Because the internet needs another gaming blog.

We had just put our daughter to bed when my wife enthusiastically said she was going to go downstairs to play Burnout Paradise for a bit.  I took a few minutes to finish making my lunch for the next day and headed to the basement to watch my wife play.  Halfway down the stairs I could see she was just watching TV, not ripping through the streets of Paradise City.  I looked at her and was just about to ask her why she wasn’t playing when she asked, “What’s that all about?” and pointed at the Xbox 360.

I turned my head and saw three little red bars.  Flashing.  The Red Ring of Death.

My first reaction was to swear.  For the year and a bit that I’ve had my 360 I’ve never experienced any problems whatsoever.  The day I got it, I literally unpacked it, put it on its open and well-ventilated pedestal, and haven’t touched it since except to load and unload games, and even then it’s not like we play it all that much.  The very reason I got the Elite version was because I had heard it was less susceptible (if not immune) to the Red Ring of Death.

I powered the console off and back on again.  The red lights reappeared and I swore again.  I powered it off once more and started digging around for my receipt, cursing under my breath the entire time that I was now going to have to send this “stupid piece of garbage” to Microsoft to have repaired.  The one bright side to the situation, I thought, was at least I’ll have something to blog about.  To that end, I decided to grab my camera to take a picture of the red ring to feature with my post.

I turned the console back on, camera at the ready, only to have it boot up successfully.  Weird.  I played for a few minutes, expecting it to crash any second, but it didn’t.  I did some searching on the web and discovered the  Microsoft support article that I’ve linked above.  I read with interest the part about looking at the light on the power supply after turning the console on.  Apparently, the Red Ring of Death can appear if there were any recent power surges, and as luck would have it, the lights did flicker while I was upstairs making my lunch.

I checked the power supply and saw a yellow light.  I turned the console off, unplugged the power supply and plugged it back in after a few seconds.  I powered up the 360 again, the power supply light turned green (yay!), and the console booted up fine.

I was relieved, concluding that the RRoD was caused by the power surge and not a hardware failure.  To be honest though, I’ll forever be a little more on pins and needles every time I power up that stupid piece of garbage that I love so much.

I buy too many games.  I know this “problem” isn’t unique to me, but I’ve got a stack of games that I’ve purchased and haven’t even touched since.  I’m drawn to game stores like a moth to a flame and can never resist a good deal.  My breaking point for games appears to be $20.  If I’m marginally interested in a game and it’s received decent reviews, I’ll quite likely pick it up if it’s twenty dollars or less.  That doesn’t mean I’ll play it though, stupid as that sounds.  I suppose I just want to ensure I have the option of playing it sometime down the road when I magically have more time for such things.

Some of my more recent acquisitions include:

IL-2 Sturmovik 1946 (PC)
I heard it was great, and I’ve always wanted to get into a flight sim. I saw it in Best Buy one day for $20 and decided to pick it up out of fear that it’d disappear off the shelves and I’d never get a chance to try it.  To date, I’ve spent about five, maybe ten minutes with it just flying around, not really doing anything.

Unreal Tournament III (PC)
Unreal Tournament is one of my all time favourite series. I spent countless hours playing UT2004 and was quite excited for UT3.   When the demo was released I jumped all over it and was completely underwhelmed.  It didn’t feel as fun as its previous incarnation, so I never picked it up.  I got interested in it again when I heard of the changes being made to it, such as Steam integration and the Titan Pack.  I found it for $20 so I grabbed it.  According to Steam, I’ve played it for half an hour.

King’s Bounty: The Legend (PC)
I was visiting the States and picked it up for $20 in Circuit City’s liquidation sale.  So far, I’ve gone as far as installing it.

Burnout Paradise (Xbox 360)
I kept hearing how fun this game was, so when I saw it for $18 at a local game store, I made the purchase.  I’ve spent maybe half an hour with it.

I could go on of course, there are many similar examples sprinkled throughout my gaming history.   Until I actually play these things though, they were a waste of money, no matter how cheap they were.  I bought American McGee’s Scrapland because it was two dollars.   I mean, why not?   It’s only two bucks!   Well, this was about a year ago, and I’ve never touched it, so essentially, I’m out $2 which could have bought me a super large Slurpee.

Deep down, I know full well I’m wasting my money, as I make my march of shame toward the checkout counter. Further still, while I don’t go out of my way to hide these purchases from my wife, I don’t openly advertise them either.  I know full well I already own too many games that I never play, her rolling eyes just drive the guilt daggers deeper.  There are times that this “don’t ask don’t tell” policy comes back to bite in the rear.  Such was the case this past weekend.

We had some friends over for a Rock Band night, and I threw Burnout Paradise into the Xbox for them while my wife and I were putting our daughter to bed.  When my wife went downstairs she saw the game and asked what it was.

Friend: Burnout Paradise
Wife: Oh, the demo?
Friend: No, full game, the box is on the TV there.
Wife: When did David buy that?
Friend: Uhhhhh…

As soon as I rejoined everyone downstairs I got grilled.  “When did you buy that?  Why didn’t you tell me we had it… you KNOW I love Burnout!”  Quite frankly I thought she’d be mad that I bought yet another game.  Turns out I was wrong.  Again.

“They came as you rested, figures cloaked in mist that clouded your thoughts, blurring the lines between consciousness and dreaming.  There was no malice or hatred, no mention of an old score, only quick capture and the promise of grim deeds to come…”

The opening cinematic to Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn is one of the best game intros I’ve ever seen.  It’s short, to the point, and sets up the beginning of the game perfectly.

I purchased the sequel to Baldur’s Gate on the day of its release, back on September 24, 2000.  I had gotten about 80 hours into it when I accidentally blew away my save games.  Long story short: I was installing Linux onto a separate hard drive, which actually turned out not being a separate hard drive, and voila, my “Games” partition was gone.  I have been meaning to go back and finish the game ever since, but something else always grabbed my interest.  I finally reinstalled it this past weekend and will be slowly playing through it to completion, Throne of Bhaal expansion included.

The first thing that struck me as I pulled out the game box is that they certainly don’t package games like they used to.  The manual (an actual, physical manual) that comes with the game is huge, full of background lore, and plenty of other useful information, that you just don’t get any more it seems.  Eager to play however, I put the manual aside, installed the game, and dove right in.

I created a Lawful Good Human Paladin (Cavalier kit) and added two proficiency points to each of flail weapons, 2 handed sword weapons, and 2 handed weapon style.  There was no rhyme or reason to my selections, I just happened to like those choices.  I’m not reading any strategy guides, FAQs, or walkthroughs for my playthrough, so at this point I have no idea if those are good choices or not, or if it even really matters.  It’s been eight years since I’ve played, so I can’t remember many of the details of my first foray into the game, so for all intents and purposes, I’m coming in fresh.

After just a few minutes of play, I’m hooked all over again.  I’m going to try my best to have a BGII report here at least once a week.  I’m looking forward to it.

It’s finally done.  My poor World of Warcraft character had been neglected, sitting just a fraction of the way into level 79 for weeks now.  My interest in WoW has been non-existent the past while and I had to more or less force myself to log in this past weekend and push my way through to level 80.

At this point, I’m unsure if I’ll continue playing.  Part of me would like to see through the rest of the quests in Icecrown, but another, increasingly more vocal part of me wants to quit the game already so I can enjoy the growing stack of games I haven’t played yet.

There’s still a lot of content in Northrend I have yet to see, some zones I’ve never even been in.  I also haven’t rolled a Death Knight, which I’m told is a must-do before quitting, so I’ll try that out in the coming days.  Beyond that, and finishing Icecrown, there’s just not much left in the game to keep me playing.  I don’t raid due to time constraints, and I have zero interest in arenas or battlegrounds, so what’s left for me to do?

My name is gladiator.

Now that I’ve finished the main quest in Oblivion, I can return to all the things I had left for another day.  This weekend I focused on working my way through the Fighter’s Guild quests with one short detour through the arena.

With my heavy armour and blunt weapon skills nearly maxed out, my character has turned a corner, and combat encounters are typically over quickly and easily.  As a result, I find myself enjoying the game more now that I don’t have to constantly regenerate my health between encounters.  Confident in my characters abilities, I paid a visit to the Arena, and subsequently sliced through my opponents like a hot knife through butter.

For whatever reason I expected more of a challenge, but the only matches that posed any threat to me at all were the ones where I faced multiple opponents.  The one-on-one matches were really no contest at all.  I assumed the final match would be tough.  The NPCs in the area had built my opponent up so much, I figured our championship match would be one for the ages.  When the gates opened up, we charged towards each other, swords drawn, and then he stopped and begged me to kill him.  He just stood there, so I obliged, and smacked him down without any opposition at all.

Now that I’m both the saviour of the world and Arena champion, I’m going to continue my way through the Fighter’s Guild ranks.  Once I’m done that, I’ll finally head in to the Shivering Isles.