Xbox 360 Thoughts

[Brian-RN]

I've had my Xbox 360 for almost a week now, and I feel the need share my thoughts. Although this really isn't my style, I'm going to break it into catagories.

Gameplay
Thus far I've purchased Kameo: Elements of Power (which I gave an 8.5) and Call of Duty 2 (which I gave the EXACT same score as Gamespot, 8.8, same catagories and all. Hehe). Obviously, Call of Duty 2 is better, as Kameo was much too short (lasting my roughly 6 hours ). But games themselves don't make a consoles gameplay. The graphics are nice and polished, but in my opinion they look like beefed up this-gen graphics. Yeah, the textures are awesome and the character models are much better, but it doesn't really feel "next-gen"
Yeah, I'm not the first person to say that, but who cares. Kameo especially. Yeah, it looked nice, and the particles were great, but it just didn't feel "next-gen". Eventually developers will harness the 360's full power, but for the time being it really isn't there.


Xbox Live
I was really eager to try this out. I got it set up yesterday as I'm under 18 and need a parent to help sign up. I've played a small amount of Call of Duty 2 and I downloaded the free trial of Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved (which I have yet to play [I'm also planning on downloading Condemned {lets hope my parents don't get e-mails of what stuff I download...}]). Live works very well (although Call of Duty 2 was laggy like none else.) It flows very well and is very easy to use.
Points however are somewhat interesting. You must purchase points from the market place to purchase themes, arcade games and tons of other things. Although trials of games are free, the games themselves cost money. It's a very easy system where players can buy certain amount of points for said amount of money.
Gamer cards are also very cool. Seeing as I didn't own an Xbox, Gamer Cards were new to me (mine can be found in my profile.) It's a very easy way to indentify players and players can be ranked by other player giving them a rep. Players can have as many Gamer Cards as they wish, although if the name has been taken it must be replaced.
Xbox Live Silver is included for free with the Xbox 360, although, and Xbox Live Gold is included for free on the weekend. A free month is included when you first sign up, which is nice. Silver lets players do everything but play games, which is really nice.

Media
I recently purchased an iPod after I got my 360 and was thrilled when I plugged it in and listened to Panic! at the Disco, Fall Out Boy and Ben Folds over Kameo and Call of Duty 2. Although it seems somewhat out of place, it sets the tone of the game. It's also nice when players are just sitting there. The 360 also plays movies and photos from PC or Mp3 player. It also has a TiVo type function called Media Center, which I have yet to setup.
The media is an awesome thing and shows how many things the 360 can do. There are some songs stored on the 20 GB hard drive, so even if you don't have a PC or Mp3 player to hook up it still works.

Console
My 360 has yet to over heat and works very well. It's very sleek and the wireless controller are nice to have. Unlike the Gamecube Wavebird Controllers, the 360 wireless controllers rumble. Although it weighs 7 lbs (yeah, the package was heavy) it's nice. If you have an HDTV you're in for a treat. If not, it's fine. The games still look very good.
Yeah, the power cord is a beast. No doubt there. The cords are very bulky. This system is ultimately very large, probably the worst thing about it (besides the lack fo games right now) and will probably affect its sales in Japan.

Overall, it's very nice system. Although it lacks some games right now and is somewhat bulky, it's a great system. It doesn't really feel "next-gen", but with more games coming out every month, it's sure to get there.

[Jason-RN]

Sounds nice. Based on what I've read about the 360, I've gotten the impression that it's more of a Xbox 1.5. But the new Xbox Live stuff seems very cool.

[Pilgrim John]

Ha ha ha, I'm still not getting one.

[Jason-RN]

zer0 said:

Ha ha ha, I'm still not getting one.

I'm not getting one either, but you have to admit that some of the features sound pretty cool.

[Pilgrim John]

Then let me reiterate:

"Ha ha ha, I'm STILL not getting one. "

[Jason-RN]

zer0 said:

Then let me reiterate:

"Ha ha ha, I'm STILL not getting one. "

Okay, that's better.

[Justin-RN]

I purchased one too and I'm happy with it so far. The system does have its problems though, my brothers Xbox 360 just stopped reading discs and had to send his in for a new one, and mine does this weird thing every hour or so where the screen shakes for a couple seconds and then goes back to normal.

Still, the games I've purchased, including Kameo, CoD 2, NFS, PGR 3, Condemned and PD:Z, have satisfied me overall. None of them are AAA titles, and PD:Z's single player was definitely lacking, but CoD 2 was a great experience and Condemned was the first game to scare me since the original Silent Hill. Some of the upcoming games, including Oblivion, Too Human and Mass Effect look great too, so I can't wait for those.

The controller is pretty comfortable, though the Home and Start button are too close to the X button which leads me to hitting them when I don't always want to. The controllers eat batteries pretty quickly as well.

The Live features are definitely great, and the downloadable demos was a brilliant idea. It definitely gives you an idea what to look forward to, Fight Night 3(which looks amazing) and what to pass on, like the awful 360 version of Quake 4.

[Brian-RN]

<3 Fight Night Round 3. I love that demo to death. Although the controls are somewhat lacking in the easy department (Fight Night Round 2 was much easier on the PS2, IMO), it's a really outstanding game. The graphics blew me away and when you knock someone out! Whoo! Can't wait until it comes out!

[Justin-RN]

whiteninja said:

<3 Fight Night Round 3. I love that demo to death. Although the controls are somewhat lacking in the easy department (Fight Night Round 2 was much easier on the PS2, IMO), it's a really outstanding game. The graphics blew me away and when you knock someone out! Whoo! Can't wait until it comes out!

The demo was definitely alot of fun and pretty much confirmed me getting the game when it comes out. The only thing I don't like is that Hopkins is overpowered in comparison to Jones. Sure Jones is quicker, but in every match me and a friend played, Hopkins power totally overwhelmed him, no matter how fast he was.

Graphically, I agree, it's really pretty amazing to look at and the replays are brutal. The blood squirting out nearly every time gets a little bit old and has unnatural physics at times, but overall the replays are great to watch.

[Brian-RN]

Yeah. The blood in Round 2 was all circles, and now it's a continuous stream.

I kinda look like a fighter for Round 3. My lips all swollen and my chins cut up. Snowboarding = love.

[Pilgrim John]

whiteninja said:

Snowboarding = love.

Sounds more like "Snowboarding = pain."

And on an entirely different note altogether:

(#) \(^o^)/ (#)
WAFFLES!!

[Justin-RN]

I love snowboarding, I wish I could go this year. Unfortunately there's about a 2% chance of that happening and I'll have to wait until next December.

[Dan-RN]

I played some Call of Duty 2 tonight. Graphically, I will say that it looks nicer, but not by much. It's shinier with a few rounded curves, that's about it. The only difference I noticed from any other FPS is that the smoke was done better and some plant life was more detailed. It looks better than most current gen games, I'll give it that, but it still doesn't look truly next gen. It's a 360 launch title, though, so you can't expect too much.

The gameplay was interesting, I'll say that, but I'm not sure that it works in a multiplayer environment. The radar only showing up when someone shoots and having no real reticule makes it more realistic in the single player campaign since it recreates that feeling of war better. When you're playing multiplayer, though... those are useful things to have. Randomly running around the level trying to find someone quickly led to screen watching, and even then we had trouble finding each other since the Moscow level was pretty, well, bland. It was fun, but it wasn't anything special.

[Justin-RN]

herooftime07 said:

I played some Call of Duty 2 tonight. Graphically, I will say that it looks nicer, but not by much. It's shinier with a few rounded curves, that's about it. The only difference I noticed from any other FPS is that the smoke was done better and some plant life was more detailed. It looks better than most current gen games, I'll give it that, but it still doesn't look truly next gen. It's a 360 launch title, though, so you can't expect too much.

The gameplay was interesting, I'll say that, but I'm not sure that it works in a multiplayer environment. The radar only showing up when someone shoots and having no real reticule makes it more realistic in the single player campaign since it recreates that feeling of war better. When you're playing multiplayer, though... those are useful things to have. Randomly running around the level trying to find someone quickly led to screen watching, and even then we had trouble finding each other since the Moscow level was pretty, well, bland. It was fun, but it wasn't anything special.

I'll agree with the graphics, but I found Call of Duty 2 to be a great game. The single-player campaign was action packed and crazy throughout the course of the game, and the sound was definitely nice.

I've had a blast with multi-player so far. I find the radar setup to work perfectly, and while screen looking could be a problem(as with any split screen game), I play with a group of people who don't typically cheat like that. The down side of course is that the Live play isn't all that functional, and is just overall weak, and the system link setup only allows one player per Xbox 360, so know four on four matches with two TV's and two 360's.

One other problem, which is a huge one, is that the game has a tendency to erase all of your progress on the single player campaign. This happened to me multiple times. Luckily Activision released a code to unlock all stages. Still, it's definitely lame that such a horrible glitch is in the game.

[Pilgrim John]

I've only played a demo of Call of Duty 2...

I believe Elements when he says that it's really not all that special. It played fairly well, like a current-gen game. It even had that "current-gen" smell to it. For an X360 game, its graphics aren't really superior to the current gen's, a la N64 and PSone to the SNES and Genesis... Resident Evil 4 looked just as good, if not better (Yes, I am including the graphically inferior PS2 version) than Call of Duty 2.

But even so, it IS still a bit too early in the cycle to label the X360 a success or failure. I recall lots of people labeling the DS a flop like, a month after its release... And we all know how that ended.