New owner of a Xbox 360

And a core system to boot.

Damn EB sucked me in and would not let go.  I went with the Core because I prefer a wired controller to wireless. They accidentally took in a 360 Memory card as an Xbox card so I got it for $9.99. Had a friend with an extra 360 component cable, so that was free. Now all I need is a Hard Drive which I will worry about down the road, as you know I am not big of an online gamer. Plus there is the possibility of a larger hard drive so I might wait and see about that.  Threw in the one year warranty to be on the safe side.

Picked up NCAA 07 used for $39.99 and Top Spin 2.

Plan to rent most games for awhile. Only purchase I foresee the rest of the year will be CH 2K7.

Now I feel much better about ranting against EA and Microsoft. Ownership has it's privileges.

You know me too well. 

I will post some impressions tomorrow.  I plan to rent Gears of War tonight since it has so many glowing reviews.

Oh I think I will have to keep this one.   Although you know me. 

I could not find GOW for rental but....  I did pick up rental copies of Fifa 07, Tiger Woods 07 and Tomb Raider. Only CH 2K7 for the rest of the year.  I am going back to my ONE non-sports game at a time mantra so TR will get swapped for another non-sports game when complete.

Impressions tomorrow. 

First off for Kevin

I have a HDTV but it is always in use so I do my gaming on a smaller TV that only does 480i but has a component input.  Hooked it up to the HD first and then back to the game room. Yes, it looks much better in HD and widescreen BUT it still looks really good on a standard TV. Something for you to ponder is this. If you buy a 360 now and play it on a regular TV I think you will still be pleasantly surprised at the graphical difference between Xbox and the 360. Remember that a HDTV is running the games in a higher resolution. You will get crisper graphics, textures and fonts. You still get a much better looking game (compared to Xbox) with the 360 on a SD (480i). Going the SD (480i) route you get to experience the best of both worlds. Play the system for awhile in SD and enjoy that extra processing power. Then when you upgrade to an HD you get an even more enhanced visual experience.

I plan to get a 30" HDTV for the game room down the road or even a nice Monitor and trade the component cables in for VGA cables. My plan is to simply enjoy the games on the SD tv and wait until I get the smallish HD or monitor.



Now to the 360 and games

My only two complaints about the system so far (both things I already knew about from reading impressions):

The D-pad is horrible. I tend to only use this when navigating menus but it feels really unresponsive.

The power brick and console can heat your home when you leave it on for a couple hours at a time.


The Games (I only spent 30 minutes or so with each)

NCAA 07 - Takes getting used to but I can see where NCAA 08 has the potential to be something special. Once you go to the new way of navigating through plays (by formation, player, type of play) there is no going back. The stadiums are a work of art and outside of the poor effort with the weather (snow and rain) I have no graphical complaints so far. Throw in gang tackling next year please. Forgot to add, they allow the option to change buttons for your controls so you can go back to a setting similar to the PS2 or Xbox version.


Fifa 07 - Very limited time but I am a bit disappointed that many of the moves and R-Thumbstick moves are not in the game (as best I can tell).  The game looks great in the Dynamic v2 camera and runs smooth. Just hard to play this one knowing all of the things missing from the Xbox version. The intro menu where you go one on one with the keeper is a great idea.


Top Spin 2 - Marginally enhanced over Top Spin. The screwed up the zoom camera but overall I can see a bigger challenge with this game. The fact that the horrid load times and other oddities from Top Spin have been removed are a big plus for me.


Tomb Raider - Prettier version of the Xbox game that already looked pretty good. I plan to finish it this time. ;)


Tiger Woods - Dare I say I like it? Well I do so far. To me the biggest addition is the new aiming circle which is a good idea (notice the true aim circle varies depending on your abilities) and helps create more fairways missed and far less 3ft shots to the pin. The graphics in this are very nice and seeing a TW golf game with actual textures brought a tear to my eye.

Oh and if you do play with Tiger you can expect you typical eagle fest. First hole I played was the #1 at St Andrews which I eagled from 100 yards out.  Key to having a challenge will be to stick with my created golfer and limit my attributes.



Again this was just a sampling of each game. I plan to throw out more impressions as I get time to play them.

I could not hold out for the new processor. In fact I have not heard when they are going to release it. Sometime in 2007 as best I can tell. 

Got the 1 year warranty just to be on the safe side.