Well, the community on GS has been degrading slowly this past year after the hole Jeff ordeal and I had also joined a union. Big mistake. I become officer in a day there and than there's a telegram every single day which is very annoying. So, I'm quitting GS and going to GB. It's community is better there and it fun editing pages not just reading them.

GG Gamespot, GG.

As of late, I have been having problems with my brothers Xbox 360 and the read ring of death. It all started way back in May when he first got the red ring of death every week or so, than in June becoming more frequent, coming to the point where it no longer worked. I had tried the towel technique, I had tried every fix that didn't include voiding the warranty. Until, I decided to open it up and take all of the casing off. I fiddled with it for hours and finally got it off. Than it worked perfect. Until a few days later, the xbox had been damaged so much from overheating the past few months that taking off the casing and giving it lots of ventilation just didn't work anymore. So I am here, to talk about the Red Ring of death.

What is the red ring of death? (RROD)
The red ring of death is when the Xbox 360 runs into an error. The causes vary from being mild (AV Cable not plugged in/detected or power outages) to extreme (Overheating due to a lack of ventilation)

What do most users do when their Xbox 360 gets the RROD? If they have the internet and look up the problem on a reliable website. Well, now that you know what it is, what do you do? Well, you can try unplugging the 360 for 5 minutes and than plugging it back in, or you could choke it with towels. It's been 2 1/2 years since the Xbox 360 was released.

Time to look at how many people this affects...

After a quick google search of "Xbox 360 Red Ring of Death" my search had 61,900 results. This is only for the red ring of death, this doesn't include all of the other problems like freezing, disc errors for no reason and other things. Now if you search "Xbox 360 Problem" you get 179,000,000 results. 180 million pages on the internet about the Xbox 360 sucking.

I would have expected this problem be fixed by now, but it isn't. In fact, they aren't expecting RROD-Free Xbox 360s until sometime near New Years. Great! So if you get an Xbox 360 at Christmas/Chanukkah/Whatever you celebrate, send it back. It's for your own good. Keep the games but don't open it and send it back.

So what will I be doing with all of my spare time without an Xbox 360? I will be playing games on my Wii/DS/GBA/PS2/ Other consoles that don't break after a year. It wasn't my Xbox that broke, but it does take a toll on me, I had Rock Band ($160), Skate ($40) and Forza 2 ($60) Totalling $260+ dollars wasted on sometime that I can't use. Smooth Microsoft. Now lets look at how you are doing!

This is a walkway to a cafeteria in Microsoft Co. Why can you afford that, but can't afford to keep a $400 piece of crap working?

• Difficulty: Just Right
• Time Spent: 40 to 100 Hours

Mario Kart DS Boxart

The Mario Kart series is one of the successful Mario spin-offs, all Mario Kart sales totaling over 48.18 million. (This does not include sales on the Virtual Console for Wii) Mario Kart DS is the fifth installment in the series and is the first Mario Kart to be on a hand held system. Mario Kart DS is also the first game to take advantage of the Nintendo DS Wi-Fi capabilities.

Rainbow Road, one of the re-occurring tracks in Mario Kart

Mario Kart DS is a Kart Racing game featuring all of our favourite Nintendo characters, including Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Bowser and many more. The game contains 13 characters, four of which, are unlockable.

The single player aspect of the game has 5 modes you can play in:

In Grand Prix, (the main 'story' of the game) you pick a kart, a character, a kart and finally a grand prix. There are 8 grand prix's but only 4 are unlock-able from the start of the game. In each grand prix there are four tracks, the object is to place as high as you can to get points, at the end of all the races, the points are tallied up and if you are in the top three you unlock a new grand prix.

In time trial mode, you try and get the best time on a chosen track, you can try and beat the ghost time. A ghost time is when you race on a track for the first time, than it creates a ghost, and you can play again and try and beat that ghost. There is even a staff ghost which is really hard to beat!

Modern Day Rainbow Road (Mario Kart Wii)

In versus mode, it is basically a free race, you can have teams, you get to pick the course, etc and you get points as you keep racing. The good thing about this, is you can keep race infinity tracks and still not be done racking up the points.

Battle mode has two different games, first, balloon battle. When you begin balloon battle, you have two balloons and can blow into the mic to get a maximum of 3. When you get hit by an item, you lose a balloon, the object is to survive the longest. The next game is Shrine Runner, in this game, you go around collecting Shines, when you get hit by an item, you lose a shine, over time, people with less Shines will get booted, the object is to stay in the game for the longest amount of time. Both games have a team option.

In the final mode, mission mode, you are given tasks, once you complete 8 tasks, you have to defeat a boss. This is probably one of the best modes in MK DS because the objectives vary from driving through gates in order to performing power-slide turbo boosts.

The graphics in this game are amazing, you can see everything from the tire treads on the racing karts, the audience in the crowd on some of the tracks and there is lots of detail on all of the karts, but, the graphics are lacking on the touch screen, everything is pixel-y and looks ugly.

The sound in this game is okay, sometimes you can tell that the DS is doing this game no good sound-wise but other times you can hear everything from power-slide turbo boosts, items hitting the track and much more.

The multi-player features are fun, but there is nothing to separate the two things, they both feel like one mode, except now you can talk to people while doing local wi-fi and playing against a real player makes it harder.

I have not tried online, but if you don't own wi-fi, after you log about 100 hours on this game, it will get boring.

Overall, this game is just a graphically updated version of the older games with a few new items and characters, with little-to-no touch screen capabilities. But if you are looking for a good racing game on the Nintendo DS, you've found your game.

GS Score: 7.5
Real Score: 7.8



Please post a comment here in my blog and rate it thumbs up or down (truthfully, please) at the link below.

http://www.gamespot.com/ds/driving/mariokartds/player_review.html?id=587827