No, I haven't rescheduled My So-Called Live to run on Fridays, I just got waylaid this week by a torrent of higher-priority stuff. Some of that stuff was reviewing Dark Messiah on the 360, which turned out to be more painful than I'd at first imagined; what began as a somewhat lackluster port devolved into the game critic's equivalent of a towering stack of TPS reports. So there was that, and there was also the tremendous headache that was setting up the custom dedicated server for Call of Duty 4 for 'Spy-Hunter this last Wednesday. I'll admit that I don't really have enough experience setting up dedicated servers on the PC to feel really qualified to do so, and that is undoubtedly why it took me the entirety of Wednesday (I am not joking -- from 9 a.m. right up to 4 p.m. I was hassling with that bastard) to set up the stable wonderland that was our dedicated CoD4 server, set to play only Headquarters as my dear boss Bryn Williams requested.

As it turned out, the trouble I had connecting to the server was due not to any technical issue with the server itself, but because I hadn't updated the individual client copies of CoD4 to the most current version... rookie, I know. At least, that's what the PC folk are probably thinking right now in addition to, "ha, what a n00b... he probably misconfigured his DNS gateway and routed the negative power couplings through the... I don't really understand these people's crazy moon language." Meanwhile, my console cohorts are likely scratching their heads at this entire paragraph and the mere suggestion of any difficulty playing CoD4 online. "What's a server and what difference does it make how committed it is to your game?"

Well, first off, that's "dedicated," not committed, but you'll be forgiven for not even caring, and do you know why? If you want to play CoD4 online on an Xbox 360, you just do it... no futzing with command line settings, no IP addresses and the curious conflicts that go with them, and definitely not one iota of editing config files using Wordpad. It just works and I've never been more thankful for that in my entire life than I am right now. Having seen the other side, I can tell you that you'd better bring your PhD in electrical engineering and your wire strippers (and some fellow computer geeks couldn't hurt) -- things you will never ever need if you just play on 360.

PC configuration fussiness rant = end


New This Week on XBLA

As a semi-new feature of My So-Called Live, I want to give a brief heads-up regarding recently released XBLA titles. This week, we got Discs of Tron and Commanders: Attack of the Genos, two titles that couldn't be more different from one another.

Discs of Tron is a port of the classic arcade game and it definitely plays that way. It's undeniably antiquated, but also endearing for those such as me who wax nostalgic over these oldies. Truth be told, I never played much of Discs in the arcade, so I have to admit that I may be less susceptible to the nostalgia factor and therefore seem none-too-interested in the game.

Commanders is a super-basic turn-based strategy game with tons of atmosphere globbed over every nook and cranny. Set in an alternate reality in which human technology evolved significantly faster than it did in our familiar contemporary timeline, Commanders has an interesting 1920s flavor saturating everything from the art direction to the jazzy, relaxing tunes that play in the background. It's not particularly complex in either gameplay or plot, so it makes for a nice break from the rampaging FPS action that your 360 is undoubtedly most familiar with.