Yeah, so I’ve got one.
People who have any kind of access to Xbox Live who read this regularly are required by some sort of obscure law to add me to their friends list immediately. I will respond rather quickly, since I’m trying to build my friends list at this point.
The obvious question of most people who don’t have one to someone who does at this point seems to be, “what’s so different about it?” I’m not entirely certain I can relate everything about it without showing people in person exactly what’s different and what’s been improved from one Xbox to the other.
What I will say is that the Xbox 360 is perhaps the most complete, logical, and well-thought-out piece of electronics I believe I’ve ever used. It’s almost Apple-like in its simplicity - and design, for that matter - and so much so that I’m wondering why the people who designed this things aren’t being tapped to work on Windows more than a video game console.
I stood in line outside a Best Buy in Bridgeton on the morning of the 31st to snag one, since I’d been looking at the online inventory checker and making sure I knew which locations had them near myself. I was rewarded with an Xbox 360 (on 6 months financing, which is good since I’m transitioning jobs), and also rewarded with the most rude head cashier I’ve ever seen, which is why I didn’t buy any accessories or games at the time, and also reminded me why I don’t shop at Best Buy anymore.
For the first day, I was content to simply play around with the Dashboard - the “OS” of the Xbox, for lack of a better term, and way late into the night, i must say. The GUI for getting things set up, and the process for getting things started and up and running was very smooth and everything is laid out where you think it would be.
I’ve since purchased one boxed game and have acquired four total Xbox Live Arcade games, and I have a hard time deciding which investment was the best. I went slightly crazy today and traded in about ten games at EB in order to snag a used copy of Perfect Dark Zero and 1600 Microsoft Points. I’m only three missions into PD0, and it’s pretty good so far - graphics are incredible, even if the missions haven’t exactly been inspired so far, but the guns are pretty sweet, and there’s lots of action to go around.
Xbox Live Arcade is a completely different story. You see, I have a theory. I believe that the original Xbox was nothing more than a large beta testing platform for Xbox Live. Now that they’ve proven what they can do with it, the 360 is the natural full product resultant from that testing. The 360 is such a logical follow-up from the original Xbox that it almost feels like the original hit puberty and sprang into the 360 that sits on the shelf now.
XLA is the true master plan of the 360. It’s like pure digital crack for someone like me. I’ve so far picked up Bankshot Billiards 2, Bejeweled 2, Robotron, Hexic, and Geometry Wars Evolved. You can see this from the icons underneath my Gamercard up at the top of the post. For $5 or $10, you can download - right from the Internet - games like arcade classics, like Robotron, Gauntlet, or Joust, or newer games, like Bejeweled 2, Zuma, and backgammon and hearts. They are simple, they are good-looking, they almost all can be played against people over Xbox Live, and they all have the most addictive feature ever designed: Achievements.
Achievements are things that are designated by game designers as goals for you to reach when you play games. The average Arcade downloadable has 200 available points; most retail games have 1000 points available. The points you earn are collated into your Gamerscore, which is the middle number on the Gamercard. It’s like a built-in bragging rights system in your Xbox. Amanda has a Silver Xbox Live account, as well:
You can hit up anyone on your Friends list in the Dashboard, and look at their Achievements, and compare them to your own. You can also hit up leaderboards on every game, just like you could on the old Xbox, but here, you can also filter your leaderboard results by only your friends list. It’s interesting - you can just see where you are compared to all of your friends in a certain game or another. Interesting idea.
There’s a lot to like about the 360.
I can listen to my podcasts, streamed from my Windows desktop, while I play a game. I can have voice chats with anyone on my friends list anytime I want to. I can see what my friends are playing, and where they are in the game at any time. I can invite someone to play a different game, and when they accept, the tray on their Xbox pops out and asks them for the game. The wireless controllers work exactly like you think they would, and are the best-designed controls in history. Most of my old Xbox games are emulated well by the machine - though not all.
One thing I will agree with that reviewers have said repeatedly, though - the 360 was clearly designed with high-definition televisions in mind. It honestly doesn’t look very nice in some ways on my older tube television. Part of that is that you can just tell that the games were designed with HD in mind, and another part is that the stupid system came with a cable that has a choice of either component HD outs, or composite video, but no S-video cable. Doh! There’s a lot of fine detail that I’m missing with a standard-def TV, and you can tell that graphics technology has pretty much maxed out without the use of an HD display - there’s a lot of things I think should look better than they do, and it’s slightly frustrating.
But that’s another large purchase away.
Back to the 360. Get one and add me to your friends list - I demand it.
