Was it worth the wait and really was it worth the hassle? I think it really depends what kind of gamer you are. If you are a hardcore x-box gamer I would say yes, go get back inline, if you are just a casual gamer of sorts, I would still say you would find benefit in finding one.
Was it worth the wait and really was it worth the hassle? I think it really depends what kind of gamer you are. If you are a hardcore x-box gamer I would say yes, go get back inline, if you are just a casual gamer of sorts, I would still say you would find benefit in finding one.
For the brave souls that tempered the rain, snow and otherwise crappy conditions you may encounter on the sidewalk outside of your nearest Bestbuy or Circuit City, you obviously are hardcore gamers and to you it was worth the wait. I on the other hand didn??t wait in line for a 360, I just lucked upon a shipment at my local target. But I still consider myself a fairly average x-box and PS2 gamer. In my opinion I think it was worth the wait and not so much of a hassle.
The biggest and most innovative aspect of the 360 is the Xbox live setup. If you don??t plan on playing online then you probably could care less. For those of you who enjoy the hours of online play then you will love how integrated the features are and just how easy it is to enter an online match up. Microsoft really thought out new ways to make the experience of being online more attractive. Between the Xbox dashboard and marketplace you could spend hours just playing around with the different features and arcade games. From the dashboard you can access any music or pictures that you have downloaded onto the Xbox hard drive or play one of the many downloadable arcade games in the Xbox live arcade. Another added feature is the Xbox marketplace where you can download trailers to new games and movies, all in HD if you have the setup. You can also play demos for current and upcoming releases and any patches or system downloads that are released by Microsoft. The ease of accessing your online capabilities are more convenient than ever, on the controller you just have to press the big X and instantly you can interface with your Xbox gaming profile, which allows anything from accessing your messages, online friends, and accessing the Xbox dashboard. I think Microsoft and xbox have seriously raised the bar as to what future game systems do with their online setups.
Can you tell a difference in the games? Yes. Besides the obvious and most notable difference being the sometimes awe inspiring graphics is the jaw dropping sound. With the Xbox 360 games having more space on the DVDs to save information, comes better quality sound and music. In the past game makers were forced to cram as much onto a disk as possible due to limited space. This led to an increase of compressing the sound files which in turn had an ill effect on the sound as it was being decompressed for play back. On the 360 the sound files have more room which leads to crisper, cleaner sound. Another aspect of course is that all games are in true Dolby Digital 5.1, I know that this is not necessarily different from some Xbox and ps2 games, but at the same time 360 games just sound better. There is something to be said, in Call of Duty 2, about the sound of bullets whizzing by your head or the percussion of a tanks rolling through firing shells at your German enemies. While playing Perfect Dark Zero you can easily tell if an enemy is behind you from just the sound of his boots on the ground. And then there is the gratify sound of empty shells cascading on the metal floor after buzzing down one of your buddies while playing death match online.
As far as sound goes or in this case soundtracks, gamers can easily customize their own soundtrack music with the songs that are downloaded onto their hard drive. While playing your games you can have your best collection of Johnny Cash songs integrated into the game play and not know the difference.
Back to the graphics, like I said they are outstanding. It makes you think that in the very near futures graphics are going to be on par with the most advance CG effects in any big budget movie. The lighting and shadow effects for the games are perfect, the sweat that beads up and gets blasted off the face of your opponent, in the upcoming Fight Night Rd. 3, look almost dead on real. And just think these are the first run of games, what will games look like and sound like in the next year or so when developers learn to really take advantage of the true capabilities of the 360. I can remember when I thought that a game like Super Metroid had revolutionary graphics. It??s amazing the advances in the last 15 years.
So like the question that begged to be asked ??was it worth the wait and hassle?? I can say yes, if not for now, at least for what the 360 is going to be capable of doing. So if you still need a 360 just keep looking, they are coming more frequently everyday. If you already have one, enjoy. And make sure you download Geometry Wars from the Xbox arcade, the damn thing is freaking addictive.
Now if they could just make a great madden game on the 360?..