Saturday, August 13, 2011

Goodbye Xbox 360, Goodbye Rock Band 3 (Endless Setlist)

Well, this is it.  I'm currently on my third Xbox 360 and I've taken good care of it...keep it vertical and well-ventiled.  I've had it for a couple of years (which is much longer than I expect) but now is starting to freeze up on me when I'm playing Rock Band 3, especially at the most inopportune times.  Such as when I'm going for a high score on Antibodies X-Pro Keys and IT FREEZES with just 15-20 seconds to go.  I was primed to beat my old score by 50,000+ points and it just FROZE!!!

WWWRRRRRYYYYYYYY!!!!!
I can't keep playing like this so now I must buy a new Xbox 360 if I'm going to continue with my RB3 career.  Oh and my XBL Gold runs out in September.  Micro$oft, take my money!!

Or I can always go through a litany of tests to see if there's any solutions to fix the 360.  Bulls***, I hate this crap.  For the record, I have RB3 installed to my HD plus I had the wireless adapter disconnected.  I'll be back to see if I can fix this bastard.

I'm going to tell you another fun story.  This was on my second Xbox.  In Rock Band 2, there was an achievement tied to a goal called the "Endless Setlist 2."  In this, you had to play 84 songs in one sitting.  From start to finish with no breaks, this would take over 6 hours.  Oh, and there's a special achievement for good players--finish the entire list without pausing or failing and you get an extra achievement, "Bladder of Steel."  I was going to do it on Expert Guitar to knock out these achievements for 125G.

I went through a bit of conditioning...make sure I could tolerate the 6+ hours and pass Visions on X-Tar without failing under duress.  Plus I had to find a good time to do this...during the weekend (I had college at the time, duh)

The first time I did it, and I'm not lying to you, I got to Song 80 (Shoulder to the Plow) without pausing or failing.  The XBOX FROZE DURING THIS SONG.  So basically, I was like, "Nooo, please work, please work," as I caressed the Xbox like that little kid who mourned over Old Yeller.  So six hours of work DOWN THE DRAIN.  Man, f*** the Xbox 360.  I proceeded to towel trick the 360 and mail it in to a repair center right afterwards.  The straw that broke my back...

But the second time I tried again and I did it flawlessly.  And I recorded it!!!



Oh yeah, one more fun story.  As soon as I beat the Endless Setlist 2, my Guitar controller ran out of batteries five minutes later.  Had they run out during the setlist, I wouldn't have unlocked the Bladder of Steel achievement.

Thankfully, there are no long-ass achievements like this in Rock Band 3.

EDIT: Here's how the 360's gone down since I posted this.  First, I tried cleaning out the system cache.  Then I started playing RB3 again and it froze about 20 minutes in.

Second, I backed up as many save files as possible to a USB drive and formatted the entire HD.  Now I'm in the process of getting everything back on the HD (means going thru my Purchase History and re-downloading EVERYTHING off XBL) and we'll see from here if it freezes again or not.  Before I began all the downloadin', I gave RB3 a spin for 10 minutes without any incidents so MAYBE this'll work.

It does beg the question whether or not I can still rely on this console a year or so down the road.  But that's a discussion for another day.

If this doesn't work, then I have few options left...perhaps I should just buy a new 360 and donate my old one to my family (since I'm going to Florida soon).

EDIT 2: Reformatted the whole hard drive and reinstalled all the post Rock Band 3-DLC (because doing the whole library would take AGES).  Xbox 360 freezes after 20 minutes of playing.  Wonderful, just erased my entire 360 HD for NOTHING.  That's it, gotta buy a new Xbox 360.  It's done.  I want to smash this thing with a hammer.

2 comments:

  1. I've thought about this as I had recently moved over my PlayStation 3 to a different area. Previously, there would be times where the system would freeze to where I had to manually shut down the system. Since the rearrangement, only once has the system crashed on me, and that was using the Internet Browser program.

    Anyhow, sorry you had to experience this with your 3rd XBOX 360. Only reason I'd get an XBOX 360 is to spend time with the Forza Motorsport series.

    johnbmarine.blogspot.com

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  2. Don't worry, the least that happens is I have a new Xbox 360 with all my data on it good as new. But it'll cost me $200. Anyway, be sure to keep your consoles in open spaces. I'm kind of jealous cause your PS3 looks a lot more reliable than this 360 piece of trash...

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