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XBox (Games) Entertainment Games

First Xbox 360 Reviews Hitting the Web 563

Posted by CmdrTaco from the just-gimme-my-doa dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The first reviews for Xbox 360 games are starting to hit the web! 1UP has reviewed Kameo, Project Gotham Racing 3, FIFA Soccer 2006, NBA 2K6, and Amped 3, while IGN has reviewed Madden NFL 06, Kameo, and NBA 2K6. Judging from both sets of reviews, it looks like Project Gotham Racing 3 - which scored a 10/10 on 1UP - is the only sure winner of the 360 launch games thus far."
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First Xbox 360 Reviews Hitting the Web More

First Xbox 360 Reviews Hitting the Web

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  • The platform itself will be a smashing success within two years. I guarentee it.

    Personally, I'm holding off til later I think. Unless Perfect Dark Zero scores a massive 9 something everywhere (ala Halo at Xbox launch), there just won't be any great games til Christmas at the earliest.

    • Well, since you've held off, you don't really have to make a decision til april.
      http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/12/ 1724242&tid=211 [slashdot.org]

    • Re:Hardware = good; Launch...? (Score:5, Funny)

      by oGMo ( 379 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @12:22PM (#14035944)
      The platform itself will be a smashing success within two years. I guarentee it.

      Well then, that settles it.

    • Re:Hardware = good; Launch...? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by shut_up_man ( 450725 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @12:25PM (#14035979) Homepage
      I agree. I bought an Xbox about a year and half after its launch, and it was a delight to have over ten excellent games to sit down and play the first day I brought it home. A lot of them were already in the cheap rental section at the local video store as well. There's no doubt the great games will come, but they aren't there for launch (are they ever?).

  • Nothing but sports and racing? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by thekel ( 909848 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @12:03PM (#14035760)
    Where are the first person shooters and Adventure/RPG games? Or better yet something completely diffrent. Are there going to be any launch titles like that?
    • The closest to a launch title for an RPG for X-Box was going to be Oblivion, I believe. Unfortunately, it appears as though the game has hit a delay and won't make it for Dec. 6 but probably early Winter '06.

      However, I will just play Oblivion on the PC, like any sane person would.

    • Re:Nothing but sports and racing? (Score:5, Informative)

      by TomHandy ( 578620 ) <(tomhandy) (at) (gmail.com)> on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @12:12PM (#14035844)
      Perfect Dark Zero fits into the FPS category.
    • Sports games appeal to the masses of casual gamers, and therefore are a good choice if you wanna sell a console.

      And if it's going to be an FPS for Xbox it better have "Halo" in the name - another thing casual gamers recognize. Seasoned multiplatform gamers aren't eaisly satisfied with FPSes on consoles.
    • None of these games will make me buy the 360. I can play these sports games on any system. Hell, I still play NCAA 03 on my gamecube. I really had no interest in the Xbox until Knights of the Old Republic came out. With that and Ninja Gaiden, I finally had two games that I had to play and got an xbox. Sure there are other games that are fun, but none which I HAD to play at the time. So Im gonna be waiting a while before I invest in the 360.
    • Kameo is an adventure/RPG. Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion was supposed to be out, but has been delayed (dammit). I view the Tony Hawk games as adventure games more than sports games since THUG and THUG2, but it's a limited-appeal kind of adventure. Perfect Dark Zero is confirmed for launch according to other reports (not familiar with the title, but I seem to recall it's an FPS).

      Sports and racing games have it easy, because they've already got a number of things developed and ready to shove into the game... as s
    • FPS: Call Of Duty

      My impression of playing Call Of Duty 2 on a BestBuy Xbox 360: Slightly nicer graphics but, at the end of the day, you are trying to play a shooter on the same control mechanism everyone laughed at you (before owning you in deathmatches) for using on a PC back in the days of Doom 1.

      If you like playing FPS' without a mouse, in a standalone system, without all the add on costs of upgrading a PC (arguments about a $400 XBox vs $400 X1800 aside), it's a great version of a great game. Me... Even

    • Re:Nothing but sports and racing? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Vaystrem ( 761 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @01:28PM (#14036546)
      "Where are the first person shooters and Adventure/RPG games? Or better yet something completely diffrent. Are there going to be any launch titles like that?"

      Kameo is an Action Adventure Game
      Gun is an Action Adventure Game
      Quake 4 is an FPS
      Perfect Dark is an FPS
      Call of Duty 2 is an FPS
      Condemned: Criminal Origins is a First Person (Action Adventure?)

      As well if you look at the list of Xbox titles, including the very new ones, which will be playable on the 360 fully scaled up and antialiased @ 720P or 1080i... there are quite a variety of good looking games going to be playable at launch on this system. The launch list isn't perfect, but its a big step up from the Xbox's launch.

  • Already too late? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Shadow Wrought ( 586631 ) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .thguorw.wodahs.> on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @12:04PM (#14035783) Homepage Journal
    What I find interesting about reviews during this time is that those who have to have the 360 have already bought, and likely already know which of the 20 or 30 games available they will buy. It's not like there will be anyone with a 360 who has not already been planning on buying one. So, just how useful is a review like this when, pretty much by definition, the likely consumers have already made up their minds?

    • Not all of us have (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @12:23PM (#14035966)
      I'm on the fence right now. I think I want a console. It'd be my fist console since the SNES, I've been a PC-only gamer for that long. However the 360 is tempting me. There's lots of titles that sound interesting, and I have a nice HDTV and surround setup now that I want to play on.

      The deciding factor is going to be how good the games sound. If there's enough 360 games that sound really good, I think I'll take the plunge and get one. If not, I'll stick with my PC as my only game platform.

  • Slashdot gives it... (Score:4, Funny)

    by XxtraLarGe ( 551297 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @12:05PM (#14035784) Journal
    8.0/10.0

  • I don't care about games (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Svenne ( 117693 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @12:05PM (#14035790) Homepage
    How good is it as a multimedia machine? What file formats and codecs does it play? Should I go for a chipped xbox, or wait for the xbox 360?
    • I'd go with a chipped Xbox and run the Xbox Media Center now. Then in a year or two you can see which console has the best media playback. The 360s default playback is severly limited compared to the Xbox Media Center.
      • agreed, XBMC kicks butt as a media center. DVD playback hs it's quirks though, but for that you can use the default player (that by the way puts vertical bars into my screen only when watched on my prjecter -> looks like crap)

        If medai playback is your priority, I would wait for PS3. I just decided that yesterday that I'll wait for ps3 as I am sick of all the peripherials I would have to buy for the xbox 360 to make it usable ... HDD and remote is OK, but when I sav that I will nedd some $50 cable aga

    • Re:I don't care about games (Score:5, Interesting)

      by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @12:13PM (#14035858) Homepage Journal

      A chipped xbox with Xbox Media Center is great. Supports almost any popular codec (even quicktime), works great with high-def TVs, does post-processing (deblocking, deringing, etc) of the video, etc. Personally I'm waiting for the 360 to come down in price and be chip-able before I buy one.
    • Seriously, if your sole purpose is to play movies, get a computer. The graphics hardware, which is the majority of the power and cost, is almost totally wasted on that kind of thing. What's more, it's not x86 so there will be a much smaller software library for it than an Intel or AMD box.

      Get a small form factor Athlon box with a cheap graphics and sound card and call it a day, that's all you need for multi-media. With that, you can easily upgrade components as needed, and software to play new formats.

      I mea

      • Re:Then why buy it? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Courageous ( 228506 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @12:22PM (#14035949)

        I mean let's be real: This is a GAME console, if you don't care about it for playing games, there's little reason to get one, espically at the current prices. $500 is plenty to build a media PC better than any X-box.


        I think people looking to do this are expecting both, not one or the other. For me, for it to pay off it has to be a DVD, a Tivo, and a game box.

        C//

      • Re:Then why buy it? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        but this is slashdot. we use devices for everything but the intended purpose. play games on an xbox360? ha! we need to discuss important things like:

        1) can i run linux on it?
        2) can i build a beowulf cluster of them?
        3) can i play illegally downloaded movies/music on it?
        4) can i use it as an ssh proxy to connect to my file server hosted on a toaster running netbsd?

        you know, things like that...

      • Re:Then why buy it? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by glesga_kiss ( 596639 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @01:18PM (#14036469)
        Seriously, if your sole purpose is to play movies, get a computer. [snip] This is a GAME console, if you don't care about it for playing games, there's little reason to get one, espically at the current prices. $500 is plenty to build a media PC better than any X-box.

        You miss the point. I had my XBMC set up in three hours. It can play just about any media, has digital audio out, hooks up to my TVs component inputs (and has done since it came out). Say a weeks work to produce something similar using off-the-shelf components? And at what cost? I've never even seen a video card with component-out that'll work in UK TVs. (we've always had RGB component inputs).

        Also, you miss something MAJOR that most who undertake making a media pc miss out. The user interface. With the xbox, the UI is designed for the device. The remote control works out the box. No need to assign buttons to an existing remote, and "hack" buttons that don't exist on your remote. No "menu" button? Well, I'll use the "1" for that. No "display" button, guess I'll put that on "2" then. With XBMC the UI is specifically designed for the hardware, and it works beautifully. It has a better UI than ANY media device I've seen. Seriously, it's the dogs bollocks. The standard hardware is one of the things that benefits games developers, and guess what...it applies here too.

        It's small, fits under the telly and it's cheap. I update it every other month and I am always pleasanly surprised by the new functionality they add. Last month it was an Apple website browser (lot's of quicktime media) as well as an iFilm browser. Watching streaming media to your TV over the net from the confort of your armchair? Bah, that's old news for us, and now we have a massive library to watch.

        The only thing it doesn't do is TIVO style recording HOWEVER that's doable. It can display streams over the network, so all you need is a centralised PC doing the recording. And in essence this is a far superiour solution, as you can buy additional xbox "clients" for pennies now and watch the media in ANY room.

        You really don't know what you are missing. Every tech-head who has seen my (cheap) setup now has one.

    • However, I just tried playing back some HDTV recorded content from my MythTV and Xbox chugged on both 1080 and 720 playback of my recorded shows from OTA. Anyone have any tips on getting it to play past the 15fps or so in mplayer it was getting from my Xbox Media Center? Since XBOX 360 has the Media Center for Windows free, I was thinking I could just mount my MythTV recordings on my Windows Media Center PC and stream the HDTV shows that way to 360.

    • Re:I don't care about games (Score:5, Informative)

      by pubjames ( 468013 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @12:19PM (#14035916)
      If you want a media machine for the living room, I can really recommend a Mac Mini. It already has everything you need for multimedia. Get the bluetooth wireless keyboard and mouse.
      • It's true. We're using them to drive large displays in a couple of installs we're doing at work. They work great, and they're rock-stable. Plus they look cool in a component heap :)

      • Re:I don't care about games (Score:4, Informative)

        by poot_rootbeer ( 188613 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @12:48PM (#14036196)
        If you want a media machine for the living room, I can really recommend a Mac Mini. It already has everything you need for multimedia.

        Except a TV tuner, TV output, digital audio output, the processing power to encode or play back HD content, and a proper remote control.

        On the plus side, it CAN play DVDs.

        • Re:I don't care about games (Score:4, Informative)

          by mrtrumbe ( 412155 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @01:32PM (#14036587) Homepage
          I'll bite.

          The Apple Video Adaptor [apple.com] enables you to connect your mac mini to a regular television. (Sorry if the link doesn't work. It's from the apple store.) It costs 19.99 US.

          Elgato [elgato.com] makes TV tuners with Tivo-like recording capabilities. These products range from standard television signals, to DTT to HD, etc. Most handle encyption/decryption outside of your computer. Some even have remote controls.

          If your HD television has DVI input, you can connect your mac to your HDTV [apple.com] without an adaptor.

          So, out of the box, you are right, the mac mini doesn't do those things. Apple doesn't make pre-packaged "media machines" as some PC manufacturers do. However, it is trivial to build a system to do all of those things and more.

          Taft

    • You don't even need a chip. Soft modding the xbox is very easy, especially if you don't care about Xbox Live.

      ttyl,
      --buddy
    • A great example of why this machine will be a smashing success.

      Microsoft has done a fabulous job of selling it as more than just a game machine.

  • Am I just olde? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by thoughtcr1mes ( 815081 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @12:14PM (#14035859)
    Does anyone else see what I see? All but one of these is a sequel! Where, O where, have the original fun-to-play games gone? :(
    • I'm feeling the same as you and I'm sure there are millions others with the same feelings. Tired of sequel after sequel that is basically the same exact games. All they do is up the resolutions and polygon counts, but the game is the same. It feels like double dipping on dvd releases. Put out version one, then special edition, then ultimate edition. I stopped that years ago and am not really interested in any of the new consoles.

    • Re:Am I just olde? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by aliens ( 90441 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @12:31PM (#14036048) Homepage Journal
      They're where they always are, on Nintendo's consoles. Too bad they're all "kiddie" games. I still enjoy my gamecube and GBA more than anything else I have. Well with the exception of Civ 4 :)

      • Re:Am I just olde? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by thatguywhoiam ( 524290 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @12:53PM (#14036256)
        They're where they always are, on Nintendo's consoles. Too bad they're all "kiddie" games.

        You know, that really is too bad, because for once I'd like to play a well-crafted, simple, addictive game that doesn't feature neurotic plumbers, walking mushrooms, giant monkeys, turtles with wings, pink princesses, rainbows and clouds with fucking faces on them.

        Alright, I take back what I said about the monkeys.

    • Re:Am I just olde? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @12:53PM (#14036254) Homepage Journal
      "Does anyone else see what I see? All but one of these is a sequel! Where, O where, have the original fun-to-play games gone? :("

      Um, this is a system launch. You picked the wrong time to expect originality or high quality games, and that goes for any system.

  • Motion blur (Score:3, Interesting)

    by digidave ( 259925 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @12:18PM (#14035906)
    From the Project Gotham Racing 3 review: "PGR3's use of motion blur is similarly effective. Every object in the environment blurs realistically as speeding vehicles tear through the tracks"

    I've driven pretty fast. I once drove a Dodge Viper around a race track and got some pretty wicked speed, hitting about 150mph on the back straight. What didn't I see? Motion blur.

    I understand that the designers want to give the player a better sense of speed, but real environments don't blur, they simply move by too quickly to see any detail. It's even worse when the reviewers start to declare unrealistic effects as very realistic. It's like in a movie when a car careens over an embankment and explodes. Sure, the explosion looked realistic *if cars actually exploded when they crashed* (even the Pinto didn't explode like that). Same thing here... I'm sure the bluring is very close to what it would actually look like *if environments actually did blur at high speeds*.

    On an unrelated note, I loved the special effects in Star Wars Episode III. Those lightsabers looked very realistic.
    • Racing games (and sports games in general) are trying to reproduce television reality, not actual reality. Television images are where the blur comes from.

    • Re:Motion blur (Score:5, Informative)

      by thatguywhoiam ( 524290 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @12:28PM (#14036016)
      I've driven pretty fast. I once drove a Dodge Viper around a race track and got some pretty wicked speed, hitting about 150mph on the back straight. What didn't I see? Motion blur.

      Uh, well, yeah. Your eyes are not cameras.

      The use of motion blur is to simulate filmed entertainment. We know what high-framerate 3d looks like when simulating fast speeds; it looks like that odd shutter effect at the beginning of saving Private Ryan. It can be an interesting effect but it does not look natural. For most people, the filmed 'blur' is closer to the actual experience than razor-sharp frames across the board. This is the reason they use motion blur in 3D animation.

    • It's what you deal with for fixed frame rendering (Score:5, Informative)

      by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @12:32PM (#14036058)
      That's actually always been one of the problems games have had next to movies for realism. I mean films are still shot at 24fps. It's rare to play a game at less than 30fps, and many people insist on 60fps or more. Yet the film, despite it;s low frame rate, still has a smoothness that games don't. Why? Motion blur.

      If you look at a game screenshot with lots of motion, everything is crystal clear. It's a snapshot of precisely what was happening at that given instant. It's like having a still photo with an infinetly fast shutter speed. If however you look at a movie frame with teh same kind of action, you'll notice it's heavily blurred. The camera is leaving the shutter open long enough to capture more than just a single instant.

      Now the net effect, when played back is that the blurred scene looks more smooth. The faster something is moving, the more true this is. I mean let's say you have a game running at 30fps, and you have a rocket fly across the screen in just 3 frames. The way it will be rendered, without blur, will be with huge gaps inbetween. You'll see it on the left side, then the center, then the right, then gone. It looks jerky, cut up, unrealistic. However if that rocket were blurred as it moved, it would look more smooth and realistic to you.

      Like any effect, it can be overused or used wrong, but blur can really enchance teh smoothness of images changing at high speeds.
      • I'm asking because I simply do not know.

        Is the "motion blur" of 24fps movies added in post processing, inherent to the camera in original filming, or a combination of the two.

        I'm also not a gamer, but being a geek I like the technology that goes into the newer games. I may very well buy a PS3 if I get unpissed at Sony. 2 HDTV outs, digital sound, absolutely sick looking screenshots, cell processors, looks neat. I'm curious about the blur in games. Why does that not exist? Would it take more processing

        • Re:It's what you deal with for fixed frame renderi (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Julian352 ( 108216 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @02:19PM (#14036980)
          The motion blur in film is for the same reason that you would get a blur on any still picture of something that is moving fast - the amount of time the film is exposed is large enough to capture multiple locations of the object. This would lead to a blurred picture of the original object, as nothing moves in exact jumps to be captured by film without blurring.

          The problem with blur in games is the fact that computers know the exact positions of the objects and do the calculations based on that. The general thinking for gaming used to be to get the most clarity, the most details that you can for an object from the hardware and do that at highest frame rate. However that results in very crisp, but as GP said unrealistic, pictures. Adding more frames doesn't really help because they are still too sharp. On the other hand, to create a blur in games requires calculations involving more than just positions of objects and their polygons in one frame, but the locations of them in previous frames. That means that your memory requirements have grown for something that used to be considered the anticedent of perfection - non-crispness.
        • It's inherent to the film and camera itself.

          At 24 fps, the camera shutter will be open for (don't know the exact number) 1/30 of a second each frame, and any motion that occurs during the time the shutter is open will appear on the film as a blur. It's the same blur effect as when you use a slow shutter speed to take a picture of fast action. When viewed as part of a sequence of moving pictures, your mind interprets the blur as a moving object.

          Games try to emulate this effect with motion blur, since the a
  • Tecmo support is the only reason I am going to buy a 360, and actually the only reason I bought a XBox too. Love or hate Itagaki(sp), he puts out really solid games with good game play and graphics. Gaiden still stands up strong against anything new.

  • I have one. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Jonny Ringo ( 444580 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @12:20PM (#14035926)

    I'm sorry, I actually just took my old one and spun it around really fast.
  • How long before a ModChip comes out? Will they port XBMC, or is there a reason to? How good is the 360's media player interface?

  • A perfect score? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @12:23PM (#14035960)
    Giving a game perfect score doesn't sound like something a respectable reviewer should do.
    10 out of 10 possible indicates perfection, something that can't be improved. Suppose that a year later,
    the game gets a sequel with some improvements. More cars, more levels - the usual sequel stuff. Shouldn't
    that also receive a perfect score of 10, since it is the same "perfect" game, but just... better?
    I do understand that scores are meant to be read like the bible, that they are just general guidelines and
    that you really need to read the review. But scores are what will be quoted on advertisements, and a pretty clearly hype-influenced perfect score is just sad.

    • Re:A perfect score? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Surt ( 22457 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @01:27PM (#14036544) Homepage Journal
      Actually, ask a scientist and they will tell you a linear scale is most effective when you use the full range. That's the big problem people have with, for example, ice skating: the worst performance of the night will score 5/6 with glaring painful to watch errors, and the most perfect performance of the night will score 5.9/6.

      Taken to a logical extreme, you should really never rate a game higher than 0/10, because surely the same game with significant graphics enhancements could be made 10 more times, and surely you would agree that each major step in graphics enhancement should deserve at least a one point improvement in score?

      I take a 10/10 score on a game review to mean: reviewer didn't find anything he didn't like in the time he had to play it before the review came out. A reviewer with even a minor nit to pick will drop the perfect 10 and harp on his pet peeve, hoping to get the company to fix his pet peeve in the next version.
    • Actually, the sequel would probably get a bad rating for only adding a few cars and levels while trying to milk another $50 out of its fan base. Game ratings aren't persistent through sequels, just as movie ratings aren't persistent through sequels. If they were persistent, Alien 4 would have been an academy award winner.

    • Re:A perfect score? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by solios ( 53048 )
      Keep in mind that when the first Playstations shipped, magazines like Game Players and EGM were giving piles of shit like Warhawk perfect scores. Better graphics and better music always seem to make for better review scores, even if the game play is balls.

  • Scores (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @12:26PM (#14035992)
    1UP
    Kameo: 7.0
    Project Gothem Racing 3: 10.0
    Fifa Soccer 2006: 7.0
    NBA 2K6: 7.0
    Amped 3: 7.0

    IGN
    Madden 2006 : 8.0
    Kameo : 8.4
    NBA 2K6 : 7.8

    I recognize that most of these are sports games, and sports game revies have been dropping lately, but these scores seem pretty 'Average' (that is, not very impressive). Certainly PGR 3 seems to have scored well, but is one racing game really going to move systems?

    Seeing these scores for Kameo is a real dissapointment; I really enjoyed Rare's games for the N64 and wanted them to recapture their greatness.
  • Well another smashing piece of hardware hits the streets, so what ? The games are still lame. They are much more beautiful than on the previous one sure but what about interest ?
    Blasting monsters or whatnot is not my cup of tea (or coffee or mountain dew or whatever), I'm fed up with micromanaging my armada in the 3565654684th copy of the click fest called warcraft and I don't care much to see sprites living their own lives on screen. MMORPG are a bug nightmare and a support pit. So what's left ?
    (Answer :

  • I'm not feeling the X360 love (Score:5, Interesting)

    by thatguywhoiam ( 524290 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @12:37PM (#14036113)
    Anyone else notice a distinct 'meh' rising from the unwashed gaming masses?

    Sure, all the hype is in place, and the X360 looks like a great platform... maybe I am just not paying attention, or have become jaded. But all my gaming friends are totally ambivalent on the X360. Some want to pick it up, most are going to wait and see what the PS3 is like, and in general there seems to be a collective shrug about the thing. Is it lack of Halo 3, or some really huge A-list title? Shouldn't be... the PS2 launched with basically SSX and Ridge Racer...

    I dunno. There is some kind of elusive piece missing from the X360 launch to get me excited. I saw the posters for the pre-sale and thought Hey, I guess that IS out soon, huh.... I guess I'm just an old coot now. I play almost nothing but Warcraft these days, maybe that is it. :)

    • No love here (Score:3, Interesting)

      by wandazulu ( 265281 )
      No, no love here either. But I'll go further and say I'm not feeling it from *any* of the consoles. The interest I have for the Revolution, based on its controller, is tempered by the fact that it seems the only other selling point is that it can play all the older games. Note to Nintendo: Retro gaming is cool, but not for very long. Yes it's fun to fire up Super Mario Brothers once in awhile, but I'm not going to slog through those games *again*.

      But as far as the 360...PGR3 looks okay, I guess, but so does

    • Re:I'm not feeling the X360 love (Score:5, Insightful)

      by oGMo ( 379 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @01:15PM (#14036450)
      Some want to pick it up, most are going to wait and see what the PS3 is like, and in general there seems to be a collective shrug about the thing. Is it lack of Halo 3, or some really huge A-list title?

      My perception of the PS1 is that it started slowly, uninterestingly, and eventually picked up steam with better and better titles, really taking off with FF7, and finally ending its career at a ripe old age where it can still be bought in micro form with a huge game library available. I still see new copies of some Greatest Hits on the shelves at Best Buy.

      Enter the PS2. The Playstation has a track record of a platform with a ton of top titles, offers better graphics, backward compatibility, a higher capacity format and DVD movie playing capabilities. Any suprise people wanted this one?

      Contrast this with the XBOX. It started off with lots of hype, never really went anywhere with its library, instead relying on technical superiority, and they're already coming out with the next console before this one has had five years.

      Enter the XBOX360. Now, the XBOX didn't have a great library, and so there's not much track record there. It's got slightly improved graphics (but probably not as good as the competition will have), some backward compatibility (but to a meager library), and the same old DVD format. People say "there are interesting games on the horizon," but honestly, I want to know: what are they?

      Contrast this to the competition. The PS3 promises what the PS2 promised (and delivered on): highly improved graphics, full backward compatibility, a higher capacity format and the ability to play next-gen movies. It's sitting on a vast library of 2 generations of games, and all indications point to the next generation being just as big.

      The Revolution promises full backward compatibility to everything Nintendo owns (although details are fuzzy), a new form of controller that could really make console shooters something else (as well as open up new types of games), and most importantly, all the Nintendo franchise games.

      I can see why someone would want a PS3. I can see why someone would want a Nintendo Revolution. But why would someone want an XBOX360?

      • I can see why someone would want a PS3. I can see why someone would want a Nintendo Revolution. But why would someone want an XBOX360?

        For me, it's simple - Xbox Live. I'm not interested in role playing some elf wandering around enchanted islands. Get real. As far as I'm concerned, gaming is all about the challenge of playing real people. And Microsoft thoroughly walloped Sony on the online gaming front. Turning on the Xbox and firing up a game of Halo 2, Ghost Recon, or Madden is a nice 45 minute diversion.
      • Contrast this with the XBOX. It started off with lots of hype, never really went anywhere with its library, instead relying on technical superiority, and they're already coming out with the next console before this one has had five years.

        Oh my god! A 5-year lifecycle! It's not like Nintendo has ever had a lifecycle that short.

        As for the library, XBOX had a number of notable exclusives, and with Rare onboard it appears that the 360 will have a number of notable exclusives as well.

        Enter the XBOX360. Now, the

        • Re:I'm not feeling the X360 love (Score:5, Funny)

          by oGMo ( 379 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @06:58PM (#14039665)

          Oh my god! A 5-year lifecycle! It's not like Nintendo has ever had a lifecycle that short.

          You misread. November 15th, 2001 was the XBOX released. November 29th, 2005 the XBOX360 is released. That is 4 years from launch to launch; previous "successful" systems (NES, SNES, GB, GBC, GBA, PSX, PS2, even the N64) had 5+ year spans usually with an additional 3-5 years after that. The PSX was launched in 1994. You can still buy them new today, 11 years later. That was Sony's first console. The NES launched in 1983, and the Super Famicom wasn't even released until 1991; the NES was still going strong in 1993. That was Nintendo's first console.

          Microsoft's first console has lasted barely 4 years.

          As for the library, XBOX had a number of notable exclusives, and with Rare onboard it appears that the 360 will have a number of notable exclusives as well.

          Like... Halo? And what? Fable? What has Rare done since 2002 for the XBOX? Let's see: Grabbed by the Ghoulies, and Conker: Live and Reloaded. Yeah. I bet the 360's going to have lots of Rare games. Nintendo sold their stake for a reason.

          Don't believe Sony's crapola. Most developers have said that the XBOX 360 is roughly equal to the PS3 in terms of graphical muscle. The ATI GPU in the 360 is no pushover, no matter what Sony would have you believe.

          "Most developers"? Which developers are these? Microsoft developers? They don't count, you know. Being "roughly equal" is not a good position for a console whose predecessor sold almost exclusively on technical superiority.

          And I wouldn't call over 200 games "meager" in terms of backwards compatibility.

          Compared to 1500 PS2 titles and 1400 PS1 titles [gamerankings.com], it's pretty meager.

          And there are interesting games now. Lots of Rare fans like myself have been waiting for another Perfect Dark, there's PGR3, DOA4, and, of course, all the 3rd party sports and racing games.

          Keep waiting. Racing and sports are nice; some of us like a little more variety.

          As for DVD, who gives a crap? DVD-9 holds more than 9 gigabytes of data - it's certainly enough for any PC game out there, and I fail to realize why it's a serious issue for the 360.

          Your failure, Microsoft's failure, not anyone else's. 9 gigs isn't much anymore. High-res textures, geometry, and video eat up lots of space really quick.

          There are multi-DVD PS2 games; next-gen consoles will support far larger textures and geometries. Space is a must.

          You're assuming that Blue-Ray is the format of the future. And that backwards-compatibility is going to be 100% - hell, even newer PS2 revs are having trouble maintaining full backwards-compatibility.

          The PS2 isn't 100% backward-compatible with the PS1... but it's really damn good, and doesn't require downloading binaries or developer interaction. Most people are fine with that.

          The Revolution isn't even competitive in this area. Nintendo has segmented themselves into a different market segment through the odd controller, late launch, different pricepoint, and different hardware specs.

          ...then you say:

          Oh, and I don't see you crapping on Nintendo for choosing DVD-9 for Revolution.

          Go back and read the previous paragraph you wrote for why. Nintendo is on an entirely different playing field of their own making.

          You don't get it, do you? The 360 isn't about improved hardware, it's about improved software. Downloadable demos & movies. Independant games. Intelligent matchmaking. Integrated VoIP. Connectivity with XP Media ce

  • Feh on reviews. Feh, I say! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Gothic_Walrus ( 692125 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @12:44PM (#14036164) Journal
    Judging from both sets of reviews, it looks like Project Gotham Racing 3 - which scored a 10/10 on 1UP - is the only sure winner of the 360 launch games thus far."

    Ignoring the fact that you can't pick a winner from "both sets of reviews" when it's only included in one of them...

    The "games have to get nine out of ten to be worth playing" mentality bothers me. A lot. Scores are inflated to the point where they're almost meaningless anyway; even though Black and White was a good game, do you really think it would have been consistently rated at the 90% level [gamerankings.com] if it wasn't so anticipated and so hyped? The 10/10 on PGR3 means jack except for it's the obligatory launch title that everyone is expected to buy with the console. What console hasn't launched with at least one game in the 9/10 or above range?

    Personally, I know I'd have more fun with Kameo than I would PGR3. I've got racing games, and plenty of them. I'd much rather have an experience that's new instead of something that we see modified and released anew every six months in some form.

    It's also a letdown to see how the scores are determined. Kameo was scored lower because it's only going to last "weeks, not months?" Give me a fucking break - weeks of entertainment for $50 is still pretty darn good, all things considered, and Kameo also seems to be one of the few 360 launch titles that has a plot of some kind. Apparently, that's become a bad thing.

  • Ooo, shiny! (Score:4, Funny)

    by ndogg ( 158021 ) <the.rhorn@NoSPAm.gmail.com> on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @01:17PM (#14036459) Homepage Journal
    I didn't realize that soccer players were so shiny.

  • XB360 Better Than You Could Know (Score:5, Informative)

    by jefftunn ( 152332 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @01:17PM (#14036464) Homepage
    Here at GarageGames we have had XB360s since Alpha hardware. Currently, we have about eight dev-stations in place while we are finishing up Marble Blast Ultra for distribution through the Live Arcade feature of the system. I can tell you that with everything that I know about the system, I will be the first in line at Best Buy to get my own system for home. Here's why.

    I could care less about processors or GPU's, but even if I did the XB360 is great in this area. But, it is everywhere else that the system shines even brighter. The wireless controller feels JUST RIGHT, and I can finally sit on my couch and play games on my HD television (which has precious few other HD signals where I live). No other wireless controller in history, other than Wavebird for Gamecube, has felt right. This time MS nailed it.

    If I'm not feeling like I want to play game, I can easily plug my iPod into the front of the system and listen to my music. Currently, I'm not much of a techie, so I listen to my music by plugging my iPod into one of those cheesy little self powered speaker systems. This might not impress the Slashdot crowd, but I don't care enough about this kind of thing to take even five minutes to figure out which input, which cable, etc. it takes to hook up to my myriad amps, etc. to make it work.

    Live Arcade downloadable games are the biggest thing that will make this system a hit. Being able to sit on my couch, and choose from hundreds of games without going to the store is a HUGE WIN. Many other things such as transferrable memory cards that allow "roaming" so you can take your downloaded games to a friend's house, micropayments so you can easily buy add-ons to your game (or allowing parents to give their kids purchasing power) all add up to a system that is light years ahead of current systems.

    Microsoft has done so many things right with this system that we continue to be amazed.

    • Re:XB360 Better Than You Could Know (Score:5, Funny)

      by dankasfuk ( 885483 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @01:26PM (#14036543)
      Ballmer,
          Is that you? ;)

    • Re:XB360 Better Than You Could Know (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @02:08PM (#14036890) Homepage
      " micropayments so you can easily buy add-ons to your game"

      Unfortunately, myself and many other gamers out there are disgusted to see this become a selling point You see, content that USED to be free and downloadable will now be charged for. Be prepared to be nickle and dimed on every single game element they can think of. I wouldn't be surprised if they introduced an "arcade" style function where you have to pay per play.

      And if you think this hasn't started to happen yet, I invite you to take a look at what Valve's Steam has done to the modding community. Now every single mod that has a decent player base and used to be free is trying to charge about the price of a retail Expansion for their mod. And don't get me wrong...I'm happy to see the modding community rewarded for their effort, but I am not happy about the fact that it is at the expense of the players. I always thought it should come directly from the game company for causing more people to buy their game.

  • PS3 /w Linux (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tbcpp ( 797625 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @02:23PM (#14037010)
    Xbox360 looks cool and all, but if Sony will allow us to develop with 1-2 Cells in Linux on the PS3 unmodded, they just got one buyer.

    I'm a pretty heavy gamer (8-12 hours a week), but would never buy a dedicated machine for it. But the specs on the PS3 are way to good to pass up. Seeing most of my programming work these days revolves around video editing, the PS3 sounds to good to pass up. Get a Cell machine and a killer gaming console, all in one for

  • bad new for Madden fans... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by techstar25 ( 556988 ) <techstar25@gmail. c o m> on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @03:19PM (#14037562) Journal
    I was excited to read the review. I couldn't wait to hear what EA added. What extra features did they give to add value to the inevitible $60 price tag?
    WTF! They left out instant replay?!?! They cut out the mini-camp?!?! They trimmed down the defensive audibles?!?!
    I have to say I'm quite disappointed. Realistically, though, EA had to fit all those fancy shmancy graphics on a regular "old" sized DVD, and I think the game suffered because of it. Hopefully MS can switch to a "next gen" DVD format soon, or we might be seeing scaled back games in the future. In my opinion this game should have a lower price tag at launch. For one, it's less "game" than the other versions, and two it's halfway through the NFL season.

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