Lotta churn in Randy’s house lately – thought I’d recap the problems and solutions that I’ve been through over the last couple of weeks…
Playstation 2: Yes, I borrowed one to play Guitar Hero II. I pretty much suck at it, but I have to admit that it’s hella addictive. Enough that I will probably pick up one for the Xbox or Xbox 360 (or Wii) were one to become available but not enough to re-buy another PS2. I sold mine off a while ago, and I’m OK with that. And given the rest of this list, I returned console back already.
Xbox: No new news to report. Well except that I had to fire it up to allow my new Gamertag to ripple through Halo 2’s stats boards. Well that and the DVD drive tray has gotten to be a little quirky lately – I think it’s simply showing it’s age.
Xbox 360: Back in my greedy little hands, as of last night! Fired it up, set up all of my console preferences (auto-sign in, etc.) and played some Gears of War, since that was the game that hung more regularly than not. No hangs! But I did get a disc read error – took the disc out and noticed that it had a slight smudges… irksome though, if all of the next-gen consoles have no tollerence for a smudged disc. Also makes me wonder if that’s what was happening on the old console and the older hardware just wasn’t allow it to bubble up? I don’t know. Been fine, other than that one hiccup. Also picked up the racing wheel, but I haven’t had a chance to open that yet! Besides, Gears was still enough to make me jump last night… that game is so easy to get immersed in.
Wii: Haven’t broken anything with the Wiimote, yet. In fact, with the exception of Wii Sports Tennis, I don’t see how people are letting go of the Wiimote. I mean, hitting other people/things around you, I could see: wandered to close to someone and WHAM. Makes sense. But general game play? I think people are just intent on jumping akimbo just because they are holding the controller. Great marketing on Nintendo’s part: they say you have to move and gamers are responding to it. Anyway, Wii Sports was fine but I had two consistent read errors on Zelda. Is it the console or the disc? Well, I exchanged the disc at Target and the new one didn’t get the error at either place – time will tell. I’ve still got plenty of warranty on it, but it’s enough to make me “worried”. We’ll see.
DS Lite: Nothing new to report here… Mario still keeps me entertained (because I haven’t finished it yet) and I might even pick up a new game at some point, before I travel again… for now, it’s helping to hold papers down on my coffee table.
C64: The Commodore 64 I bought last month is still at work and still hasn’t been plugged in. Boo.
Bose: Not a gaming console but certainly the De Facto component that all of the consoles share – aside from the TV – well… what can I say about this? Got some banana plugs from Radio Shack: none of the speakers have dropped off since and I haven’t noticed the bass module dropping out. Yet I got the box from Bose already in my garage… I figure I’ll ship it out during the holidays, when I’m not likely to miss it. It’ll be just over $100 for the entire service thing – estimated UPS shipping yesterday – and that kicks off a new 1 year warranty. Or maybe I won’t bother :) I’ll probably wait to see if Bose has charged me or not yet!
That’s the recap: most everything is working!
Now watch the bulb blow on the rear projection TV…