Construed

Am less than a year into ownership of my first 360 but it’s reassuring to read that the problems that plague the console can be reclassified by Microsoft:

Microsoft ceasing its defection discrimination and revealing via the Xbox Support page that the mysterious E74 error is now covered by the RROD’s three-year warranty. Microsoft has determined “that the E74 error message can indicate the general hardware failure that is associated with three flashing red lights error on the console,” and will “refund to customers the amount paid for an out of warranty repair due to a general hardware failure associated with the e74 error message.”[Joystiq]

Well here’s hoping that I never have to worry about any of the hardware problems that have plagued the 360’s lifespan.

Microsoft…please…don’t rinse & repeat in the future.

DM∞

A couple of pieces that has caught my imagination, during the past week:

• Capcom Refutes Resident Evil 5 DLC Controversy – Is the DLC Versus code on the disc or not? Do we care? – Variety thinks not. I’ll be covering both Versus & Mercenaries Modes in a game diary post soon. Have you been enjoying these modes & do you care how you get them?

• EA sends illegal weapons to press, wants them back – knuckle sandwich, anyone? Where there’s a DLC PR story, like the one above, which can help sales of a title then sometimes you get a PR stunt that doesn’t always look as effective – as with the EA one for Godfather II. No, I wasn’t one to receive a set.

DM∞

Being swamped with ideas, products to review, job opportunities to sift, interviews requested all have gone to make this week one of my busiest of the year, so far.

So I thought to give you all a quick insight into what you can expect to see on Construed & other sites that bare a connection, very soon:

Pete from Dragonchasers hit me with a MEME. I appreciate the words of encouragement in describing my writing:

…his infectious enthusiasm from both games and (sometimes more importantly) other pop culture. It’s good to be reminded that there’s more to life than computer games: there’s comics and movies!

I know who to approach & who not to approach, once I send this MEME on it’s merry way but I feel a word of caution should also be noted when deciding what personal information to put out there, for all to see. Be careful, guys & girls.

I’ll be adding my own flavour to this MEME, later in the week.

The two sites I write for, Caught in the Crossfire & Comic Domain, have both been busy promoting themselves online. Crossfire can now be followed on Twitter while Comic Domain have set up a WordPress blog for comic book news & reviews, so expect to see my future Comic Book Reviews posted there also.

I’ve had to re-arrange the interview with Kate VanDevender, due to both our schedules & we now have a date set for 12th April. The interview itself will be conducted via Google Chat & I have a number of leading questions already worked out. I’d also like to open this out to my readers – so if you have anything you’d like to ask Kate, then feel free to leave a comment here or email me.

Cat from Carocat has asked me to take part in her Twitter based interview series, #TwitLight. I’ll be working through the questions over the next day or two – the current interviewee is @MelissaBianco, Senior Game Designer on City of Heroes. Great idea for a post series, Cat. I hope it takes off!

Game reviews, that you should see me attempting, have begun to pile up. One to add to the list is Godfather II – I recieved the review code in the post today, alongside Spawn#190 & 100 Bullets#99 comic books.

As there’s an online reviews embargo on Godfather II, until 10am on the 7th April, I’ll be posting my thoughts in the Game diary after that time with a review to follow.

How’s your week been?

DM∞

As consumers, we can be swamped with information(both informative & biased) about the entertainment products we choose to buy or buy into. Just recently, I have felt that the floodgates that I put up, so-to-speak, to hold back the relentless wave of opinion, have buckled.

What do I mean? OK when my own choices begin to feel like they are being predetermined by comments/posts/tweets of others, then I feel it’s time to take a serious look at my motives. Don’t worry, folks that doesn’t mean what I have been writing here recently has been manipulated by social fads etc, it does mean that sometimes too much seemly good advice can be at detrimental odds to my own choice. This can leave me feeling indecisive & unready to make a  decision on how best to make use of my time.

It’s no life-threatening disease & maybe it’s a hazard that comes with the terroritory, a good headache rather than a bad one – if that makes sense.

Some recent videogaming topics, that I have read, have hinted at these underlying thoughts:

mbp’s – Why is game purchasing such a gamble?

Pete(Dragonchasers) – Too Human First Look Pt 1(XBox 360) & Game freeze.

Which leads to the idea that we may place too much emphasis on reading review scoring, by games journalists, when deciding a videogame purchase. Read A Symposium On Game Reviews, which covers the thoughts of games journalists themselves on this & other reviewing concerns.

For me when it comes to making a choice on a entertainment purchase, I tend to go through this subconscious flow of calculations:

hype/reviews → cost ← demo/peer-pressure = buy or dismiss

When I know gamers can have their choice ruled more, in this way:

hype → peer-pressure ← reviews/demo = buy or dismiss

Maybe I’m wrong in my thinking but for me, the cost of an item is the swaying factor in many of my decisions. This could be related to my age & background etc too.

Which got me to thinking, should the cost of a purchase better reflect the item or does this remove the important value of customer choice in the level playing-field of consumerism?

Do you value the choices you make or end up regretting them?

DM∞

It’s been over a month since I’ve reported on my reading from around the interweb, so here goes with a few that caught my eye:

• Melmoth & Zoso have 2 episodes of their podcast up – very posh accents guys!
• Lengthy debate on Five reasons MMOs are broken, over at Fidgit.
• The Pause That Refreshes by Ravious over at Kill Ten Rats, has provoked my interest. I’ll be posting a follow-up to his post, in the coming week, which will hopefully move the thoughts along into RP options.

Sidenotes

- If your a comic book fan, then why not bookmark Comic Domain? A haven of of comic book sales…oh yeah, before I forget…ahem…a forthcoming review section by me(fingers crossed).

- interesting & somewhat famous folk I have recently followed on Twitter: Stephen Fry, Mayor of London & Wil Wheaton.

DM∞