Dave Kemick

This is going to be a gaming geekery post extraordinaire. Let’s get started.

I have to start by both thanking and giving props to Microsoft. A day or so ago Peter Moore made a post on Xbox.com letting all of us Xbox 360 gamers know that from now on, if your 360 fails as a result of the “Red Ring of Death,” you’re covered. Microsoft will foot the bill to have the 360 replaced. Not only that, but anyone who has had to have their 360 fixed in the past because of the RROD will be reimbursed! It’s nice to see some positive news about MS. I’ve been one of the lucky people who bought a launch 360 and hasn’t had any problems with it (so far). The reason I’m thanking Microsoft is that now I know I’m covered in case something goes wrong…as long as that something is caused by the RROD.

Almost everyone I know who has a 360 has had problems with it of some sort, and a recent report said that the failure rate was something like 30% (don’t quote me there, I know that’s not exact). As a result, I was pretty much planning for having to have mine fixed eventually…it moved from a matter of “if” it happens to “when” it happens, and I toyed with the idea of putting aside some money so I’d be ready when it did. This announcement has made the urgency of creating said “Xbox 360 Repair Fund” much less imposing. Thank you Microsoft for having the guts to admit you screwed up and to do something about it.

So…I recently read that this year at mini-E3 we might be hearing about a $100 price drop for the PS3. That would drop the price for the 60 gig standard model from $599 to $499. Not bad…it actually made me consider getting one. I’ve been in the hunt for a Wii but I have to be honest, my interest has waned as of late. Nintendo is the Apple of gaming consoles, I know that if I finally found one and dropped the $250 to pick it up I’d see an announcement the next week about a new black or silver Wii for $200. So basically I said forget it, the Wii still doesn’t have a whole lot of games out there made specifically for the remote/nunchuck combo and by the time they’ve built up that library the thing will probably cost $150 so maybe I’ll pick it up then. For now I’m going to think long and hard about the PS3…having a BluRay player would be nice! Though the Matrix trilogy was only re-re-released in HD-DVD as far as I know.

Crysis. What can I say about Crysis that hasn’t already been said? It’s probably my most anticipated game right now…even ahead of your Half-Life: Episode 2‘s and Halo 3‘s. The only problem is that my current gaming rig would wither up and cry in the fetal position if I even inserted a Crysis DVD-ROM…this game takes a beast of a machine to run. With that in mind I think I’m going to upgrade my gaming rig. I’ve been spec’ing it out and I think for another $300 I could have a machine that would destroy any games I’m playing now as well as run Crysis quite handily. The only components I’d really need to upgrade would be my processor (and therefore, my motherboard) and my graphics card. Here are a few links to what I’m thinking about using right now: Asus mobo, AMD X2 4400+, and last but not least the GeForce 8600GT.

Crysis requires a dual core CPU to run even with its minimum requirements if I remember correctly, and I’m still running on a single core so it really is time to upgrade either way. The mobo is just to house the CPU really, my current mobo is fine…but the GeForce 8600GT is a big leap up from my 6800XT (mine was an XFX, the link points to a Biostar). Hopefully by the time Crysis drops (September, as of now) the hardware will have dropped in price or maybe better hardware will have dropped into the price range of what I’m looking at now. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

That’s pretty much it, a long rambling post of what’s happening in gaming right now for me. Just one quick note before I end this puppy, I ordered a couple upgrades for my Macbook earlier this week and they should be here sometime this weekend…if so I’ll throw up another post about how the upgrade goes. From what I’ve read it’s supposed to be pretty easy.

Until next time…

Currently Listening To: Porcupine Tree – Fear of a Blank Planet
Currently Playing: GRAW2, Gears of War, Battlefield 2142, Titan Quest: Immortal Throne