A Week with the 360
October 11, 2007

Very much like like a week or so with the Wii, I'm still really enjoying my new 360. So much so that Emily's began hating my purchase, since she is frequently forced off of the television so that I can play some Geometry Wars or Gears of War. Anyway... what are the points?

Plus

• The 360 controller is the greatest controller known to me. Everything works flawlessly, and it just feels right in my hands. The sensitivity is a perfect balance between spinning around aimlessly and moving like molasses. Additionally, the fact that the controller is wireless is quite a nice change - allowing me to actually sit in my couch to play games.
• The games, oh the games. Unlike the Wii, which sports a mere two serious titles (Zelda and Metroid Prime), the 360 has a complete library that will keep me busy for far longer than Babbles and Emily would like. Right now I've got about 15 games queued up in my "do want" list.
• XBLA is freaking awesome. Unlike Nintendo's Virtual Console, there's real, new, and meaty content available through this platform. Geometry Wars and Boom Boom Rocket are two of my most interesting titles at the moment. Couple that with the retro availabilities of games like Doom and Street Fighter (all redone and fixed up, of course - unlike Virtual Console) and you've got a recipe for money spending. Falling better than Virtual Console though, $25 will get you about three good games (Geometry Wars, Boom Boom and Doom here).
• Xbox Live itself is pretty nifty. It's been forever since I've played videogames on the great Internets and it definitely shows. I took Doom online with a trial Gold account and was getting schooled by 12 year olds in no time. Of course, unlike Chris' experiences with Halo, I actually managed to have a good time with someone who was willing to go easy and actually "play" the game. The voice-chat is definitely a nice way to communicate in game, letting you converse while playing the game instead of having to stop to type.
• XBL lets you download demos. I know that I shouldn't be impressed, but I am. It's freaking awesome to see that there's a new Conan game coming out and be able to tell my 360 "fetch me that demo" and then come back a few hours later to play said demo. Awesome possum.
• It's a media center. It doesn't just play games or DVDs, it lets you stream music and videos from your PC. You'll have to setup media sharing and convert video files to WMV but it's completely worth it to be able to watch Zetsubou Sensei without having to hook my laptop up to the TV. A very nice bonus.

Minus

• It's loud. When you're playing a 360 DVD-based game it sounds like a freaking airplane. Seriously. As far as I've seen, with Gears of War the DVD spins the entire time that the game is running - so get used to it. It's a constant noise, though so it drowns out.
• The games are expensive. A new game can set you back as much as $60. However, given inflation and the production values of modern games I really don't have that much of a problem with paying that much for good content.
• Emily gets to watch less TV as I'm always playing the 360.
• Media sharing was a major pain in the ass to setup. Seriously, from an IT professional this was one of the most terrible and painful setups that I've ever gone through. It took me almost an hour of googling to realize that Media Sharing won't share media across a network - for instance. I'll setup Sun Solaris over this in an instant.

Summary

So, as of now I'm incredibly thrilled with this awesome purchase. There's tons of stuff to do with it, there's tons of great games for it and it's just plain a lot of fun. I'll stand the noise and I'm already past getting the media sharing setup, so until I get a Red Ring it looks like this will end up being a much better purchase than the Wii with its two games. Double plus points!

Razer Diamondback Mouse - Super Cool
January 18, 2007

So, my old mouse at work got the best of me last week. I was showing our purchasing manager some code that I had been working on and my mouse started spazzing out like usual. I casually mentioned to her that my mouse always did that and she happily said, "Buy a new one!". So, I meandered over to Newegg and spied the little gold trophy. I added it to the cart and called her over to whip out the corporate card.

Three days later, in comes rolling in the beautiful Razer Diamondback. I gleefully tear open the packaging and add the old mouse to the sacrificial pile. I plug in the Razer, load up the software and am instantly in love.

The handling is so smooth and fluid that it's uncanny. I really didn't expect to see any improvement, but it's simply awesome to be able to be this precise and fast. I love the feeling of it's smooth glossy finish and it's grippy rubberized primary buttons. The side buttons are perfectly placed for my hands and allow me quick back/forward motions as well as an easy way to open new FireFox tabs (and close them).

All around, wondrous. I've even ordered one for my own home use (on my own tab, of course).