Beating The Odds And a Weekend Of Crime

As I've posted, I've had an issue with my Xbox 360. It was giving me a "unbreadable disk" error, no matter what disk I put in. I tried and tried, but to no avail, it just wasn't going work. I resigned myself to the fact that it was just my Irish heritage attacking me as usual, and planned to get a replacement box just as soon as I could. One day while browsing the forums I was checking the clan pages for Porkchop Platoon, Jagerwick posted that he was having disk reader issues and it was taking 15-20 attempts to load a disk before the machine would read it. Wha... 15-20 times! Jeeze, that's a lot of attempts. I only tried maybe 3 or 4 times, then swapped out the disk. I tried it on four games then decided it was hopeless. Seeing that I didn't have anything to loose, I decided I would give it twenty tries. I loaded a disk in the machine and of course it told me that I had an unreadable disk. Tried again... eject... close... unreadable disk. I admit that I didn't have any hope that this would work (Irish, remember) but I kept trying. LOW AND BEHOLD...on the NINETEENTH attempt... it read the disk. I was in awe. Not only did it read the disk and let me play, but it has read the disk on the FIRST attempt ever since. I'm not naive and I know full well that old Mr Murphy will strike once again. I do plan on getting a replacement box around Christmas, but until then, knock on wood, I'll still be in the action.

I was only out of action for about 3 1/2 weeks, but it did have longer term effects on my gaming. I had three games that were bought and paid for: Fallout 3, Gears of War 2 and Left 4 Dead. Due to some real life money pinches, I wasn't able to replace the box or get it fixed. Since I was going to miss the launch for these games I decided to go to Game Stop and get my money back. I had some bills that needed catching up. This was a depressing time for me. I had saved up all year...since January to by these games. Now, my Xbox was on the blink and my games were gone. Fallout 3 came and Gears 2 came and I was left trying to find another outlet for stress relief. The good news is that now my box seems to be cooperating (thanks Jager) and my bills are caught up, so I'm back on track. I picked up Gears the other day and plan to get Left 4 Dead tomorrow. I'm not going to get Fallout 3 yet. I know it's a great game, well worth the price but I decided it could wait.

I had just bought Saints Row 2 before my box went down and had only invested a few hours in it. I wasn't sure if I would like the game to be honest. While I do like RPG's, I haven't really liked sanbox games. The one exception was Burnout Paradise, which is a racing game in a sandbox type format. I never played the first Saints Row and was only going on recommendations from clanmates in The Ground Baggers when buying it. I have to say that it is totally addicting. I absolutely love this game. It has RPG elements, it's a shooter, it reminds me of Burnout Paradise at times, and it has some of the funniest bits of dialog and cut seens I've ever seen. I'm affraid that if I was to get Fallout 3 and load it in the machine, that it would be the curtain call for Saints Row 2. I fully intend to enjoy SR2 until I complete it or get tired of it before I pick up Fallout 3. Fallout3, like Oblivion, will be around for a very long time, so I'm not worried. BTW, Saints Row co-op is an awesome way to spend some gaming time. There is so much to do and so much fun to be had, as always it's better when you get a good gaming friend to enjoy it with.

Funniest Saints Row 2 line I've heard yet:

"Look at them. They're covered in more shit than a German porn star."

-Jim