Andrew Busey: My Musings

I can’t write a review of Halo 3 for the Xbox 360 because I haven’t played it enough.  They got my money so I contributed to the $300 million craziness.  But I haven’t played for more than an hour.

Why?

The short answer might be that I’m getting too old for these types of games - which is depressing.  So I’m going to explore a different path.

So backing up in history a little bit.  Let me tell you about my Xbox 360 experiences:

• Call of Duty 2 - I loved this game.  I played it a lot.  It was fun.  I played it with friends.
• Call of Duty 3 - I hated this game.  It was hard to play (see more).   It wasn’t particularly fun.  It was hard to find games (maybe because it was new).  Oh, but it was visually stunning.
• Gears of War - I have mixed feelings about this game.  It was visually stunning.  It was fun to look at while I played.  The game control was a little weird.  I played with friends a few times.
• Halo 3 - This game seemed like Halo 2 with better environmental graphics and effects.  It also might possibly have an interesting story, although I didn’t get that far, and improved multi-player.  I found it cumbersome to play.

So, Call of Duty 3, Gears of War, and Halo 3, were all beautiful games.  They looked amazing.  Wow!  But I really didn’t like playing any of them.  I’ll call it the 2×2 rule:

2×2 Rule:  If an important action takes more than 2 joysticks and 2 buttons to accomplish, it’s probably too complicated.

Now, I’m sure the Fatal1ty and some of these other pro-gaming guys out there are spectacularly good at playing 2×2 games.  In fact I’d wager that part of the reason they are pro gamers is that they can take 2×2 actions in a non-2×2 game.

I’m glad that there is now an evolutionary track that enables this kind of manual dexterity and near-super human hand-eye coordination.  I have been playing games a long time, am pretty good at them, am generally pretty coordinated and dexterous, and I lack this skill set.

Making games more complex to play does not make them better.  Frankly I think COD3 would have been a better game if it had just kept the game mechanics as COD2 and made newer, prettier environments.  But then I guess that wouldn’t have made the cut.

I hope we don’t see all new games that require constant weapon switching, monkey jumping, and head pivoting, grenade aiming, super tosses, as part of the game.  Because to me (and hey maybe I’m not the sweet spot of the market) that just isn’t that much fun.

So I guess my Xbox 360 will be collecting more dust because Halo 3 is not for me.

Back to Wacraft 3 and Duels.

Windows / MSN / Live (Whatever the branding is today) Messenger is something I use a lot.  Right now I can’t login.  I upgraded to a new version because it implied that might be the issue.  It wasn’t.  The message I am currently getting:

Signing in to Windows Live Messenger failed because the service is temporarily unavailable.   Please try again later.

Error code: 81000314

I got a similar message on the Windows Messenger I had before I upgraded to the Live one.  Anyway, so there is a “Service status” option which takes me to http://status.messenger.msn.com/Status.aspx and it says:

All systems are stable and running.

It even has a nice little check box.

So my quesiton is:  What is the point of having a stauts page if it lies?  Clearly the service is down, how could the status page not now?

BTW, Microsoft isn’t the only one that is at fault for this.  Blizzard’s World of Warcraft Realm Status pages routinely say things are up when they are down.

My plea:

If you are going to have a status page for your service:  TELL THE TRUTH - I mean, we are already using your service and we care enough about it to check the status page.  At least tell us the truth about what is going on.  K THX.

/rant

So I have Verizon Wireless (probably not for long since I’m a phone junky and I’ll get the Apple iPhone), which I switched to so that I could get a Motorola Q.   So today, I get a text message from Verizon.  It tells me that because daylight savings time is on March 11th this year that I may need a software message.  The text message (remember this is a text message sent to my phone) had a URL in it.  So I followed the URL.  I scroll around the page, lots of cell phones for sale.  Lots of navigation.  Nothing I can find about daylight savings time.  I scroll back up, AH HA!  There is a link that says “skip to main content”.   Then:

1. This takes me to something about daylight savings time, let’s me select Microsoft, Palm, RIM, and go.  
2. I pick Microsoft.
3. I browse around some Microsoft page, finally find some link that says ”steps for updating your device.”
4. Then I have to choose if I synch with my PC or wirelessly.
5. This takes me to another page - I guess it’s the Windows Mobile mobile main page.  There is something to click there for an update.
6. Now I’m at another page telling me to get the update or click here if I can’t.  It warns me I have to accept a license agreement.  I click “start the process”.
7. Sweet, another page with a accept / decline licensing agreement.  (Who declines this?  Especially since I have to have it or my phone won’t know what time it is.)
8. Now I have to choose whether I want to download the upgrade for Windows Mobile 5.0 or Windows Mobile 2003 second edition devices.  WHAT THE HELL!  Can’t these clowns auto-detect this crap?  I mean give me a break.  I’m not about to go away from this stupid web page I’m on to look it up because it’s taken me forever to click this far.  Just give me the update for crying out loud.
9. Well, well.  When I click Widnows Mobile 2003 second edition devices (I hope that’s me, otherwise my phone will probably die some horrible death) it asks if I am sure I want to download (insert stupid filename here).  I, of course, say yes.
10. SWEET!  Installation of (insert stupid filename here) was UNSUCCESSFUL.   Wow, thanks for the useful info.
11. So I went back and got the Windows Mobile 5.0.  I mean, I have no other useful guidance so it seems like the logical step.
12. YES I WANT TO DOWNLOAD IT YOU PIECE OF CRAP.  
13. Hmm, well it downloaded it and rebooted my phone.
14. I guess it worked since it didn’t tell me it failed.

Now.  Let’s look it took OVER FIFTEEN STEPS for me to update my phone.  (Well, to hope that my phone was magically updated.)  Did anyone test this process before sending out this text message?  I’m sure this message had to have gone to millions of people, so I mean it’s not like they shouldn’t have tested the process.

So let’s review:

• I have a signed contract with Verizon.  They probably own my future children and I’m sure they have the right to monkey with my phone at their leisure and that I have no recourse.
• I am sure I “signed” (ie: clicked) some agreement when I activated Windows Mobile on my Q.  So I have some contract of some type with Microsoft on this issue (and many others I’m sure).
• Verizon sent me the text message - they know what kind of phone I’m using.
• I clicked a link.  I’m sure the mobile phone browser (like all others) transmits its browser ID and OS ID to the web server.  WHY THE HELL COULDN’T THEY JUST USE THAT AND SEND ME RIGHT TO THE FILE I NEED!

Wow this was such a bad experience. 

/rant

I bet the iPhone isn’t this stupid.