My Day with the Xbox 360
Printed From: Sports Gaming Nation
Category: SGN Forum
Forum Name: The Locker Room
Forum Discription: Discuss anything and everything related to videogames here.
URL: http://www.sportsgamingnation.com/sgnforums/forum_posts.asp?TID=1212
Printed Date: 04-28-2024 at 7:18pm
Topic: My Day with the Xbox 360
Posted By: JasonSGN
Subject: My Day with the Xbox 360
Date Posted: 10-01-2007 at 4:03pm
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I can no longer say that I've never played an Xbox game or seen Xbox Live. Thanks to one of my co-workers, I was able to test run and Xbox 360 for most of the day at the office. Of all the games and demos I tried today, NHL 08 and Bioshock were the most impressive. Halo 3 seemed pretty good, but I'm not very good at FPS games and Madden was a little disappointing. NASCAR 08 was nice looking but the handling was a little loose.
I had a hard time adjusting to the left-analog stick location. On Sony's system, the D-Pad is located where the Xbox's left-analog stick is and vice versa. I'm sure I'll adjust, but it will take some getting used to.
On the plus side, I can see why everyone talks about Xbox Live so favorably. It's easy to use and offers a lot of features and connectivity. More to come... ------------- http://profile.mygamercard.net/JasonSGN"> 
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Replies:
Posted By: Brent
Date Posted: 10-01-2007 at 4:10pm
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Most of the sports games are a little disappointing but we just have to live with that. On the bright side they are getting a little better and you missed out on a lot of the crud others paid $59.99 to play the past few years. I told you NHL08 was good. Just pick up NCAA 08 and for get Madden if it comes down to owning one. ------------- 
Upcoming Fight Night Champion, MLB 2K11, Top Spin 4 |
Posted By: JasonSGN
Date Posted: 10-01-2007 at 7:41pm
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What's the "issue" with NCAA Football? Is it just that the CPU QB's throw too many INTs?
Back to today:
Bioshock's atmosphere was incredible. The only problem is that I'd preferred watching other people play rather than play myself. The story and environment were more interesting to me than the actual gameplay.
NHL 08 was a blast. I would've enjoyed it even more if I was more familiar with the controls. The graphics were nice and the gameplay was smooth.
Madden 08: I thought is was decent looking but felt the gameplay was not as polished as the PS2 version. I'm sure I'd adjust to it after a while, but neither the graphics or gameplay blew me away like Madden 2002 did last generation. Also, the passes felt kind of "floaty" much like the 2K series.
NASCAR 08: Unlike Madden, I was impressed with the graphics of NASCAR 08. Unfortunately, like Madden, I wasn't too impressed with the actual gameplay. A racing wheel could make a huge difference though.
Halo 3: I thought it looked good but not incredible (I had very high expectations). I can see myself having a lot of fun with this game once I learn how to play it. What's the consensus out there? Is "Gears of War" a better-looking game than "Halo 3"?
These are also just very quick impressions. I didn't have extensive play time with any of the games. Also, Madden, NHL and NASCAR were demos. I was impressed by the Xbox 360, but not blown away. ------------- http://profile.mygamercard.net/JasonSGN">
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Posted By: K_Mosley
Date Posted: 10-01-2007 at 7:59pm
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FYI... Demos rarely do the final game justice. Also, I just read an article on Dubious Quality where Halo 3 isn't even rendered in true HD. I'd conjecture that Gears is still the best looking game on the 360.
And, I think I've found sliders that minimize the INT problem on NCAA football, but YMMV...
Kevin
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Posted By: TedSGN
Date Posted: 10-02-2007 at 12:56pm
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Jason, Just curious what kind of display you played on? |
Posted By: JasonSGN
Date Posted: 10-02-2007 at 1:28pm
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We have a 37" widescreen LCD TV at the office. ------------- http://profile.mygamercard.net/JasonSGN">
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Posted By: Derek
Date Posted: 10-02-2007 at 3:31pm
| Gears is definitely more graphically impressive than Halo 3, yep. |
Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 10-02-2007 at 4:31pm
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Gears is somewhat better looking, yes, but you can't replay movies of
both online and campaign battles and take snapshots with a free roaming
camera with all lighting and particle effects and even surround sounds
still active in slo-mo... that stuff is GREAT in Halo.
------------- http://profile.mygamercard.net/Slumberland"> 
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Posted By: Zeppo
Date Posted: 10-03-2007 at 6:09pm
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In my opinion, Gears and Halo3 are very much on par with each other graphically. Now, bear with me on this argument: they are different in what they do, but they both do it very welll. Gears is presenting much smaller areas, many fewer characters, and much less insanity of action at any given time than Halo3 is doing. This gives it advantages that allows it to look much better on a screenshot-to-screenshot basis. The textures in Gears are much more impressive, there is a lot more atmosphere due to the weather effects, and so on. The character models are more complex and better textured, as well. However, Halo3 has much smoother framerates, it seems to me, and considering the amount of crap going on at any given time, the amount of stuff flying around in real time, with the physics chrunching going on, and the size of the spaces you can see, especially on some of the later, humongous maps, it is very impressive how smoothly the game runs. The lighting in Halo3 is also exemplary. The lighting is great in Gears, but there is some serious extra oomph to the lighting effects going on in Halo3. Finally, Gears seems to suffer from the all too common depth of field/ blur effect, and a general shimmeriness (that's not a word, but who cares) that seem to me to help keep the textures are insanely good as they are. Halo3, on the other hand, has a sadly unique (for the 360, anyway) style of favoring sharpness and clarity to some kind of realism. This can make some objects and textures look sort of cheap and video-gamey, but the bonus is that everything is clear all the time and easy to discern, even at quite a distance. Once you add in the crazy film theater stuff and screenshots you can do in Halo3, it's tough for me to agree that Gears is greatly more impressive graphically than Halo3. Sure, comparing one screenshot to the other will give Gears the big advantage, but in playing the game, they both do their thing quite well, and I am enjoying the visual thrills of Halo3 just as much as I did those of Gears. |