Moving for a while...

Alright, friends, I've decided to move to a new site for a while. I'm heading over to Destructoid's incredibly vibrant community where members' blogs get promoted to the front page if they're actually good and the people are actually somewhat intelligent and mature.

You can find my new digs over here.

If it doesn't go over so well, then I'm sure I'll return at some point.

If you still would like to comment on anything I write, I believe you have to have an account with Destructoid. I know that sounds like a bummer, but I figure if you already read this blog, then you probably are something of a gamer anyway. If that's the case, then you should definitely take the time to register at DTOID. Incredible community; good, original writing, and welcoming members all convinced me to make the switch.

See you over there!

-Anthony

Microsoft...

...has struck again. Got home Saturday afternoon from a day with the girlfriend, ready to Halo it up in matchmaking with my partner in crime. Turned the system on...

only to have the E74 error.

Yep. 3 days before ODST.

Sucks.

Two unbelievable articles

Again, still hiatus-ing, but I read these two articles today and just HAD to share them here.

First: apparently somebody in California has lost one too many Halo 3 online matches. Randy Nunez filed suit (in November 2007!) against Microsoft and Bungie alleging the both entities released the popular title knowing that it was defective and would not work with Microsoft's console.

So I guess those 1 billion matches of Halo 3 played online throw a wrench in all that, doesn't it?

Not to mention the fact that Bungie has released two major patches (the Auto Update and Title Update 2) to fix issues in the game.

My only guess is that he either (1) has a crappy online connection that prevents him from playing most matches, (2) has no connection and therefore cannot receive patches, or (3) tried to install the game on his 360's hard drive, which Bungie has already recommended against.

Second: Courtney Love plans to sue Activision for putting Kurt Cobain's likeness in Guitar Hero 5.

....um, I cannot believe I'm writing this, but I actually agree with Love on this one. I couldn't believe it when I heard Activision had the stones to put the late guitarist in the game.

I hope she cleans their clock.

September 9, 1999

I'm still on my hiatus, but I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the significance of this day. Why? Today marks a day that will forever live in the hearts of dedicated gamers everywhere: the anniversary of the release of the Dreamcast console.

I must be up front: I did not own a Dreamcast at any time during its run. My appreciation of this hardware did not come until many years later. In fact, not until the last year or so.

About a year ago, I began to notice more and more articles about the caliber of Sega's little white console. This was also the time when I began to get not only an itch to write about gaming, but also to collect all the old consoles of my childhood. I still owned my N64, and I found a Sega Genesis on eBay (and it reeked of smoke... moron who sold it to me did NOT put that little bit of info in the item's description). I almost went after a NES and SNES, but realized that most of the games I wanted to play on them were available on Wii's Virtual Console (although you can still buy emulator systems for a good price).

In my eBay hayday, one of my most sought after items was a Dreamcast. I didn't want to get one new... those run for at least $80 (that's only $20 cheaper than a BRAND NEW PS2. That should tell you something about this sytem). I finally found one that came with two controllers and no games. Why no games? I wanted to amass my own Dreamcast collection. I didn't want any crappy, filler games to sully the mix.

I remember the day that it came, and how incredible it was to open that box and hold that system, realizing that I had history in my hands.

History?

Yes. For it's time, the Dreamcast was arguably one of the most technologically advanced systems ever made. It brought the gaming industry into the type of three dimensional gaming that we know today. Yes, the Playstation and N64 were the first successful consoles to introduce 3D gaming, but the Dreamcast was the first to show what 3D gaming would eventually become (the GameCube, PS2, and Xbox were still at least a year off). It was also the first console to have a modem built in to the system itself. Keep in mind that this was over two years before the release of the original Xbox (and therefore, Xbox Live).

Simply put, the Dreamcast was years ahead of its time.

With a gaming library that includes Rez, SoulCalibur, Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, Skies of Arcadia, Jet Grind Radio, Crazy Taxi, and Shenmue 1 and 2, it's easy to see why this console is celebrated as one the best and, unfortunately, also one of the most short-lived.

Need any more eveidence? How about the fact that developers (albeit small, independent ones) are still making Dreamcast games.

Happy birthday, Dreamcast. We sure miss ya.

A Brief Hiatus

For those of you who don't know, I recently moved into a new apartment a month ago. Since then, things have been incredibly hectic: I went on vacation with my family about a week after my last post here, and then went to College Station, TX for a good friend's wedding not two weeks after that. I've been home three days from that trip to Texas, and I still have not updated my blog in over a month now.

When I started this blog, I wanted to be able to post at least two or three times a week. As I've begun the process of maintaining personal and financial independence from my parents, as well as maintaining my relationship with a phenomenal woman, I recently arrived at the conclusion that I am not in a position to maintain this site.

Don't misunderstand... I'm definitely not shutting this down. I merely will be taking a hiatus. I learned a lot through the first two months of my blog, and one the things I need to do is develop a solid pool of material to draw from if I don't have anything in particular to write about. I have lots of ideas I want to work on, but I need the time to actually WORK on them. I know I can produce better work than some of the material on here, and I want to do you, the reader, the right service in producing the best quality of content as I am able.

Check back here periodically, and thanks for those who have been faithfully reading these last few months. I'll see you in the near future.

Anthony