Well Fed

I remember being a kid and getting a Collecovision and an Intellivision. I had a blast with these systems. The controllers always worked for me, the systems did not overheat and you could turn it off knowing it would turn on again. As the system aged (a lot longer than 6 months), I had to begin shimming my cartridges so they would play. As I grew older I got a NES. I played the hell out of Pro Wrestling, Duck Hunt and Maniac Mansion (which I can beat in under 20 minutes). After a few years, I had to shim those cartidges as well and an occasional blow.  I then moved up to the PS1. After about a year, it would not read any discs so I bought another one. The the PS2. 9 months after purchase Icould only play games that were not blue. I told Sony to stick it when they wanted $150 to fix it. I took that money and got an Xbox. No problems for quite a bit of play time I got out of it. The cooling fan quit working so I rigged up the power to the disc player and it worked fine (let's call it a shim to be consistent). I now come to my Xbox 360. RRoD, disc read errors, accessories that do not last quite as long as they should and a Live service that seems to be hit or miss on performance.

I had some spare time over the weekend and decided to play some Xbox 360. Unfortunately my internet connection has been crappy lately and was not functioning at all at this time. I looked through my games and could not find anything that looked like it would be fun. Just looking at Rock Band and my broken pedal that EA refuses to replace just pisses me off (Manu. date of Sept 27, 2007) Even if my internet connection was up, games like RB6:V2, H3, Madden, or any other MP game just had no appeal to me.

In a haste to beat the competitor, quality has taken the back seat. This goes for people you play against online as well as the game developers. Playing Halo 2 was fun until the MLG stuff started becoming popular.  I can not play a single game of Halo 3 without somebody playing like they are practicing for an MLG event whether it is friends or strangers. A random click on bungie.net inevitably leads to some sort of MLG related content. I do not have #'s but I assume pro gaming is like any other pro career. 99% of the population is not pro.  Don't get me wrong, I like to pretend I am Bo Jackson when I pick up a football but I know I am not. I also do not spend 4 hours a day doing drills much like I do not spend 4 hrs a day doing Halo 3 drills. I am tired of not being able to simply play the game as well as being told to practice and get better.

At this rate, the gaming community is going to burnout dwindle down to a few people that play the newest and hottest games and the majority that play games like Luxor. Damn those kids....