Our Xbox 360 Games

First of all, we are not hardcore gamers. We suck at online multiplayer games. However, we love to play.

Though we have a small collection of xbox 360 games, we have a few favorites. Gears of War 2 made the Saturday nights fun. We usually play it with four players... from 9pm to 7am of the next day.

Before GoW2 was released, our Saturdays were pre-occupied by completing the most notorious game ever made (it's like Team Ninja didn't want players to finish the game), Ninja Gaiden 2.

For racing games, we prefer Need for Speed Most Wanted. NFS Undercover didn't really tickle our need for speed.

And of course, Guitar Hero III (not my personal favorite, but Nuti is good at it), but just listening to the songs and the cranks, and the boooos made the game appreciated. By the way, we played this game without the guitar, just the straight-up standard controller.

Dynasty Warriors: Gundam also made it to our favorites list. It's the latest game we bought.

We love hackNslash games (ie Gundam), and fast-paced shooting with gore, blood, and insides gushing out of enemies (ie Gears of War). Not too enthusiastic with racing and strategy games, but rock and roll with xbox 360 lifestyle, all in all.

Our Labtec 2.1 Speaker

If you live in a 45 sqm. condo unit, a 5.1 or other high volume sound systems are useless, unless you want the neighbors to completely hate you. So we just bought the Labtec 2.1 speaker from Octagon Megamall Branch for our desktop.We also connected it to our xbox 360 to have a feel of the battlefield when playing Gears of War 2.

Soundwise, it has a balanced distribution of high and low pitches that you'll love. Pricewise, it is better compared to other much cheaper speakers, and competitively better than those expensive ones.

Our AOC 22' LCD Monitor

The LCD monitor is connected to our PC (via DVI-out) and to our xbox 360 console (via VGA-out). We bought the monitor for the PC, of course. Who would've thought that after two years, xboxes and pc monitors can be married to each other... or in our case, have a threesome.

Two years ago, when LCD monitors marked the beginning of the end of the CRT era and when every desktop owner drooled in their majestic crystal screens, the AOC LCD monitors didn't really make the first choice among consumers. Samsung and LG outshined it with their sensual and shiny black glass looks, not to mention the overwhelming functionalities where only the manufacturers' engineers understood.

Since 1998, AOC has always been our brand of choice when it came to monitors. We never had problems despite its old age. We purchased our LCD monitor 2 years ago for P13,500 against Samsung's P18000-P22,000. It was a good price during that time.

However, this monitor is just a monitor - not a tv, just a monitor. No speakers nor webcams. It's just a monitor. Since it's one of the 1st generation LCD monitors, image quality is not that bright compared to the newly released ones.

It has a DVI and VGA out, and an s-video out (which until now we have no idea on how to use it).

Yet if you have us choose between AOC and other brands, we will remain AOC loyalists.

Mojo's MS Wireless Racing Wheel

If you are looking for a wheel for your xbox 360 that will blow your crown off your head while playing Forza, NFS Undercover, The Grid, etc., then the MS Racing Wheel is the wheel for you! Enough with the blah, blahs! You'll love this wheel for two reasons - 1] it's the only wheel that'll work with your x360, and 2] it matches the color of your x360 too!

They said you'll have a driving experience with this wheel because of the force feedback. And since we're not as rich as Bill Gates who can afford the new models of BMW and Jaguar with gears located at the back of the wheel, the experience we get from the MS Racing Wheel will do. Minus the regular shift stick, the clutch, the rear and side view mirrors, the experience is close enough.

If you prefer to go wireless, just place a 9v battery and you're good to go. Oh, if you do that though, you can forget about force feedback, it won't work unless you're wheel is plugged in.

Nonetheless, the wheel is still the best in the market for your xbox 360. It could've been way better if there was a shift stick and a clutch (and while we're at it, why not throw in the rear and side mirrors).

We bought our wheel last February from iTech Glorietta branch for P7,000.

Our Western Digital 500Gb My Book

Our PC has 160Gb hard drive capacity - not enough space if dvd burning is just not cool; and we're just too lazy to back up and burn the files. So we bought the 500Gb Western Digital My Book Essential Edition for P5,500 last year (i think the price had lowered already) from PC on Demand in Robinsons Pioneer.

As our hard drive is an external drive - it's not portable - not built to be transported anywhere or anytime. It has a power cord that adds to the messy wiring we have at the back of the PC (not a very nice side of the hard drive). But, we didn't have any problems with it, no connection nor other failures that others have mentioned when they reviewed this item.

We are planning to buy a 1TB hard drive since the current one is running out of space. We'll buy the Western Digital 1TB. First, because the WD items we've purchased so far never gave us problems. Second, the brand is cheaper than the competition. And last but not the least, we like the flash movie in their website.

Our Western Digital 160Gb My Passport

The WD 160Gb My Passport external hard drive is a convenient way to store and transport data - that's what you say when you are marketing this product. But... not for us - the Passport is more of an HD married to the WD TV Media Player. Since the media player doesn't have network connection capabilities (which some of the competition has) the Passport bridged the gap between the PC and the media player.

We got the Passport ahead of the media player. It was too cool to pass up. Besides, it made us look busy - transporting big amount of data back and forth from work to home and vise versa.

We bought the Passport for P4,200 from Robinson's Pioneer PC on Demand. Quite expensive, as we later found out that there are freelance retailers who sell this item for a lower price. But a good buy nonetheless.

Our Western Digital TV Media Player

When we rearranged our entertainment room last December 2008, the PC and the 32' LCD TV were separated 20 feet away from each other. We had a 20-foot VGA cable to connect them both, but instead of giving us a nice PC to TV video streaming, it give us unclear video output. What we had was a weak feed moving through the 20 ft. cable that resulted to a running haze of snow as we watched a Hi Def copy of Gladiator.

After a long search for solutions to this problem (like dvd players with usb readers and amplifiers), we saw this mini gadget called the WDTV Media Player in Cyberzone Megamall. What can i say, it was a genie in a bottle.

It is HDMI ready, has audio/video out, has 2 usb ports, includes a remote control, can read all video, recognizes almost all audio files available. The only downside is it can't read a DTS audio codec.

Though we saw it in Megamall, we bought it from a freelance retail supplier for P5,400 (saved us P1,600, which we used to add to the budget for the xbox 360 Wheel). A definite good purchase.

Our Xbox 360 Consoles.

We bought our 1st Xenon Premium xbox 360 3 years ago from SM Megamall Appliance Center for P27,000. Expensive? Yes. Worth it? Definitely! We got the one from SM because [1] we didnt know what "modified" was (which was a lot cheaper), and [2] SM had a 1-year replacement warranty. The deal worked fine with us because 9 months after the purchase, the console went 3RL. It was replaced by a new one, and the replacement served us another year.

We bought a 2nd x360, a Falcon, with 60Gb hard drive, last November 2008 from Datablitz SM Megamall branch. We decided to buy another console because of the freakin' game called GEARS of WAR 2. We couldn't beat the multiplayer HORDE mode with just 2 players, so we bought another console to system link 2 more players. And true enough, it did the trick. 4 players are definitely better than 2. The Falcon x360 made our Saturday nights alive... and Microsoft P19,000 richer.

The 3rd x360 we bought is a Jasper Arcade edition for P13,000. Relax, there is a reason for this 3rd purchase. The replacement Xenon x360 had its 2nd 3RL last February and we knew that that was its last breath. We couldn't live anymore with just one x360 console, it made the house empty. So, off to Datablitz we went!

We never tried the PS3. We love our x360s and for 3 years we remain loyal to them. An expensive hobby but truly worth the Saturday night (and following Sunday early morning) fun.

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Welcome to our site! Come share with us our thoughts and experiences with the things we bought for our urban house. Enjoy!