NFG World

You might remember my recent post, babbling about PacMan CE for the Xbox 360. It's definitely the finest game to come out in recent memory, featuring a casual pick-up-and-play dynamic, a retro appeal thanks to the venerable Pac Man, and it's hardcore enough for the twitch gamers.

It is, in essence, nigh unto perfection.

The problem is the execrable 360 d-pad, which is an affront to all that is good in the world. It 's appallingly bad, the worst pack-in d-pad since the 3DO, which was so bad people used to halfway remove the screws just to make it usable.

So yeah, I had to do something about it.



It was a painstaking operation, but now I can use all my custom joysticks, NeoGeo controllers and even Atari 2600/800 sticks. In fact, I immediately set a hot new score playing with my beloved Competition Pro joystick (seen here during testing).

You can read more about the conversion on my games forum.

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I bought an Xbox 360, because I had to have Gears of War. I couldn't resist the siren call of next-gen graphics and a game by Epic. Epic made Unreal Tournament 2003 & 2004, and that's all I needed to know when I made the decision.

I bought the console, the game, and a year's worth of Xbox Live so I could play online.

My machine started giving me disc errors within a week, complaining that "the disc could not be read" and ejecting my fun. I returned it to the store I bought it from (which was not easy, Microsoft demands an RMA before the consumer returns the device) and have stared at the Gears and Live boxes ever since.

Turns out I'm not the only one who's had this problem. The problem is so widespread, in fact, that gamesindustry.biz says "It is the problem of hardware reliability and customer service, an area in which the Xbox 360 has a track record that is nothing short of utterly appalling".

They go on to say "While the attention of the media may have turned to scrutiny of Sony's failings, the vast numbers of Xbox 360 owners who have been let down first by Microsoft's shoddy manufacturing, and subsequently by the company's arrogant and unfair policies with regard to customer service, have increased."

Microsoft knows there's a problem, they extended the warranty in the US and Canada from three months to a year to accomodate the sheer number of people who - were they left with a dead machine - would certainly go on to create significant negative publicity. They haven't followed suit in other territories, which is why I was unwilling to take the chance with my own console.

It's nice to see gamesindustry.biz make some noise about this - the problem is widespread and MS doesn't seem to care. The Xbox 360 is not cheap, and it pisses me off a great deal that I am unable to play the game (Also not cheap, in Australia) I paid for. Maybe I should pirate my games - the savings might offset the cost of a new console every six months.

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