Microsoft Xbox 360 review
Article by: Mendel (Vaasa, Finland) and The Faceless Rebel (Seattle, WA USA)
We haven't really reviewed consoles here in the past. However, gaming and hardware in general has been of interest to us and many of our readers, thus Microsoft's Xbox 360 offers some impressive gaming power at the same price point as high-end PC graphics cards alone, so we thought a review would be nice.
Today, we'll be looking at a premium Xbox 360 package, complete with hard drive, wireless controller and High Definition compatible component video cables. Read on to find out how we liked it.
Note: We will both be commenting on the 360 throughout this article. Mendel's and TFR's comments are marked for easy separation of our opinions, which can be quite different as you will see.
Xbox 360 specs
Here's an overview of the features of the Xbox 360:
IBM PowerPC CPU ("Xenon")
- 3 cores at 3.2 GHz each
- 2 threads per core
- 3 VMX-128 vector units (1 per core)
- 1 MB L2 cache
500MHz ATI Graphics Processor ("Xenos")
- Unified shader architecture
- 48 ALU’s for shader processing
Memory
- 512 MB 700 MHz GDDR3 RAM and 10MB EDRAM for framebuffer
- 22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth
- 256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM (integrated on Xenos GPU)
Audio
- 5.1 Channel Dolby Digital support
- 2.0 Channel Dolby Pro-Logic II support
- Supports 48khz 16-bit audio
- 320 independent decompression channels
- 32 bit processing
- 256+ audio channels
Connectivity:
- 4 wireless controllers supported
- Built-in 10/100 Ethernet
- Support for External Wi-Fi adapter
- 2 Wired game controller ports (2 of the USB port on the front panel)
- 3 USB 2.0 ports
- Hard drive port (premium units come with a 20GB hard drive preinstalled)
Games and Media:
- Supports Xbox 360 games, 224 original Xbox games (current as of 12/16/2005), DVD-Video, WMA CD, MP3 CD, JPEG photo CD's
- Supports media streaming from Windows XP PCs with Windows Media Connect 2.0 or Windows Media Center (Windows XP Media Center Edition required for video streaming)
- Games support 16:9, 720p and 1080i, all games can render in 720p (except PGR3)
The Xbox 360 has an IBM PowerPC processor rather than an Intel x86 based processor like the first Xbox, and an ATI GPU rather than an NVIDIA one. However, any similarities to PCs soon begin to vanish once you take a closer look. The PowerPC processor (codenamed 'Xenon') in the Xbox 360 is quite unique, sporting no less than 3 processor cores, with the capability of addressing two threads to each. Perhaps even more importantly, the Xenos graphics processing unit (codenamed 'Xenos') has been designed as a unified shader architechture, giving more shader flexibility. Because the Xenos CPU uses a unified 46-pipeline architecture, which the 360 allocates for use as pixel or vertex shaders on the fly, direct comparisons to any PC GPUs is essentially impossible. Unlike the PS3's RSX ('Reality Synthesizer') GPU, which is in many respects similar to Nvidia's G70 GPU used in the PC GeForce 7800GTX, the Xenos GPU is an entirely new architecture which is unrelated to the PC Radeon X1800 series.
For those who insist on a direct PC comparison, the features theoretically exceed those required by the Windows Graphics Foundation 2.0 in Microsoft's upcoming Windows Vista Operating System. The clock speeds are 3.2GHz for the three PowerPC CPU cores, 500MHz for the R500 graphics unit core, and 700MHz unified GDDR3 memory for the whole system. Additionally, there's 10MB of very high speed embedded memory (eDRAM) for the framebuffer of the graphics core. Microsoft claims that the integrated eDRAM design is supposed to enable 'free' 4x anti-aliasing in all games. We will see, however, that this does not appear to be the case, at least with launch titles. The joke is that the 'real winner' of this generation's console wars will be IBM, since Xbox 360, PS3, and Nintendo Revolution will all use PowerPC based CPUs, though each chip (360's Xenon, PS3's CELL, and Revolution's Broadway) are surprisingly different in many respects.
Disappointingly though, many of the launch games seem to lack any anti-aliasing at all. Some claim that the 10MB of EDRAM is simply not enough to store an anti-aliased 1280x720 image, even though MS has said that the design provides 'free' 4x AA. Theoretically, developers could work around this issue using a special tiling approach to rendering. In practice though, it seems like they didn't have enough time to implement this in launch titles (except one). So in the end you get 720p graphics rendered with no AA, as seems to be the case in Kameo, or you get a slightly lower resolution scaled to 720p and 2xAA as is the case with Project Gotham Racing 3. Later on, we might expect to get proper AA solutions for our games as developers get used to the device and its quirks. Call of Duty 2, however, runs with 2xAA in 720p, but there is no anisotropic filtering at all. In fact, it's easy to see that CoD2 uses only bilinear filtering! Not even trilinear! We hope that the next wave of 360 titles will actually make use of anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering at the same time, at least.
Xbox 360: Out of the Box
It's white, it's slightly smaller than the first Xbox, and it looks very different from your standard living room electronics equipment. It also is slightly concave, making it both interesting looking and very difficult to stack other consoles on top of, although as we will see stacking things on the 360 is a very bad idea anyways.
Xbox 360 and the original Xbox compared, Click for full size image
Mendel: Personally, I don't like the looks of the thing at all - I want my stuff in black. On the other hand, it doesn't matter all that much to me, it isn't about the looks of the device, it's about the games.
TFR: I think the 360 looks cool and very different from the typical black, boring game console. In many ways it reminds me of the svelte Sega Dreamcast, the last console to be white. I just hope that's not an omen, since the Dreamcast famously died a premature death after being released a year before the PS2 and was crushed by Sony's unstoppable marketing hype machine. This is similar to how the Xbox 360 has been released a full year before most people outside Japan will see the PS3.
Included stuff, Click for full size image
Given that the premium package of the Xbox 360 is only 100 euros or USD$100 more expensive than the Core model, the amount of stuff you get with the package is quite impressive. In the package there was the console with HDD in place, the (OMG HUEG) power supply unit, Live headset, cables for both HD and SD, ethernet cable, remote controller and wireless gamepad with batteries for both. If separately bought, these would cost a lot more, in fact the HDD alone makes up for the price differential. When you consider that with HDD already included, you probably won't need a memory unit, one begins to wonder who really wants the core version anyways... One might argue though, that a game bundle, other than the included Live arcade game of Hexic, would have been quite nice.
Interestingly enough, in Japan only the premium package is available for sale. It's very strange that North America and Europe would get the useless Core package but Japan does not. However, MS claims they have marketing research that says people will buy the Core. There are supposedly many people out there who would not use Xbox Live! and don't need backwards compatibility with the original Xbox. Those are the people MS is targeting with the cheaper Core bundle.
The HDD alone is worth 80 Euros (USD$100)...
The 20 GB HDD is packed into a special case that can be easily fitted into the side of the Xbox 360. One doesn't need to do that though since the HDD is already preinstalled in the premium version. Later on though, switching HDD's should be easy enough. Since the 20GB HDD only comes with 13GB free (the remaining 7GB is reserved by the system for game caching, emulator data storage, and other Dashboard functions), if MS is serious about making the 360 into a device that contains lots of media, downloaded content, Live! Arcade games, and other things, they will need to release a larger HDD as an upgrade later on.
Other than that, I can't resist talking about the issue of the power supply unit. It's big. In fact, it's OMG HUEG LOL! I knew it was big before I saw the thing but when I finally had it in my hands, I had to laugh out loud. To give you a proper understanding of how big the thing is, take a look at the following picture:
Left hand side: The Xbox 360 PSU. Right hand side: Planet Earth.
Actually, the point of view in shots such as these can be deceiving. In this picture the Xbox 360 power supply unit is actually in the background and the planet Earth is in front of it. The Xbox 360 power supply unit is fact actually something like 6 times bigger than the Earth and it should be third in the list of brightest objects in the night sky to the naked eye even though it is black.
On second thought, disregard that paragraph. A clumsy big external power supply unit does not a bad console make. It's the games you can play, and also other stuff that you can do with it that makes or breaks a new console platform.
In related news, there were reports of Xbox 360s freezing up and crashing almost from the moment people took their new consoles home the day of the November 22nd North American launch. Since then, most crashing issues have been traced back to what is believed to be a bad batch of power supply units from one of several suppliers. Also, there are reports of overheating. The 360 runs very loud and very hot! You should treat it more like a powerful gaming PC in terms of cooling characteristics. Don't cram it into an unventilated entertainment center! And don't stack other hot electronics components such as receivers underneath or on top of the 360! Based on our own anecdotal observations, you should put the 360 somewhere with at least 18 inches of clearance behind the console which is open to the rest of the room (not enclosed), and keep at least 2 inches of clearance on either side of the console. Furthermore, you should keep the power supply unit at least 6 inches from other heat-generating devices (including the 360). Do NOT put the power supply unit right on top of the 360. If you are one of those people who have crashing issues, reports are that MS has been very responsive to these issues and call to 1-800-MY-XBOX will get you a box overnighted to you where you send MS your 360, and in 3-6 business days they will overnight the fixed console to you with a replacement power supply.
The Live of the 360: The Fellowship of the 360
Xbox Live has been evolving pretty much ever since the online service was launched a year into the life of the first Xbox. Versions 2.0 and 3.0 were launched as significant updates to the Xbox version of Live, but games which supported the final version of Live on Xbox such as Halo 2 didn’t really have significantly improved or different functionality from early Live games such as Unreal Championship.
The new version of Xbox Live which has debuted with the 360 has fundamentally changed many of the rules regarding Live. First and foremost is the new Friends List functionality. By default, if you have a Profile which is Live-activated (something you are prompted to set up when you turn your 360 on for the first time), the moment you turn your 360 on you are automatically logged into Live. Auto-Logon can be turned off, but you will see that leaving it on is a good idea. All games are required to be at least Live-aware, meaning no matter what you’re playing, you will be available to your friends for invites to play with them. Additionally, all games are generally asked to report what you are up to in-game. If you are playing Call of Duty 2 and currently going through the Single player campaign on the Battle of El-Alamein level, when you friends have a look at what you are up to, it will report you are playing CoD2 Single Player and you are fighting in El-Alamein, near Cairo, Egypt. Similarly, Perfect Dark Zero will report you are playing Single player at Secret Agent difficulty and you are on Mission 5, and if you’re playing online, it will let your friends know that you are currently Losing at Killcount (Deathmatch) on the Desert map, and furthermore, you can instantly join their game just by selecting them and choosing the option. Very slick, very cool.
Bad luck, friends are offline... but if they weren't, it would be easy to invite them to the lobby of the game I just started, Click for full size image
The integration of Live is now entirely pervasive to the 360 experience. You can check out your online friends anytime, by hitting the big inviting green X button in the center of the new 360 controller. This brings up the Personal Information Blade (more on that later), and you can basically open your Friends list from anywhere, anytime, and see what your friends are up to. Furthermore, as I mentioned, joining them is as simple as putting in the same game they’re playing, opening the Friend’s info, and choosing to Join Session In Progress. Also new to Live 360 is the ability to invite your friends into Private Voice Chats. These chats are continuous and carry on even if you switch from one game to another or drop back to the Dashboard. Essentially, Live 360 is a more fully social experience than the old version. You are always on Live 360 the moment you turn your console on unless you pull the Ethernet cable, and your friends will be too. It becomes trivial to invite your friends to play with you, and join them in a game they are playing.
TFR has waaaaay more friends than Mendel does. I think it's because he's just so cool. Here we can see Mendel's listing, and what's he's playing.
The new Gamerscore feature is supposed to be an easy, single number method of sizing up other players. You increase your Gamerscore by unlocking Achievements while playing your games. For example, in Perfect Dark Zero you get 15 points for finishing the single player game in Secret Agent (default) difficulty, 10 points for getting 10 kills in Deathmatch on Live!, 20 points for 100 kills, etc. Each game is allocated 1,000 Gamerpoints for the developer to allocate as they please. The system as it is currently implemented has a few drawbacks. The biggest drawback is that scoring is unevenly implemented and unbalanced. You get 30 points in Madden NFL 06 just for scoring a touchdown! At any difficulty level! Meanwhile you need to spend 12-15 hours playing through PDZ's single player game to earn 15 points! If you finish Peter Jackson's King Kong, you get the full 1,000 points, even though that game is short. Finishing Kameo single player earns you 600-800 points. Your Gamerscore is visible to everybody at all times and cannot be turned off on Live! Right now, the Gamerscore makes TFR a bad, bad person, as I am purposely going to rent King Kong just to beat it in the short 4-6 hours to get the 1,000 points. I guess this makes rental companies like Blockbuster and GameFly happy, at least, since people will be encouraged to play lots of games just to build up their Gamerscore. People who tend to play only a few games in depth, however, will find their Gamerscores lagging behind people who play lots of games for a short time.
The Live of the 360: The Two Tiers
One significant change to Live 360 is the splitting of the service into a free tier (“Silver”) and a pay tier (“Gold”). Everybody who buys a 360 gets Silver by default. They can have a Friends list, buy things from the Xbox Live Marketplace, play games at the Xbox Live Arcade, and play games online on weekends. If you want to play games online anytime, you need to subscribe to Gold. The price of a Gold Starter Kit is now $69.99 for 12 months, and service costs $5.95 a month, which is more expensive than the old price on Xbox. You can still buy Gold Annual Renewal cards for less than the price of a Starter Kit, for what that's worth.
The Xbox Live Marketplace is another new feature of Live 360. The Marketplace already has a good selection of free game demos, similar to what PC gamers have had for a long time. As of this writing, you can download and sample Madden NFL 06, NBA Live 06, Kameo: Elements of Power, and Need For Speed: Most Wanted for free. There are also movie trailers and game trailers available free. You can also buy Themes to customize your Dashboard UI and Gamer Pictures to change your Live avatar. Avatars are now persistent across all of Live.
Geometry wars costs 400 M$, Click for full size image
In the Marketplace, you can buy games for the Xbox Live Arcade. There is already a smattering of classic arcade games such as Joust, Gauntlet, and Smash TV. There are also some exclusive games, such as Hexic HD (included on the hard drives which are included with the Premium package and purchased separately), the awesome Geometry Wars: Evolved (an expanded version of the minigame included with Project Gotham Racing 2), and improved versions of oldies but goodies such as Bejeweled 2 and Bankshot Billiards 2. You may think it’s stupid to spend $400 to play Gauntlet, but then you realize it is fully Live-enabled so you can play online with 3 of your friends and you realize how awesome that actually is. Geometry Wars is similarly addictive, and all these games run in 720p/1080i.
This brings me to the new ‘currency’ of the Marketplace: Microsoft Points. Currently USD$6.25 buys 500 Points, which translates to 1.25 cents per point. To put this into perspective, Geometry Wars cost me 400 Points, or USD$5.00. Some games cost considerably more, such as Bankshot Billiards 2 (1,200 points) or Mutant Storm: Reloaded (800 points). The pricing may seem steep at first, but you can download free trials of all the games, which is a wonderful feature of the Marketplace in general. I can assure you that once you’ve experienced multiplayer online Gauntlet or Smash TV, you’ll agree with me that the pricing isn’t bad at all.
The Live of the 360: The Return of the Dashboard
Mendeli's dashboard with Halo theme, Click for full size image
Your shiny new 360 is controlled by a new Dashboard, which completely overshadows the old Xbox Dashboard in every way. It’s almost an entire Operating System for your console. Your Gamer Picture, Gamerscore, and Reputation are displayed on all the blades, for quick reference. In addition to the System Blade, where you set your consoles basic options such as resolution, audio, and memory, there is now an Xbox Live Blade, a Games Blade, and a Media Blade. The Live Blade, unsurprisingly, gets you quick access to your Friends list, in addition to the Live Marketplace. The Games Blade lets you quickly view the games you have played, your Achievements, and lets to access the Live Arcade. The Media Blade is an interesting place. You can plug your portable media devices (digital camera, MP3 player) into one of the 3 USB ports on the 360 and display your pictures or copy your music to the hard drive. Note that while Apple’s AAC format is supported for CDs you rip yourself to iTunes, anything purchased from the iTunes Music Store will not work on the 360, as all tracks bought at the iTMS uses Apple's proprietary FairPlay DRM. There is also Windows Media Center Extender integration built into the new Dashboard, which lets you stream media from a PC with Windows XP for playback on the 360. However, you need Windows XP Media Center Edition to stream video to the 360. The Personal Information Blade is accessible at all times by hitting the big green X button in the middle of your controller, and allows you to access many functions of the Dashboard UI at all times, even in game. This is of course different from the original Xbox, where the Dashboard could be accessed when not in a game. Since the Friends list is now integrated in the Personal Information Blade, you also no longer need to deal with different games implementing different features and UIs for Live, because all games use the one built into the Dashboard now and must conform with its features.
The Personal Information Blade, visible from within any game. You can reach your Friends list from here.
Bring on the games already!
Now, we shall look at some of the launch games and start with a quick look at some of the demo version games available at the Xbox Live Marketplace, and then proceed to take a sneek peek at some of the other full games available at the launch. Since the demos don't let me play very much, I'm going to concentrate on the visual details and since I haven't had time to finish most of the retail games yet, I'll only give descriptions and initial opinions about them, and leave the scorecard pending. I'll be presenting you with some custom screenshots, the downside of which is that the capturing device (combined with its user, me) has some flaws which might result in issues such as colors washing out or the flash appearing somewhere in the picture - I hope you'll still find some value in these rather than in yet again seeing the same press images, which you can find elsewhere on the Net.
Madden NFL 06
Click for full size image
Mendel: This demo lets you play a game of American Football (as we call it here in Finland, as just plain football is soccer to us) with 1 minute quarters. So you've got time for a touchdown or two if you're lucky. Even though the game is probably graphically the most conservative out of all the EA sports games for the 360, this is still graphically very pleasing and the arena seems a huge, lively place. The demo lacks any commentators so the only sounds you will hear come from the audience and the players.
TFR: Graphically the first next-gen version of Madden is a clear cut above the previous-gen versions. Mendel didn't play Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 or FIFA: Road to the World Cup 06 or he would see that as EA's next-gen sports games go, it's actually the 2nd best looking. The level of graphical detail is impressive, especially in 720p resolution. And EA has finally banished John "Master of the Obvious" Madden in the 360 iteration: commentary is provided by local radio announcers of each team! Even better, EA has exorcized the QB Vision "feature" which annoyed players of the previous-gen versions of Madden 06. But there are a lot of downsides. The first huge downside is that it plays just like the previous-gen versions. No improvements were made to gameplay. There are only a few new animations, otherwise it plays just the same. Even worse, a number of features are missing, notably the Create-A-Player mode and classic teams. The biggest downside, however, is the fact that it costs $10 more! So, you are getting fewer features for more money. Yes, the upgraded graphics are very nice (though far short of what many people think next-gen football ought to truly look). But the tradeoffs are many as well. Personally, I rented the full version of Madden NFL 06 from GameFly just to get the easy Gamerscore bonuses, such as 20 points to getting a 1st down and 30 points for scoring a touchdown, and I thought it was a nice graphical upgrade but otherwise something of a letdown. Hardcore sports gamers will eat Madden 06 on 360 right up, but everybody else should probably give it a pass, or just rent it.
Click for full size image
The player detail is definitely a step up from games of the previous generation. EA's artists have done a real nice job, the clothing detail is amazing and even the skin is quite nice. Overall, the players look better than characters in many of the other games. Sadly, most of the detail on the players clothes is missing in this shot.
Click for full size image
The detail given to the football is nice, although you'll never be able to see the football this close in the game, and it isnt easy to even get the camera this close in the replays. But, no matter how close you go, the football is still detailed with a high resolution texture and bump mapping.
NBA Live 06
Click for full size image
Mendel: Well, it doesn't feel like real basketball, and you only get to play the first 2 quarters of the full 4 in the demo, but you have still got to give this a try if only to see the visuals. The player models look just superb, the audience is all polygonal, and the game looks great. The animations aren't so good though, particularly the transitions from one animation to the next. But even so, the demo is great for showing the power of Xbox 360, even if it won't make you want to buy the game.
TFR: Now THIS is what a next-gen sports game should look like. The level of graphical detail is amazing. Players look ultrarealistic and in 720p you can almost mistake it for a real NBA broadcast. Well, at least until you start playing it. While it's a minor gameplay upgrade over the previous-gen versions of NBA Live 06, the actual game of basketball still pales compared to NBA 2K6. Unfortunately the 360 version of NBA 2K6 looks almost like the previous-gen versions, a complete graphical disappointment in every way. Again, as with Madden 06, there are a lot of features missing. EA actually removed features from all their 360 sports games, presumably so they could meet their launch deadline. The lack of features is very disappointing, especially when you consider that the visually inferior NBA 2K6 has all its features intact. Ultimately it will come down to if you like the pretty graphics or the full-featured, better game of basketball. If you want the next-gen graphics, get NBA Live 06. If you want all the features of the previous-gen version and improved gameplay and can handle your 360 game looking like a previous-gen game, get NBA 2K6.
Need for Speed: Most Wanted Demo
Click for full size image
Mendel: I played through this game on the PC and put shortly, it is easily the best so far in the Need for Speed series, giving some solid competition to the Burnout titles. The Xbox 360 version doesn't add very much visually, but there are some nice touches. The HDR implementation seems to be a bit more dynamic, giving a nicer effect when coming out of tunnels, for example. I gave a shot at capturing some video to show the effect. Due to limitations of the capturing device this isn't very impressive, but if you've played the PC version and seen what happens there, and then look carefully at the point in the video where the car gets out of the tunnel, you just might get the idea about the difference. It helps if you don't zoom the clip to full screen.
TFR: NFSMW for 360 suffers from one significant issue: the framerate is very unstable and gets very choppy. There is also some minor background graphical pop-in. Considering that the graphical upgrade isn't stunning compared to the previous-gen versions (except for the nice HDR lighting effects), it's hard to believe that the poor framerate could be caused by anything other than the fact that it was rushed out to meet its launch deadline. The crappy framerate detracts greatly from the sense of speed (check out the insane sense of speed the Burnout series provides as comparison), and really really lowers my opinion of this game. If you want the improved graphics, get the PC version. Otherwise you should stick with the previous-gen versions for $10 less, which actually run at a decent framerate all the time. This is definitely one to avoid on the 360.
Kameo: Elements of Power
Click for full size image
Mendel: The game I bought with the console was Kameo, which is an adventure/puzzle game from Rare. I've been playing this game through quite slowly, but I've managed to get a good way towards the end of the game and I've been pretty pleased so far. While this title isn't quite the epic adventure I was hoping for, it's still a nice, entertaining game, well worth a purchase. It plays a bit like Zelda or Starfox Adventures on Nintendo's Gamecube, and even borrows some ballsy elements from Metroid Prime while also adding some new kinds of gameplay elements that come in to play due to the transformation abilities of Kameo. The puzzles are fast and action oriented: You won't be pushing crates again in this game, instead you will figure out ways to use your warriors to defeat opponents and to advance in the world.
Click for full size image
The graphics rarely fail to impress and never fail to do their job - About the only thing I can nag about a little is the relatively small polygon count given to the main character, but even that only comes to play when looking at some of the close up cut scenes. In game, everything looks just great. There are so many visual effects I have never before seen in a game that I would be real impressed if I hadn't seen those effects previously in some PC technology demo. Even so, when showing this game to my friends, there was a constant chatting about how nicely they used this and that effect in whatever situation was currently going on.
The entertainment value of the game varies a bit: Every once in a while, there is a moment when one gets annoyed about the logic of the world. Why do I have to climb up this wall when I have wings!? Why do I have to figure out how to lift this cell door and go under it when I could just fly over, or indeed would fit between the bars? Sometimes though, when you take a while to look around, the game can pleasantly surprise and give you a good feeling too. Rare has managed to add some nice touches to the game, like once when I went to a house in a village, I found the house empty, but there was some note in the wall that said something like "I've gone to the cafe, the kids are outside playing, don't worry about dinner"... well surely enough, when I went outside, I found three little kids throwing some kind of a flower frisbee, running around and giggling. I watched them for a while, and then proceeded towards the cafe to check it out. Three of the many customers soon left the building, so I decided to follow them. They went into the house that was empty, one of them had been carrying a pumpkin and promptly tossed it into a pot when he got home. I thought that was kind of funny. It's so easy to get carried away talking about this game, but oh well... It's frustrating at times, rewarding at others, but overall, this is one nice game to buy that the whole family can enjoy, and there's no better time for a good adventure game than the holiday season!
TFR: I don't like Kameo as much as Mendel does, but it's a solid if unspectacular platformer which offers lots of varying gameplay elements and extremely awesome next-gen graphics. It especially looks stunning in 720p, with normal mapping all over everything and insane texture detail. It also pushes a ton of graphical detail at the same time, there's a level in the game which has hundreds of super-high-detail AI creatures fighting a dynamic battle in the background and it's simply stunning to behold. The game itself reflects Rare's long marriage with Nintendo, as it was in development for a long time before they were sold to MS. Most of the gameplay does vague resemble the 3D Zelda games, and one of the creature forms Kameo takes works just like Samus's rolled-up ball in Metroid Prime. Kameo's many forms are fun to experiment with, even if combat seems a little choppy and actually hitting your enemies is inaccurate. The game itself is kind of short, just about 8-10 hours, and you get new forms so often and quickly (the ultra-fun final form is barely used) that it feels like the game had to be heavily cut to meet launch date. Even though the game ultimately was in development for more than 6 years (it started as an N64 title, then it was a Gamecube title, then it was an Xbox title), you get the feeling this one could have used a bit more time. How ironic.
Perfect Dark Zero
Mendel: The flagship launch title for the Xbox 360 has been a bit of a disappointment for me so far. The game just fails to truly impress like a good first person shooter should. Don't get me wrong, the game is a solid package, with a good single player campaign as well as tons of multiplayer action, and many people seem to love it.
Some picture in picture stuff appears once in a while, Click for full size image
Somehow though, I don't. I know this is very subjective, but for me the game seems to fail simply because it's not Halo. It lacks the epic scale, it lacks the superlative music score (though the music isn't exactly crap either), it lacks interesting opponents and quite frankly, the graphics aren't too impressive either. Character models don't look too good up close, and even the environments sometimes seem just wrong. For example, the cliffs in the winter level seem way too rubbery, the water shaders aren't too impressive either, or are completely missing in other places. I was hoping for more - After all, Half Life 2, Doom 3 and even Far Cry looked better ages ago on PC and recently on the original Xbox too...
Click for full size image
It gets worse when we look at the gameplay value - I can either get frustrated as hell, dying in the jungle mission, trying again and again to survive it with no luck, or sometimes it isn't even up to me as the characters I was supposed to be protecting run into my line of fire and die: Mission Failed... Or I can gun through the game with the easiest difficulty level in about 5 hours, which I did. Mind you, there's no free saving and there's exactly one checkpoint for each level. Tenth time trying, I just gave up and seriously thought about selling the game. Oh well, I thought I'd finish the game instead with the easier difficulty to see if the game gets any better... But it didn't. It's just... not very interesting.
The only nice multiplayer option is the co-op, which almost manages to save the single player portion too, since one player can revive the other. Other multiplayer modes can be adequately described as "yet another deathmatch", "Counter Strike without balls" and "yet another crappy Battlefield clone"
To sum it up: I'm completely fed up with this game and I only bought it less than a week ago.
TFR: Let me be the first to agree with Mendel about one thing. This is NOT Halo. It has almost the same control scheme (except for lack of a jump button), but it's NOT Halo. If you go in expecting Halo as Mendel did, you will be very disappointed as he was.
Now, if you get past the fact that it's not Halo, then what PDZ is, is an awesome old-school FPS which manages to channel the original classic Perfect Dark for N64 back in the day while adding excellent next-gen graphics. I personally really love PDZ. It's almost everything you genuinely need in FPS, and nothing you don't. The single player campaign is amazingly devoid of plot, but is fun to play through nonetheless. Unlike most modern FPS games, it only lets you save your progress between levels, and you only get one checkpoint midway through the level you are on. So, you actually need to have actual skill to beat the levels, especially since unlike Halo 2 there is very very light autoaim (in fact almost none at all), so you actually have to aim for yourself using the gamepad. If actually needing actual skill to play a console FPS doesn't appeal to you, stay far away from PDZ. This especially applies to the PC mouse-and-keyboard types. Overshoot and undercorrection is a huge problem even for experienced console FPS players. I played a lot of Halo 2 on Xbox and I had to do a lot of adjustment to get used to the lack of autoaim. PC FPS players will cry after 5 minutes of frustration and give up. If you are a hardcore PC gamer who was going to use 360 as a transition to console gaming, wait for Halo 3. PDZ will drive you insane.
The single player is fairly pedestrian kill-and-grill, and it's true, you can't jump! However it offers an innovative Cover gameplay mechanic. Basically Joanna can walk up to on object and duck behind or around it. The aiming crosshair lets her aim at enemies shooting at her from behind the obstruction, and she can pop out and fire at them and then duck back behind hercover. The lack of autoaim makes this feature necessary for survival in single player. There is also a dodge-and-roll feature where Joanna can dodge enemy gunfire in any direction by rolling out of the way. However, even with the dodge function, if you try to run-and-gun Halo style you will probably get slaughtered in fairly short order unless you are the most talented console FPS player ever. It's much more tactical in gameplay style than Halo 2. The single player will also introduce you to the health system. Similar to Call of Duty 2, there are NO health packs in the level. Instead, if you get shot, your health bar will temporarily go down, and if you can duck back behind some cover you will regenerate most, but not all, of your health bar. This is actually similar to Halo 2's recharging shield system. However, you don't get all of your health back. Since you need to actually finish a level without saving, this can lead to some awesomely tense moments when you're near the end of the level, your health bar is low, and you're trying to beat the boss. There are also little minigames, such as the hacking minigame which is featured fairly often in the single player game.
The hacking minigame. Line up the rotating cursor with the blue parts to hack your way in.
The multiplayer on Live! has many very fun modes. The weapons themselves are a lot of fun, with cool secondary and even tertiary fire functions, and the sheer number of ways you can kill people online is awesome. The game is very, very skewed towards headshotting people. You can empty an entire full clip of your assault rifle into somebody online and they won't be dead, but if they have actual skill and shoot you 3-4 times in the head you'll go down just like that. So, for the hardcore gamer types who whined that Halo 2 removed all the skill from the game with the heavy autoaim and the dual-wielding and the sword yada yada, you've found your gaming Mecca. The rest of us will find ourselves relying heavily on melee attacks and explosive weapons for our kills. There are a lot of modes, including your basic deathmatch, team deathmatch, CTF, and a Territorial Gains mode which is identical to Halo 2's Territories mode. There are also fun DarkOps modes. Eradication is like Counter-Strike, each team starts with one life per round and they kill each other until the last team is standing, then another round begins. Onslaught is a lot of fun and is like Unreal Tournament 2004's Assault mode (it's NOT like UT2004's Onslaught mode), where teams take turns assaulting a base and trying to kill everybody in it. The guys defending the base get one life per round, the guys attacking get unlimited lives and a time limit. The round ends when the base is overrun and all the defenders are dead, or time runs out. Infection is also a lot of fun, and is like the Zombies game people invented for Halo 2. The Infected try to kill the Humans, when a Human dies he becomes an Infected, and the round ends when all the Humans are infected or time runs out. The last DarkOps mode is Sabotage, and it bears a passing resemblance to Counter-Strike's levels where you had to bomb something. The difference is now both teams try to bomb as much of the other team's "property" as possible and the winning team is the one that does the most property damage at the end. It's a fun alternative to the other modes where your only goal is only to kill the other team a lot. Overall, multiplayer is a blast, though it could use more maps (I hope for downloadable content soon!).
While I hide safely behind these boxes to take this picture, my coop buddy Mendel is busy killing the enemies.
Unlike some other big-name console FPS (*cough*Halo 2*cough*), PDZ features online co-op and it's awesome. Blasting those dataDyne bastards is a lot of fun with a friend. Better yet, several of the co-op missions have different objectives with your friend, such as the level where Joanna is on a rooftop sniping people attacking Jack who is stranded below on the streets. One of you plays Joanna and the other plays Jack in this instance. In many of the levels, there are nice tweaks to co-op play, such as keypads you both need to hack to open doors and other cooperative goals. The co-op mode doesn't feel tacked on at all, and it's a fun way to play through the single player campaign again after you've finished it alone.
Example of a coop objective. I'm upstairs, and I need to hit the switch to raise the bars...
...so Mendel, who is downstairs, can grab the suitcase.
The graphics are for the most part excellent. Nearly everything is normal-mapped, and texture detail is often stunning. However, some of the soft shadowing effects are quite hideous, and the models themselves are not very impressive. Rare went with a strange normal-mapping and reflections system that makes everything look kind of shiny. This makes sense for metal doors and walls, but when you're looking at shiny rocks or shiny trees in the jungle, it's really quite odd. There are odd points where you will encounter an ugly texture or model, again remnants of this game's history of having been in development for over 5 years. Like Kameo, it was once an N64 title that became a GC tile and then an Xbox title before landing on the 360. Unlike Kameo, this game is actually totally awesome. Is it the Halo for 360? No, it's not. Halo 3 will be released for 360 sometime in early to mid 2006. Is it a solid, fun console FPS with lots of old-school gameplay mechanics? Absolutely. I wouldn't call it the killer app for 360, because that's always going to be Halo. But it's still a great game standing on it's own merits, and if you love online FPS this is the launch title you'll be playing all the way into 2006, at least until Halo 3 comes out.
Project Gotham Racing 3
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Mendel: Continuing where the second game in the series left off, PGR3 brings the graphics up to todays standards and adds to the online features of the game. The unique online career mode seems interesting, but so far I haven't had much luck with the connection quality. I've played five games so far, out of which one game went without a hitch, I disconnected totally two times and in two games there was one or more cars lagging and warping, making the gameplay pretty much impossible.
That said, the single player game has kept me quite entertained so far due to just how nice it is to drive these cars. The inside cabin view is very nice, there are some nicely done vibration effects and the general quality of modelling the vehicle behavior adds to this, resulting in perhaps the most intuitive feel of any driving game yet. I can actually feel when the back wheels lose their grip, and after a little practice I will instantly know what to do when the car starts to spin. It's quite wonderful for the first few hours.
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However, the game gets repetitive a little too soon. There aren't too many tracks, you can't tune the cars, there's no extra gameplay elements like the police and the Kudos system is kind of dull... for me anyways.
To sum it up, I'd say the game is definitely worth a rental for any car game enthusiast and probably worth purchasing if you liked previous Gotham Racing games. But for those wanting to purchase just one car game, I think Need For Speed: Most Wanted would probably yield better value, it's just that much more addictive... If you didn't already play it on other platforms that is. If you did, the difference in graphics quality probably isn't enough to justify buying it again.
TFR: Let me just start by saying it. PGR3 has awesome graphics. The graphical detail and quality is absolutely head-and-shoulders above all the other launch titles, and it stands as an example of what the 360 is probably going to be capable of in the future even though it probably doesn't really scratch the surface of the console's capabilities (no launch title ever does). I've never enjoyed the PGR gameplay mechanic (I'm more of the diehard Burnout fanatic) so I'll limit my comments to the technical aspects of the game.
The cars handle very realistically (even though PGR is not really a 'realistic driving simulator' like Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport) and are a lot of fun to drive. The tracks are very pretty and some can be quite challenging. The graphics as I mentioned are above and beyond anything you've ever seen before, even though there is evidence that it doesn't actually run in true 720p (1280x720) but actually at something like 1024x600. Even so, it's visually a masterpiece and makes most other racing games look like Pole Position by comparison, even if it does only run at 30fps.
One of the coolest features of PGR3 is the online Gotham TV component. You can share your replays on Live, race against uploaded ghosts, and coolest of all, you can even spectate races while they are occurring. This is really a neat novelty, as you watch the best racers on Live going at it with each other both with uploadable replays and also in realtime. I hope there will be online PGR3 tournaments where other racers can watch races as they occur, and then review replays.
Call of Duty 2
Just another pleasant tank ride through the streets of a picturesque village in Egypt in 1942...moments before the Germans show up to start blowing everything to hell and it all goes terribly wrong.
TFR: Poor Mendel, he didn't play this one. This is arguably the real showcase title of the Xbox 360 launch. It's not quite as graphically stunning as PGR3, but it's quite good looking nonetheless. It also hasn't received the hype that PDZ has, even though arguably the single player of CoD2 is way better. This Xbox 360 launch title actually uses anti-aliasing, the texturing is sharp and detailed in most places (though some environments are much more basic, especially indoors), and the model detail is excellent. The game features some of the best-looking smoke effects ever, the lighting engine is awesome, there is a nice weather effects engine, and the destructible environments and huge explosion leaving giant craters behind just add delicious frosting to the graphically beautiful cake.
Defending a roadblock just outside a small town near Pointe-Du-Hoc, Normandy, France.
The game itself plays mostly like your typical World War II shooter, although there is a surprising (and welcome) amount of blood for a T rated game. (The USA has a game rating system similar to movie ratings. T stands for 'Teen' and is supposed to be roughly equivalent to our PG-13 movie rating.) The thing that Xbox 360's power really enables is the intelligent, reactive AI. Your German enemies are very smart; they will attempt to flank you, advance from cover to cover as you fall back, retreat dynamically as you advance, and really do understand grenades. You are constantly surrounded by lots of AI Allied soldiers who shout warnings to each other, throw grenades, take cover, and provide valuable covering fire. The way the AI understands grenades is very impressive: the Germans will toss grenades right at your feet, and your pals will pick up thrown grenades and throw them back (and blow themselves up if they are too slow). It really feels like you're just one (highly important) person in a huge war and massive battles rage around you between lots of intelligent AI characters and yourself.
And let me be clear. This is World War II as you have only experienced it in movies. The graphics, as I have mentioned, are excellent. Even more amazing than the graphics is the sound. Massive explosions erupt around you from mortar and artillery fire. Grenades explode all over the place. There is the constant sound of machine gun fire mixed with the telltale sound of sniper rifles. Airplanes roar overhead bombing the hell out of the street you're on or just engaging in dogfights above the city. AI characters shout warnings and encouragement to each other, and taunt the other side. ("Eat that, you ugly Jerry wankers!!!") This game is really, really loud and it uses 5.1 surround to envelop you in awesome warfare sound immersion. It really is a great showcase if you have a good home theater sound system. There's very little that I can say to convince you about the awesomeness of dodging from a burning car to a broken wall further up the street as you hear German machine guns firing at you, their bullets pinging off the wall behind you as huge mortar explosions crater the ground around you, a wall next you collapses as a huge tank bursts through, and everybody is firing at everybody else. It's something you just have to experience.
A pleasure cruise across the Rhine River. The game's beautiful smoke effects are visible in the distance.
The game has an odd health system. There are no health packs to pick up, and no medics to beg to heal you. If you get shot, your screen flashes and as you get shot more, your vision starts to get red around the edges. If you keep getting shot, you will die. However, if you manage to duck behind some cover, after a few seconds you will regenerate as good as new to continue your fight. I bet real WW2 soldiers wished they could regenerate instantly. The health system is obviously unrealistic, but I like it more than hunting for health packs when your life is low. At least, it keeps you always busying killing things because regeneration is so quick.
Fighting in the frozen ruins of Stalingrad. Note the red border around the edge of the screen, it means that German soldier hiding in the remains of the trolley is hurting me.
Later in the game, it opens up a bit and instead of being completely linear, you have a choice of objectives. You still have to complete them all, but you can do them in the order you like. You will find yourself running through the side streets of French towns in Normandy, fighting house to house with German soldiers. You will participate in the Battle of Stalingrad, the bloodiest battle of the real WW2 (between 1-2 million people died in that battle). You will battle with the elite Afrika Corps of General Erwin Rommel, and yes, you'll get to drive a tank and blow up the Desert Fox's Panzers. And yes, once again you're going to land at the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. This time, however, you will be scaling the sheer cliffs of Pointe-du-Hoc with the Army Rangers, one of the most difficult landing sites of the real WW2 D-Day invasion, and fighting bunker to bunker and foxhole to foxhole with the tenacious, overwhelming German defense. And along the way, you'll kill so many thousands of realistically reacting, shouting, firing, screaming German soldiers that by the end of the game, when the narrator mentions that over 50 million people died in Europe during WW2, you'll feel like you killed most of them yourself.
If there is any drawback to this game, it's that it is always insanity, all the time. There is no time to catch your breath. Almost from the beginning, you're fighting in the most crucial battles of the war, there's people getting shot all around you (your AI buddies have a suicidal tendency to run right into the path of MG-42 machine gun fire), theres explosions sounding all the time, and you're fighting all the time. It's endlessly intense and exhausting. The pace is always set to Ludicrous Speed. You find yourself unable to play more than in short stretches, because you find yourself doing things like not blinking and not breathing during the intense firefights, which is physically draining.
Call of Duty 2 is an awesome game for the 12-15 hours it lasts, and then you'll want to play through it again on a harder difficulty. It also has some routine online multiplayer, with deathmatch, team deathmatch, and CTF. Unfortunately, the 360 version only supports up to 8 players online, which makes team games not very much fun.
Hexic HD
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Mendel: So, this is the freebie game everyone gets with the premium pack. I was actually expecting quite a lot of this game. After all, the game is made by Alexey Pajitov, whom you might know from, uh... Tetris. Oh well, when I tried the game for the first time I thought it was somewhat too simple and not original enough, but there is more depth to it than it initially seems.
After a while of playing, you realize how to organize the hexes to form flowers instead of just groups of three same colored pieces and you get the ability to rotate the pieces in different ways. Some special pieces also start appearing on the screen and it gets harder and harder to let go of the controller and go to sleep. The game is every bit as good as I thought it would be. The best game in the Xbox 360 launch.
TFR: Hexic HD is indeed an addictive experience and a great freebie. It's definitely a wonderful thing to play during downtime when you don't want to get into a huge PDZ game online. It's good enough to stand alone as a game you would pay $20 in a store, and that's saying something when you realize it's free. Just as with Pajitov's legendary Tetris, you can play it for hours and hours and still be discovering new techniques and delving into its surprising depth. The best game of the 360 launch? No, that would be Call of Duty 2, but Mendel didn't buy that one.
Conclusions
Mendel: It's a pretty decent toy, isn't it? It's certainly fun to play with, it comes with a nice selection of launch games and there will most certainly be more AAA titles to come. The community is just starting to form, but already there is plenty of company for gaming and chatting and what not. It's even interesting just for the hardware included. Even though it is kind of expensive for a game console, it's dirt cheap considering the components included - The graphics component alone would cost more than the full console if it were to be sold separately for the PC. So should you buy it? If you have an HDTV and internet connection you can share for the console, go for it. If not, well... Uh... Then get the damn HDTV and the internet connection and then get the console, you know you need it! If you like pretty games and powerful hardware, that is. 
TFR: Overall, the 360 launch was a pretty good one as console launches go, if you conveniently ignore the fact that many people who want one can't buy one due to the crippling shortages. There is no genuine 'killer app' title that makes you need to buy one yesterday, but there are some titles which are quite good nonetheless. If you do want to get the console yesterday, Mendel is right. You really want an HDTV and a broadband Internet connection to get the most out of the 360. Most games look somewhat better on a regular TV, but the difference is light and day with a display that supports 720p. While the launch lineup is pretty good, the future lineup for the 360 looks stellar and at least one of them will be enough to make you want the console. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, Gears of War, Full Auto, Dead or Alive 4, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent, and of course, Halo 3 will be awesome titles. As always, the online gamer will find Live! indispensable, and the new Live! features such as the Marketplace and the Arcade only extend its usefulness. It's expensive right now, but I wouldn't hold my breath for price drops as the PS3 is supposedly going to debut at $400 or even $500, which gives MS no incentive to drop the price of the 360 anytime in the next year.
Bottom line: if there's something in the launch lineup you want to play, getting the 360 now is worth every penny. If there isn't, getting the 360 now will pay off in the next few months. Well, you can't really get one now due to the dire shortages of the thing, but in a few months when you can get one there will be some really amazing games for it. If Xbox 360 is the future of videogaming, then let me tell you right now, the future's bright.
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