[deprecated] muddyhorse

I broke down and bought a new Xbox 360 Arcade unit to replace my variously failing boxes.  If you remember back just a bit in time, I tried a couple of strategies to fix my machine.  They all worked — for a time.  The time the fix worked, however, was variable, ranging from 5-30 hours for a good fix, and as short as 30 minutes for a bad fix.

I’ve spent a lot of time on the boxes, and unfortunately, the time I spent fixing seems to have eclipsed the time I spent playing.

The thing I’ve found most fascinating about the process is that, while buggy, the 360 hardware is quite resilient.  With enough twiddling of screws, I can get a box up and running quite consistently.

Alternate titles for this post:

• How Gamestop ruined my Valentine’s Day
• Gamestop Made Me Do It
• I’m an Idiot

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I thought I was in the clear as far as the 3 red lights goes for the XBox 360… it happened, I was under warranty, Microsoft send a cardboard coffin, and I sent it back.  End of story.

Oops, it happened again.  There’s no free lunch this time.  Even if I paid the $100 to MS to repair it, they would only give a 90 day warranty on their work.  So, either buy a new one (with a massive extended warranty, of course) or try to fix it myself.  After attempting to buy a new Arcade unit for $200 at K-Mart twice, but failing both times because they were out of stock, I went the fix route.

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I just wanted to capture the current set of podcasts I listen to. I commute two hours a day, and this set keeps me lightly stocked — Sometimes I run out for a day or two, and I rarely fall behind.

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… that you’re cool if you find yourself ever saying any of the following:

• buff
• debuff
• tank
• aggro
• DPS
• AoE
• Bonus:
  • Tapping
  • Untap

In some cases, you may even be fooling yourself that you’re playing a game.  Seriously, though, I’m a nerd, and listening to people talk like the above makes me want to take their lunch money.

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Buy.com recently had a great deal on some games and battery packs.  One of the games included was Crackdown.  Here’s a quick review, after playing about half the game.  I get the feeling that Crackdown is one of those games everyone’s heard of, but few have played.  It’s never had a mega promotional campaign, but it’s a solid, well put-together title.  To sum up my feelings about the game: it’s a blast.  And it gets blastier the farther along you get.

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My wife found a cheap copy of the Orange Box, from Valve.  It actually contains 3 full games (Half-life 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal) and two large expansions for HL2 (ep. 1 & 2) — a lot of content.

There was only one reason I wanted the game:  Portal.  I heard from friends and reviews about the thing, so I had a feeling I’d like it.  I did.  Great writing and mind-bending (but not too mind-bending) make for a fun game.

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It was brought to my attention that I forgot a game review of Portal, so I thought I’d lump several games in today that I’ve been meaning to review but haven’t yet.  This is in order of me getting each game, starting with last Christmas.

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One less secret I have to keep:  see Riot Games to Summon ‘League of Legends’ in 2009 – MarketWatch.  That’s for anyone who is curious about what my friend Scott has been up to and/or the game I interviewed to work on.

I can’t believe I missed the press releases, but such is life.

The main community site is at http://www.leagueoflegends.com/

I wish them the best.  The game is fun and has a lot of teamwork potential.

Too Human is an action RPG for the XBox 360.  Sillicon Knights developed the title on-and-off for almost ten years.  The game combines features from several other well-known action RPGs.  To sum it up in a sentence, Too Human combines the frantic gameplay and hordes of enemies from the Diablo series with the weapon stylings and combos of Sega’s Phantasy Star Online.

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How often have you read a story where the way to defeat an enemy is to know its name?  Or seen a movie where the discovery of a name leads to control over the named object?  Some examples in popular culture:

• Rumpelstiltskin would be the prime example here.  By learning the name, and speaking it to the creature, the miller’s daughter got out of the bargain she had made (to be able to spin straw into gold, she had to give up her firstborn).
• In The Tenth Kingdom, the blind woodsman would only release his prisoner and give the heroes his magic axe if they could guess his name.  (Luckily, he kept it in his hat.)
  
• The undoing of the Horned King in The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander was the speaking of his name.
• In Aidyn Chronicles for the Nintendo64, the main character Alaron lacks a True Name, which binds his body and soul together.  Without it, he is incomplete.
  

The question is, does any of this apply to the real world?

It was, in fact, in my playing of Aidyn Chronicles that I first became cognizant of this whole business.  In it, there is a discipline of magic called Naming set in contrast to the more familiar Elemental (fire, air, earth, water) magic.  At the time, I thought, “What’s the big deal?  Is having a name and giving a name so important?”  This was 2001.

Flash forward to 2007.  I have a daughter now, and she’s struggling to learn everything in the world.  She will eat up new words and start using them immediately.  She feels every word brings her more power.

Well, knowledge is power, names are knowledge, and therefore names are power.  So I guess it makes a bit of sense.  You can know about something.  But this is not just knowing something, it is naming that something.  If you know enough about a thing, you can name it, categorize it, relegate it.  Give a name to your fear, the saying goes.

I suspect naming can have broader powers too… a way of setting the stage for a debate, for example.  If you coin a product name, a movment, a philosophy, or anything, you may well be determining the ultimate fate of that thing.  At the very least, you’re doing a bit of mind control by making a popular name that everyone speaks.

Wikipedia has a bit more discussion in this vein, under the True Name topic.

Super Paper Mario is almost a good game.  It has clever puzzles, excellent control, and a wide variety of levels.  But it also has tedious dialog, annoying restrictions, and a lot of menu work for what is essentially an action game.

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I came across the Top 10 Best Game Apparel and let’s just say I’d welcome any of the items there into the family.  They’re all pretty good, go see.

Yes, there is one pair of underwear in the list.  I expect a host of jokes relating to me wearing those — it won’t be a surprise.

Pat.

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Puzzle Quest totally rocks! Here’s my review.

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