It's all about the input.
by AC - permalink
I knocked three names off my Xmas shopping list with a trip to Walmart this morning. I got season four of Aqua Teen Hunger Force for one of my cousins, and he better fucking like it because it's taking all of my willpower not to tear off the shrink-wrap and rip it to a hard drive before wrapping it up. While I was wandering around the electronics niche I watched some dude play the Xbox 360 version of Call of Duty 2 on a little hi-def TV, and I have to admit it's really goddamn impressive looking. He was in the north African campaign, riding in the back of a truck and then mopping up the infantry around a burning artillery emplacement. Stunningly silky framerate aside, the smoke effects absolutely blew me away. I've never seen anything like that before. At one point, he charged a sandbag bunker a little too recklessly, and after he mowed down the three defending Germans, one of them suddenly reared back up and took aim at point-blank range, but before he could squeeze off a shot, an offscreen friendly took him out again.
It was an impressive, random sequence, but I just kept thinking about how much more fun it would be on a PC with the classic -- and more responsive -- mouse and keyboard setup. At $400 with $60 games, 360 is just too expensive. I have my eye on the eMachines T6524, a budget box loaded with so much stuff it's almost comedic. It's only $200 more than the 360, and five-star PC games have been coming out for a decade, most of which can be had now for ten to thirty bucks. So how is this a tough decision?
Later in the morning I had to drive out to the airport and back. I hate going to the Memphis airport. I've done it at least a dozen times, and I hate it every time. Even worse, I took the interstate. I went south on the eastern side of the interstate loop, which meant 20 minutes of sitting in bottleneck traffic because of a hundred-yard stretch of construction. On the way back I realized I'd overestimated the amount of gas I had and was forced to get off at a random exit (turned out to be Third St.) to refuel. Eventually I groped my way back onto the freeway and came back up north on the west-side loop, which meant sitting through a different construction-caused bottleneck. God, this city sucks sometimes.
Anyway. Dell is apparently including Firefox on the overpriced, underserviced PCs it's selling in the UK. OK, that was a little harsh. It's just that I've been pricing Dells for a long time, and the sub-thousand lot are a joke. 256MB, 40GB, and a DVD-ROM? That might have been a great deal three years ago, but come on.
by AC - permalink
I knocked three names off my Xmas shopping list with a trip to Walmart this morning. I got season four of Aqua Teen Hunger Force for one of my cousins, and he better fucking like it because it's taking all of my willpower not to tear off the shrink-wrap and rip it to a hard drive before wrapping it up. While I was wandering around the electronics niche I watched some dude play the Xbox 360 version of Call of Duty 2 on a little hi-def TV, and I have to admit it's really goddamn impressive looking. He was in the north African campaign, riding in the back of a truck and then mopping up the infantry around a burning artillery emplacement. Stunningly silky framerate aside, the smoke effects absolutely blew me away. I've never seen anything like that before. At one point, he charged a sandbag bunker a little too recklessly, and after he mowed down the three defending Germans, one of them suddenly reared back up and took aim at point-blank range, but before he could squeeze off a shot, an offscreen friendly took him out again.
It was an impressive, random sequence, but I just kept thinking about how much more fun it would be on a PC with the classic -- and more responsive -- mouse and keyboard setup. At $400 with $60 games, 360 is just too expensive. I have my eye on the eMachines T6524, a budget box loaded with so much stuff it's almost comedic. It's only $200 more than the 360, and five-star PC games have been coming out for a decade, most of which can be had now for ten to thirty bucks. So how is this a tough decision?
Later in the morning I had to drive out to the airport and back. I hate going to the Memphis airport. I've done it at least a dozen times, and I hate it every time. Even worse, I took the interstate. I went south on the eastern side of the interstate loop, which meant 20 minutes of sitting in bottleneck traffic because of a hundred-yard stretch of construction. On the way back I realized I'd overestimated the amount of gas I had and was forced to get off at a random exit (turned out to be Third St.) to refuel. Eventually I groped my way back onto the freeway and came back up north on the west-side loop, which meant sitting through a different construction-caused bottleneck. God, this city sucks sometimes.
Anyway. Dell is apparently including Firefox on the overpriced, underserviced PCs it's selling in the UK. OK, that was a little harsh. It's just that I've been pricing Dells for a long time, and the sub-thousand lot are a joke. 256MB, 40GB, and a DVD-ROM? That might have been a great deal three years ago, but come on.
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