Xbox 360 Review
Currently sitting on the fence...
I had a quick play with an Xbox 360 today in my local
Game store. My first
impressions are that I'm undewhelmed unfortunately.
:(
Firstly, the looks; It is 100 times better looking than Xbox 1 (not hard though eh?). The white finish is classy without being to pretentious, it will appeal to kids without looking like a fisher price toy and its pretty gender flat, I'm sure Steph would like the look of it anyway. Its worth noting that MS will release makeover kits for it as well, so the Japanese domestic market versions will no doubt support a "Hello Kitty" livery to keep the Jap businessmen happy.
Ok, looks do not a console maketh so on to rest of it... Size wise its like a chunky PS2 especially sat upright like the demo one was. One frustrating trick MS have pulled is to move the power supply out of the case and into a brick, Nintendo did this with the gamecube and it was inconvenient in that form factor, but its down right unacceptable in something so large as the Xbox.
The controllers feel comfy, they look based on the Xbox 1 rev 2 controllers and MS have removed the oversized, overshiny badge from the centre - hurrah! In its place is a little (pressable) Xbox button... very snazzy. Also the unintuitive white and black buttons have gone.. more marks Microsoft! Oh, and they're wireless too, things are looking up!
Onto storage, the version we played had the hard drive as standard. Arguably worth the extra £70 if you plan to play legacy games, but its value is questionable if you only want to play Xbox 360 games which don't require the drive as standard. It looked nice though with "HDD" emblazoned on the top in chromed plastic.
Surely a massive oversight was to only include DVD media when the competition is going to include Blu-Ray (with its 25Gb capacity)? Time will tell, but with home entertainment going next gen optical it seems a little backward.
"Enough blathering Tom, what about the games?" I hear you cry... Hmm... It was all going so well until I played the games. The demo kit we played had a playable demo of King Kong which to be honest was pretty awful, it didn't look next gen, it played decidedly choppily and I don't understand why MS included on the disc. Maybe nothing else was ready? Whatever, its a bad advert for Xbox. Also on the disc were videos of Project Gotham Racing 3 which looked fast and pretty but a bit samey and lots of hard sell for Xbox live (now in three different guises, bronze, silver and gold).
I'll reserve judgement on Xbox 360 until I play more games on it, but will I be queuing up for one on launch day? doubtful. Its too cold for a start. ;)
Firstly, the looks; It is 100 times better looking than Xbox 1 (not hard though eh?). The white finish is classy without being to pretentious, it will appeal to kids without looking like a fisher price toy and its pretty gender flat, I'm sure Steph would like the look of it anyway. Its worth noting that MS will release makeover kits for it as well, so the Japanese domestic market versions will no doubt support a "Hello Kitty" livery to keep the Jap businessmen happy.
Ok, looks do not a console maketh so on to rest of it... Size wise its like a chunky PS2 especially sat upright like the demo one was. One frustrating trick MS have pulled is to move the power supply out of the case and into a brick, Nintendo did this with the gamecube and it was inconvenient in that form factor, but its down right unacceptable in something so large as the Xbox.
The controllers feel comfy, they look based on the Xbox 1 rev 2 controllers and MS have removed the oversized, overshiny badge from the centre - hurrah! In its place is a little (pressable) Xbox button... very snazzy. Also the unintuitive white and black buttons have gone.. more marks Microsoft! Oh, and they're wireless too, things are looking up!
Onto storage, the version we played had the hard drive as standard. Arguably worth the extra £70 if you plan to play legacy games, but its value is questionable if you only want to play Xbox 360 games which don't require the drive as standard. It looked nice though with "HDD" emblazoned on the top in chromed plastic.
Surely a massive oversight was to only include DVD media when the competition is going to include Blu-Ray (with its 25Gb capacity)? Time will tell, but with home entertainment going next gen optical it seems a little backward.
"Enough blathering Tom, what about the games?" I hear you cry... Hmm... It was all going so well until I played the games. The demo kit we played had a playable demo of King Kong which to be honest was pretty awful, it didn't look next gen, it played decidedly choppily and I don't understand why MS included on the disc. Maybe nothing else was ready? Whatever, its a bad advert for Xbox. Also on the disc were videos of Project Gotham Racing 3 which looked fast and pretty but a bit samey and lots of hard sell for Xbox live (now in three different guises, bronze, silver and gold).
I'll reserve judgement on Xbox 360 until I play more games on it, but will I be queuing up for one on launch day? doubtful. Its too cold for a start. ;)
Posted: Tue - November 22, 2005 at 02:01 PM
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Published On: Apr 03, 2006 03:09 PM
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Published On: Apr 03, 2006 03:09 PM