360: First Thoughts

[RandomSkater]

Well, I played my 360 for about 8 hours today and I must say that this system is totally awesome!

I played Tony Hawk's Project 8 first, which was the game I was looking forward to playing most between the four 360 games I got,
When I first loading the game it loaded so quick that I thought it went to a CGI video.
After about 30 second I realized that my guy was just standing there, waiting to shred.
Almost everything in the enviroment looks life like, from the way the sun reflects off the pavement to the skater and NPC clothes.

Where this game really shines is in the trick animations.
In production, they had the skaters themselves do motion capture for there own tricks, so when you see ryan sheckler do a kickflip backside boardslide, it's his style.
This feature is most evident even when just cruising around on the street.
For instance, some skaters (such as bob burnquist) have a more relaxed style and some street skaters have a more arm flailing, aggresive style.

Next I thought I'd give Table Tennis by rockstar a try.
I don't know if I could justify spending the forty bucks that this game first came out for, but Best Buy had it on sale for $18.99, which is a fair price.

The game is fairly technical, but I was able to do decent in a game after doing the tutorials.

The character animation is well done and all of the characters have a unique personallity.

One thing I noticed, while disgusting in a way, was how through the match the players showed signed of sweat that increased until the end of the match.

The gameplay is rather simple, but it's loads of fun.
You have four different ways to spin the ball(left spin, right spin, back spin and top spin), plus you can do any of them with a "soft shot" or, when you're doing good, you can use focus to make the spin more effective.

Though ping pong is kindof taken as a slow "sport", this game can get pretty intense and I found myself hitting the controller or my forehead after messing up after a 20 or 30 hit volley.

I then played Call of Duty 2.

I have this game for computer and already beat it about 4 times on various difficulties, so this game wasn't very new or fantastic to me.
Don't get me wrong, the graphics for this are amazing and it's worth a buy if you haven't played it before. And, for the $20 price tag, it's hard not to.

The graphics in this are excellent, though sometimes it seems that things such as clothing are too flat and reflecting and that the people are wearing plastic clothing.

I'm not a big fan of shooter games for consoles, I much rather prefer I moue over a controller for them any day, but Cod 2 isn't too bad for controls.
One of the downsides, though, is the lack of a lean feature.
This means when theres an MG42 shooting at you down an alley, you gotta put your whole body out there to shoot it. There's worse scenarios, but I'll leave that for now.

The enemy AI is kindof dumb, which makes the controlls easier.
They can be slow to turn around or shoot at you, so the only time you need to worry is when there's 3+ guys in a room and you can't shoot them all at once or when you have to reload and they rush you.


I also got Need for Speed: Underground, butthey charged us wrong for it when we were there (5:40AM) and wouldn't take care of it untl 12:00PM, so I haven't opened it yet.
I've played this for my computer, but I can't wait to see the graphics of it for the 360.

Overall, I have no regrets about getting my 360, especially seeing as how I'm not going to be able to be doing much outside for the rest of Movember and most of December.
The only bad thing I can think of about it is that the games are so expensive.
I'll gladly spend 30 to 50 bucks on a good game, but 60 is getting way up there, even for these graphics.

[darkangelism]

thats cool, yeah that 360 is a great system, for the traditional gaming experience it is the best, though the Wii's control system is amazing, but i dont think every game benefits, so a lot of games will still be better on 360. Are you playing on an HDTV?

[RandomSkater]

yeah, the Wii has a sweet controller, but I wouldn't be able to play it for 5 hours straight...

We have a regular tv. Flat screen, 27" corner to corner...

We switched over to clearwire wireless internet and I didn't think until this morning how it only need a wall outlet to work, so I may end up putting the router/WAP in my room and keeping live.
I'm using a free 1-month gold acount right now.

[darkangelism]

then you havnt even tapped the top end of the graphics then, HDTV makes a huge difference, so if you think its good now it gets better, maybe get th eVGA adapter and use your computer monitor, i did that until i got my HDTV.

[RandomSkater]

Yeah, I can only imagine...

I have a tv in my room that has HD jacks in the back, but when I plugged the HD connectors into the tv and set it for HD (on the part that connects to the 360) but my tv just freaked out...

[RandomSkater]

I just rented Gears of War and Call of Duty 3.

I kinda just got GoW cause I've heard a lot of good stuff about it, and I'm curious.
I'm really looking forward to CoD3.

[darkangelism]

have you become addicted to achievement points yet? i spend tons of time trying to get them.

[RandomSkater]

Not really.
I actually find some of them rather pointless...
finish training in CoD 3...oh no, it took me like 5 whole minutes!

I will say, however, I occasionally look at what I can unlock and, if I remember when I'm playing, will try to do whatever it is.

For example:
There's a couple for CoD 2 for if you complete a level with bolt-action weapons only or automatic weapons only or german weapons only.
I like to do that for fun anyway, after i've beaten a game 3 or 4 times.

[Vautrin]

Has the NFS: Underground issue been resolved? Have you had a chance to play?

[RandomSkater]

Oh, yes.

It's nothing special for the 360.
I've played through most of it on computer (Blacklist #12 or something like that) and it's pretty much a direct port.

There are a few graphic differences, but I'm thinking that's mainly because I didn't run it on full settings on my computer.

One of the things I noticed the most over on my computer is the lighting.
When you're going through a tunnel or turn into the sun, the screen gets really bright for a few seconds, while your "virtual eyes" adjust...

It's still a fun game, but it's only $20.00 (USD) for a reason.

[RandomSkater]

Gears of War is just...it's just crazy...

I'm still kindof trying to comprehend all of what I just went through...
From staying in the light so as not to be eaten by kryll (pitch black, anyone?) to hacking a zombie-ish...THING with a assault rifle mounted chainsaw and having blood splatter and drip down the screen...

*EDIT*
I suppose it didn't help playing in the dark, 1:00 - 3:300 in the morning, 4 ft. from the tv...

[Vautrin]

Haha. I wonder what the critter really looked like