XBOX 360 Impressions Topic: Will update tomorrow with ZH stuff

M

Morpheus

CAGiversary!
Post your impressions when you get it.

I got my 360 in the mail earlier this morning. Here is a warning:

***Warning remove clear sticker from disc tray before trying to open it.***

Here are my impressions:

The box was heavy when I picked it up. They sure packed a lot of stuff into a small box. Right when I opened it my 360 is the first item I saw. Below it were the instructions and a cover tab that you could lift to reveal the wireless controller, remote control, headset, batteries, ethernet cable, and HD/Standard combo cables. Lift up the other half and you got to see the notorious power brick. The power brick wasn't as big as I imagined it when I saw the pics on the net, but it is still huge. Everything was individually wrapped in plastic bags of varying colors. Only gripe about packaging was that the cardboard cover was really the only cushioning for the 360 on one side.

Hooking it up was easy. Turning it on I went though some typical setup menu. I couldn't get on to Live since my broadband connection is down. I'll report on that on Friday when they come to repair it. The HD is packed with a few songs, a few trailers, and Hexic. I played one game of Hexic and already unlocked three of the achievements. It was alright. I then played some Halo 2 to test the backwards compatibility. It worked fine, but on the intro movie the sound was skipping/broken and the cutscenes would pause every now and then. I'll wait to judge it further when I get to download the new emu for Halo 2.

Well, I didn't get to play any games, because I have none yet. The games I won are shipped seperately and I might get some later today or tomorrow. I'll be sure to report back on that when I get them.

All you need to know about the controller is that it rocks, is tiny, and is comfortable (even for someone with big hands like me).

I'm impressed so far by the dashboard. There is a lot to do with just that. I'll give my impressions about the hardware once I get to test the games.

About the warning above. I hooked up my console and everything. On the dashboard is an open disc tray option. I clicked it and heard a bang like disc tray trying to open but stuck. Turns out the jackasses put a clear sticker over the disc tray. Just make sure you remove it before you try to open it. I don't think CORE users have to worry about that. I think it was to protect the chrome detailing.

I'll put an update tag on the title of this topic when I update it with more info.

Update One:

Wow!!! Just got off of PDZ. Its good so far and looks gorgeous. I have to get used to aiming since I think they use a faster setting than what I am used to on Halo. Theres lots of action and not enough ammo. I ran through a stage and beat it without any ammo for 1/4 of the journey. PDZ so far has lived up to my hype. Only gripe I have is that there is quite a bit of tearing when you look around. Its noticeable. Other than that great FPS.

Oh... and I made a Live game but no one was on.

Update Two:

Still haven't gotten anyone on multiplayer, but I did beat another stage. This stage had no tearing. It had a huge draw distance and there was some stealth parts in it. I also got to use more of the gadgets. The game looks great. The enemies are pretty damn smart. There was one point where I was firing on a group of enemies and had to reload. One of the guys then yelled out "She's reloading get her" and they came out full blast firing on me. Another part I was firing on another group of enemies and a guy snuck up behind me and sucker punched me. Its turning out to be great.

I also got to use the marketplace now. I downloaded a demo and a few trailers. Demo was around 450mbs and trailers are around 99mbs. I also found out to change your live account name it costs 800 points ($10). They also added a few arcade games. Gauntlet is on it and you can play four players over live. Gauntlet is 400 points ($5). Not a bad price for an oldie with Live enabled.

Update Three:

Just got finished playing PDZ online. I only got to play with one other person. First thing I noticed was that there was an echo in my headset. When ever I spoke I would hear an echo of my voice through the headset. I might have to get a wired controller for online play if I don't find out whats causing the echo. The stages are too big for two people, but theres lots to do in the ones I played in. Stages I played were the desert with a decent sized town in it, a snow one with a tower in the middle, sort of city one with a courtyard with a building in the middle, and one other that I walked in while someone was playing with bots. The aiming I need to get used to. I got to test out a bunch of weapons. Laptop gun and its sentry feature is good for a laugh when double teaming someone. It was fun.

Update Four:

This is my last update since I am heading to Cali this morning. I played with 8 people online on PDZ. I realize now its not the aiming that's faster than Halo, but the hit zone is very small. Its harder to aim. The movement is a little slow too. Slower than Halo. But other than that the game was fun to play online. With 8 people there was only one moment of lag that hit everyone big time. I also unlocked a few of the achievement for PDZ. Here's a link to my gamercard: http://live.xbox.com/member/JDreborn . Cya later.
 
I got a Dev Kit and retail unit, but have only plugged in the Dev Kit so far. No time to play games, but have Tiger, Need for Speed, and both NBA games to review before I leave for Thanksgiving -- and a 2-level King Kong demo I'm itching to play.

I love the dashboard, too. Really smooth and informative, though you sometimes have to search for things. I got a VGA cable with it, so it looks awesome at 1028 x740 or some such resolution.

The controller is pretty sweet. The shoulder buttons aren't placed as perfectly on PS2, but I think they're like that so it's easier to tell R1 from R2. The wireless controller is heavy with the battery pack, but otherwise it feels great. My wife likes it more than any Xbox controller before. The remote is really high-tech, too, though it'll probably stay in the box because I have like 6 other remotes on the coffee table (DVD, TiVo, VCR, CD, Stereo Receiver, etc).

I haven't got the wireless adaptor to work, but it'll be great if I can. That way, I can keep my PS2 and Xbox hooked up to my Nyko Wireless gimmick.
 
I too checked out PDZ -- first game I've played so far. Only played the first level, but it was really damn good -- PC-quality graphics, interesting mechanics, etc. I hope there are more compelling enemies later on (I'm sure there are), and I didn't get to use any stealth, which I want to mess around with. I ended up too busy working to log in from 4-7 tonight for the Microsoft set up Live event playing of that game, NBA 2K6, and PGR 3.
 
[quote name='ViolentLee']I hope there are more compelling enemies later on (I'm sure there are.)[/QUOTE]

I'm wondering if their are aliens and so on, which were found in the original. I hope so.

Has anyone been able to give PD0's multi-player a go? I'm hoping there's a large pool of characters to choose from, in true Rare FPS fashion. ;)

I hope Mr. Blonde (I think that was his name, from the original) is playable. Continuity-wise, he shouldn't be in the game... but I hope he is. :O
 
Still haven't gotten anyone on multiplayer, but I did beat another stage. This stage had no tearing. It had a huge draw distance and there was some stealth parts in it. I also got to use more of the gadgets. The game looks great. The enemies are pretty damn smart. There was one point where I was firing on a group of enemies and had to reload. One of the guys then yelled out "She's reloading get her" and they came out full blast firing on me. Another part I was firing on another group of enemies and a guy snuck up behind me and sucker punched me. Its turning out to be great.
 
[quote name='Brak']Has anyone been able to give PD0's multi-player a go? I'm hoping there's a large pool of characters to choose from, in true Rare FPS fashion. ;)[/QUOTE]

Still wondering... ;)
 
I forgot to mention that. I realized that the human players were all Joanna. The bots though ranged from a bunch of different characters. I think I saw Mr Blonde as a bot. I didn't find a way to change characters.
 
Just played Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 for review. Can't talk much about it here (as the review obviously isn't up yet), but the graphics are incredible. I fired up the Xbox version and compared the two, and it made the regular Xbox one look like N64.
 
[quote name='ViolentLee']Just played Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 for review. Can't talk much about it here (as the review obviously isn't up yet), but the graphics are incredible. I fired up the Xbox version and compared the two, and it made the regular Xbox one look like N64.[/QUOTE]

Sweet.....
 
Thanks for posting all this, I like how you linked your card so we could see the things that you do in a game, pretty sweet that XBL keeps track of all that for everyone to see.
 
PDZ multiplayer is VERY FUN! Lot's of different modes, we were playing alot of "counterstrike" mode last night. You earn money by what you and your team does the round/rounds before and use that to buy guns/armor/jetpacks/etc exactly like CS. Haven't played the other modes yet just "CS" and deathmatch single and teams since I only have 1 controller were were having to take turns instead of playing splitscreen online. :roll:

Not many people seemed to be in the ranked games but we created a game with 16 spots open and had 4 bots playing with us. The next thing you knew about a half hour later we had 8 people playing so we got rid of all the bots and even with just 8 people it was great in every mode we tried. Another nice lil touch was that when the host drops everyone doesn't get kicked it'll show searching for a new host and then i guess whoever has the best connection or been there the longest takes charge. Not exactly sure how it work but I seen it a few times, once when my friend accidentally dropped out and then when others who had hosted left.
 
[quote name='$hady']PDZ multiplayer is VERY FUN! Lot's of different modes, we were playing alot of "counterstrike" mode last night. You earn money by what you and your team does the round/rounds before and use that to buy guns/armor/jetpacks/etc exactly like CS. Haven't played the other modes yet just "CS" and deathmatch single and teams since I only have 1 controller were were having to take turns instead of playing splitscreen online. :roll:


Not many people seemed to be in the ranked games but we created a game with 16 spots open and had 4 bots playing with us. The next thing you knew about a half hour later we had 8 people playing so we got rid of all the bots and even with just 8 people it was great in every mode we tried. Another nice lil touch was that when the host drops everyone doesn't get kicked it'll show searching for a new host and then i guess whoever has the best connection or been there the longest takes charge. Not exactly sure how it work but I seen it a few times, once when my friend accidentally dropped out and then when others who had hosted left.[/QUOTE]

Holy crap this sounds awesome! I am definetly getting PDZ. Thanks!
 
[quote name='Technique']Holy crap this sounds awesome! I am definetly getting PDZ. Thanks![/QUOTE]


I forgot to mention the best part, NO LAG and it looked great even on my non HDTV. One of my idiots buddies walks up to a brick wall outside and was like DAMN LOOK AT THAT WALL and then promptly died! :lol: The only bad thing i've seen about it was that you got alot of echoing in the headset (which i like ALOT better than the old one) seems like it was a lag on the mic or something though because it didn't happen when there were not to many people on but when we got alot of people in there it got bad depending on the host. Again we weren't in the ranked servers we were in created games so.......... Maybe it was just us but hopefully that can be taken care of my MS or by simply choosing different audio channel.

It's gonna be crazy tuesday when everyone gets online and starts rolling around and getting into this. Since your energy rebuilds slowly like in Halo people tend to start rolling or diving alot to try to not get hit and let there health rebuild. I've gotten into quite a few rolling/melee battles against someone shooting at me. :lol: Thankfully you can't shoot while you roll and you take alot more damage than if you'd been standing.


[quote name='dooddude']one question how do you turn the wireless controller on/off?[/QUOTE]

Hold down the lil Xbox emblem button for like 30 seconds and you get a pop up asking if you want to turn off the system or turn off the controller or cancel and go back. I turn the system off like that. There is no on off button on the controller itself. I guess it goes to sleep after a period of not being used. If you turn the 360 on with it's power button and then just start pressing buttons on the controller it doesn't work. You have to press the xbox button on it to wake it up.
 
Early buzz on the online maps were that their size depended on the number of players playing. In other words, if there were only - say - 8 players, the map would be 1/3 it's maximum size.

You made mention of the maps being too big; did they scrap the sizing feature?
 
[quote name='$hady']Hold down the lil Xbox emblem button for like 30 seconds and you get a pop up asking if you want to turn off the system or turn off the controller or cancel and go back.[/QUOTE]
30?

Also, in the original PD they had a little ranking for you as you got more kills and stuff in multiplayer...did they get rid of this in the sequel?
 
[quote name='Brak']Early buzz on the online maps were that their size depended on the number of players playing. In other words, if there were only - say - 8 players, the map would be 1/3 it's maximum size.

You made mention of the maps being too big; did they scrap the sizing feature?[/QUOTE]


I can honestly say I have no idea, nor did I think about while playing. I don't think we played in a map that was to big for us last night.



[quote name='pete5883'] 30?

Also, in the original PD they had a little ranking for you as you got more kills and stuff in multiplayer...did they get rid of this in the sequel?[/QUOTE]

I have no idea, i didn't count them. Longer than 1 second less than 1 hour! ;)

You mean on your acheivements or during the game? You get acheivements for kills and stuff on your Gamertag and during the game it's like Halo and you get Killtastic i think it says for 4 kills in a row and something else for 8 everyone was laughing and talking and I always missed what they said. It'll display killing and dieing sprees for everyone in the bottom right as they happen. We were in the unranked part so I don't know if you actually earn anything for it in ranking.
 
I am having a blast with Perfect Dark both offline and on Live. My only complaint is the excessive echoing through the headset on Live.
 
I am VERY impressed by PDZ so far. Not only is the single player a blast, but the co-op is great also. Non-Live multiplayer is tons of fun also...my brother and I played along with 4 bots, and the AI is astounding. The bots dive to avoid your shots, attack you when you are reloading, lure you into rooms and take you out from behind, climb ladders to avoid you only to jump back down and kill you when you think you are safe...it's just so much fun.
Xbox Live is great as well...although anything said in the headset tends to be repeated multiple times through the echo problem.
 
[quote name='ViolentLee']^^^
360 actually defaults to 4:3 ratio. You have to go in and change it to widescreen, so you should be cool.[/QUOTE]

Wait, so it can do high resolution gaming in a 4:3 ratio? Damn, I bought my video scaler for nothing, I could have just got the VGA cable and got 4:3 instead of wide screen. (because the scaler accepts component input, which can only do 720p and 1080i)
 
Got back today from Cali. I'll post my impressions and stuff from Zero Hour tomorrow. BTW Check out my Live achievements on my gamertag (JDreborn, links on main topic). I'll talk later.
 
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