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Yesterday, I was faced with a terrible dilemma. Should I move my Sega Dreamcast to my office and hook it up to my rotatable LCD or should I move that screen closer to the console and further clutter my already messy game room. All this came from my absolute craving for Ikaruga a day after my the death of my X-Box 360... I needed to play it bad and playing the YOKO mode on the Dreamcast = horrible graphics. The whole thing was just frustrating to me... Then, an idea: Perhaps I could find someone who would be willing to buy my repaired 360? That way I could just go out and buy a new 360 so I could continue my daily Ikaruga practice. Soon after posting the ad on the internet, I found several people interested in buying it! How about that? By doing this, I would only still lose the $94 needed for the repair because the price of picking up the new Arcade model 360 would be covered by the sale price of the repaired 360. The benefit? I can start playing the 360 again. I am also currently in a bitter battle to get the $94 reimbursed from Microsoft so at the end of this whole thing, I may come up top after all! I am glad I picked up the new console for I have recently purchased several new games for the system and to wait a month to play these games may have resulted in my doom.

My dearest X-Box 360 Elite:
We only said good-bye with flashing lights, you died a hundred times,
you go back to Microsoft and I go back to... White.

Games Played 09/11/2008

Cho Aniki - Wii
Galaga Legions - X-Box 360
Gley Lancer - Wii
Ikaruga - Dreamcast
Castle of Shikigami III - Wii
Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise - X-Box 360

RANDOM GAME OF THE DAY:


Grandia III (2006)
Developer: Game Arts
Platform: PlayStation 2
Purchase Date: 02/16/2006


Miranda cares about her son and her own self.

Just like Namco Bandai's Tales role playing series, each Grandia game spends a lot of its time on character development. Though the main plot - the escorting a holy person to an altar kind - has been done too many times, what makes the game playable are the interesting interactions between the characters. Miranda, the mother to the story's hero, must be one of the most well-realized characters in an RPG ever. She is a very young single mother who actually has an unconventional mind. Her character is so successful, she eclipses all of the other story elements in the game.

LIBRARY STATUS: 4 out of 5

Games Played 09/10/2008

Galaga Legions - X-Box 360
Ikaruga - X-Box 360
Too Human - X-Box 360
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Open Beta - PC

Loner Lonely Without His X

Well, we all know that it is a fact of life that the X-Box 360 console will eventually die... A premature death that is. My X-Box 360 Elite that I picked up in April 2007 died on me today while I was playing Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise with a buddy online. All of a sudden, there were green vertical lines on top of the graphics and when I restarted my console, I got the screen below.

It means "You are screwed" in plain English.

What upsets me the most is that Microsoft would only extend the console's warranty to 3 years if the console receives 3 flashing red rings instead of the one on mine. The different red ring displays would indicate different problems but Microsoft is just splitting hair. After talking to a condescending Microsoft representative who spoke terrible English - I assume from a call center in India - I learned that I have to pay $99 to get the console repaired. I didn't place the order right away with the guy since I threw up in my mouth a little talking to him. I went to the support website and placed the order there instead and got myself a $5 discount for doing so online. Thus, I ended up with a $94 bill and a long waiting time that I am certainly not looking forward to. I used to own a launch console that actually died due to the 3 red rings early in 2007 and got that replaced for free. I then sold it to a friend when I picked up the cooler looking Elite model. It went smoothly last time but it did take about a month for the whole process to see its completion. This means that I will have to get my Ikaruga fix on the Dreamcast even though that may mess up my play-style because of the differences between the two versions. I had planned to review Too Human in the next couple of days but now I have to move that to a later date. If you are wondering about that game, I will say that I really enjoyed it despite its glaring flaws.

The evil Microsoft eye.
Warning: Excessive staring may lead to life failures.

Games Played 09/09/2008

Ikaruga - X-Box 360
Too Human - X-Box 360
Wario World - GameCube