When I first opened my 360, I was impressed with how much weight it had, the system itself is quite beefy and reminded me of a component from a home theatre system. The accompanying power system was as impressive a power supply I have ever seen. It’s close to four pounds and has its own gravitational pull, so be careful.
The system itself sits nicely on its own shelf with the power supply next to it and the HD Component cables that come standard with the deluxe edition (the core edition only has standard AV cables) are long enough to fish around my other equipment and to the far side of my 47″ HDTV.
Using a “Psyclone” brand optic cable (the system does not come with one) I was able to connect directly into my receiver and enjoy true 5.1 surround sound. Something of note about the cables though, there is a switch on the base of the connection that allows you to switch from regular TV to HDTV, so’s that everyone who happened to purchase the deluxe system would be covered.
Yes, this system is fully embracing the HDTV revolution and man I cannot tell you how cool this bad boy looks when played on a kick butt television Using the 1080i and/or 720p settings the system really dials in on the worlds developed by the various game companies.
Since I have several other systems hooked up to the same TV, I found myself marveling at how the 360 graphics (I was playing Kameo) just flat out blew away the other systems graphics ( I was toggling between input “ins”). Now I know that it’s like comparing apples to oranges, but you just can’t fully appreciate how one system pumps out graphics unless you compare them to another with the same type hookups and TV. Yes, this thing looks absolutely beautiful.
But more then that, the game machine has such a powerful processing engine that the colors that are being produced are overly brilliant. It’s no joke when Microsoft says that it is easily four times more powerful then the original Xbox and that it has and the unified memory architecture is eight times the previous Xbox contained. Let me put it to you this way.
I have been playing Kameo religiously, and aside from looking an awful lot like a cartoon, the environments are rendered with real depth. For example, as I am running along, I can see not only the hill coming up, but details on the hill, past the hill is a mountain, again details are clearly recognizable and still beyond that is smoke coming from a village under attack, clouds in the night sky and then the moon. It is breathtaking to take in and on top of it all, there is no slowdown anywhere to be found. There’s an army of Trolls running around battling an army of the forces of good, and there is NO SLOWDOWN! Truely an awesome thing to behold. And this is because of the way the 360 was designed, programmers can put as much dedicated memory to any facet of the graphics. Whether it’s backgrounds, in game characters or frame rate, the 360 is easily pumping out the eye candy.
So now that my 360 is all plugged in (which involved unplugging everything I own and straightening out a jungle of wires, but that’s another story), I was able to power up and hit the eject button so I could put in a disc. Word of note, the manufacturer places a small piece of tape across the disc tray so it will not open when you press the button. Instead, your 360 will growl and chirp at you as if to say: “Hey moron, remove the tape or you won’t play anything ever, cause the tray engine is burnt out!” So if you buy a 360, remove the tape. But before any sort of gaming is to occur, you will be asked to navigate the dashboard. It’s an easily navigated setup that allows you to put your gaming name in, select what kind of TV you have (widescreen or standard) and select your audio preference, etc.
Now the dashboard can be as tweaked as much or as little as you like. There is a ton of options that you can play with, or if you choose to leave everything in default mode you can input your name and start playing a game if you so desire. But that’s not fully embracing your purchase now is it? Instead, I would recommend selecting an avatar, setting up your parental controls (if you have kids), and even going as far as to activating the screen saver and auto-off function in case you walk away from your system and end up getting kidnapped by your signifigant other for a whirlwind tour of mall shopping.
Of course, this time around, Xbox Live is already installed and you can start up your account (for a small fee of course) but the thing is now, others can see your account and game ranking if you will. Meaning, people can see that you have played for X amount of time and how many titles you have played during that time. So if you only own three games, but have logged 800 hours, you will be ranked quite high as it appears you play a title to not only it’s completion, but to find every little thing hidden in it. It even states acomplishments that the player has completed, in the form of a number.
It should be noted that the dashboard is easily navigated and very user friendly. The tabs float from left to right and can even be accessed while in game. They are color coded for an even easier experience.
With Xbox live completely enabled, when you log in and get ready for another gaming session, you can automatically tell if your friends are online and where they are playing. If you want to shoot them a message and tell them to quit playing and come join you in a private game, you can do so. It goes without mentioning (but I will) that you can set up your friend’s list as well but should you meet a person online that you enjoy playing with you can set it up so you can find them as well.
The 360 keeps all the good features of the original Xbox Live, but added a few extras for gamers that have not purchased a 360, but can still play against those that have. For example, the game GUN: it is available for several different systems including the 360 and the original Xbox. Well, through the power of Xbox live you can play against each other since you are both on Xbox live, it’s really a great feature. And of course since there are only 18 games available (at the time of this writing), there’s no reason why you can’t whip out a copy of Rainbow Six and go whoop up on your buddies.
Now, there is a big difference in the core and premium systems. If you choose to buy a core system, it will cost you $300.00 and you will get a wired controller, a standard set of AV cables and a Xbox live silver membership, meaning you can log on and view what’s going on, but not join any gaming venues. The corded controller is certainly a quality piece of machinery. However, if you get the core system, be ready to buy a memory card. If you don’t, you will have to start from scratch everytime you fire up your game.
If you buy the premium system though, you get a whole lot more for an extra $100 you’ll shell out. Instead of a corded controller, you get the wireless controller which retails for $50.00. You also get the hard drive ($100), a headset ($30), a remote control for watching DVDs and navigating the dashboard ($30) and the all-important high definition cables ($30). Yes, the math is correct, that’s $240 in extra goodies just for an extra $100.
I’m not telling you which system to buy, and the hard drive may not be of interest to some gamers. As it is, the hard drive allows it so you don’t need a memory card and you can play most of the original Xbox games if you have it, plus, any content that needs to be downloaded from Xbox live will easily be stored in it’s memory. Compatibility with previous Xbox games only works with the hard drive installed.
But again customization is the key, you can buy a wireless controller for the core system or you can buy a wired controller for the premium system. And you can even get a memory card for your premium system if you so desire. The point is, that there are options out there, and many more to come. There is a deluxe remote you can buy for your system and with the two USB ports on the front of the system (and one in the back), there is talk of all sorts of nifty add-ons that Microsoft promises is on the way (cameras? dance pads? microwaves?).
The controller is a smooth piece of equipment that seats nicely into a gamer’s hands. Long gone is the oversized bulky controller of the original, this new one is a combination of the S-controller and something entirely new. It still has force feeback as well as the trigger buttons.
Only this time the controller has an extra set of trigger buttons, only smaller and less obtrusive. Where the bottom buttons are true “triggers” the upper buttons are flat and wider. The headphones plug into base of the controller and the memory card plugs into the top. The whole thing is light and very comfortable.
The dual thumbsticks are located in such a way that whether you have a large hand or a small one, it should be comfortable. The familiar colored buttons are still on the far right of the controller but long gone are the black and white buttons, presumably because of the two new trigger ones.
The thing that really stands out on the wireless controller though, is the silver and green “X” button in the dead center. If you press and hold it down for a second, a little green light comes on.
Upon further inspection you’ll notice that there are four little numbers and four little lights. Each corner of the “X” represents one of the four players that can be playing at one time. In other words, should you have three other people playing with you, they will all have a different part of the “X” lit up, indicating if they are player one, two, three or four.
In addition, you can even power up your 360 using the big center button. There was definately some forward thinking going on when this bad boy was in development.
The headset is also a nice piece of equipment. It’s light enough so it won’t irritate you after wearing it and the cord has plenty of length to it. It’s reversable so that you can put it on either your left or right ear and the mirophone has some flex to it for mouth positioning. Since online games aren’t going anywhere, it’s nice to know that you won’t burn through several of these headsets, they are well built.
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