flawless cowboy

i’m committing myself to the previous console generation, partly because i can’t afford all three new consoles, mostly because i can’t afford new console game prices(whereas i can absolutely afford last-gen markdown game prices), and partly because i already know the slimline pstwo, original xbox, and gamecube are potently reliable systems.

the 360 is made of rice paper, the ps3 has like two exclusive games i want to play, and the wii may as well be vaporware for lack of my ability to pull out $250 and say ‘hey, i’m going to go buy a wii today!’ also, i can’t afford an hdtv AND an hd console, and i’ll want a blu ray player when they release something must-have in that format. star wars, the matrix, galactica… there’s no killer app just yet.

anywho, this wasn’t a solid plan until i walked into gamestop the other night, flush with my tax refund, and saw i could get a used gamecube for $30 and a used original xbox for $60. so i did. then i hit up four used game stores and bought probably fifteen games for the two systems, and in the process remembered all the original xbox games i passed on for lack of funds or a functional original xbox for the last three years, and realized that 90% of them weren’t on the backwards compatibility list. and since the 360 b/c updates are essentially done, it’s time to treat the 360 as a totally different system.

well, that’s being generous. a more accurate call might be an unreliable piece of hardware that’s a failed pretender to the throne of the most powerful and under-rated system of the previous generation. putting aside the graphics vs gameplay debate, the 360 hardware feels like a rush job.

sony learned the integrated hard drive lesson and is now leveraging the very arguments against the 360 that xbox owners levelled against the ps2, namely that having an option for an hdd and not having one are functionally identical, since programmers have to assume there isn’t one and program for that. so not only are many 360 games crippled by their own theoretical hardware limitations, but then you get into the rumored 16.4% failure rate.

the fundamentally absurd 16.4% failure rate. although spaceninja in portland, oregon, had a much easier time with the warranty support system than did binary bonsai in copenhagen, denmark, there’s still a nearly 1 in 5 chance that your 360 will simply die. and the odds get worse the more you use it. even if it could play all the classic xbox games, i’d be afraid to do so.

compared to a beautiful system that self-destructs with no warning, there seems something more honest, almost noble, about a six year old beast of a console, slowly dying of over-use, that can still run at least one game flawlessly.

even if it is halo 2.

in fairness, 200-ish games on the b/c list is not bad, and the big two i care about long-term, jsrf and halo, are quite naturally in there. but as i said, the more i looked about this week, the more i realized there are plenty of games i either ignored, or simply didn’t know about, that aren’t b/c, and barring some future reissue will remain xbox exclusives.

not that there aren’t games on the 360 worth getting, there’s just less of them. (halo 3, gears, crackdown, dead rising, superman, just cause, mass effect… i’m out.) and in a year or two, they’ll still be available, and they’ll be cheaper, while the xbox game supply will slowly dry up. most of the xbox games i want are still available new on amazon marketplace, so i’d be a fool not to take advantage of that while i can.

same goes for the gamecube, a similarly stable and rugged console, and also much maligned and unfairly overlooked for it’s entire hardware cycle. it’s like the ps2 generation got so caught up in how mature and adult they were now, that the very implication of a candy-colored kid-friendly console with all-ages games(in the pixar sense, not the ‘your children are idiots/buy all our figures and toys’ sense…) made them feel dumb.

which is fine, except the average ps2 game, and thereby the gamers who exalt them above their childish nintendo rivals, is ‘mature and adult’ in that laughable 17 year old way where they desperately want to be, but aren’t actually. or to put it another way, the mario sports games on the gamecube are completely insane and i can’t wait to play them. and the kind of person who declares themselves ‘grown up now’ and no longer lets themselves enjoy childish fun or all-ages mario games? they’re not actually done growing up yet.

and the great irony here is that just as the ps3 was fumbling it’s way onto the market, the ps2 actually DID grow up. they put out half a dozen truly epic games, by studios who at this point were maximizing the abilities of the system, making gorgeous and artful masterpieces. this is why there are around ten games i’d buy the moment i got a ps3, and only two of them are ps3 games. okami, shadow of the colossus, odin sphere, bully, god hand, rule of rose, the metal slug and sonic anthologies, and a few other ps2 games i never had a chance to even try because the only person i knew with a ps2 lived in new york city.

so i bought the used gamecube and the used original xbox and the fourteen used games. on the gamecube side, $5 each for viewtiful joe, p.n. 03, and spy hunter, $7 each for geist, metroid prime, and timesplitters 2, and $9 for rogue leader. on the xbox side, $4 each for wreckless and serious sam, $5 each for gunvalkyrie, advent rising, and phantom dust, and $8 for tron 2.0. and while i was at it, $10 each for new copies of fable and hunter: the reckoning: redeemer.

[ironically, i also picked up baldur's gate: dark alliance for the gameboy advance and am loving the hell out of that. and doom for the advance is neat, but the controls are awkwardly laid out in all six configuration schemes. i can think of a much better setup, but no remapping! ah well. that it exists at all is enough.]

then seriously two days later i discovered that freddies (and amazon and presumably this came from nintendo on high) dropped the price on new platinum gamecubes to $80. this was the point where i really decided to just tell the new generation to go screw off for another year or two, and committed myself to the more reliable and affordable last-gen systems. i picked up a brand-new gamecube and took the used one back. then i dropped $50 on twilight princess for gamecube, because it was the last copy in a real store.

the only other new gamecube games i spotted were smash brothers melee, which i’m not that into, resident evil 4, which i’m absolutely not into, and lego star wars 2, which i already have and prefer on the gameboy advance. now, two months ago, there were still dozens of gamecube and original xbox games available, including all the greatest hits for both systems. but after the christmas rush, they mostly vanished and i didn’t notice until i went looking for them. so that sucked, until i saw that i can get almost all of the games i’m looking for new/sealed on amazon marketplace for good prices. internet ftw.

mario kart: double dash, super mario strikers, alien hominid, paper mario, final fantasy: crystal chronicles, and maybe zelda: wind waker. (i don’t know that i have time for two zelda games, and i already passed on the new ds zelda…) mario golf and mario tennis are both somewhat overpriced, so i think i’ll snag used copies of those instead. on the xbox front, i’m looking at la rush, star wars: republic commando, the riddick game i never finished and is only $10, otogi and otogi 2, and a couple other random b-grade shooters, including the call of cthulhu one, project snowblind (deus ex 2.5), and a weird one called breakdown that’s only $5.

and maybe some of the newer games that got dual-booted on 360 and xbox. superman looks terrible so i’ll hold out for the 360, but while just cause looks obviously better on the 360, i can get it now for xbox, and get just cause 2 for the 360 whenever i have one. the xbox is a solid system, and even without a dozen new games for it that i haven’t played, i can play halo 1 basically forever. and having played that on both systems, it feels more natural on the s controller. holding the 360 pad, i want to use halo 3 controls. holding the s controller, that’s halo. it’s hardwired. so that’s fine.

i’ll have to hit up ebay to find the rebel strike gamecube demo disc, which includes the original star wars wireframe arcade game. (which goes in the nostalgia bucket alongside tron 2.0 for the gba, which features the original arcade tron and discs of tron as minigames). metal slug 3 is argued to be the best of the series, and that was released on xbox, along with metal slug 4 and 5, but there’s now a metal slug anthology with everything, that was released on wii, psp, and ps2. while i still entertain the idea of a psp, i could get a wii for that much. or, and this is what i’m actually doing, a slimline pstwo and the gameboy player for the gamecube.

which, when i get both of those, will make my console set up absolutely ridiculous. the gameboy player covers all original gameboy games, plus gameboy advance, meaning it’s nes through snes through the gba which is like the snes and a half. that hooked up to the gamecube, with gameboy reissues of classic titles and gamecube anthologies of 64 era games, gives me one-console-access to every nintendo system except the ds and the wii. (and the virtual boy). who needs the virtual console when i can get final fantasy reissues, wolfenstein 3d, and the snes aladdin game?