Review: Xbox 360
 

I wasn't so sure if this should go in the other thread or not - if you moderators think it should, feel free to merge it...


Well, I see that is had been out a couple of days now and noone has put up any reviews that I saw - so either noone managed to snag one, or you're probably still playing it.

I picked one up on the 21st at midnight, and here are my initial thoughts...

The actual console is pretty cool. You can turn the console on and off via the controller, which is spectacular. The menus on the 360 are easy to navigate, and when you play music, the visualizations look incredible (High definition, full screen, no clunkiness)

The boot time, however, is ridiculous. I didn't time it, but it takes longer to boot once you turn it on than any other system ever has - and it seems like it takes that honor with quite a wide margin.

I also picked up Perfect Dark: Zero and Condemned.

Ah, Perfect Dark. I had such high hopes for this game... It isn't bad, but it isn't great either. The graphics in some parts of it look spectacular, other times it could pass as a regular X-box game. As far as the gameplay goes, single player seems alright, but nothing great. Multiplayer is alright as well - the bots, just like in the first one, add a nice touch. The Load times for this game are absolutely horrendous though...

Condemned has a pretty neat concept - 1st person shooter, but a lot of it's melee. The graphics are pretty darn good - high rez textures all around. I would compare it to Half-Life 2 on a higher end computer. As far as the game itself, I imagine a lot of people could love it - I'm not a huge fan myself, but that's because it has very Doom3eske lighting. Fortunately, you can have a flashlight and a weapon out at the same time...

So, anyone else have any opinions on the 360? Or games? Which one would you recommend I pick up next?

Soup... I pre-ordered one and was a little disappointed about the push back of Elder scrolls and the fact of Gears of War won't be out until March as well. So...since my kid brother didn't pre-order, I let him purchase mine.
To me, it's still about the games, thus far, at least in my genre, I find the system lacking. So... when they present me with the must have game...I'll plunk down my four hundred bucks.
Til then- It's just a large and expensive paper weight. Albeit, one with a great amount of potential.

$.02

I'm hearing that a bunch of 360's are crashing. I saw an article on slashdot about it. Any direct experience of that here?

There is a store front shop around the corner from my office that is running sample 360s for anyone who wants to try it out. When my son and I were there a week ago the machine crashed twice while we were playing...

The guy mumbled something about the firmware being pre-release. I didn't buy the excuse.

My son, really, really wants one for Christmas. I explained price drops and first release bug issues to him. He sees the logic of waiting for a year or so.

I saw approximately 15%, somewhere.. it might've been the Slashdot article.

Still, 15% of people who paid $400 for a crashy console? Rut ro..

Well, I decided to wait in line for 15 HOURS and it was a good time. The console is amazing. Excellent graphics, the new Xbox dashboard is fantastic and xbox live with the the new marketplace is very cool. I picked up 3 games at launch, Need For Speed-Most Wanted, Perfect Dark Zero and Call of Duty 2. All excellent games, looking forward to the new games coming out next year.


V.

http://live.xbox.com/member/Valek419

Can someone time the boot-up for me?

I feel a humerous article about loading times emerging in my brain...

That’s what I've been seeing around the 360 board on gamefaqs. I’ve been hearing people been getting the blue screen of death. Anyways, what did you expect from launch councils? As a gamer, I've learned that you don’t buy the launch council. They are the most glitchy and unstable piece of equipment. I’m going to wait until the 2nd gen are shipped. Those aren't expected until feb or even until July.

From completely off to turning it on with the wireless controller, its like ~40 seconds to load up to the menu of NHL2k6. I don't find that to be too bad, and thats from the initial pressing of the xbox button on the controller, and I'd say it takes 3-5 seconds for the xbox to realize whats happening.

Anyways, yea I also tailgated with a bunch of friends in the 35 degree weather outside bestbuy for 16 hours, and so far it's worth the wait. I just wish that Morrowind wasn't pushed back as I was forced to get 2 games that I really didn't want, but hockey is always fun. Stupid Bestbuy package deals, whatever. The wireless controllers are badass, even if they cost 50 bucks and that doesn't include a battery pack. Regarding that, has anyone tried rechargeable batteries instead of the pack? I was wondering if those would work, save me like 20 bucks or whatever the charger costs.

Call of duty is awesome, quite impressive and it's really smooth from what i've seen so far. Tiger woods is pretty fun, did some 4-player for a few hours last night. Madden is really different from the 06 on the xbox, but its pretty cool. Nba live '06 isnt bad, I just wish that they would have left in the rest of the shit that the xbox release had, but whatever. And NHL 2k6 is pretty good, i've been playing that most I would say. All in all, I'm impressed, I just really had my sights on Morrowind, but I guess I'll have to wait hah.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4466688.stm

I know some people have already mentioned this, but it doesn't surpise me at all from microsoft. Does anyone have that picture of the CTRL-ALT-DLT pad that was going round ages ago? lol.

Count me among those glad not to have dumped half a grand on this thing (though hindsight shows I could have killed on eBay)

yea.. eBay wouldve been the only reason i woulve gotten this.. nothing about this system amazes me... PS3 impresses me.. the game lineups and the power of the ps3 impresses me...

But I like the Revolution.. the controller feels like imma like to play the games on it.. altho i think like most Nintendo systems of late, it will have limited 3rd party support and some sort of fatal flaw,, :(

hmm.
 

360: 1 teraflop. PS3: 2 teraflops Nintendo whatever teh hell they decide to call it: TV remote controller.

you make the call.

People making generic, rather meaningless statements? Priceless.

How many teraflops does it take to make a game fun, my friend?

2... probably 2... maybe 1 teraflop will do.. but anything less than that... haha.. jeez, can you even call that a game?...

but.... what's a teraflop?.. and why is it angry? who says the 360 had a teraflop? who said the PS3 had 2?... and what does it have to do with Nintendo's awsome controller?.. huh?

hell no!

A games console should buy itself, plug itself in and load up, the only thing should have have to do is admire the graphics, screw the gameplay, it's not there to do that, it's all about the pretty pictures.

I finally was able to get my hands on a 360 Sunday, I've been playing it alot since.

Call of Duty 2 is fucking amazing, I am glad I didn't pickup the PC version. I am about 50% done with the Campaign and the AI is fucking smart as hell on Veteran. I have only played Multiplayer 5 or 6 times but I really love the new Xbox Live interfaces.

Project Gotham Racing 3 has spectacular graphics and some awesome new cars. The gameplay is pretty much the same as 2 with new tracks. The Online component is what really makes it stand apart from titles like Gran Turismo 4. You can watch other people compete on PGR TV over LIVE and the ranking system makes finding opponents online with your skill level easy.

As manager of my store, of the 1000s of XBOX my company has sold we have not had a single return, so if people are unhappy with their machines they aren't having bad enough problems to warrant returns.

My 360 doesn't even get luke-warm so I'm not sure about all of those reports about crashes and overheating. Looking at the console and how its designed with the fan blowing out through the top I probably wouldn't reccomend anyone lay it flat or put it in a cabinet.

As for all of the PS3 talk, good luck waiting until next christmas to pay $600 for one. YEP, $600.

I'm waiting for a ps3.. and hell no im not payin 600 bucks for it... i hope its not that expensive.. but im done payin that kind of money for a console.. bleg.. imma try that freeps3.com type thingy.. if that dont work, i guess im not getting it..

besides.. im in no hurry.. my current ps2 xbox and gc library's still full of games...and WoW'll keep me busy :D... unless the new MVP comes out.. and i really wanna play it... and the ps3's not out...

gah i wanna new baseball game :D...

Altho... if the games are goin up to 60... ugh... ... ...

sigh...
(illegal downloading is bad! illegal downloading is bad!)
sigh...

no MVP next year. EA lost the MLB rights to 2K sports. MVP will be a NCAA college baseball game in '06

Isn't this something we should be protesting or even boycotting? We shouldn't allow corporations to tell us we have to buy a bunch of crap if we want what we really want. I'm not saying they don't have a right to do it; it's a capitolist country. But we should exercise OUR rights to boycott that bull**** mentality.

I've personally been waiting to decide whether or not the 360 is worth it. It's the games that make the system and as of now I've yet to be impressed. Call of Duty2 is great but I've got that on my PC. I'll get Morrowind for the PC also. Other then Kameo, Project Gotham Racing and CoD2 I haven't seen any other attractive games. If you have any other recomendations for good games on the 360 I'd love to hear about them.

I kno :D.. but I'm still excited.. I wanna hear the CLING! :cool: