Thursday, January 01, 2009

Happy New Year!! WoW no more, gaming now, and Zunepocalypse!



First off Happy New Year! everybody. I know it's been a while since my last post, but the Christmas holidays seemed more chaotic than last year. Finally, that rush is over and I've got some time to unwind again (yeah!).


I gave up on WoW last year. I bought the expansion pack in November and played pretty heavy, but towards the end of December I realized I had played 1 day that month. I know part of it was work just not having time to play, but that one time I did login there wasn't anything I wanted to do. I made it a little over 2 years starting just before the launch of Burning Crusade, and shutting off my account December 25th (I guess my Christmas present to myself).


I got really into Animal Crossing City Folk in December. The Wii version is almost identical to the DS game (in fact you can transfer your DS game to the Wii) with additional shops in the city, holidays are back, and you can use the Wii mic (if you bought it) to talk to other people playing (that also bought it).


Listening to a couple podcast peaked my interest in Valkyrie Chronicles for the PS3, so I gave the demo a shot (which I had downloaded a while back but never played), and found it really good. It's a weird strategy/RPG/action hybrid that was originally slated to be a Xbox 360 title, but supposedly SEGA thought that it would be better received by Japanese gamers, and since the 360 isn't all that successful in Japan they switched it to a PS3 exclusive. I finally tracked down a used copy right after Christmas but haven't had a chance to play yet (hopefully later today).


I finally got around to opening my copy of Little Big Planet last night, and played the first couple of levels (seem to be the same ones from the beta). I unlocked my first "trophies" last night on the PS3 thanks to LBP, one in game (placing a sticker), and the other for dressing my sackboy (red boxers, and a pumpkin head).


Did you get hit with the Zunepocalypse yesterday? If you had a 30GB Zune and turned it on after midnight December 31st you probably did. I knew my battery was almost dead so I plugged it into the computer before leaving the house yesterday, when I got home I wondered why it was sitting on the loading screen showing the logo and progress bar. I frantically tried resetting it, but couldn't get it to respond to anything. So I started searching on the net only to find it was happening on a global scale users everywhere were reporting the same problem. It turns out that evidently some bad code for how the Zune handles leap year was to blame, Microsoft finally issued a release saying that if you just let the battery drain, and plug it back in after midnight on January 1st all would be okay. I'm happy to report that indeed seems to be the case as my Zune is charging comfortably right next to me. :)

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