The most upsetting screen I've ever set eyes onPeople of Giant Bomb, I invite you to join me in mourning. My Xbox 360 died today. I was preparing to play a little Grand Theft Auto IV before jetting off to my one o'clock lecture. Turned the machine on, booted up the game, and was greeted with a mesh of strange colours that looked very out of place in Liberty City. I turned the 360 off and back on again, and was greeted with the dreaded System Error message. Naturally, I'm very upset and pretty annoyed about this. The 360 was just starting to take the PS2's place as the dominant console in my humble abode. I was 35 hours into Fallout 3, just getting back into the swing of things with GTAIV, and I bought two new 360 games on Friday - Mirror's Edge and Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise. Thankfully, the console is still under warranty, so I don't have to pay for repairs and I'm assuming that if it's beyond salvation, they'll send me a shiny new one instead.

So I'm gonna have to send off my 360 for repairs. This is a nightmare in itself. Credit to Microsoft, it seems like a pretty efficitent system for the most part, but I seem to fall into the unlucky collection of 360 owners who the system seems geared against. After setting up an Xbox LIVE ID and trawling through the repair request process online, I found out that I can't organise a collection of my 360 because I live on a university campus and my address isn't recognised. So, I can't send off my console until I go home for Easter. This effectively means I now have seven 360-less weeks ahead of me, not including the two/three weeks that Microsoft says to allow for repairs.

I can't believe I didn't finish Canis Canem Edit the first time roundOn the upside, at least I have my PS2 to keep me occupied in the meantime. Looking up at my games shelf, there are loads of old titles I still need to play through - Dragon Quest VIII, Canis Canem Edit, Okami, Mercenaries, Killzone, Devil May Cry 3... the list is seemingly endless. I also have some games on PSP (GTA: Vice City Stories, MGS: Portable Ops) and DS (LoZ: Phantom Hourglass, FFTA2) to check out. There are even some games I picked up in the Steam Holiday Sale that I still need to play (Far Cry, Deus Ex). The real bummer of this situation is not that I'll have nothing to play, but that I'll be spending nearly three months without a 360, and thus three months without any of the games I've become so addicted to over the last few weeks. I'll survive. I have done before. It just kinda sucks.

Mirror's Edge looks amazingAt least I managed to finish the campaign of Mirror's Edge before the console died on me. I bought it along with Viva Pinata in a 2-for-£30 deal in GAME on Friday and powered through the main story. I tried to play it purely parkour, avoiding any kind of gunplay and keeping confrontation to a minimum, and I was pretty impressed with it. I loved the aesthetic a lot - the city looks brilliant, and the colour scheme is really refreshing when you put it next to the browns and greys of GTAIV and Fallout 3. I also loved the gameplay mechanics, particularly when the free-running aspect of the game is in full flow. It can get frustrating at times, usually when you start throwing enemies into the equation. It's also way too short to justify a full-price purchase, but it was definitely worth £15 and I really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, it looks like I'm gonna have to wait for quite a while before I go back and attempt the speedruns.

Thanks for reading, guys. For anybody who's interested, my next blog is going to be a very belated review of 2008. It would have been up yesterday, had I not accidentally hit the Back button and deleted everything I'd written. Expect it in the next few days. See you around.


DanK

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Currently playing - Nothing :(