Happy Halloween Destructoid, you're now famous in Ireland! My Halloween Costume pictured outside a bank in County Tipperary, Ireland. "Making of" pictures coming soon.

As some of you may have read in a previous blog, my 360 died last month and I haven't been able to get it fixed for cheap. Therefore I have been devoid of 360 gaming for the last few weeks. I was angry, confused, hurt. I turned back to my old friend, the PS2 and relived some old memories (and some new ones).



Yesterday however, something magical happened. My college roommate brought his Xbox down with him to our new place and set it up in the living room. Having connected it to the net I proceeded to download my profile. Magic, my avatar and gamescore were saved. But that's not all: I remembered from various podcasts that I could redownload all of my purchased XBLA games. Bingo, twenty minutes later I had all of my old games on the system. Nice.

So now instead of being consoleless and gameless, I now have a console on which I can play all my downloaded games happily (until my roommate moves away). Hurray for Microsofts download system. Now, if I bring down my old Hard Drive I can even get my old save files back. Better than nothing.

Thoughts?

I've had a keen interest in the design of Video Games for a long time, and recently I got down to tracking down where that interest really came from. I went backwards throughout my life and numerous factors emerged: the magazine GamesTM which had many interviews with designers throughout the game industry, my early love for board games, Fighting Fantasy etc etc.

One experience really stood out in my life though: Debug Mode in Sonic the Hedgehog 2. It's a simple cheat involving entering a series of sounds through the options menu, but what it unlocks is amazing. Put simply it unlocks the ability to place almost any enemy or object anywhere in a level. Sonic 1 had a similar feature, but in my opinion it's much stronger in Sonic 2.

This simple cheat had a profound effect on both me and my friends. Soon we were testing the possibilities of this system:
- Springs upon which we could jump from the start to the end of a level.
- Flat platforms where we could test Sonics true speed.
- Placing many more enemies throughout the level, effectively creating a super hard mode.
And all sorts of other more complex situations, many of which turned into elaborate rude goldberg machines.



Many people talk about the complexity of LittleBigPlanet et al, but if you think about it those sorts of games are just the natural evolution of this Debug Mode. People should have been making these games for years! I still go back to Debug Mode on Sonic 2 today, just for fun. I find I can work away on perfecting a machine for hours, the only drawback is that I can't save it.

Anyway, just a memory which struck me. Cheers!

Two days ago, my 360 died. I'd seen it coming, it's been noisy lately (noisier than usual) and last week the colours went crazy on it. Two days ago, the colours did the same thing, so I tried turning it off... and on...

Black screen.

*Gasp*

TV: NO SIGNAL

"...Aw shit!"



No red rings, nothing, just "NO SIGNAL". Now I have another problem, the 360 support site won't let me register the console. I enter all the details, submit and it just brings me back to a blank form again. Fuck. Sake. It's not like I didn't expect it to happen, but the least I expected was to be able to get it repaired!

Perhaps the reason I'm most upset is the ammount I've invested in the system: More than twenty games + accessories. All of the years I've been defending the console... I basically have to either get it replaced or buy a new one when the price drops: My investment is too high not too.

But Microsoft, know this: If I have to buy a new 360, I'm pickin up a PS3 slim too, and from then on if a game is multiformat it's gettin bought on the PS3.

Having been an active participant in this site for nearly two years now, it seems kind of odd to finally be posting images of my entertainment room after all this time. Then again, I guess it's about time I did so. It's not very special, and it's lacking in so many ways, and yet I love it just the same. The main reason I'm posting all of this is that within the next couple of weeks I'll essentially be demolishing the room as it is now, replacing most of the shelving, painting it and getting a nice new leather couch-bed. Also, by that stage I hope to have delivery of a Megadrive, SNES, Dreamcast, Saturn and assortment of games for these systems. Missing from these pictures are a Gamecube and PS1 which I don't bother setting up because the Wii and PS2 can handle them. Also missing is my Blu-ray Sony Vaio which is off being repaired.



You will notice straight away the lack of discernable swag, that's because I don't really tend to have much. I do however have a big "wall of weird" which contains a random assortment of things which catch my interest.





Anyway, on to my games collection, whcih has been severely neutered by years of foolishly selling and trading in my valuable games and older systems. I am now in the process of trying to get a few of these systems back, but at the moment I'm limited to the more modern systems: 360, Wii, PS2 and DS.







And finally for the truly voyeuristic among you: My DVD's and Books.













That's all she wrote.

Well friends, I have bad news, I won't be able to finish my week in Wizard 101 until some time next week. It turns out that my credit card, which I never use, is expired and I wont get it replaced until next tuesday. I've completed every free quest in the game, but I'd say if I hadn't been so gung ho about it, I probably could have drawn it out another day or two. Ah well, I will finish it though.

Damn. I can't believe how much I miss a game targeted at 12 year olds.

Until then, why not reminisce over the first two days?

Day One
Day Two