Well, some of you may still be at least semi-avid gamers (at least, that's the category I would put myself into). What does that mean? It means that, at some point, I realized playing video games 24/7 was bad for my health, and my free time could be put to better use (like developing web applications and animated series, for example). 

 Still, occassionally a game comes out that I am powerless to resist, and in fact get really, really psyched about. Bioshock was such a game. Halo 3 was (obviously) such a  game. Adam Wake, Spore, and Metal Gear Solid 4 will be such games. But the most recent game that fits into that category is Grand Theft Auto IV.

Again, I don't want to bore anyone who doesn't care with the details, but suffice it to say that this game is supposed to reinvent gaming the same way GTA III did on the PS2. We're talking about the most detail-oriented playing experience you've ever had. Sure, that means good graphics, but it also means the people who wander the streets have their own "motivations" and "agendas." It means you can get on the Internet (not the real one, the "GTA IV Internet" that's in the game), which has hundreds of websites, including a version of Craigslist that allows you to go on side missions and find women to go on dates with. Not kidding, you find them on Craigslist, call them on your cell phone, set up a date, then go there at the appropriate time. How's that for detail?

Drive through a fire, and your car tires will catch on fire, what you do and what missions you take will have a very real affect on who's trying to kill you that day (in addition, of course, to who you're trying to kill), and you can even hop in the back of a taxi cab and ride along while the city flows past your window...or, take the subway if you prefer. Or just steal a car. Your choice.

However, the point of this article is not to wax ridiculous about the merits of GTA IV (if you really haven't heard much about it, check it out on Metacritic), but rather to talk about hacking, and the fact that I am powerless to resist it.

Yesterday afternoon, the story broke that GTA IV had been leaked already online. "Hmmm..." I thought. I had never really seriously considered modding my 360, for fear of getting banned from Xbox Live. However, I don't really play on Live anymore, so that threat was not as imminent. And then, the next thing I knew, I was spending 4 hours at work researching what, exactly, I would need to do to play burned games on the 360. Turns out it's not too difficult, you just open up the case, plug the DVD drive into your own computer, and flash the firmware of the DVD drive. It's pretty undetectable by M$ these days, and relatively safe. "Screw it", I thought, "I've gotta do this." After all, hacking is in my blood. I know that the game comes out in like 5 days, and I should just wait...but it's not about getting the game in 5 days, 1 or 20...it's about beating the system. It's about saying to M$ "why the hell not just release the game when it's done?" It's about playing the game earlier than you're "allowed" to. Hell, I'll still buy it if it's good and I want to play it on Live, so it's not even about saving money.

Well, that being said, I went home last night and performed the (somewhat) risky procedure. The hardest part (by far) was getting the damned case off and back on. After about 2 hours of labor, I had successfully flashed the drive. I haven't had a chance to test it on a burned game yet (GTA IV PAL was released yesterday, not the NTSC/US version). But, it plays non-burned games just fine, still, so I'm pretty sure everything is working.

Fast forward to last night. There I was, at about midnight, sitting on IRC in #alt.binaries.games.xbox360 with about 1,400 other people, anxiously awaiting word that the game had been "pre'd" (meaning that it was being uploaded by the group that had cracked it). I had to hit the hay before that announcement came, but I happily awoke this morning to find that it had dropped at about 2:00 AM last night. So, I queued it up on my computer at home, came to work, and at a rate of 600 KB/sec, it will be done downloading and ready to burn by the time I go home for lunch.

I'll let you guys know if it's really as good as they say :).