Yeah, it's free if you buy Trash Panic now (it's $5 for the game). I'm still not sure if I like Trash Panic, but it's at least different from most puzzle games, and a game + truly dynamic theme for $5 is a pretty good deal.

Also found that those Slurpee points increase with the size of your Slurpee. If you buy a large one, you can get 4 points with a single cup. I've gotten enough for the Morpheus skin for Kratos now. Now all I have to do is get the game and beat it once.

Missed that deal when I bought Trine. I'll definitely give Trash Panic and a free theme a buy for $5.

Do you get the free theme if you buy it from amazon? I have some amazon credit and it was kind of fun. Might get it if you do.

I would doubt it. When you buy the game on PSN, the theme shows up on your download list as well. I'd suspect if you bought the game from Amazon and then entered the for your purchase, it would likely be just the game that shows up on your download list, but I don't know for sure.

Decker can you explain trash panic to me? I've watched someone play the demo and i'm still not totally sure what's going on.

Also, if you happen upon more slurpee points at all that you're not gonna use and wouldn't mind passing them on, I'd be grateful. The 7-11 near me isn't participating in the promo. :-(

The best I can describe it is that it's kind of like Tetris, but with breakable objects using the Havoc engine. If you have a lightbulb sitting in the trash can, drop a bowling ball on it and it'll break, giving you more room in the can. You're encouraged to plan and carefully place your trash to maximize the space usage -- Drop things haphazzardly and you'll fill up the trash can quickly and the game will be over. Again, it's nothing specatcular, but it's somewhat entertaining for brief spurts and that makes it better than flOw, at least.

flOw doesn't make me want to break the TV though. Trash Panic's difficulty is pretty much off the charts. For this reason alone, I just don't ever go back to play it.

I'm pretty disappointed in Trash Panic and Trine. Trash Panic is an interesting concept that gets boring quickly and Trine just doesn't seem like a good console port of a PC game to me. Too many buttons and using the R stick to replace the mouse sucks. I should have tried the demos before buying on these two. I would rather play FlOw over either of these.

Just got the YLOD on my three year old 60GB. Sigh. Just turned it on to finish watching The Fifth Element and it started stuttering. I ejected the disc and now it won't even fully turn on.

I think I'll just go the repair route. I know that the warranty isn't as long, but I've got some PS2 games that I want to play and an SACD.

Sucks to hear, Anubis2005X. How long did yours last?

You guys are freaking me out. I believe I was the first on this board with the RROD before anyone knew what it was, yet my 60GB PS3 has chugged along like a champ. I guess I should be setting aside $150 for when that day arrives.

Surprisingly, I'm on my 6th 360 and have paid exactly $0 for all those repairs. MS I can't believe I'm looking at $150 for a single repair of the PS3.

The fact it was your 6th is a slam against MS's QA process, but I guess Windows ME had our expectations set but I completely agree, this YLoD should be a free fix -- but Sony has always had overpriced repair work (dating back decades), so I guess it was expected... It's actually one of the main reasons I avoid Sony for non-Playstation products

I got it in early 2007, so about three years. Wish I had backed up my save files. I was half-way through Bioshock and I had fully completed Assassin's Creed 2. It died just a day before the 2nd DLC, haha, greeeeat.

Now the question is, do I get it "fixed," or go for a new Slim. I have a few PS2 games that I've never played before. Sigh.

As it turns out, the AC2 saves are locked anyway. So even if I had backed it up, I would've have been able to put it on the replacement system. Greeeeat...

But that's not really a point of contention on the 360's design anymore, is it? They've fully admitted the problems and the shortcuts taken and stepped up to the plate to fix them.

Sony obviously has their own QA issues, maybe not as flagrant as MS's, but they're not taking ownership of the root cause here.

That pissed me off. Come to find out that quite a few of the newer releases have locked saves which is a thorn in my side against the PS3 if you ask me. It is my game save and I should be able to back it up if your system is going to crap out on me. It wouldn't be a big deal if we could do a HDD swap but we can't. This is an issue that Sony really needs to address as more gamers are losing their systems to the YLOD due to age. It can only get worse from here. I lost my first 60gb just a month after my two year warranty went out and lost well over 100gb worth of data and game saves. It was painful to put the HDD into another system and watch it be formatted while losing a Christmas video I recorded of my daughter using the Eye.

The only thing they want to take ownership of is your money when you have to get it repaired or replaced with another refurbished unit. It will take a lawsuit for this to happen like it did with their Rear Projection Sets that have optical blocks problems like mine does. They're fixing that tomorrow but I'm sure that it wouldn't have been done without the lawsuit.

So does Sony still not give you back the same PS3 when you send it in for repair?

And what's the deal with locking saves? Trophies aren't retroactive so it can't be that. You don't get cash or coupons for beating a game. So who benefits?

Sony will only give you back your same system if they replace the BD drive. If they have to do a YLOD repair then they will send you someone else's refurbished system. The excuse I've heard about the locked saves is that some hackers are learning how to reverse engineer them to use bootlegged games but that seems like a garbage reason to me. I think that the companies lock them so that you will have to spend more time playing their titles to make up for your loss. All locked saves should have an option to backup your saves to their servers. It only seems fair.

This is true.

6 Xbox repairs: thumbs up
0 PS3 repairs: eye-roll

I wish that my saves could be on some PSN cloud computing dealie so I wouldn't have to worry about losing 'em like this.

This should be required from companies that like to lock their game saves.

Absolutely. Well, I'm preparing for that first PS3 death with all this talk.

5 repairs (I'm on my 6th system) in 5 years. Once a year for $0 > once every 2-3 years for $150(or roughly $50 a year). Considering the PS3 was more expensive to begin with also makes it look worse by comparison. Yes, the 360 is a lemon, but it is a device I can live without for a couple weeks a year if it means no cost to me.

Also, as much as people like to pile on MS for their proprietary hard drive, it's looking even rosier lately with PS3s dying becoming more common. No worrying about locked saves, losing the custom drive you installed with all your personal content, etc. Seriously, that's all this thread has been about lately.