How to get my Chrystal Xbox back

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My limited edition Chrystal Xbox is still at my mate (geezer) J’s mom’s house. What happened was that ages ago, I took the Xbox down to London together with a few games (most of them belonged to my Ex. I only ever bought Fable and never completed it).

I then lent it to my mate J. who lived across the road, because he didn’t have a console and was skint, and I’d just gotten my PS3. He kept it for a few months and put it to good use, playing all the games etc.  and it was all good. He then saved some money and bought himself a 360 which means he no longer needed the Xbox. By that time, I’d already moved back to Edinburgh and eventually split up with  my ex BF.

The problem is that my Xbox is still down there, together with Fable, and I do not know when / how I will get it back. I had half-heartedly planned to go down to London in my Xmas break, see J. and his mum (whom I’ve always got on well with) and pick up the Xbox at the same time;  however this ain’t going to happen now as the train tickets were too expensive. I then asked his mum if she could post it up to me if I paid the postage but she hasn’t got back to me. I thought I’m not going to see it again.

However.

Today I had a GENIUS idea. I’m currently paying the ex back £2500 that he contributed towards the Italy house (all a bit of a contentious issue from both sides.. not going into it) in monthly rates of £500. What I think I could do is ask him to post it up or alternatively, I could suggest that he keeps the Chrystal Xbox and Fable and I take off £100 of the last installment (which is due in February I think).

Before anyone thinks that’s not fair as it’s kinda ‘blackmail’: I think it’s only a decent thing for him to post it up and I believe in fact that he should have offered it in the first place, rather than not really bothering and saying ‘it’s at V’s (J’s mum) for you to pick up’. It’s a limited edition and after all, him and J. borrowed it for ages. I don’t see why it should now be up to me to travel to London for ££££ only to pick it up! Of course, I’d offer to pay postage, the box, wrapping, etc. – all he’d need to do is go to the post office which is a 5-mins-walk.

So, what I’m going to do after the next installment has been paid is stop the standing order and ask him if he could kindly post the Xbox up, together with Fable, in the original box and with ALL the accessories etc. Once it’s arrived here and I have assessed that it’s in full working order and not damaged, I will pay him the rest of the money plus the postage 😀

If he refuses to do it or can’t be bothered, he’ll just get £400 instead of £500 and he can sell the Xbox in a few years’ time when, being a limited edition, it’ll be worth at least the £100.

Xmas Prezzies and More

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Christmas at my BF’s parents was really enjoyable. His family is very reasonable, quite happy, proud to f ly the Scottish flag (but not in an over the top way), and were very friendly towards me but not to the point of nosey. B. and I could pretty much do whatever we wanted to, i.e. there was no ‘forced’ or prescribed behaviour or expectations in any shape or form.

We got there at about 1PM and they were already over at their neighbours (apparently this is a tradition – they go over there for a couple of drinkies in the PM). B. and I stayed in his room for a bit but then we were ‘discovered’ – his brother called on his mobile and asked us to come across, which we did. We stayed for a few drinks (me being on the Vodka + Diet Coke) and then went back to theirs and sat down in the conservatory, where presents were given and unwrapped, before having dinner and drinking some more 😛

I got various things including a dark slab of chocolate by HotelChocolat which is amazing mmhh! Also a couple of games – LittleBigPlanet for the PS3 (which I played tonight) and God of War – Chain of Olympus for the PSP (great game!).

I’m back home now though. Needed to get back to the cat and try out LittleBigPlanet. My BF has an Xbox 360 and not a PS3, and I got him Gears of War Special Edition so this afternoon  I was on the PSP and he on the Xbox 360. I don’t mind that – quite the opposite. It was interesting seeing the Xbox 360 in action, and particularly Live. I can see how the system is more ‘sophisticated’ than PSN – on the other hand, PSN is free, and to be honest it’s just right for a casual gamer like myself. I wouldn’t know what to play on the 360!

PS: Today I also purchased the new Prince of Persia for the PS3 from play.com – it’s only £17.99 for some reason!

PS3 Backwards Compatibility for PS2 Games

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As you may or may not know (or may or may not share my view), there haven’t been many ‘decent’ games out yet for the PS3. At least not for someone with my casual, quirky taste. The good thing is I still have a number of as yet unplayed PS2-games sitting around (shame on me!), amongst others there is:

• Dark Chronicle
• Shadow of the Colossus
• Shadow Hearts: Covenant

and a few more (the above are only the immediately interesting ones!).

Yesterday, then, after trying to get back into Oblivion (PS3 game) and failing, I put in Shadow  Hearts: Covenant. The original Shadow Hearts was a very underrated RPG – like so many games just ‘falling under the radar’ for a lot of mainstream gamers. I immediately got into it but, once the intro and the cut scenes had finished and I wanted to get into the juice of it, it started hanging all the time!!

I tried finding the ‘PS3 backwards compatibility list’ that Sony had published over a year ago on their site, but the list is no longer there (…). I then luckily found PS3comp.com – an unofficial compatibility list for PS3, and to my dismay, Shadow Hearts: Covenant only has two stars and a user comments:

At random points during gameplay, the title freezes for approximately 20 seconds.

Annoying, to say the least! I now have to play the game on my PS2. Wouldn’t be that bad if my TV wasn’t too far away to use regular controllers… so I will have to move the PS2 out of the TV stand and set it up inconveniently somewhere in the middle of the room.

New TV

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I bought a new, HD-ready 32 inch TV on Saturday. The TV repair people didn’t turn up on the Friday and on the Saturday I just thought ‘fuck it, let’s buy a new one’.

It’s not for the TV aspect of it at all – I resent having to start paying again for the bloody TV license (but will do so naturally..) – it’s just so I can play  my games and my PS3 (whatever game my BF is getting me for Xmas 😀 ).

I’ve also taken my own handle online now. I reserved my nick ages ago when PlayStation first made accounts for PS Online available. Though I doubt I’ll be playing online much – the types of games that I like simply don’t lend themselves to do that.

I also downloaded and logged into PlayStation Home for the first time. That’s worth another blog post though! And some more general PS3 – frustrations too… at least it was free, and with a couple of decent games out now (the new Prince of Persia; LittleBigPlanet) it might actually get played!

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LittleBigPlanet – First ‘Must-have’ Exclusive for PS3

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It looks like with LittleBigPlanet there’s finally a new game out for the PS3 that I have to get my hands on. It was released on Nov 5th and is a PS3-exclusive (hehe @Xbox 360 owners). It’s a ‘puzzle platformer and world creation’ game accordin to Wikipedia and is hitting all the right spots for me.

It’s almost a year ago since I played my first PS3 game – Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction, and nothing has tickled my fancy since (I did buy Oblivion but only played it for a couple of hours or so. It’s a game that would suck up too much time…).

The only problem with LittleBigPlanet is that I no longer have a TV. The mission, then, is to hook it up to my PC monitor and then I’d also want to get it online of course (online gaming = free on the PS3 🙂 ).

I’m not going to buy it myself yet. I don’t really have time to play just now (well I do a bit, but I’ve yet to finish Zelda – Twilight Princess and have another bash at Yoshi’s Island). Defininitely one to get and play eventually – maybe once it’s been out for a few months and getting cheaper etc.