InfiniteTides

Once upon a time, when we bought a video game for a console, it was a complete and finished product.  We didn’t have to worry about patches or add-ons that we could purchase separately being offered later.  There was no downloadable content and no network to connect a console to.  These days, it seems that every game coming out on either Microsoft’s Xbox 360 or Sony’s Playstation 3 is infused with some way to separate gamers from more money down the road when they realize that the game isn’t complete.  Downloadable add-ons have become a mainstay for game publishers.  There’s no avoiding it any more.

One reason I continue to claim PC gaming is superior to console gaming is user created content.  For the most part, consoles have not allowed the users to make and trade a great deal of their own creations with the exception of making maps or skins for vehicles.

Something I read this morning has further solidified my belief in the superiority of PC gaming and the communities formed to support it.  Sony wants to give Little Big Planet gamers a way to buy and sell user created content.  In my mind, Sony is pissing away much of the positive hype that has been swirling around Little Big Planet like a happiness vortex since people were told that the LBP community would be able to upload and download player created levels.

Now that Sony says they want to monetize those downloads, they’ve soiled the pureness of whatever community would have evolved around LBP.  They probably think (because they are just another evil corporation) that by putting dollar signs in the eyes of creative gamers, they will increase the positive vibe surrounding this game.  They probably believe that by monetizing LBP user-created content that they are creating a positive motivational force for great levels to be created and sold.  What they are actually doing is turning off a lot of potential customers to what could have been a truly amazing thing, a real community of player/creators on a console that currently has a reputation for shoddy community and spotty network play.  No doubt Sony would be taking their cut from every user created level sold on their network, so of course they would be excited about yet another revenue stream from a game that allows users to create just about anything themselves.  Too bad the greedy bastards at Sony can’t keep their hands out of our pockets long enough for a community to develop around what still promises to be an amazing game with amzing possiblities for both players and creators.

I finally got around to hooking my Xbox 360 to my HDTV, and I have to admit that I’m having fun playing games on it again.  Forza Motorsport 2 and Geometry Wars were just enough temptation to make me pull the 360 out of the box and reconsider selling it.  This weekend I want to play some Halo 3 online (with Kyle), and that should put my decision to keep the 360 over the top.  I’ve got all of this free time to fill, and gaming is fun again.

September 25th is coming, and you know what that brings.  Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that Master Chief is coming back in Halo 3, arguably the biggest game release of the year.  I pre-ordered my copy about a month ago, right before I found out that I’ll be in China next Tuesday.

Josh made fun of me because he’ll have a head start in playing Halo 3, but I think I’ll probably have the last laugh, because sincerely doubt that I’ll have to deal with any Halo 3 hype over in Shanghai.  I think Josh is really excited about this game coming out.  He’s been buying and drinking the Halo 3 Game Fuel from Mountain Dew.  I’ll bet he’s been stacking the cans in some sort of freaky Master Chief shrine on top of his 360.

I used to think that the 1 in 3 odds of an Xbox 360 suffering the red ring of death were slightly inflated, never having personally known anyone whose 360 had died.  But that changed for me this morning, in the worst imaginable (at least for me) way.

After booting my 360 and changing the game in the tray, I launched Forza Motorsport 2.  The 360 told me that a system update was necessary, so I downloaded and installed the update.  After that, I was ready to get into some serious racing.  That was not to be, as the game froze up while my car sat still on the starting line awaiting the off.

No problem, games freeze from time to time, I thought.  So I shut down the 360, waited about 30 seconds, and started the machine back up.  To my chagrin, the system did NOT boot up.  Instead, the green center light lit up, followed by the infamous flashing of 3 red lights that circle it, the red ring of death.

I was instantly pissed off.  Fucking Microsoft!  Can’t even make a console with decent quality, and too cheap to recall their obviously defective shite!  You can believe that with the 360’s apparent defect rate that if the thing were causing fires in homes, there would be a recall and a massive class action lawsuit of unseen magnitude.  But alas, the 360 isn’t catching fire, just dying prematurely.

It’s interesting that of my friends who own a 360, I play mine the least, but it’s the first one to die.  I say that it’s the first one to die, because I wholeheartedly expect each and every one of my friends to suffer the same red ring of death, the middle finger of mediocrity, extended to them from Microsoft.  Call it foreshadowing.  Call it my ingrained negativity, but just get Microsoft’s support number handy to call in for an RMA.