PixlBit

It's been a while Hal-9000, how have you been? If your green rings turn red at any point, you and I are going to have problems

November of last year my old white 360 died again, for the 3rd and final time. I was no longer in warranty and didn't want to shell out over a hundred dollars to "fix" the piece of junk. I decided I'd just kick the fat washed-up 360 to the curb and replace it with a younger hotter version that is ready and willing to please me, lol. By the way my alter ego is obviously a greasy, womanizing, oil baron that has so many chicks after him that he's beating them off with a stick. Oh and for the people who's minds went deeper into the gutter than mine, when I say my alter ego beats chicks off with a stick I'm not talking about vaginal penetration, I'm talking about using a physical weapon to take swats at their skulls and inflict blunt force trauma in order to keep away the undesirables. My alter ego is a terrible human being. Having a disgustingly dark sense of humor is bliss. Lol, anywho, I tire of all the sexist violence so let's bring this train back on the rails.

Eventually I got around to writing a blog about the death of my Xbox, and in the blog I mentioned that I would have wait a while till I could get a replacement. During the time I was without a 360, I reaquainted myself with my trusty old Gamecube and played a whole lot of Splinter Cell and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. These cubey escapades took up a bit of my money and slowed down my campaign to get a new 360 Slim. However, it didn't thwart my efforts, because a few days ago I finally bought up my new 360. Huzzah!

Silly 360, this is what you should've been from the beginning

I spent a while debating with myself over what I could afford, what model had features I wanted most, and eventually I settled for a new slim with a 250GB HD. I pretty much knew exactly what I wanted and what I was getting into, but I went into one of my local Gamestops and spent a couple minutes picking the guy's brain about all the consoles, warranties, etc and I played it off as if I didn't know what I was doing. At one point I even asked him, "What kind of controller does this 250G model come with, is it a uh standard one?" To me that sounds like a stupid question, so I asked it, and amazingly the guy was really nice and informative. To tell the truth most of the people I know at the Gamestops around my town are very nice.

The guy was honest too and didn't bullshit me just to make a sale. I was looking at the refurbished consoles and old white ones, and he said, "Refurbished ones are often an easy sell. They're cheaper and a lot of people come in to swoop those up, but in my opinion you should look at the newer Slims. It's a not far away from refurb price and it's brand new." and we ended up exchanging stories about how terrible the old 360s are. I had 3 die on me, he had 5 die on him, we both agreed they sound like jet engines, and we had a laugh.

After I bought the console I just loitered around the shop for several minutes and talked to the guys working there. I explained how I really wanted to play Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Syndicate, and they were both excited for Streetfight X Tekken. Then I spent a few minutes playing with the PS Vita they had on display (which was really cool by the way) and we made jokes about how small the games are. Most game formats have their banes. Downloadables rely on internet and such, discs can be ruined by scratches and scuffs, etc. Well the Vita game's natural enemy could be something as simple as the wind. Chinook winds or even the jetstream could come take your Vita game away! You sneeze and it's gone! Anytime that a Vita game is out in the elements and not in the safety of its case or the handheld itself, the game's chances of survival are slim at best lol. Enough rambling.

I never buy my games from Gamestop because I know I can get much better deals on Amazon, but when it comes to consoles I always buy from Gamestop. Does anybody else have that same habit? I just feel more comfortable walking into a game store, seeing my console first hand, and taking it home with me. I buy everything on Amazon, but something doesn't feel right about ordering a console and waiting for it to ship through the mail. So I always go get mine in person.

Once home I set everything up and was amazed by how quiet the system is, how fast it boots up, and how convienient the built in wi-fi is. Another great thing is that my Slim has the matte black finish as opposed to the glossy black finish, so it's not the same fingerprint magnet that the original glossy Slims were at launch. For Christmas last year my sister bought me Modern Warfare 3 and I was really excited for it, but alas my Xbox died and I just had to stroke my new game and tell it, "One day I will play you". Until now. I've been playing through the MW3 campaign on Hardened and it's been a blast.

This game is ri-god-damn-diculous. Don't ask me about the narrative, because it makes no sense. It's a ton of fun to play though and that's why I love it!

Right before my old 360 died I also bought up Fable 3, so once I'm ready to take a break from MW3 I'm sure I'll dive into some Fable. Recently I started a series called Let's Talk Loot, and I mentioned some of my adoration for Fable 2 as well as my disappointments. It'll be nice to get into Fable mode and get lost in Albion's charm once again. Plus I need to see if the game has the same problems the previous game had.

That's how I got my new 360, what I've been playing, and what I plan on playing in the near future. In this last part I want to bring up the important subject of "what happens when you game a little too hard". This past weekend I hung out with my cousins for a few days. My cousin Eddy Spaghetti has a PS3 and brought over MW3 (speak of the devil) and we played a ton of split screen Survival, as well as some typical online matches. Online matches sucked for the most part. We won some, we lost some, but most of the time I was just terrible. The matches move so fast, everybody but me knows exactly what to do, and by the time I start catching on, the match is over lol. I did have a ton of fun with Survival though, it's by far my favorite thing in the game, we played countless waves and it never gets old buying weapons, customizing them, setting up sentries, taking on Juggernauts, etc. For those unfamiliar, Survival is CoD's take on Gear's Horde mode and Halo's Firefight (all of which I love). I think we love it a little too much though because we gamed-out so hard that we forgot about the necessities of hydration and nutrition lol.

Gaming is great, but don't forget to drink water and attain sustenance every now and then! First world problems are the worst are they not?

We played MW3 Friday evening all the way till 6am Saturday morning. Then we barely slept a few hours and before lunch time we were at it again playing all the way till Saturday afternoon. We never ate, drank, and only took our eyes off the flatscreen when nature called. At one point in the day, it just hit me like a ton of bricks and I was literally sick lol. I noticed I had a pounding headache (likely due to dehydration), I was tired, nautious, and ready to vomit. I immeditaly stopped playing the game, layed down, and just rested for a couple extra hours. Once I woke up for the second time my cousin Chrissy and I finally made some dinner together, made Kool-aid (we are all twenty-somethings but we still eat like teenagers), and I felt completely better. I hardly ever do this, I'm usually very structured in how I play games. An hour or two before bed, and I shut it off the second I start feeling fatigued. This weekend when I played with my cousin it was the complete opposite, and I ended up gaming-out so hard it made me sick lol.

This update was a bit of a ramble and I asked a couple questions that likely were lost in the mix, so I'll gather them together and ask them here so you don't have to go back.

1. Do you order new consoles online, or do you pick them up in person? Does it matter to you one way or the other?

2. Do you think your Vita games are in danger of being swept up by the Jet Stream and transported across the globe?

3. Have you ever gamed-out so hard it made you sick? Or have you ever gamed-out in a way that affected you negatively physiologically or made you forget some survival or hygenic necessities?