The brick wall

This morning, I loaded my $400 paperweight into the coffin to ship back to Microsoft. My next two weekends involve trips to Florida and Connecticut, so I figured I would get the most out of the 360 the last couple days. While it would require some finesse and sweet talk to get the system to boot up, once I got it running it would work flawlessly for the entire gaming session.

The system saw no game other than Guitar Hero 3. There is a lot of talk on the boards about the game's suck factor, and my response is "to each his own." I can absolutely identify with some of the problems some people are having with the game but my opinion is the exact opposite. I *love* the game and, taking heavily into account the song list, prefer it over GH2. Plus I can't get enough out of the guitar battles online and against Lou.

I played the hell out of the game, particularly over the weekend. And as of last night I hit a brick wall and I honestly don't foresee myself proceeding any further in the game. Sure, there are songs you can buy from the in-game store, but that's like playing somebody's mod and saying "eh, fuck the single player campaign." I 5-starred all the songs in Medium, got as far as the second-to-last tier on Hard, and failed every song in that tier. Over and over and over. I would feel so proud of myself after finally nailing the intro of 3's and 7's, only to realize that each verse, chorus, solo, and bridge, is different and ridiculously fucking difficult. My wife asked me a question and I snapped back at her, realizing that if I didn't turn off the Xbox and put it in its coffin, I was going to dispose of my guitar Cobain-style.

So off goes the 360. I will be back online eventually. In the meantime, maybe I'll grab something for the PS2 (Simpsons game looks interesting - anyone played it yet?). And in closing, here's the obligatory cute shot of the week: