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About two weeks ago I received an Xbox 360 for my birthday from my wife. She did a lot of research and got a really good deal on a refurbished machine with an extra controller and a copy of Halo 3. Now, I know that 360s are notoriously unreliable and one might immediately assume getting a refurbished machine is a bad idea, but the reduced cost and the supposed elimination of the red-ring-of-death problem (that’s what they refurbish) made it seem like a good idea.

Once opened I immediately activated Xbox live and went to a store to pick up a game with the 25$ gift card that some friends had given me. I expected to get Gears of War or Crackdown because they’ve been out for a year–I was wrong. The used version of each was pushing 50$ which I found astonishing. It turns out that triple-A 360 titles are holding their value as much as triple-A Nintendo titles (go try to find a used copy of Smash Bros or Mario Kart). The only good game that I could afford was Dead Rising by Capcom. I think it was a launch title and it was still 30$ so I had to pay a little. I’d never played the game before but I know it reviewed well and I trust Capcom with zombies. The game turned out to be great (lawn mower + zombies = awesome), I had a fellow eightandfiver over and we played passing the controller. We also played a little halo but the game isn’t that good to watch and my wife was playing with us and wasn’t a big Halo fan. We actually ended the night playing Super Mario 3 that was just made available on the virtual console–score one for the Wii.

Within the next week I had gotten Bioshock and Orange Box through game fly. I also had Gears of War briefly but there were too many new games to play before I went through the catalog. I sent it back and got Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles (another good Capcom game, this time for the wii, also with zombies). I also managed to throw down a reservation for Rock Band that involved trading in an assload of games to get to the $160 and the last 360 reservation available at the GameStop I shop at.

Bioshock was great, although with Orange Box I had trouble committing to it, I’m sure the significant other and I will get around to it at some point. I put a lot of time into portal and even started replaying Half-Life 2. Damn these are great games. I had trouble playing team fortress 2 because all my multi-player time was going to Halo 3 (also a great game). I really felt like I had in the heyday of the PS2 when we had just tons of great stuff all at the same time (GTA, SSX, Burnout, Katamari…). I was in heaven—and it was during a game of portal just after I got the weighted companion cube that my 360 froze for the first time.

I restarted and started to play Half-Life 2 and got pretty far when it froze again (thank god for tons of auto saves). This time when I restarted the 360 it was flashing red. It was the standard red-ring-of-death that a refurbished Xbox isn’t supposed to get. I know this because the towel trick worked. The problem lies in some solders that fail to connect. The towel trick involves wrapping the console in a towel to deliberately overheat it so the solder expands and connects again. A temporary fix at best.

The real downer was that the next day I got to pick up Rock Band and then leave the house and spend thanksgiving in North Carolina (where I had a marvelous time). I got back on Sunday ready to try the 360 again, with the towel trick if need be, to finally get to try out the killer rock band drums… I couldn’t get past the title screen.

I managed to get a hold of the company that refurbished it and get a return authorization. They were really responsive and allowed me to keep the hard drive and all other accessories. The system is currently in transit to them, they’ve assured me they have a quick turnaround time and that they’ll mail off another system within a day of receiving mine.

I hope I get it soon. I’m afraid my weighted companion cube is going to miss me.