Yet another Xbox 360 Update.

Sorry about this, but well… the 360 is going to be the major source of new news in my life for the next few days… and what’s wrong with that, anyway? I’ve also recently noticed that I haven’t read a blog in over 48 hours. Scary, that.

So there’s been a lot of hub-bub about Xbox 360 problems… Sucks, true, but well… I dunno how many reports are real and how many are forum trolls; time will tell. What I do know is that when Oldsmobile put out their first year run of the Calais, the thing was a complete piece of shit. Like problems with the hood latch: it could give way and fly open, particularly at high speeds. Or another problem with the floor boards: they could pop out at any time. The problem? First year car and the bugs were being worked outta the line. I had this in mind when I bought the extended warrantee on the 360… and when I cleared out a wide open spot, with lots of air, before hooking it up. I lost one DVD burner and one DVD console to heat: I won’t lose any other device the same way.

No excuses for the [possibly] defective units and nothing but solace if there are people having trouble – early adopting is always a challenge, be it a $17K car or $400 game console… one of the biggest differences between the two is that you’ll probably get more sympathy and technical support for the 360. At least I’m hoping that’s the case.

Three other things of note, one of which is for Call of Duty 2 that I just tried out tonight: the game is pretty impressive. I took the campaign and got some training with the Russians. The game play was on par with Quake 4 with one caveat: it hung on me. An Xbox 360 problem? I don’t think so… all of my other games have been working fine and for longer periods of time. I had also played that mission a few times without an issue. Word of advice: don’t try to pick up a weapon from the battlefield while crouched. At least that’s what blew my game apart – it hung the box. Reminds me of the crash that I always had on the Hoth missions of Battlefront I – would hop into an AT-AT walker, kick the shit outta the Rebels, and consistantly hang the Xbox.

I also opted to retire the PS2 and put my DVD player back in it’s place… the 360 played DVD’s but didn’t hold onto the stopping place when I went out to the Dashboard. Either I oops’d or that by design – either way, I’d rather have the DVD player there. I ended up putting the Xbox on RCA video and removed the PS2 altogether. I haven’t turned it on in for forever, so screw it. I should just go trade it in, but that involves movement. And with Halo 2 working properly I dunno how often I’ll be using the Xbox, which is why that got banished. I’m just maximizing my available TV ports. Oh and I discovered that you can turn the 360 console on and off via the controller… when hooked up to the AA battery pack, the light went totally off – with the rechargable one I notice part of the Ring staying lit. This caused me to take a look online for an FAQ: I did some research and found this Xbox Support Article. Guess the team really paid attention to all those complaints from the original Xbox’s lack of power control.

Lastly, I do find it very, very odd that I still haven’t played the campaign mode of Halo 2 yet I also haven’t played the online parts of any of the 360 games. Except for one: PGR3’s Gotham TV. I was tooling around in my Nissan Skyline and test driving some new cars – it seems I can only handle AWD cars – and had some time to kill… so I went over to Gotham TV. Watched seven people race. In the dark. With headlights casting a nice gradient beam. Break lights glowing. Multiple camera angles on different cars.

Pretty freakin’ cool.