One of the greatest things about Mozilla Firefox is the addons. And since a lot of Firefox developers are web designers, there’s a ton of tools made just for web designers. So I present to you my 5 favorite. Which means they’re the best, I guess.
Do you know how frustrating it is to go a month without playing xbox (by choice) and then when you get that urge to play a game or two you can’t? Its VERY frustrating! I went a month or so without playing the xbox because it was beginning to bore me. I’d spent endless hours killing people in Call of Duty 3 and all my other games just bored me. But then my hunger to game came back to me. I fell victim to the hunger pains and started up the ‘ol 360 to play some Gears of War with my friend Justin. The loading screen comes up. “oh boy!” I thought, “I’m going to kick some ass.”. That’s about the same time that the xbox froze. “WTF?!?!?!” I yelled loudly. “JEREMY! Don’t say that!” my mom yelled back. So I frantically restarted my box only to find that it froze every time I started it up. So I called xbox tech support.
Now I’d heard nightmarish stories about how MS tech support is horrible. And how you’re always on the phone for like an hour. To my surprise, it wasn’t painful. I called the number and was introduced to the automated voice system. After chatting it up with that guy for a while, I was taken to real live, breathing human! I explained the situation to the guy and he pulled up my xbox’s info and informed me that I was till under warranty (Even though I hadn’t red ringed yet). But he told me to do something that red ringed it. Great! So he gave me some information and MS sent me an empty box and packaging material. I was kind of lazy and waited two weeks before I took it…but eventually I sent it off to Texas (that’s where MS fixes/replaces xbox’s). A week later I was freaking out and wanted my xbox. But I silenced that xbox hunger with a healthy portion of World of Warcraft. Swords, dwarfs, giant spiders, and the Defias Brotherhood.. MmmMmmmMmmm. Just like mom used to make.
The following week I had grown impatient, because I’m an impatient person. So I called up tech support and was like “BITCHES! WHERE DA FUCK MUH XBOX AT?!”. or something along the lines of that. :) The guy informed me that the xbox was scheduled to arrive today. OH SWEET JESUS HOORAY YES! No sooner had I gotten off the phone that the doorbell rang. I seriously made this face- O_O
So I got my xbox back and started it up. It scared me though, because I thought the audio was broken. Turns out one of the p.o.s. gaming cable “router” I bought from gamestop a year ago had a bad audio plug. So here it is two weeks later and I’ve had absolutely no issues with my xbox. It runs quieter, actually. Which means its probably one of the newer xboxes.
In conclusion, despite the rumors, despite the jokes, despite the despitefulness, getting a red ring of death isn’t as painful as it sounds. And getting your xbox replaced is very easy. http://xbox.com/support/
Note: Updated June 22, 2008
There’s a lot of hype about this game. It has won a ton of awards from a ton of different video game magazines, sites, companies, etc. and all for a VERY good reason. The reason is that this game is amazing. From the time I picked up the controller to the time I put it down (which I admit was only like 10-15 hours later), I was amazed. This was my first XBOX360 game, and I went the extra mile and bought the collector’s edition (or was is special edition…I can’t remember). And boy am I glad I did, because if I hadn’t I would have no idea why the hell I was fighting ugly orc-like things that crawl out of the ground.
Now you may be wondering what I mean by that. What I mean is that unless you read it on wikipedia or buy the $70 version that comes w/ a little book, you’ll have no idea what’s going on. The game does little to unveil the shroud that covers the main character’s past, the planet’s past, the locusts’ past, etc. That being said, you don’t really need a background to know that these locust guys are a pain in the butt and its your job to blow ‘em up. And that’s definitely something you’ll be doing a lot with this game. The main argument against this game is length. With enough dedication/food/caffeine, you can beat this game in one sitting….on easy. But that’s what the other difficulty settings are for.
The game comes with three different difficulty levels, each one much more difficult than the previous. When you first play the game, you can choose between the easiest mode and the middle-difficulty mode. Beating one of those two modes will unlock the third and most difficult mode. That, added to collecting COG tags, getting achievements, etc. makes for an okay-length game. Another argument against the game is online play. To me online play sucks. It pretty much consists of either jerks that are REALLY good at the game pwning you left and right, or 12 year olds who found the shotgun or found a sniper rifle/good snipers nest that call you a noob. Between the two you’re not left with much fun to have. That being said, online has a good half- Co-Op.
Co-Op is a LOT of fun. Especially during big battles against a lot of enemies or against more difficult enemies that require strategy. All in all, Gears is an excellent game. the graphics are breathtaking and if they’re any indication of what’s to come later on in this generation, we’re all in for some awesome gaming.
I gave it an 8.8/10 at gamespot.