Insert Credits

It almost seems like everybody I tell to get a 360 is getting one. In the span of a month, I’ve gone from having nobody I know having one, to three friends getting one within a day of each other, another one getting one in the next few days, and yet another friend getting one at the beginning of January.

I’m pretty pumped about it. With every last one of them planning on getting Gears of War 2 and Worms, it means that I now have a nice roster of people with which to engage in the Live features, such as hosting a party so we can all voice chat. As I write this post, I’m engaged in a Horde match in Gears 2, while some friends are playing Castle Crashers, and we’re all just chatting.

Now, I know PC enthusiasts will say “We’ve been doing that for years,” and yes, it’s true. You have been doing that for years. But consoles haven’t, and now that they can it’s sort of like a breath of fresh air.

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For as long as I can remember my choice of console has never been about choice; It’s been about availability. When my family first got the Nintendo Entertainment System it was the only then-current console on the market. When the time and money made it possible to upgrade to the next generation the SNES was sold out everywhere, so my family got a Genesis. Then a Nintendo 64 and a PlayStation 2 afterwards.

For the first time since the PS2, I was faced with a choice.

Three consoles on the market, all available in my area, and each with it’s own pros and contras. I tried out the Nintendo Wii for a while but, while the motion controls were fun, the games didn’t appeal to me as much. I considered getting a PS3, but the lack of games I would be interested in coupled with the price turned me away. The 360 had a solid line of games but the reports of loud disc drives, overheating and the dreaded Red Ring of Death seemed like a gamble.

In the end, I decided to go with the 360 as my console of choice. I picked up the system, a Live subscription, a Microsoft Point card, and Fallout 3 to start myself off. I was a little uneasy about the decision at first, but looking back I feel I made the right decision.

There are a few things that bother me about the system, though. The controller, for instance. The layout of the joysticks still feels unnatural in my hands, and while I can deal with it I would much prefer a nice Dual Shock for comfort. The drive is, as I had heard, loud. The system does tend to warm up, but so far I have been lucky to avoid the RROD.

Having said that, I’m not sure I would trade it for any other console. I spend a lot of time using the Live functionality to play online, and I made good use of the Marketplace to pick up some fun Arcade games. I’ve got shooters and RPGs to satisfy my gaming hunger, and friends on-and-offline to do play with.

As my collection of games grows, I’ll be throwing impressions and opinions on them here to our site. If something strikes me as interesting, I’ll be writing about it as well. On top of that, I’ll even throw my Gamertag out for the masses in case they want to check my profile out and maybe play a game of Worms or Catan.

That is my plan for my time on Insert Credits in a nutshell. I’ve got my console, I’ve got things to write about, and I’ve got games to play in between. So having said that, the Gamertag is ‘Skrattybones’.

See you soon.

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