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written by owen, published 2025-Jan-12, comment
I cant even remember what I did last year. I must have done stuff. It might come back to me eventually. WEll as usual I redesign the entire website theme Nothing too radical this time More of an improvement over last year. Fixed some bugs. Still has the light dark mode switch.
written by owen, published 2025-Jan-11, comment
So initially I have bought 21 games that I am interested in. All the games will be my first time playing them. I do research them before purchase to ensure that they are worth my time. I posted the list of games in the original I bought a xbox 360 article. I chose a mix of open world RPGs, shooters, and third person games in the mix. So far there is Forza 4 which is the only racing game. I picked up Rage because I was interested in seeing mega textures in action. I am interested in the 720p glory days so if the game is popular and relatively cheap I will try to get it.
Back when I was younger I had lots of free time and no money so I could only play 1 or 2 games a year, If I got a game I would play it until I am sick of it, digging into every corner and every difficulty. Looking for every secret - trying to squeeze every drop of content I could. Now that I am older and I have 21 games but not enough free time so I am going to play them all on easy. There is no point in even playing on normal or going for achievements. This way I get to experience them quickly without wasting time.
Long role playing games like Skyrim I will play doing the main quests only. No point in doing side quests unless they seem interesting. Addictive games like GTA5 I will leave for last or play in bursts. Some games like Hitman:AB which are shorter but more content dense will be reserved for those times when I want more quality gameplay over quantity.
The plan is the start and complete games in order. AssCreed2+Forza4 will be the first 2. Then Hitman:Absolution. I will try to complete a game before I move on to the next because some of these games have very complicated controls which require practice to get right. And I fear if I jump around too much I will lose or forget the controls. Forza 4 is a game I can play in parallel with other games because the controls are simple and the game play loop is tight; pick a car, drive to the end of the track, collect points, done.
If I pick up a bad game I will write a review and drop it instantly. There is no point in playing a game to completion if I do not enjoy the game loop. This is not a completion-ist adventure. Some of the games I chose might be a waste of time boosted by fanboy reviews but I will only know this once I pick up the game. I have played many games over the years and there is nothing I hate more than the feeling that a game is wasting my time. I do not play mobile games for this very reason.
I am not going to be hunting for xbox achievements. There is no real point to them unless I really like a game and have free time to dick around - which I don't. As I mentioned before I will be playing the games on easy so I might miss some of the content and struggle that is handed out on higher difficulties. I have no FOMO because these are all old games and I have no deadline to meet.
One thing that is annoying is how the achievement pops up at key moments during the game play breaking immersion. Sometimes they overlap in game tasks and you cannot even get to read the text to identify what you achieved. Maybe this is just an xbox thing. I turned the notifications off right away.
This is pretty much the strategy I will take. Since the xbox360 games allow me to play offline I am in no rush to get through them. All these games might take me 5 years to complete. I even have another batch of games on the way to complete my small collection. Buying all these games at once is a move to secure myself against inflation, thermo-nuclear-apocalypse or red-ring of death. Which ever comes first.
I did not buy the orange box because it was $40 but instead bought portal 2. I did not see the point in buying OB when I could buy 3 other games for the same price. Even if the OB is as good as they say it will only be one experience.
written by owen, published 2025-Jan-05, comment
Downtown, July 2023
written by owen, published 2025-Jan-04, comment
So I bought a used Xbox 360 on amazon for 180. The more I use this console the more it annoys me. I was playing Rage when I noticed the dates on all my save files were set to 2005. So I figured the bios battery must be dead so I did a quick internet search and found that the xbox360 does not save the clock time unless you keep it plugged in! What kind of nonsense is this? The PS2 keeps it time, the wii, the gamecube but the 360? nope. Time resets to 2005 every time you unplug the glowing orange power brick. The only solution is to leave the ethernet cable plugged in when you boot it up.
The games are great but the hardware is pure trash. I assume it is running over clocked ALL THE TIME which would explain why it is warm to the touch basically as soon as you start playing a game.
I bought the console "renewed" on amazon, no real point in buying a new one since they were last manufactured in 2013. The warm operating temperature is apparently common practice with all consoles - new to me of course. I figured the RedRingOfDeath was just an oversight and all the thermal paste talk was just precautionary but the hardware is slowly moving towards the heat death of the universe. If the console ever cools down it means its dying. Funtimes.
Probably 24 hours after I started playing my first game the console shut itself off instantaneously. No blue screen, nothing, puff. I assumed the game crashed. Turned it on again and it shut off after 5 minutes. Some days it will shutdown right after boot up, consistently until I took the disk out of the drive. Searching for this online returns the same pointless do XYZ as if you are debugging a PC. I plugged it directly into the wall and it worked for a bit then stopped. After a couple days of debugging it seems to be a power supply issue so I gave the power supply a couple wacks and it works consistently for about 2 hours each play session. It's a third party brick so I will have to buy a new one to see if the power supply is really the issue. Wacking it does help. I even opened it up and it's perfectly clean inside. This xbox is really a mystery box of problems and failure points.
Xbox live is another issue. I plan to play the games I bought offline but you need at least one live profile on the system to check for updates. When logged into my offline profile the "my games list" shows only blank thumbnails. Apparently these are downloaded from the internet EVERY TIME you view the list - it's insane. And this will obviously never be fixed because Microsoft does not care about its offline use. Do not try to create an xbox live account on the console. It is better to just create it on the website then choose the download profile option from the xbox360 dashboard. No, you cannot merge the offline profile or make it online active. I kept using my offline account because uploading gamer score is pointless at this stage plus using a live account causes other annoying problems like forced updates etc.
I have learnt to not jostle the power brick as I unplug it from the wall. I bought a 175w power brick replacement and an adapter which I hope will alleviate this issue without creating another.
Is the xbox 360 E worth it in 2025? yes. especially if you have never played any of these games before.
