AS SEEN ON HPS: Friday I picked up the exceptional Call of Duty 6, a.k.a. Modern Warfare 2, for the Xbox 360 on the way home from work. I brought it home, put it in the Xbox...and it didn’t work. Tried it again, it didn’t work. Tried it again, it didn’t work. You get the picture.
Since I picked up Tiger 10 my Xbox has had a progressively harder time reading discs, to the point that I considered buying MW2 for the PlayStation 3, which is a well-made not-piece-of-crap. Also, it's quieter. Also, playing online is free. But most of my friends have Xboxes, and Xbox Live is just so good that I had to get it for Xbox. (And though I used to devote hours to the pursuit, I have a hard time just playing games by myself these days.)
Anyway, after several reboots, wiping down the brand-new disc (which didn't make any sense but hey, the machine told me to) and quickly slamming the drive door shut, the thing finally loaded, and I played some coop missions for a few hours. They're so awesome. The snowmobile races are sweet, but overall, the game just has this great intense pacing. It's so much fun. The first Modern Warfare was outstanding but I love this one quite a bit more.
My Internet has also been out for most of the weekend, so when I tried to play again Saturday night, I was already resigned to single player. It took even longer this time to get the stupid game to load, and several times it got to the initial Infinity Ward logo, which is progress, before quitting back to the dashboard anyway. It's obnoxious. I stuck with it because the game is that awesome, but come on. I mean, my Xbox has already been in for repairs once; why does something so awesome have to suck so badly?
A friend asked me over the weekend which is better, the Xbox or the PS3, and let me say: the PlayStation 3 hardware is so much better, it's not even funny. Not that it's all that superior graphically or anything; it just doesn't break constantly. Unfortunately, you can't play Halo on it. So you're kind of screwed either way. I just checked online and Microsoft is willing to fix my DVD drive for a mere $99.99, which is awful. The alternative is to drop $200 on a replacement. I'll probably try to fix it and then drop two bills on a new one.
