A Glimpse of Things to Come

Still up to my eyeballs in work & personal stuff, but I figured I'd tease my next post anyway.

Just a taste of the crazy shit I was privy to.

On a trip down to Richmond we discovered a number of thrift stores, flea markets and other assorted purveyors of junk, crazy, and retro-gaming gold. Be sure to come back for, Goodwill Hunting 2: EXTREME EDITION!

Original Xbox Repair: Part Deux!

Time to operate.

When we last met our hero, he was doing battle with 2 broken Xboxes at once! Now rested, and eager to complete the saga, he brings us the exciting conclusion to what would have been just any other Saturday!

As I stated last week, this thing was suffering from error code 16 which has something to do with the HDD no being locked to the main board I believe (correct me if I'm wrong). Since I had my old Xbox that I found near a dumpster and all I really needed was the power supply,I figured it was time to operate.

Dead Dumpster-Box on the left, Half-working Goodwill-Box on the right.

Now that the problem was identified three things had to happen.

• Swap the Power Supplies
• Swap the PCBs
• Swap the DVD-ROM drives

Since each unit's Hard Drive is locked to that system's PCB and I didn't have the patience to unlock and re-lock either HDD to either unit, I ended up transferring all the innards between the two units (the exception being the PSU). Going in blind, I was a touch overwhelmed, but now it seems fairly intuitive. Following are photographs from the repair with captions explaining each one.

Both units disassembled and ready for their bits to get transferred.

Damned cheap power supply. All of this could have been avoided if Microsoft knew how to release a console without any recall-worthy problems right out the gate.

The space that the Dumpster Box's PCB formally occupied with the bum-power supply to the right. I think the staining is equal parts rust and roach shit, but I can't be certain.

With all the components nicely nestled into their new, rust-free home, the dumpster Xbox lives again! New case, new PSU, and a new lease on life. A true rags to riches story.

Oof...

Well, that's the end of my story. Nothing too exciting, but a conclusion nonetheless. The disaster above was the end result of my labor, but honestly took less time to clean up than the image would have you believe.

Goodwill Hunting and Original Xbox Repair

Not to bad for $25.00 if I don't say so myself.

So, like other collector's I'm sure, on the weekends I enjoy frequenting my local Goodwill and other various area thrift stores. On this particular occasion however, I was astounded to not only find an Xbox, but also a mint-condition Ace Combat 5: Flightstick 2 bundle. Sure the jewel cases for the games that were in the box were empty, but that was a $10 fix, and the sticks work perfectly. I think I'm gonna throw this sucker up on ebay. My flight sim days are somewhat behind me.

Error code 16. Not uncommon, but no less a pain in my ass.

The Xbox's fate would be different however. I actually got Microsoft's first console some time after I received the Xbox 360 for Christmas. I found the thing in a heap leaned up against a decrepit PS2 and a box full of VHS tapes, a few football games, a Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Master Quest strategy guide, and a broken Gamecube controller. I discovered the haul by a dumpster behind my local Giant Grocery in Alexandria. I knew they didn't work most likely, but I was still excited to see if they'd be fixable. The PS2 had a bad laser (gave that sucker away), as did the Xbox. For some reason, the local Play'nTrade actually had DVD-ROM drives for the thing lying around so that was a quick, cheap fix. The end result? I got a mostly free original Xbox! There was even a copy of Fable in the bad DVD drive.

Fast-forward a year and my "Dumpster-Box" ceases to power on. The problem was the cheap-ass Foxconn PSU that Microsoft initially issued new power cables to combat, and would later replace on the manufacturing line. Mine was toast, and from the sounds of it, I'm lucky the damned thing didn't decide to burn my house down. I was biding my time before I went out and dropped  another $20.00 to fix my "free" console, but then I found the beauty above. You can't see the tag in the picture, but that sucker only cost $14.95! When I powered the new unit on I received error code 16, but since it was in such a nice clean case and had a running power supply, I figured that a little operation was in order. More on that in my next post!

Duke Nukem Forever

Always bet on Duke.

Sorry to all the naysayers who fancy themselves such comic geniuses. You will soon have to come up with some original material as it seems your favorite joke is fast becoming irrelevant. Adam Sessler once commented in a G4 segment titled "Sessler's Soapbox", that he was happy to see the game "cancelled", and had often wondered which would last longer, his career, or Duke Nukem Forever's development cycle. Well, it seems that unless he lives forever, Sessler loses. It's funny to watch the May 13 clip of him gleefully carrying on about the death of Duke Nukem Forever and 3D Realms, then juxtapose it with a picture of him at Titty City on February seventh. Never once was it announced that the game was cancelled. Sometimes I feel like the only person who remembers that. Duke Nukem Forever is indeed coming out, and from the look of it, not too much has changed since the king moved to Gearbox. Despite the elation I feel, I have noticed another disturbing trend in gaming journalism, and I'm starting to wonder if any of us remembers how to just let go, and have fun.

"Assuming the game was gonna actually make it out." 
Never assume, Sessler!

If you're like me, you are probably in your mid-twenties to early thirties and you have a beard because you're fuckin' manly, and if you don't, grow one (Otherwise you're like Woody Harrelson over there and should just stop reading now). The first time you encountered Duke you were but a teenager, the obvious joke of having pig-creatures dressed in police uniforms was the funniest thing in the universe to you; wanton violence and explosions were what you looked for in the majority of movies you watched; and you were on a never-ending quest to see boobs. You've played Wolfenstein 3D and Doom and found a fondness for blasting Nazis and demons in the face with a massive arsenal that no one man should be able to carry around all at once. Then Duke Nukem 3D is released. Explosions, breasts, gore, pissing, swearing, porn, Duke Match! Shit! This fucking game has everything! And the one-liners! It didn't even matter that half of them were ripped off of Bruce Campbell and Rowdy Roddy Piper, that's what Duke is! He's a parody of all the machismo action flicks of the mid-1990s. He has been since the 2 original Duke Nukem games. Stop thinking like the sensitive, pussy you've grown into, and think back to how you felt the first time you handed a stripper a wad of cash and spouted "Shake it baby!" for the first time. Felt pretty fuckin' good, didn't it?

Just run into this mess and fucking kill something!
Why make it more complicated then it has to be?

Fast forward to now. You've been playing video games most of your life and they've gotten a lot more complex since those days. 2D sprite characters in pseudo 3D environments are a thing of the past, and now we're all racing to tap "A" before our character messes up his pre-animated finishing move that you get to sit and watch. Most of your play time is spent hiding in corners, or behind chest-high walls; just waiting to heal before you attempt to spring up and pop off a few more rounds in the direction of the nearest in-discernable, brownish figure shooting at you from the far side of the map. Afterwards you're treated to a cut-scene or 6, and can only carry a max of 2 to 4 weapons. I don't have a problem with this kind of gameplay. It feels cinematic, and there's some tension as I'm waiting to see what happens nex-HEY! I'm waiting to see what happens? Shouldn't I be making things happen? Isn't that the point of a game? If I wanna wait and see what happens I'll watch a movie. This is the very thing that Journalists are railing on Forever for. They're calling the gameplay "shallow" and "dated". I've got news for ya, if it feels dated, it's because it IS. If it feels shallow, that's because it's simple. Duke hails from a time when not everything had to be hyper-realistic and maps were actually complex enough that you had to find where you had to go instead of having a whiny fuckin' side-kick chime in every 2 seconds with the answer. You didn't wait to pop out of cover, you just ran in with your fucking guns blazing, alone, with little to no story to get in the way of the ass-kicking. Sure it's not modern, but guess what, it's an old game! I think some people don't realize that they haven't started development over again just because GearBox is finishing it up. This is a game from around 2005 at the latest. It's as though someone thawed out an iceman and now they're pissed that he can't do calculous and keeps trying to rape your female lab-assistant while chewing on a lab rat. It's a hyper violent beast who's not very polite, and a tad uncoordinated. What can I say? They didn't have manners during the ice age. Sex and violence were the most entertaining things going.


After reading a few previews for the game I decided to leave a comment on Kotaku.com that I think sums up my feelings better than any number of massive blog posts can:


"Lots of people who have played this thing first hand are calling the gameplay dated. If this thing played like Gears of War, I think there would be more outrage. Seriously, modern shooters are relatively easy and are more like a string of cutscenes strewn together on a carefully planned grid. I like the idea of getting back to complex level design riddled with secrets and fun interactive bits that you're not going to find all of the first time through. Lets get some classic challenge back in our shooters. Classic Duke needs classic gameplay. I hope if they decide to do a fifth installment we'll get the same sort of gameplay with polished, more modern visuals, but I don't want any "Gears of Modern Halo War 3: Black Ops" in my Duke Nukem. You can keep that shit."

I'm not trying to say we should forgive the egregious delays, crap-console Duke games, or years of raised and crushed hopes. All I'm saying is you should try and let your inner-14 year old out. I didn't have a chance to go to "Duke Nukem's Titty City" to try out the game, but I'm certain it plays like I'd expect it to. Over the top humor, nudity, and ultra violence. After all, isn't that all we wanted in the first place?

Side note, If you don't understand why they chose to hold their press event at a strip club then I'm afraid you've missed the point entirely... Or you're 16.

By the way... Told ya so bitches!
Duke Nukem Forever WILL BE RELEASED, on June 14th, 2011.


*EDIT: Duke Nukem Forever's release has been pushed back to June 14th, 2011... That's what I get for bragging about the ONLY exact release date we've EVER been given.