Ready Up

A Surprising Level of Back Up

I’ve just returned from a week in Canada where I saw two very good friends get married. I don’t get the chance to vacation for that length of time more than once or twice a year so its effect on my gaming life always takes me by surprise.

As our resident weekly GTA IV host attended the same wedding and is still in Canada, on Monday night it fell to me to host the usual suspects for a bit of Cops ‘n’ Crooks action. Whilst powering up, imagine my panic when I realised that I’d left everything unplugged and my battery pack was completely drained. Fine I thought, I’ll use the spare… but no, I left that in Scotland after the World Record attempt. My panic returned almost immediately until I remembered that the Xbox 360 controllers come with AA battery packs. I rushed into the kitchen and scrabbled around in the drawers to find no AA batteries and no working rechargeable ones – disaster!

The End is Nigh

But then I remembered the final line of defence: a wired controller purchased at the console’s launch. Back then, I didn’t even mean to purchase one – I foolishly thought I’d found a wireless controller £5 cheaper than everywhere else in the entire country. So this evening I hosted a game on a wired controller with a wired headset; a surprisingly retro experience which brought home exactly how backed up my Xbox 360 gaming set up is:

  1. Two wireless controllers
  2. Two rechargeable controller batteries
  3. Two AA battery packs
  4. A wired controller
  5. A wireless headset
  6. Two wired headsets

I can honestly say I’m more prepared for console hardware failure than I am to tackle a fire in my own home, even with a missing spare battery pack! I strongly expect that most of the people I play with online are in a similar situation and could continue gaming in even the most dire circumstances – perhaps it’s time to buy a spare 3V battery for the fire alarm?

And of course, some AA batteries…

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Anthony

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8 responses to “A Surprising Level of Back Up”

  1. Kat avatar
    Kat

    Ha! That blog made me laugh. I made us go out of our way to get to Maplins so I’d have a back up wire to connect Xbox to router :/ Current wire is absolutely fine :/ 😀

  2. affro avatar
    affro

    I’ll have a look about for that battery back and get it fired off back to you if you want mate.

  3. Lorna avatar
    Lorna

    When in absolutely dire need, you can always plunder AA batteries from the remote…it’s what it’s there for!

  4. The Rook avatar
    The Rook

    I can match your list and a few more batteries on top. Turns out my wired headset wasn’t working when we first started on TLAD modes, quickly switched to wireless which I didn’t think was charged.

    Sadly, I am not so well equipped with the PS3 with only one controller, usually out of power as it’s seldom used, as is the PSP. DS has some battery power left.

  5. Ben avatar
    Ben

    One of my favourite purchases was my recharger kit, always has 8 AA sat in ready to be charged, with two also in my 360 Controller, and two in both the PC keyboard and mouse.

    I’ve plundered children’s toys for batteries at 3am once, thankfully I replaced them before all was noticed 🙂

  6. MrCuddleswick avatar
    MrCuddleswick

    I still use the wired headset all the time. All those that have the bluetooth one seem to often suffer from mic malfunction. I’ve never had any severe problems stem from needing to keep my head within wire distance from my hands, but maybe I’m especially flexible.

  7. Tony avatar
    Tony

    Never send a boy to do a mans job, eh?

    Seriously, I have all of the same stuff as Anthony (oodles of wired/wireless headsets and copious battery packs), but I also have a Play And Charge kit for those completely desperate no battery situations!

  8. DunK avatar
    DunK

    I still want to hug CostCo for selling me 100 AA batteries for £8.99!

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