I must say, Microsft did a reasonable job on the design. The control is actually very small, and fits well with your hand. Oddly enough, the top trigger buttons (Like the PS2 controller) is called LB and RB, and the tilt buttons are called the RT and LT. Here is a comparison between several of the controllers: The hard drive itself is actually very small, about the size and weight of a PSP. Here is a picture of that: Unfortunatly, the headset is a bit cheap. Instead of having a on/off button, you now have a switch. The headset is connected directly to the base, so you cannot use your own headset now without a 3rd party base. The base itself is a bit cheap, with a microphone style dongle. The plastic itself feels a bit cheap, and the styrofoam on it is the cheap kind. A bit dissapointing that we got a crappier headset that isn't compatable with the old kind: The remote is actually somewhat nice. It has a on/off button for the xbox, a open/close button, the same Y, X, A, and B buttons on the controller, a record button, and one interesting button that has the Windows XP button and is labeled start. If there is one thing that scares me, it's the power supply. Weighs more then the gamecube, looks to start fires, and has one of the weirdest connection types to a system that I have ever seen. Hope to god it doesn't catch on fire... Anywho, I am off to set it up. I'll try to give more details later.
Unfortunatly, I could only affort Perfect Dark Zero for it. Hopefully, I should have DOA4 and Kameo very soon.
Awesome, don't forget to stop playing long enough to fill us in. That psu does look damn scary. But maybe they learned something from their previous recall?? We can hope.
If ya wanna hit me up online, mine is tNCecil. My quick impressions PGR3: So Beautiful, too beautiful, i keep running into walls while i try and look at everything. Madden: Suprisingly fun and different at the same time, great looking as well. Kameo: Barely played it yet, camera was pissing me off PD0: Played a few rounds of multiplayer, seemed fun, but i dont know if itll be the killer app online. Single player is fun, though its frustrating at times. The whole game seems too dark to me.
PD Zero is the only game that interests me, really. Have you played the N64 version? If so, try to tell me if it is just the same or better than the original when you have the chance.
I havent really played PD for n64, so i cant say how it compares. Maybe Jason can, but eh. I just feel like the game is too dark even with the brightness up
I have Perfect Dark, but I never really played the singleplayer (Only multiplayer). Anywho, I think the brightness is actually manageable, especially after Doom 3 and Quake 4. Anyways, I must say, I am impressed with Perfect Dark Zero. The scenery is great, although the character models for the enemies and characters are lacking, and a bit stiff. Joanna, however, moves quite well, and can duel wield similar to how Halo 2 duel wields. A small update with the 360: It has a USB slot on the back, and two hidden USB slots to the right of the power button. Possibly for 3rd party/keyboard & mouse support? Also, like Assembler said, there is icons you can get or buy for your profile, although there is a large ammount of pre-loaded icons already on the Hard Drive. Another thing to note is the Power Button: It shows how many controllers are active. I must admit, it IS a bit loud when you first start playing, although it does quiet down when everything is loaded. One somewhat small problem I have run into is Xbox LIVE: it won't read my USB Cable Modem. I'm going to see if I can get it to work via a few other options, although I am not 100% sure.
It's not. Same size. Directly compatible assuming you're using final kit. Third party support? Just plug a USB keyboard in and it works. Plug a wired Xbox controller into any USB port and it works. USB Cable Modems are rubbish. Call up your cable co and get a proper modem with an ethernet port on it. That'll solve all your problems and get you a piece of kit that is compatible with anything. If you stick with USB you're going to be limited in what you can connect to. As a temporary workaround, you can always throw an ethernet card in your PC and connect the 360 to that. Have PC get online via USB and share the connection with the ethernet card and the 360. -hl718
Anywho, I have some good news and quite a bit of bad news. Let's start with the good news: Apperantly, you can get a free month of Xbox Live when you try to make a account. Fortunatly, you don't even have to enter your credit card, either. The emulation is hit or miss. Like microsoft says, Halo 2 does play a little smoother, and does look a little sharper. You don't see TOO much of a difference, but it does look a little cleaner and crisper. It may just be my eyes, but some of the other supported games do look a bit sharper as well, such as KOTOR (Although the frame rate is the same). Now, for the bad. It may just be because of the wireless controller, but there is MASSIVE headset lag and repeating for Perfect Dark Zero. Fortunatly, I did not see any lag for the game itself, but prases said in the microphone can repeat up to 10-15 times. Some more bad news: there is some glitches with the emulation software. When I tried to save a game of KOTOR, the music stopped when I got back to the game itself (Backround noises didn't, and I am not sure about speech). I'll try some of the other games and see how emulation fares on it.
Man, it sucks how this system was so unexciting IMO. Usually when a new system comes out your suppose to get that feeling you get before xmas, and it just wasn't there for me. I really was considering saving up the dough and waiting in line for the system and a game or something, it seems like that would be really fun and make the system a little sweeter, but god damn thats an assload of money to play 1 or 2 games (for me just pd 0 and doa4 look good but now pd0 looks dissapointing and my guess is doa4 will be the same thing again with 2 more charectars). Plus my new TV isn't here yet...and I can have fun with my Xbox 1 on that (since I'll finally be able to use component, and the graphics seem about the same anyhow)I also have heard a lot of cases of the system overheating, breaking, etc... I bet when the price drops and they smooth stuff out it'll be a kickass system to get, sort of like the case with regular Xbox. Maybe I'll do the stand-in-line thing for Revolution or something. That system looks pretty exciting to me...sigh.
Hey Jason, btw, if you plug a USB keyboard or anything into it, does it work? Like.....can you play PD 0 with mouse and keyboard or anything? Oh yeah....what does it do when you boot up an Xbox game? Does it show the regular Xbox splash or anything like that, what happens when you put in an unsupported game? Hope your enjoying it btw...
Few more things to add: -There is a surprising ammount of extras on the Hard Drive when you first buy it (Although most are crap). The things that are on there without having to use Xbox Live are: a free puzzle game in the arcade section, and various crappy band's music. Yippie Skippy! -Although most of the stuff on the marketplace section are pay to use, there is a few free things: downloadable trailers for upcoming and released games, and demos (So far). Currently, there is a Kameo and NBA game demo you can download (Although it takes a good half-hour to download, at nearly 1/2 a gig per demo. The trailer's only take around 3-5 minutes) -KOTOR II seems to work OK with the emulation, but there are some bugs with the sound (loud, screeching sound). It seems to be random, though.
The thing that impresses me the most is the controller, It's very confortable for someone like me that has medium-sized hands. And yes, there is a free 1-month trial to Live Gold. You just need to create an account or import an existing account and when you choose your subscription level, it will let you know that you qualify for the free trial. Even if you choose a Silver membership at first, you can choose to activate the trial later.
