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| Does the Xbox 360 still live up to the hype? |
| Sunday, March 19, 2006 at 22:31 by Andy Holliday |
Well, it's been four months since the hugely anticipated launch of Microsoft's Xbox 360. The same launch that was eagerly anticipated by the gaming industry and gamers alike. The same launch that Microsoft bravely pulled off world-wide simultaneously. The same launch that had huge supply problems - ones which we were the victim of and prevented us from giving a timely review.
We thought we'd wait until the next batch of games came out before giving our verdict, and with March being the most active month for new releases since launch, here goes.
Here's an overview on the looks for those who haven't had the pleasure of seeing one yet.
The console certainly looks next-gen, with it's sleek white finish and much smaller design than its older brother. (Let's just be kind about the power pack and say it's well, retro to say the least - hide it behind your TV so noone can see is our advice). Some have criticised the 360 for looking like a mini-pc. You can also stand the 360 on its side like the PS2 although be careful if you move it whilst a disc is spinning - they have been rumoured to scratch the media.
The controller (both wireless and wired) are identical in looks, and have received a slight ergonomic update than their predecessors. The black and white buttons have been replaced by shoulder buttons a la PS2 dual-shock and the triggers have been placed in an apparently more accessible position (although addicts of the Controller S may take a few goes before getting used to the new placement). Oh, and the controller is white to match the console also.
Under the hood: Here's a quick and dirty run down of the specs for those who have been living under a rock for the past year:
Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPU
-3 symmetrical cores at 3.2 GHz each
-2 hardware threads per core
-1 VMX-128 vector unit per core
-1 MB L2 cache
Custom ATI Graphics Processor
-500 MHz
-10 MB embedded DRAM
Memory
-512 MB GDDR3 RAM
-700 MHz DDR
All games support 16:9, 720p and 1080i, anti-aliased
-Customizable face plates (picture below)
-3 USB2.0 ports
-Support for 4 wireless controllers
-Removable 20GB drive
Support for DVD-video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R/RW, CD-DA, CD-ROM, CD-R/RW, WMA CD, MP3 CD, JPEG photo CD (but interestingly no HD media - more on this later).
The console comes in two flavours; the Premium has all of the above with a chrome finished DVD tray and HD Component cables with wireless controller, whilst the core version is missing the Harddrive, HD cables and comes with a wired controller instead of the wireless. The DVD tray is white too.
Misc: Backwards compatibility, is a feature although not in the most reliable of senses; a lot of Xbox games run on the 360 (providing you have Live and the hard drive) but a lot of them won't run. Get yourself over to xbox.com to check out if you want to know more details. Xbox Live arcade is a feature that allows you to download classic arcade games and play against online foes or against the PC, although to be quite honest, this feature is lost on us. For a fairly sizeable fee, you can download a variety of old favourites but 10 minutes on Smash TV made me wonder why anyone would spend their hard earned dosh on a game that would run on a 486 PC having spent £280 on a 360. Especially when you have some far more sophisticated games to pick from (for several times the cost however). I suppose a decent poker game would be a great use of arcade though.
Launch titles: Aside from the severe lack of consoles to meet demand at launch, this was possibly the most maligned aspect of the launch. There weren't really any killer games, no Halo etc. This is another reason for us providing a more in-depth review now. The pick of the bunch were Project Gotham Racing 3, Call of Duty 2 and Perfect Dark Zero.
PGR3 played well, and impressed, although we didn't really consider it to be a true next gen title, we'd call it more of a PGR2.5. The graphics in HD looked better as you would expect but the game ran at a disappointing 30fps just like PGR2, we'd rather hoped that all racers would run at 60fps like even Burnout Revenge on the Xbox managed. PGR3 also seemed to suffer from a resolution problem that none of the other games did - at least it did on our HDTV setup
COD2 is a decent enough first person shooter, and was a more than passable effort at launch, although the online play to be frank, sucked. Our efforts resulted in connection problems (all other games play fantastic online) and the lack of simple features such as hosting your own lobby without restarting a new one each time the game ends, made playing online a chore.
This is where PDZ was much better, the online play was fab whilst the rest of the game was good, but not a huge leap on the previous generation.
A lot of the other games felt rushed - Amped 3 (wot, no online play?), The EA sports games had improved super real graphics, but seemed to be missing features.
New games: the games we've played so far include, Fight Night Round 3, Burnout Revenge, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and The Outfit.
Fight Night - In a word, WOW!. All we'll say about the graphics is just try to play it on a 42" HDTV with a bunch of mates round. This is the pick of the games in terms of graphics (yeah, we know that games aren't ALL ABOUT THE GRAPHICS, but there is such a thing as added realism, otherwise we'd all be playing pong.). It plays bloody well too. I have to say that I'm not a boxing game fan myself, but I am hooked, you do get a bone-crunching sense of satisfaction when managing to right-hook your opponent, and playing against a mate is just plain fun. The controls are very responsive which is a refreshing change for some fighting type games and you certainly won't get very far if you just bash the buttons and furiously flick the sticks. Good anticipation and reactions are key here.
Burnout Revenge - The fact that this isn't a 100% improvement on the Xbox says more for Criterion's coding skills rather than the power of the 360. How they managed to get 60fps and graphics of that calibre running on all three previous gen consoles is simply astounding. Apparently the only reason EA wanted to publish a 360 version is because Microsoft wouldn't release a backwards compatibility patch. Anyway, is it worth buying? Well, absoloutely. I suppose if you've clocked up 30 hours playing the same game on the Xbox, then I'd be tempted not to spend £50 on it, but if you haven't then this is an experience to awesome to pass by. Criterion have had time to tweak the engine so to speak of this popular racer to bring the already impressive graphics up to next-gen standards, and added a new realism to the sense of speed and crash physics to the game. Add to this the online revenge rivals feature and you have a truly exhilerating, white-kuckle inducing, 'just one more go' saying driving game.
GRAW - Buy it, play it, love it. That's all we need to say. Although for the sake of detail, here's just a few snippets as to why you should own this barnstorming 3rd (or 1st if you prefer) person squad-based shooter set in 2013: Awesome graphics....thrilling sense of realism... clever new weapons and features.... unparalleled online play... 400,000 copies sold in the first week alone means that we can't be wrong.... gripping storyline... frightening sound. See you online folks!
The Outfit - Another shooter, this time set during WWII, although perhaps unfair to compare it to GRAW, we can't help feeling slightly underwhelmed. Maybe it's the guns, maybe it's the 'ok' graphics, but if you're on a tight budget, there's no real reason to get it when Ghost Recon AW is out at a similar time. Even if you're not on a budget, Battlefield II Modern Combat promises to be a more fulfilling affair. This game is by no means a turkey but there's got to be better games to spend your wonga on.
Reasons why the 360 will be a success: Xbox Live - Fantastic community base, good support, easy to use, integrated into every game, new features being added all the time.
PS3 Launch - the 360 will have had over a year's start by the time the delayed PS3 from Sony will be available. By this time the 360 should have established a solid user base, developers will have had a long chance to really take advantage of the awesome power of the architecture and Sony will have some catching up to do. Also the price may drop by then to make it significantly cheaper than the PS3 to entice even some Sony fan-bous to get a 360... although maybe not.
Halo 3 - Because it will be Halo 3, the sequel to Halo 2, which was the sequel to Halo 1 of course!
The games (the most important reason) - We had our doubts after the launch titles, but the recent efforts have given us the utmost confidence that the 360 will deliver the killer games that we all hoped for when we first heard of the console.
Why the 360 will struggle when the 'other' consoles launch: PS3 - The PS2 has such a huge user base - and most of those will be more than happy with the PS2 - that it will take a massive faux-pas on Sony's part for the power base to shift significantly. Nintendo's consoles always do well in Japan which is where the American consoles traditionally lose ground.
HD media support - The 360 comes with only a DVD drive which is hardly next-gen and when hooked up to a HDTV (which we all will have soon right?) how will we play our HD films in the future? MS have hinted that a HD add-on drive will be available but this will surely cost a small fortune and will increase the cost of the original price of the console which will defeat the object of it being cheaper. Sony's Blu-ray drive will apparently come as standard with the PS3 (although there have been rumours of an additional charge as Blu-ray costs are not cheap at the moment - maybe they will be by the time the PS3 launches).
The cell processor - We've tried to wade through all the hype surrounding Sony's much laudeded processor of choice. It's super-computer standard some would have you believe, whilst Xbox die-hards insist that it won't run games any better than the 360's architecture. We're not that sure - whilst we certainly don't think it will be 10 times the power of the 360 that some have claimed, it will certainly be exciting to see just how well it performs when put to the test. We've yet to see any games properly in action to form an opinion.
The Revolution - Nintendo always have a hard core userbase and always have a trick up their sleeve (well some of them such as bongos and donkey kong can stay up their sleeve thankyou!). Could Nintendo have something truly special here? Will the new 'ground-breaking' controller redifine how we play games and catch-on or will (like the bongos) they will be a white elephant?
Verdict
Well there you have it, we haven't got a crystal ball, so we can't say for sure how things will pan out in this exciting race for the next gen console crown, however we hope that not just one console will run away with the title, competition is healthy for the industry. We certainly don't think the 360 will whip Sony's behind and beat the PS3 and Revolution into submission, but this time around, the console war promises to be much closer. May the best machine win.
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| I WAS SO HOOKED FOR 2 WEEKS SOLID SO I HAD TO GET RID AFTER PLAYING FOR 13HRS AT A TIME AND HAVE BLISTERS ON MY THUMBS AND A TEMPER LIKE A RAGING DEMON - THE GAME OR YOUR FAMILY MY WIFE SAID. |
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| The funny thing is that the Xbox was actually as powerful, internally, as two PS2 systems... and look who won that battle. |
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| exactly,look at the 3do against the mega drive and snes,so much more power but dident have the games,ps3 could be a lil bit more or less power but sony beter hope they have the earlier grand theft auto or the exclusives they used to have or microsoft will start to take over....microsoft is segas revenger on the sly................... |
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| In a quick response to the title: NO |
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| Xbox will lose. PS2 still has a ton of games coming out. Enough to keep the chunk of the market just waiting until ps3 comes out. I tried the xbox and it was fun for a few months but xbox live customer support left a bad taste in my mouth (tip if you want to quit tell them quit NOW not wait til subscription ends). Im not buying the xbox360 but then again I dont have spoiled kids who will prolly ask for the ps3 as well. |
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| "The same launch that Microsoft bravely pulled off world-wide simultaneously"
Funny about that... I'm here in Australia and the 360 still isn't out yet!
Strangest simultaneous worldwide launch I've ever seen... it's four months later and it's still not out worldwide |
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| YES 360 LIVES UP TO ITS HYPE NO FALSE PROMISES LIKE SONY.....EVEN THOUGH THERE'S A FEW PROBLEM ITS STILL THE BEST.....THE ONLY THING IS THAT IT DOESNT HAVE ALL THE I WANT YET BUT IT HAS GOOD GAMES THATS ALREADY OUT LIKE GRAW....360 WILL AND HAS ALREADY KNOCKED OUT THE PS3...I FEEL BAD FOR SONY FANBOYS SPENDING ALL THAT MONEY AND IT TURNS TO BE GARBAGE....EVEN NINTENDO WII WILL BEAT SONY.... |
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| funny how 360 fanboys are so sure of sonys downfall when the console war hasnt even begun. lets see whos top in a years time, thats the real decided of whos won |
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