Today I discovered it is possible to solve the red ring of death issue by using rubber (erasers I suppose) in certain circumstances...

It would seem that the problem is caused by the soldering keeping components held together being damaged over time due to overheating. This would cause components to come lose, hence the Red Ring of Death occurrences. It seems the reason why the soldering is so weak is because the EU made it illegal to use lead in soldering, and instead tin must be used in larger quantities. Tin is not as good as lead when used in soldering, and so all sorts of problems have occurred with the new rules put in place by the EU. The rubber could be used to hold the components in place if the soldering had beenweakend.So maybe it isn't completelyMicrosoft's fault that we are seeing so many hardware failures. Oh well at least that's restored some faith in Microsoft for me. Of course I am sending my console away, as using this technique would cause my warranty to expire.

Oh yeah and before you think, "Well that shouldn't effect anywhere but Europe", the console is the same all over the world, so the same problems apply no matter where you live. Seems ridiculous that the EU would just put something like that in place without finding an adequate replacement before hand.

(Note its not just Microsoft that have suffered from this.)

Looks like I have finally experinced the infamous Xbox 360 red ring of death. I seriously thought that being a year after launch the newer consoles wouldnt have these problems. I think its a bit pathetic actually, that they have had a year to fix these prolems, and they failed to do anything about it. I thought the reoprts of the 3 red rings of death were exagerated, they were not! The thing is ive never had any problems with computers before.My PCs although do experience some problems, not on this level. My PS2 and PSP have worked perfectly, despite being thrown around a fair bit. Never had any problems with my Gamecube or any of my Game Boys. Yet i treat the Xbox 360 with so much care, making sure I dont move it when its turned on, making sure i dont tilt the console AT ALL,I make sure its well ventilated. But no matter what I could have done, this would have still have happened. To think that the console was allowed to be released when it was possible for it to have such a high failure rate just makes me mad on so many levels, espically considering Halo 3 has just been launched. And then what makes it even beter is that in order to get a replacement for your console, you need to try and explain your situation to someone who barley understands your lanugauge, and it is sugested that you pay £60 to get a replacement if the red rings of death do not appear! Im sorry but that is ridiculous! If you are experincing a hardware failure THAT IS NOT YOUR FAULT, and the console fails to report an error, then surely that makes it far worse as it would mean the console has failed in 2 areas. I wont have the console back for atleast 2 weeks. Thats 2 weeks off of my Xbox Live that will not be repayed. Thanks Microsoft, for creating a console that feels like its been rushed, and having, most likely, the highest number of hardware failures reported for any one console.

Edit What is up with these random spaces that disapear? I checked this over thoroughly before posting and some how random spaces are missing. Weird.

There was something that really bothered me a few days ago when I was playing Medal of Honour: Airborne. I was playing through the 4th level of the campaign, Nijmegen, obviously inspired from the events that took place at Nijmegen Bridge, and I came to a point where the game cut into a cinematic sequence where a Tiger Tank crashes through a wall, and the mounted machine gun, on the tank, tears through a group of unfortunate American soldiers. One solider gets stuck (I can't exactly remember how), and another brave American soldier turns around to save his comrade from being mowed down by the machine gun. Unfortunately he is shot dead and collapses on the solider who is now even more stuck, as he now cannot get up because the dead solider has weighed him down. As he desperately tries to remove the dead soldier's body, the tiger tank nudges forward at a slow pace, with the solider screaming out for help, eventually crushing the hopeless solider.

Now I think this one video sequence sums up how the creators of MoH feel about the Second World War. It is made quite clear that the Americans are seen as brave, and heroic, where as the Germans are made out to be ruthlessly efficient, and cruel.

This gives the gamer the idea of good vs. evil, which is generally fine in most games where it is not based on real life events where the player fights in a fictional world. However, what troubles me about this is World War Two is not fiction, and life is not as black and white as video games would make out. The fact that these evil, almost faceless villains, are supposed to represent the German army of Nazi Germany, seems offensive to the Germans who died for their country in World War Two, and their families.

There are even more examples of this in the later levels of the game, for example we see these soldiers who wear gas masks, and carry fully automatic machine guns i.e. MG 42s. Apparently the evil scheming Germans have genetically modified soldiers, in order to give them access to super strength. This is completely unnecessary in a WW2 game, and shows that the glorification of the Americans (and I say Americans because it's based around the American airborne only) as heroes, and the exaggeration of the Germans as being evil. This is seen as more important than being historically accurate. Now, I can understand that it's a video game, and some things need to be exaggerated, such as the ability to destroy a tiger tank with a single recoilless rifle (seriously, that's actually in the game!), in order to make the game entertaining, but I feel they could have avoided these moments, that I am sure many Germans would find offensive.

Basically I feel that the developers of MoH are showing a strong bias towards the Americans in WW2, and a small hint of racism towards the Germans.

The reason why I say this is in order to assume that Americans are good, and Germans are bad, you have to assume that all Americans were perfect, and all Germans were purely evil, which was simply not the case. I think the problem here is that the developers are not taking into account the hard ships the Germans faced, as they are only interviewing American war veterans, and not German war veterans. I think this needs to be changed if the MoH series is to be continued, as it is a clear example of the failure of the MoH series to evolve, seeing as this has always been the case in MoH games. However I don't believe the creators of MoH are the only ones guilty of this. Games such as Call of Duty also show hints towards racism (although defiantly not as strong). If WW2 games are to be continued id quite like to see WW2 through the eyes of a German, maybe just once.

If you are sitting in front a computer screen, and are posting comments on a forum, you clearly have nothing better to do, and therefore probably have all the time in the world to type up what you wish to say. So, presuming you have a fairly decent understanding of the English language, why can you not take just a few moments to find spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, before posting?

You could argue that it saves time, and that, "HL 3 is the bst gme eva!" means exactly the same thing as, "Halo 3 is the best game ever!", and that it is pointless to write out the full sentence when it can be easily shortened into short 3 letter abbreviations of the original words, but this can have a number of negative effects for the reader. For a start it makes it more difficult to read for someone who is not familiar with the abbreviations, leaving the post to be ignored as the reader can not understand it. Also writing in this fashion shows a lack of maturity to the reader, which affects the way the reader will look at the points covered in your post, and would cause the reader to disregard the argument the poster is trying to put across in the post.

What people must understand is that a forum does not work like an instant messenger, and so should not be used like one. Forums are for fairly formal arguments in most cases, so we should think and check over our posts before we go on and post them, and we should keep our posts meaningful, asking how someone is, or what they've been up to is not the sort of thing you would expect to see in a forum.

I'm not suggesting that all posts should be grammatically perfect, but even something as simple as putting a capital letter at the begging of a sentence, and using full stops can make a massive difference in your posts, and require little effort to implement.

This is basically a list of all my favourite bits in video games that made me think "wow!", "awesome", or something along the lines of that. Keep in mind that my memory isn't that great, and I haven't played every game in the world. Oh and these are all mostly cut scenes, just because that's how it turned out.

5: D-Day, Medal of Honour: Allied Assault, Medal of Honour: Frontline

Now it may seem a bit of a strange choice, but for me its an obvious one. I love WW2 games, and it was Medal of Honour: allied Assault that really got me in to them, and still remains as one of my favourite games to this day. I own most WW2 fps shooters out at the moment including every Call of Duty (except from finest hour), most Medal of Honour games (but there's been so many I lost count), and Brothers in Arms: Earned in blood (never been that big a fan of BiA, just didn't appeal to me, not necessarily because of the difficulty, and required strategy, but the lack of fast paced action, and use of language.).

But the moment that really stood out the most for me were the Normandy landings in both Allied Assault and Frontline, particularly in Frontline. Both levels were very well presented, and were extremely hectic, from the moment you hit the beach. Frontline took the original level from Allied Assault, simplified it (made it easier), and made it generally more fun, and acted as an awesome introduction to the game. The amount of activity on the ground was quite exciting. You would see soldiers being mowed down, as they made their suicidal run up the beach. Of course, a lot of games designers redone D Day as a playable level, and unfortunately, it was never really as good as it was in Frontline. Oh well moving on.

4: The beginning of the madness, Half-life

It wasn't that long ago when I first played, and completed (well actually I never got the end I actually got to the last elevator leading up to the final boss fight, then the dam thing broke!) half life (I know I am a bit late, but I just had no interest at the time.). I really enjoyed playing it, despite being years late. It was quite interesting to see one of the first games that introduced storytelling through the eyes of the character you play as, a style that has gone on to be used in games such as Bioshock, and it was generally quite entertaining.

But most of the game can be fairly easily forgotten, except the introduction.

At the beginning of the game, you arrive at the research facility where the main character, Gordon Freeman, works. After a cool train ride into the facility where you get to watch co-members of staff at work, you are informed you have to take part in an experiment, which is where everything starts to go wrong. After a little walk through the labs, you arrive at a massive room where the experiment is supposed to take place. You are reassured that it's a standard experiment, and you follow a few instructions on how to perform the experiment. I can't exactly remember what you have to do, but it involves moving something into contact with something else, which causes a rift of some sort to open, and then everything goes to hell. For a moment you black out, and see some weird stuff. You end up in a blacked out room, and surrounded by aliens, and then something else happened. I never really understood that bit, but never mind. Basically when you regain consciousness you find yourself with a crowbar, and there's a lot of crazy stuff going on around you, mostly scientists being slaughtered, which is dark contrast to what you see when you first arrive at the facility. You basically make your way through the areas of the facility you've already been through except there's random aliens and stuff jumping out the wall, trying to rip your head off, and a lot of random scientists being torn to shreds as they try to escape. It's pretty awesome to see, even now. This has to be my favourite introduction to any game I have ever played. And did anyone else find it hysterical when the scientists in the lift fall down the shaft? Call me sick, but I just though that was brilliant!

3. Twist! Bioshock

I won't go into to much detail about this as I don't want to give anything away, because this is a fairly new game. All I am going to say is it's a shock (get it...). It's very well delivered, and is defiantly, for me, the most memorable moment in the game. The only thing that brought it down for me was the voice acting of one character, which is just me really, but then again, I don't know...

2. Helicopter Crash! Gears of War *Moderate Spoilers*

I wasn't to sure to give this second or third at first, but then I remember the exact moment the helicopter crashes down. I was just watching it thinking, "Coooooool!" as it scraped across the buildings, and then across the ground. If you're not sure what I am talking about, I am, of course, talking about the scene at the end of Act 1 in Gears of War, where the helicopter that was supposed to pick up Marcus Fenix and his team, is shot down, creating an epic crash, in an immensely cool cinematic style. I just thought it was great the way all you could hear was the screech of the helicopter as it came in to contact with the surrounding environment. It just looked, and sounded, brilliant! Of course, a large battle is initiated after the crash, where the team has to retreat inside the tomb of something (I told you my memory was bad!), due to being severely outnumbered, but not before Lieutenant Kim is impaled by General Ram (at least I think its General Ram.), which was also fairly cool. Especially when you see Marcus look up, as you see the look of horror in his face, as he watches Ram approach Kim, and execute him, before being pulled away by Dom. It was a pretty awesome moment, and to me the most memorable moment of Gears of War.

1. Metal Gear Solid 3 Finale *Severe spoilers*

This was a fairly predictable choice, but for those of you that witnessed it you have to admit, it was pretty dam awesome! Although I came close to choosing the scene in MGS 2, where Ocelot steals the Metal Gear. I think that deserves a mention.

The ending to MGS 3 is brutally long, and on my first play through, my game broke during the chase cut scene! Stupid Game (retailer) and their pre-owned games! So it took me a while to get the ending, but it was more than worth it. Not much happens at the end of MGS3 really, all that happens is; you deploy charges to blow up the Shagohad, but are spotted, and you are forced into a fight with Solotov, who makes your ammo explode, when you try to shoot him, and all the while the timer for the explosives is running out, and so you need to fight him quickly otherwise you die, you eventually best him in combat, and make a daring escape on a motorbike, and race down a large runway, shooting random guys who decide to get in your way, and unfortunately Solotov isn't dead, and the Shagohad hasn't been destroyed either, and you are now being pursued by the Shagohad with Solotov driving it, while also being pursued by hundreds of other guys on motorbikes, but eventually you reach a bridge, and your annoying sidekick Eva, has a plan in order to put the Shagohad out of operation, you drive to the other side of the bridge, and use your sniper rifle to trigger demolition charges Eva had left earlier, as the Shagohad crosses the bridge, seemingly destroying it. The end. Oh wait no its not! Only half the Shagohad is destroyed, and so you have to fight its remaining half on foot, while Eva drives around aimlessly doing nothing, and eventually, after an intense fight, Solotov dies an ironic death after being electrocuted and setting of his bullets on his chest, and then you hop back on your motorbike, and attempt to evade the pursuers, and after a long shooter sequence, you eventually crash, and are injured, Eva is also injured, after being impaled by a sharp branch, and of course you have to heal your wounds, and Eva's, and then have to make your way through the remaining sections of the forest to fight the Boss, Snakes mentor, and personal friend, however you could alternatively create a time paradox by shooting Eva which is far more favourable, however it does mean you miss out on the epic finale. And I have stopped my stream of extremely massive sentences here, because this is where it really gets good. When you arrive at the Boss, Eva tells you she does not want you to fight her, and she gets a little bit emotional, but snake insists he must, and an epic battle between Snake, and the Boss. But before this, the Boss fires off a nuclear rocket at the Groznyy Grad (don't know if I spelt that right.) base, that you had just escaped from, creating a snow like effect, causing the area to turn white, and explains some of the lose ends of the story, and why she had seemingly betrayed her country. It gets a little complicated, so I won't explain; you've probably played the game anyway. After an intense battle, snake comes out as the victor, and in a very cool cinematic moment, you are forced to take the shot that finishes the Boss off. As soon as you take the shot, the flowers that had previously been white, turn a deep red, which was a very cool artistic effect that helped to build on the emotion of the moment, and made it look more than just your standard, "Ha

Ha, I killed you and won the game!" sort of thing. Very rare, and very cool, and what makes this my favourite ending to any game I have ever played. After the Boss is dead, her horse returns to morn her, and some weird stuff happens, which I could explain, but this is getting far too long, basically what happens after that, you and Eva escape in the aircraft, but as you attempt to escape, Ocelot catches up with you, and a small battle in the back of the aircraft takes place. After a short fight Ocelot plays a game of Russian roulette with Snake, where Ocelot takes his two revolvers and places a bullet in one, then mixes them up, and gives Snake the choice of one. The player then picks one, and must go through the firing of the revolver, until the bullet is fired, however it turns out the bullet is a blank, and Ocelot laughs, saying "that was fun!" then runs away. One of the weirdest and random moments in game history, so it deserves a mention. Then after a scare from Russian fighter jets, Snake and Eva make it out alive, and return to the United States, where Eva leaves Snake, after attempting to murder him (but ultimately failing due to her respect for the Boss.). Snake is then given the title of Big Boss, and hesitantly shakes hands with the president, and down right refuses to shake hands with the director of the CIA (I think that's who he is.), at the ceremony. At the very end of the game, you see Snake saluting an unmarked grave (it says something about being a patriot, but I cant remember what), and shedding a tear. This is an incredible moment, and a great way to end the game. The overall ending is insanely long, and the only way I can describe it is epic!

I am sorry for going in to a ridiculous amount of detail over this, but I feel quite strongly about it, as do a lot of other people who have played the game, but the real reason I wrote this much is, because I found it extremely difficult to narrow it down, sorry if you have had the patience to read this, its mostly ranting.