Gaming

Since I have created this blog, centered around my old gamertag, I was inspired to fire up the Xbox One, and play some Forza 6.

Wow, it has been a long time, and I moved from a wired to a wireless connection, and damn, that took a lot more effort than I hoped or thought (for some reason, I never did get it to work on wireless, so the Tivo got connected to wifi and its wire went then to the Xbox.)

Of course, since I hadn’t fired it up in several months (yeah, I don’t play that often) there was a major upgrade needed. About an hour later, then having to log in, and use my MFA to re-connect to my Xbox Live account, and voila, I was online and playing.

Since I had written on my other blog about the itch to buy/build a Hot Hatch, I wanted to fire up a hot hatch (in this case, a 1992 VW Corrado VR6) and drive a few laps around a couple of courses.

Then I wanted to get a couple other candidates, a 2014 Golf R, and a 2006 R32 - all Volkswagens.

Fun was had by all.

The hard sell

I had been subscribing to the live pass last year, but since I play infrequently, it was not a good exchange of value for money, so I cancelled the subscription.

I was using it back then, to play Dirt4, an off-road racing game that is different and fun, and a good complement to Forza.

In the intervening gap of time, Dirt5 was released, and I want to play it. Cool. But it is $60 (ok, $59.95) and if I got the live pass for a $1 first month trial, I would get a copy. Seems cool.

Then I read the fine print.

Microsoft is eliminating the “Gold” plan, where for $60 a year, you got access to a bunch of freebies, but also a lot of other benefits. By accepting the terms, I agree to give up my gold membership, forever, and then my only option would be to keep the live pass.

Boo.

If I played more often, it is a great deal. A lot of great games are included, and it is a good value. I will have to see if I begin to play more often. I’m not sure I will be able to justify that $15 a month.

Le Sigh.

But I did get a couple hours of racing action, I “bought” a couple of hot hatches, and did some hot laps and did a couple of ad hoc races.