The 360 weekend mixed bag

I finally scheduled time this weekend with Dave to crank up our 360s and try some Xbox Live gameplay. I'm obviously late to this particular party--people have been playing Halo 2 for a number of years now and seen how fun it can be. Yes, people, mine eyes were opened. It was great fun, first being able to voice chat prior to the game as well as during the game, and then being able to play either head-to-head (Halo 2) or co-op (Gears of War) with someone 500 miles away. We had some snags trying to do the co-op play in Gears, but it eventually worked, and voice came in handy when I had to tell Dave "help, I'm dead again, come revive me, I'm over by the stone statue."

So, flush with our success, after we ended our session I decided to try out the new downloadable movies on Marketplace. I really wanted to see what HD flicks looked like, so I decided to rent Unforgiven. Now, Penny Arcade had warned me about trying the HD downloads (describing it in inimitable PA fashion as akin to doing something naughty to a porcupine), but that was on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. By Saturday night, the initial download spike should have been over and all would be good with starting the download going on and then letting it run overnight. Right?

Wrong. It failed almost instantly and created a file on my 360 which, when I deleted it and tried the download again, resulted in my getting charged twice for the failed download. It seems to be particularly screwy for HD content, as I then successfully downloaded a South Park episode (the World of Warcraft one) with no problems.

So, hence the mixed bag. Bill giveth and Bill taketh away. I'll try again, but not for a few weeks.