gaming junk

Seeing as how it has been awhile since I have posted anything, I thought I would write about my favorite subject: Gaming.


For the holidays, Corinna was kind enough to buy me a replacement Dreamcast. My old DC died on my about 6 months after I received it. I never replaced it, although I always wanted to. The DC came with a copy of NFL2k1, which of course, I haven't touched. I think the only sports game I ever truly loved was Ice Hockey on the NES(first retro game I download for the Wii will be this game). First thing I did of course was plug it into my TV and fire it up. Gladly, all my game saves were still on my VMU. I played Crazi Taxi first, of course, and quickly got used to the controls again. I ended up deleting my saves for Grandia 2 and Rayman 2. It has been years since I had last played them, and I had no idea what was going on. I have started new ones.

Now, I have 2 problems. The first problem is, my games. I only have 3. I made out a list of all the DC games I want, and it was rather extensive. The good thing is, now that the holidays are over, a lot of them can be bought on Ebay for a good price. In fact I almost just bought 3(Armada, Jet Grind Radio, Record of Lodoss War). My other problem is placement. I have nowhere on my TV to put it. I suppose I can bring it out only when I intend to play, since Conner is sort of a brat when it comes to my consoles. I have it hooked up to the TV upstairs, but I am hardly ever in that room.

A few weeks ago, while trying to remedy my DC game situation, I went to my favorite store: Gamecrazy in South Salem. They had nothing for the DC. So instead, I picked up Resident Evil 4 for the Gamecube and Rez for the PS2. Resident Evil 4 works perfectly, but it is not a game I play in front of Conner(responsible parenting sucks.. teehee). Rez worked perfectly in the store, but on my PS2, it did not work. Which of course, brings me to the next paragraph.

I got a nice new slim PS2. What happened was I put Rez in my old one, and it made this unusual grinding sound. I checked it in the browser, and I got my first ever disc read error. I looked at the disc, and it was an older one with a blue bottom. I tried another blue bottomed disc I had(Star Wars Starfighter), and it had the same problem. I then tried a normal silver bottomed disc(Final Fantasy 12), and it worked fine. PS1 and movie DVD's were also working fine.

So, I used the best tool available to me(Google) to get this problem fixed. What I read did not make me happy. DRE's on a blue bottomed disc were the hardest to fix. Basically it sounded like I was going to be both cleaning the laser, and adjusting it. So I opened the PS2 up, and was careful not to fuck up the strip that connected the power switch to the shell. Well, I think something happened to it anyway, and the PS2 never turned back on. I tore the thing apart to try and fix that power strip, but it did not work. The only thing that I got out of it was I learned how my PS2 was put together.

Was I mad? Of course. I try not to bitch about shitty Sony hardware with it, since it lasted just about 6 years with flawless operation. Still I could have used it on most of my games before buying a new one. And now it was dead.

$130 later, and I have a nice new slim PS2. It loads quickly, and has been nice and quiet. So far, Conner has kept his little hands off of it(fingers crossed). He does need to learn that when he says he wants to "watch a game", it does not mean play. He grabs my controller and will not let me play. He is learning well.. heheheh.

I finally got to play Rez. It kicks ass.

I am still trying to decide which new console I want to buy. I have it narrowed down between the Xbox 360 and the Wii. Sadly, the PS3 is going to have to wait. The price tag and the fact that my HDTV will not display 720p are the reasons. I am leaning towards the 360, since there are only a few Wii games I want right now. Either way, with my current life situation, I doubt I will be getting either of them anytime soon.

My PC of course still gets lots of love. Half Life 2 and Neverwinter Nights keep me very very happy.