just doesn't scream NEXT GENERATION!, it is closer to (This Generation)++. Let's hope Gears of War change that although I doubt it. I recently downloaded Top Spin, and the gameplay felt really unintuitive, maybe because the last tennis game I played was Mario Tennis on the Gamecube, which I don't own, but was easy to pick up and play. Maybe I'm just too old for totally realistic gameplay. When I have to change directions with my player and have to watch the animation of them stopping and turning, it just seems like too much.

Anyway, sales will predict which direction the industry will go in, but I would prefer the game to feel right, while compromising some of its looks. Imaging if Pacman had momentum with turning animation...

Finally, the update to the 360 dashboard will be released in a few hours (while I'm sleeping). The 2 things I was really waiting for are background/queued downloads and all the music enhancements (not stopping when you change games, remembering player settings, etc). Time for them to start releasing some great games now.

Ok, heres the deal. Blockbuster has this new (well, old now) no late fee stuff. So after the due date you have 7 extra days to return it. If you keep it after that they give you 30 more days to return it for a restocking fee of $1.25. I'm a gamer myself, so sometimes you need a good month before you are sick of a game. Lets work it out. 6$ for a game rental (well, around that), $1.25 for the restocking fee, equals $7.25 for 42 days? Or is that 30 days total? Well, one of these days I'm going to try it out. Good luck.

Yes, the Heat got to the finals for the first time. I'm going baby!

Go to this site and click on CNN.

Shaq in my opinion made the play of the game.

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