I Join The Next Generation

Serendipity is a funny thing. The other day, The Girl was out with one of her friends. The friend regaled her with stories of how her husband had just bought an Xbox 360, and about how cool it was. The Girl has known I have wanted one since they came out, but, being as I'm a cheap bastard, would never spend that much money on myself. The Girl heard how much joy it had brought to the friend's husband, and she figured it might bring some joy to me as well.

And this is how I ended up with an Xbox 360.

I don't know why it took me so long to buy one, as it's pretty goddamn cool. I didn't think gaming in 1080i HD would look this good, but it does. And once I managed to scrape together enough leftover Best Buy giftcards, I bought the insanely overpriced wireless adaptor and got hooked up to XBox Live, where I proceeded to download every demo they had available. (If you're in the market, and wondering whether to go with the Core or Pro setup, the essential 20 GB hard drive that comes with the Pro version easily makes up the price difference.)

The big downside? The spotty backwards compatibility with the old XBox games, which they have been slowly rolling out as they port them to the new console. As someone who owns three of the four Hitman games for the original console, I'm somewhat disappointed that only one is compatible (and no, it's not the one I don't own, which would piss me off even more). Oh, and the fact that the wireless controller just eats batteries.

All and all, a great investment. And if Dead Rising isn't reason enough to buy one, you must just not like having fun.