XBox 360

It happened by chance, but it happened none the less.  The stars somehow aligned and I finally picked up an XBox 360.  Its not that I hated the system really, it just never appealed to me.  My only previous experience with an XBox is the vague memory of playing Mechwarrior for 5 minutes and once observing a game of Halo.  Quite frankly I don't even know if it was an XBox or an XBox 360.  The XBox always seemed like a system poised to appeal to your college frat boy.

To be fair I wasn't a fan of the PS3 in the beginning either, having owned neither the PS 1 or PS 2 before it.  The controllers for system other than Nintendo always felt foreign in my hands, and I had always considered myself more of a computer gamer than a console junkie.  Then one Christmas we picked up a couple of PS3's to hopefully resell for some extra Christmas money.  The first one sold very well but right afterwards the demand dropped completely off.  After a while we decided to keep the second one and we haven't been sorry.  The launch titles were definitely iffy at best, but the console eventually grew out of its awkward puberty into a quite capable machine.

My draw to the XBox was mostly due to a game.  The initial news that Portals 2 would not be available on the PS3 was the first event to force me to consider purchasing one.  Later to my relief they announced that although they were pushing back the release date it would be available on the PS3.  However with the idea of the XBox on my mind I started to wonder what other games I might actually be interested in that were only available on the XBox.  Fable 2 was the first that came to mind.  I had seen the reviews for quite a while and it had always looked interesting.

At the same time I was considering this it just so happened that a friend of mine had an Arcade Version that he was willing to part with for a song.  Having no prior knowledge of the system I was quick to learn that Arcade meant basically it had no Hard Drive or Wireless etc.  My only fear or hesitation was the common Red Ring of Death problem that seemed to be plaguing the XBox 360 since... well since as long as I can remember.   For the price however I decided to take the chance.  All he had was the System, Power Cord, and the game Mass Effect.  It seems the other peripherals were all victims of various unexplained accidents.  I found Fable 2 on sale for $19.99 and I picked up a controller and an AV cable.  Apparently older XBox 360 models are without HDMI.

With the console hooked up and the game in place I crossed my fingers and hit the power.  The system seemed good and game play seemed fine.  I played for quite a while the first night before saving and shutting down to get some sleep.  The next day however after playing for only a few moments the system hung.  I cycled the power and tried to load the game again but the result was the same.  I tried making a new game but still all it would do was load and then hang.  I was disappointed to say the least but after reading online apparently its a common problem with the game if you don't have a hard drive.  There were a large number of hits and complaints that apparently are just going ignored.

Accepting my fate I decided to head down to the Game Stop and see about a Hard Drive.  I actually felt pretty lucky.  They happened to have a decent sized drive at a somewhat reasonable price.  So drive purchased and attached.  Disc in place, power on and install!  Except two minutes into the install a message appears saying the disc is unreadable or may be scratched.  The disc was new and its condition was pristine.  Finally after spending some quality time with Google I found once again that the problem I was having was not uncommon.  So after a lengthy exchange process I returned triumphant with a working copy of Fable 2.  If the game turns out not to be worth all the effort I'm going to call Peter Molyneux and have a long talk.