Bloated and nauseous

Ever the early adopter I've managed to give myself the whole Christmas feeling of over-indulgence a good few weeks before the day itself. I blame Microsoft for this. If my Xbox hadn't given out just as this years last batch of big name titles hit the shelves then I wouldn't have felt so deprived and desperate to catch up when the console returned from the menders.

As it is I found myself buying Call of Duty 4 yesterday which joins the pile of barely-touched Orange Box and nearly-done Halo 3. I managed to clear Bioshock on Saturday after a bit of a heavy stint of playing that left me sick and unable to focus properly. I'm getting too old for this shit.

I'm also feeling a bit spoiled by the rich fare of quality FPS. I've put quite a bit of time into Portal, but Half-Life has remained largely untouched. The same is true of the Halo multiplayer, which is going to face stiff competition from Call of Duty if the finished game lives up to the promise of the multiplayer beta.

It's all rather too much for a simple palate such as mine. I'm not sure what the videogame equivalent of gout is but I fear the next few weeks will see me laid low with it.

Shameful waste of resources

Xbox back from the menders... vast array of next-gen games... Bioshock, Halo 3, Orange Box... what am I loving the most right now? Carcassone. A port of a sodding French boardgame that I downloaded for free off Xbox Live yesterday.

It's like Tetris mixed with some addictive but low-key strategy elements, much more compelling than the similar Cataan. Had a quick look at the demo for Puzzle Quest too, but it's not a patch on the DS version. Which is STILL in Australia. Curses.

Sweet Justice

Well, patience and trust in a mega-corporation have paid off. My Xbox is here, plugged in and *frantically touches wood* is now working again. Fairplay to Microsoft, 10 days earlier than they said the console arrived all nicely packaged up and even a month of free Xbox live (which nicely covers the time I've spent offline).

It's easy to be sanguine after the event, and I am still annoyed that Xbox 360s in general have a honking great sudden death problem but even so it speaks well of the makers that their support service is so good. Either that or Microsoft know how much of a nightmare they'd have if they hadn't ponied up and put this free repair system in place.