I've been thinking I needed to set aside some time to appreciate Electronic Arts here the post for biting the bullet and supporting Xbox Live. I have been somewhat impolite when discussing the issue in the past, but I'm man enough to admit it when somebody else does right and I'm ready to say something kind if I have to. Luckily, after playing Burnout online, I'm not obligated to do anything of the kind.
First, a parable: I am extremely enthusiastic about nectarines. They're fantastic. Like all fruit, there is definitely something erotic in their presentation. I bought one with the intention of eating it.
When they're ripe enough, no cutting is required. You can just grab both sides and twist - as you might twist a squirrel - and then eat the halves over the sink wildly while the juice runs down your arm. That didn't happen this time. What happened is that though it looked fresh enough on the outside, something terrible had taken root in the core of it. As I twisted with triumph and abandon, bringing a half close to my face, I would see that somehow about fourteen earwigs had been born in the seed, and I had twisted open their dwelling. The fruit was black inside. Earwigs were writhing, falling out, clinging to it. Seeing decay and abundance so juxtaposed I dropped it began to scream as loud as I could. It's an image that stuck with me, and my toes are curling under my desk just thinking of it.
If you think you are getting Xbox Live when you play an EA game on the Xbox, what you are actually getting is the veneer of Xbox Live wrapped around the black and infested core of EA's substandard service. It starts by connecting you to Live, yes, at which point you are shunted into EA's sinister realm of torment.
For the longest time, my Friends List wouldn't come up. If you've been on Live awhile, you rely on that list the same way you would the basic server browser in a PC game. It's that fundamental. It's a top level culling mechanism that lets me know at least one other person in the game I'm about to join isn't a Goddamn reject. Since my friends list was empty, it seemed to me that maybe EA wanted me to completely rebuild my Friends list manually, or perhaps build it out of names they had on their own service. It seemed like a pain in the ass, but I thought that the first step - choosing a lobby specific to a global region, alien to Live - was pretty stupid too, and I acquiesced.
Searching for Gabe, it crashed my console.
I restarted, and this time the Friends list came up. Good. There's a text mail from a friend of mine, no support for 3.0 Voice Mail, but I don't mind typing in a little message with the controller. It then tells me the message was not sent. Not much I can do about it now, I guess. I head out to the lobby and look for games. I get another notice saying the mail was sent, which, I mean, that's awesome I guess. I try to join his game, and get an Unknown Host dialog. About this time, I get an Invite from Gabe. I try accepting it, and after eight failed attempts and no response form the UI telling me what happened I decide to join manually from the list. The game is full, but Gabe turns them out on their ear and I manually join the next one.
Shit like this happens every time I go in there. You never really know if it's going to kick you out after a match or keep you in the lobby. If somebody does get kicked, there's no message identifying it, and everybody just sits there for a while.
Once you get into a game, and provided it doesn't kick you out even if you are the host, it's about as much fun as you can have online - and I know that's high praise. Aside from not being able to save and trade your best crashes (which is a tragedy of epic proportions), the only regrettable thing about Burnout 3 really is EA's perverse multiplayer scheme. That it is worth enduring their fragmented, nonsensical approach to player matching is a testament to its craft and precision.
(CW)TB out.
please don't take a picture
We arrived at the Hospital at six in the morning on September the ninth, having been instructed by our doctor to do so. We were told that they would “induce” Kara which means they juice her up on drugs that piss the baby off so much he decides to just come out. At 8:00 in the morning my friend Brad showed up and by noon the waiting room was packed. Tycho, Pork and Brad got the Xbox hooked up and Played Burnout 3. Robert spent equal amounts of time sleeping and typing up emails on his laptop. Pork’s wife Stephanie and Brad’s wife Trish would feed me horror stories about babies who crap out of their faces and pee from the tips of their fingers like some kind of sprinkler toy. During the twelve hours Kara was in Labor I would occasionally stumble out into the waiting room to provide updates on her condition. It was an incredible comfort to have my friends just a few feet away playing games and joking with each other. Just hearing them out there was enough to calm my nerves.
Back in the hospital room I sat with Kara and her mom and waited. We burned through nurses as they exhausted their shifts tending to my wife. Our doctor would stop by and check on Kara every few hours but things didn’t seem to be progressing. She was having contractions but they weren’t escalating to the point they needed to get to in order to have the baby. So around 7:00 pm our doctor decided to go ahead with a c section.
They wheeled Kara into the operating room and I followed behind scared to death. I knew what a c section was, or at least I thought I did. I imagined the doctor cutting a little hole in my wife’s belly and then gently removing the baby as though she was taking a quarter out of a coin purse. What I did not expect to see was a doctor pulling with all his might on what looked like a crow bar in an effort to widen the incision enough for a second doctor to wrestle the baby out. It was like some kind of WWE event with doctors up on chairs and blood everywhere. I looked up at one point to see a doctor up to his elbows in my wife’s stomach and I just about lost it. Kara was still cool though and I figured if she could handle I sure as hell better.
After what seemed like years I heard Gabe cry for the first time and then I watched them pass him off to a team of nurses on the other side of the room. These guys worked like one of those pit crews you see at a NASCAR event. No less than four nurses weighed, cleaned, checked, measured, and wrapped my son in the space of about five seconds. Then they handed him off to me and that’s when I finally lost it. I sat down with him next to Kara as they sewed her back up and we both just bawled.
Probably the best part of the night for me was the trip back to the room. I held Gabe and walked next to Kara as they wheeled her back to our room. We came out through a set of double doors and I saw all my friends and my parents lined up along the hallway snapping pictures and smiling. It was the first time that I got to introduce my new family to my friends. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt that good or that proud before.
It’s been four days now and we’re back home. Mom and baby are both happy and healthy. Kara and I would like to thank everyone who took the time to send us a mail or post in a forum to congratulate us. It feels like Gabe has about a million happy aunts and uncles out there. I appreciate everyone who mentioned that he was born on the five year anniversary of the US Dreamcast launch. I’m not sure if that’s some kind of sign but it seems positive to me. I’m not sure if he’ll even like video games as he grows up, maybe he’ll be into sports. All I know is that I’m enjoying every single second I spend with him right now and I cannot wait to see what sort of person he becomes.
