At what point does game difficulty cross the line into bullshit?

I've been playing X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and up until last night I was really enjoying it. Then I came to a point where I died 32 times attempting the same jump.

Someone at Raven got 3D platforming in my brawler, and unless you work at Nintendo you're not any good at 3D platforming.

I'm not sure who came up with the idea for a fixed camera in a 3D platform game, but I know this person is a sadist.

In the old days of 2D platform games the camera was fixed at a 90 degree angle from the action, and it made it a simple thing to judge the placement of your character and where and when to jump. It worked in Super Mario Brothers, and it worked in Mega Man. Even when those games became fiendishly difficult the precision of the controls and simplicity of the view kept things from getting out of hand.

In Wolverine the camera is not at a 90 degree angle in the platforming sections. It is closer to 80 degrees, which makes judging distance, angle, and placement difficult. This problem is exacerbated by the game having depth. Caution must be thrown to the wind because this particular section of the game features a helicopter that shoots at regular intervals, and the platform on which I'm standing is rapidly collapsing beneath me. So there is a lot of trial and error that brings this particularly fast paced portion of the game grinding to a frustrating halt. A few times the jump didn't even register when I pressed the button, and Wolverine simply walked off the edge of the platform. And that is the point where the game crossed into bullshit territory.

Despite the fact I was really enjoying the game I might not pick it back up. There is a line between a difficult challenge I will rise to, and bullshit I will not endure. This is bullshit.

Seth from Street Fighter IV is also bullshit.

Holy monkey that was fast!

Last Tuesday I shipped my broken Xbox 360 to Microsoft. The guy working at the UPS store immediately recognized what I was shipping after glancing at the box I had under my arm as I walked in the door. I thought that was pretty sad/funny.

Today I've been notified my 360 is repaired, and on its way back to me. It appears their turn around time has improved significantly. Now I just have to be around to sign for it when it arrives. I'm betting the first attempt will happen while I'm in class on Wednesday.

Victory!

So I finally was able to initiate the repair process for my Xbox 360. At some point in the future I will return to Live. I have no idea when that will be, but the major hurdle has been cleared.

Oddly enough the first person I spoke to may have cleared up my problem, but I have no way of knowing. He told me to create a Windows Live account. At first after I did that it didn't help me at all, but today I logged in with my new hotmail address instead of the yahoo one tied to my gamertag, and voila! It let me in. Then I put in my serial number, and it successfully registered whereas before it told me the number was already being used. I still have to pay $100 for the privilege of getting my Xbox repaired, but c'est la vie.

I saw the hilarious misspelling of my email that led to this whole mess once I actually got in the system. It was a nice bit of closure. Now I just need to remember to back up all of my saved games. I doubt they will return to me intact.

Perspective and Prestige

The recent kerplunk of my Xbox 360's disc drive at first filled me with incoherent rage. Just check out my last couple of posts for proof of that. My Saturday sucked. Oddly enough I woke up in a terrific mood on Sunday. In the hours after my anger subsided I gained perspective.

I put too much importance on gaming. It is a form of entertainment. So I was denied entertainment on Saturday. Big deal. I resolved to sell many of my games, and I may still do that, keeping only those I play online with my friends. That's the biggest disappointment. I can't get online, and shoot some face, or kill zombies while bullshitting with friends who don't live down the street anymore. Does it really matter that I couldn't continue running people over in Saint's Row 2? Of course not.

Before my 360 gave up the ghost I started prestige mode in Call of Duty 4. While I was making my way to level 55 I couldn't understand why anyone would start all over. Why would someone want to give up all their hard earned perks, and weapons? I said at one point that I would never go prestige. Then I got to level 55, and there was nowhere left to go. Oh sure I could unlock red tiger for every weapon, or try to get the gold weapons, but they're all ugly anyway. I discovered boredom sets in when you have nothing to strive toward. I had previously considered people with the gold cross next to their level 55 to be tiresome obsessives who just want a bigger e-penis than the next guy. Now I kinda feel bad for them. It's boring at the top. It will take me a while to go through prestige ten times, but it is entirely possible when I hit 55 again I'll start all over.

Some good news

My 360 is still broken, but I discovered something else. Remember how I ranted about not being able to remove payment methods from Xbox Live a while back? It turns out Microsoft added that functionality to their Xbox website. I was astounded. I was also able to cancel my Live subscription fairly easily after providing the customer service rep with my DNA, and birth certificate.

I was also able to make a customer service rep understand I need to re-register my 360 before I can initiate the repair process. Of course this was through email, and he couldn't help me. I still have to call the tech support line back, which I'm dreading since I already tried that once, and was unhelpfully told to get a hotmail account.

Outsourcing customer service doesn't strike me as the most logical thing in the world. Sure it saves money, and I can't blame some guy in India, or wherever for not speaking English as a first language, but the entire process is based on communication, and it has been put in the hands of people who at best have very heavy accents. Par for the course for giant corporations though. Only small businesses need to have great customer service. Companies like Microsoft can kick you in the nuts over, and over, and still make money.

Of course if I sold all of my 360 games right now I would have enough money to buy a PS3. There is some appeal in crossing over to the dark side, and giving MS the finger, but it isn't like they will notice. Also I don't really want a PS3, seeing as all my friends are on Xbox Live, and I despise the Metal Gear Solid games.

Fuck you, Microsoft. No, really.

So today my Xbox 360 stopped reading game discs, which is great timing because my warranty ran out last month. It costs $100 to get it repaired. I might be slightly more amenable to that if I hadn't just gone through a bunch of shit to find out I'm fucked.

You see the last time I called Microsoft's tech support I gave out an erroneous email address like an idiot. I admit it was my mistake. The problem is my 360's serial number is now already registered in their system under an email that doesn't exist. So I can't register my 360, which is necessary before I can get it repaired.

So I call Microsoft's tech support again. I'm informed by the person on the other end (who is apparently talking at me through a long copper tube and/or from Cybertron) that I need a Microsoft Live ID, or some such bollocks before I can proceed with having my 360 repaired. So I sign up for Hotmail with a sigh, and attempt to sign into Xbox.com with my shiny new username only to be forced to create a new gamertag, and unable to retrieve my old one because it is in use already. Sound familiar? This is after I changed my Xbox Live account to reflect having a Hotmail address rather than one at Yahoo. So in a different browser I proceed to sign in with my old email address (since Xbox.com automatically signs you in forever if you don't tell it not to that very first time) only to find out none of this has helped me in the least. My serial number is still assigned to God knows who, and I can't request a repair.

Okay, deep breath.

I decide to email Microsoft with my problem now so no mistakes about my admittedly cumbersome email address can be made due to me not speaking Hindi, and the other person having a very heavy accent. I type everything out, click send, and am then told my email may not exceed 500 characters. At this point I decide to find out just how much this repair is going to cost me if I ever get that far, and it turns out to be $100. You know what? Fuck it. Even if I had the extra money I wouldn't fork it over to the chumps who can't make a video game console that lasts more than a year so they can send me another one that will most likely brick in a few months.

Now I have to call customer support again to cancel my subscription to Xbox Live before I throw my 360 down a fucking well.

And now for something completely different!

Since my last three posts were all complaining I thought I'd wrap things up with something a bit more positive. Over the weekend when I was playing Rock Band with a meager 55 songs the down strum on my guitar stopped working. Well past the warranty, and already in a less than great mood I was ready to discover I was proper fucked, but the Internet came to my rescue. It turns out the problem is fairly common, and I was able to fix it by removing the eight million screws that hold the plastic guitar together, and simply cleaning the components with a bit of rubbing alcohol. Apparently the plastic of the strum bar is softer than that of the housing holding it in place, and my guitar was filled with white plastic dust gumming up the works. I cleaned it out, and now it works like I just bought it.

Now I just wonder if the accelerometer problem in my Mad Catz Bass can be as easily fixed.