Xbox 360 - First Impressions

In a word, WOW! I've only had a chance to play with the 360 a few times (including mine and Krudd's 14 hour Gears session) but its been a great experience so far. As a owner of the original Xbox, I could tell that Microsoft went all out to correct any shortcomings the first revision had and improve on its strengths. The smaller controllers are much improved and the wireless aspect is very liberating. The console itself seems to be smaller and lighter as well. I also like the design, looks much more modern and sleek looking than the "fat" original console.

The setup was foolproof. Just connect the supplied component video cable to my display. There is a small switch on the cable itself to switch between TV mode (480i) and HDTV mode (480p and higher). I'm still not sure why it requires a manual switch since the Wii component cables can switch between 480i/480p automatically. Kruddler is right about the power supply, it's huge (almost as long as the console itself) but it easily hides itself in my A/V cabinet.

The console itself is surprisingly quiet (especially after hearing all the complaints about it being too loud). Microsoft supposedly switched to a quieter DVD-ROM drive with these new models which seems to have helped keep the noise level down while a DVD is spinning. In any event, its not the issue that people have posted online, at least not for me.

The 20GB hard drive that ships with the Premium has only 10.2GB of free space left, most likely because the console ships with various demos and multimedia files. I'm sure I can delete them but I won't worry about that until I start to run out of space. Plus the Call of Duty demo was pretty fun.

The 360 doesn't have wireless built in but it doesn't really matter for me since I don't get any wifi reception where my console is located. I've just ordered the NetGear Powerline HD adapters that will let me connect the 360 to my Ethernet network over regular electrical power lines. Once I get that setup I will be able to connect to the Xbox Live service so I can start downloading movies off the Xbox Live Marketplace and start playing games online. I've already created my gamertag online (Cryptoid) so i'll be ready when the hardware comes in.

The only real problem I have is finding the time to play BioShock. It's not exactly a game I can play with the kids around, especially since I like to have the surround sound cranked up. The other day I had it on full blast when the kids came home to hear "blood... we need more blood!" as I quickly tried to find the pause button.

At any rate Rob and Dave has to get out and pick up the 360. Then we can all play Halo 3 co-op over Live next month. OK, it's time for me to stop blogging and start looking for Mr. Bubbles!

Next Gen Gaming: BIOSHOCK

Wow. Let me start with saying I'm happy I bought both the 360 and PS3. Both promised next gen gaming and whilst the PS3 does not have a lot of titles yet, it's obvious they are going to be outstanding. That being said, this commentary is mainly focused on Bioshock.

Bioshock. The first rumors and then screenshots I saw a while back did not interest me. The closer it came to release, I still showed little interest. I didn't reserve it as it was just another game that I might get, only if there was nothing else that really seemed interesting and if I was that bored. And then, I always have WOW, so there was no real need or want to get this game.

The day after it came out, a friend from work said it was one of the best games he's ever played and the imagery was incredible.
I'm not one to just jump on the band wagon just because a game looks good, but he also mentioned the gameplay was cool. He's a big time gamer, so I figuired I would at least go to the store and see if they had it on display. They didn't, so I bought the game thinking I could always trade it back in and tell them it wasn't that great.

I don't know why I wasn't impressed with the screenshots before, seeing it in action on my 360 and Samsung HDTV, I only have one word. Wow! If I had wanted to play this on my pc, which is dead at the moment, I wouldn't even be able to play it on the lowest settings. Not only am I taken aback by the visuals, the mood it sets and the ambiance of the game are great! That's an understatement. Lighting, music, sound fx... wow!

I thought GOW was incredible, and it still is, but Bioshock is great in a whole different way. If they keep coming out with games like this, then getting a 360 is a great investment! I never would have thought of using the word investment on a game console, but the entertainment value is not what it used to be! Definite long term value here!

I know I haven't really given anything away concerning what's in the game, but you guys have to see it! You have to play it! The only thing I can complain about is that it is single player. However, I haven't checked out all the details of it yet, only read the box and started playing!

I now have 3 next gen games, one being on the PS3, Resistance Fall of Man, GOW and now Bioshock on the 360. I'm very happy that I bought these systems as I know I'll have lots of gaming to look forward to!

BioShock

Funny thing, I was planning on blogging about the apparent dry spell of premium FPS titles for the PC market until Mark mentioned BioShock in his last post. I never heard of this game until now (admittedly I haven't been following the PC gaming scene, I'm still playing Half-Life 2 Deathmatch :-o).

The reviews look fantastic and after watching a video review on IGN, I can't wait to play the demo (Currently being downloaded via Steam).

Based on the Unreal 3.0 engine, the recommended system requirements look a little frightening: Dual Core, 512 MB video card, Advanced HD sound card... jeeze. At least I have 2GBs of RAM and XP SP-2. Really curious to know how my once high end system performs now. Looks like for the first time I'll have to throttle down the eye candy settings.

One other note: I was notified by the Widescreen Gaming Forum yesterday that apparently BioShock doesn't support true widescreen without cropping the top and bottom of the viewable image. Reportedly this is in direct contrast to a statement that a 2K programmer made in his company's forum. This is really a bummer and shouldn't happen in this day and age (they are a developer to the XBox 360 which is all about widescreen support) but hopefully they are listening to the vocal minority and a patch is in the pipeline.

So it looks like FPS PC gaming is coming back to life after all. Soon to follow: Crysis, Gears of War, Unreal Tournament and Half-Life Episode Two.

Xbox 360 Coming Soon

So after the recent $50 price drop and inclusion of the HDMI port, I finally ordered a Xbox 360 Premium from Amazon today. To be honest I never intended to get Microsoft's next generation console platform since I use the Wii for gaming and I still have my original Xbox which I hardly get a chance to play anymore. What made me want to buy it was that it makes a great media extender (in fact the only one that works with Vista Media Center). My goal was to always rip my legally owned DVD's to a hard drive and watch them in my living room. The Xbox 360 was the most cost efficient method to do this. The fact the 360 plays excellent games (like BioShock, Gears of War and Madden NFL 08) doesn't hurt either.

I struggled a bit deciding if I should get the Elite or the Premium model but since the Premium now includes HDMI (it turns out I did need HDMI to have DVD's upscaled to 1080p), the only difference was the Elite has a larger 120GB hard drive and comes in black. Although the larger drive could be useful, most users claim that can't fill up their 20GB with just saved games. Also I don't really care for the black color that much since its a matte black that looks more like the charcoal gray that the old Dell Dimensions came in. Also not all the accessories like the memory cards and HD DVD drives come in black. For the $100 difference I figured I could get by with the Premium although I still have to find an optical dongle on eBay so I can connect it to my Dolby Digital receiver.

I also ordered the HD DVD accessory since Annel wanted to watch high definition movies. I was firmly in the "wait until the format war is over" camp but at a recently reduced price of $179 I said why not? Personally I wish Microsoft made a Blu-Ray add-on but that's the subject for yet another blog. Anybody up for a Heroes party when Dave and Angie visit?

The new iMacs

After somehow resisting the initial shockwave of Job's RDF, I've decided to wait until Leopard is released in October before I purchase one of the new iMacs.

A few days after the announcement I checked out the new machines at the Century City Apple store and discovered some interesting finds. First off, the machines look great. Yeah the chin is still there but it's not so pronounced now. Maybe it was the stark whiteness of the previous design that made it unappealing to me.

The big negative for me though is the viewable angle of the 20" model. Sure, Apple clearly discloses a 160 degree angle in their specs but I was really disappointed in how the screen's colors washed out while viewing the demo models. The table heights are pretty low in the store so I had to tilt the screen 45 degrees to make it look OK. The next day I searched online to see if other users noticed this and it's definitely an issue with more than a few people. As I understand it, it's because Apple chose to use a TN panel where the 24" iMac or any of the Cinema Displays use a different type of screen. You can read more about the differences here.

So despite this, it looks like I'm still leaning towards the 20" since we don't really need anything larger in size. I (like most people) use the computer facing head on so it shouldn't affect day-to-day work anyways.

Oh and one surprising plus of the Macs? The software! Playing a few minutes with Pages and Numbers was very cool. I can't believe how easy Apple made it to work with graphics and text in Pages. They can really give Adobe a run for their money if they really wanted to.

Come on Leopard...

To Catch a Reporter

Have you guys seen those Dateline NBC "To Catch a ..." series? I find them quite interesting but the tables were turned recently when an undercover Dateline reporter tried to go undercover at Defcon 2007. Apparently the hackers were on to her all along and had been watching her since she arrived. Check out the video of them exposing her onstage complete with them following her to her car. The hecklers comments are hilarious.