Thursday, March 15, 2007

Wanting New Features.

So my friend Spencer came to visit from Tulsa, about a 3 hour drive. We first decided to play some TMNT 1989 Arcade on XBLA. I was hoping I could start an online game, and invite him in as a guest... no such luck. So we play co-op offline. We did indeed have a blast, but having 2 others in would've been fun.

After we beat that, we decided to hop into some Gears of War action. Getting two players in online is no simple ordeal. After hassling about for about 10 minutes, I get into voice chat with a friend of mine. He takes me through my paces, and nothing works, I've been doing it the same. So I delete the "Player 1" account we made for him to sign in on, and we still don't get a "Guest" account. So I deleted my girlfriends Silver account, we try again, and there's the "Guest" log on. I call that a hassle. I don't want to have to remove all secondary accounts just so a friend can play.

We play that for a few rounds, realize playing split screen sucks ass, and decide to move on to Crackdown. I can easily see why Crackdown would be near impossible. But you know what a great feature for the Xbox 360 would be? Being able to have dual screens. I know it's probably more technical than I'm thinking, but it would be awesome if you could have one Xbox 360, two TV's, and some proprietary cable to allow Player 1 to have a Player 1 screen, and Player 2 to have a Player 2 screen.

When we were playing Gears of War, we constantly got accused of "screen peeking". Which is looking at the other person's screen to see what's going on. This is frowned upon in the gaming community for obvious reasons. I find it unsporting on many levels, and it takes the fun out of it. As my score chart continued to show a straight row of zeros, or "donuts", I was also accused of glitching... if I was glitching, I wouldn't have donuts.


Anyways, on to news in my life. I'm anticipating the release of Guitar Hero 2 for the 360, and as stated earlier, Spencer is here. He's actually playing Crackdown right now. He's wanting to move back to Joplin, which I hope he does, he's apparently not enjoying Tulsa. He already has a guaranteed job if he moves back, he'll just need a place to stay. I would let him stay with me for awhile, and he could also stay with his aunt, and I'm pretty sure his grandparents live here as well. When he gets his tax return he plans to buy a 360 and see about coming to Joplin.

I certainly hope he does. I don't have much going for me in the friends department. I'm a parent now, and everyone has decided that since I can't go out and party and cause trouble on no notice, that I'm not worth hanging out with. Spencer's not like that, he applauds my efforts at being the best parent I can. We share interests, such as gaming and technology. Unlike my other friends, who have decided that since they don't want to hang out with me anymore, they want to be involved in everything else, making it even harder to spend any time at all together.

I'm not some introverted nerd gamer that has no friends, they abandoned me after th birth of my daughter. To hell with them, they're obviously not real friends, and I can do better. I know, "If you can do better, why don't you have friends?" To be honest, I don't have time, I spend my time working, with Olivia and Ashley, and I use what little spare time I have to relax, game, and catch up on what's happening in the world. I live in Missouri, southwest Missouri to be exact, the people here aren't exactly technologically inclined. I know people that wish rotary phones were still around.

I do have a large group of online friends, with a gaming community, it's not just a gaming community, it's a large family. They may not be around to give me a ride if my car breaks down, or loan me some cash if I come up short on bills, but they're right beside me when I'm having family troubles and need someone to talk to, they're around during the Christmas gift exchange. If I'm nervous about a big life change, they're there for support. When I'm kicking back, enjoying a good game, we're all chatting it up. We schedule several meet-ups every year. One is for the entire community, others are more locally based. They're some of the best friends I've ever had.

Don't point it out, I know exactly how nerdy that sounds. Well, it is now 4:00 am and I'm beat, I have to work tomorrow... later today... whatever it is. So I will leave you with this question.

What makes a friend? Is it the time you spend together physically? Shared interests? Support in hard times? What exactly is it?

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