Xbox 360 first impressions

Xbox 360 first impressions
So, my Xbox 360 arrived at 11:15 a.m. on launch day - and, no, it didn't look like the picture at right. But it did take me the better part of a frustrating hour to get it set up with my high-definition TV and surround sound stereo.

First, there was the AV cable connector, which was larger than the hole in the back of my entertainment center cabinet. So I had to find a saw and enlarge the opening. Then there's the fact that the Xbox hi-def input lets you bring your own cable (like my nice Monster component one) but the 360 cable has its own cheap connectors.

The good news is they reached my A/V receiver (barely!), but it took some trial and effort before I got the old Xbox disconnected and the 360 plugged in and running. There was much cursing as I wrangled with the cable spaghetti behind the TV and I accidentally disabled the DVD player and powered off the satellite receiver.

But after getting everything plugged in and some brief onscreen setup, I have to say the 360 is sharp and games look better on my 42-inch rear projection LCD TV than any in-store kiosk I've seen.

Here are my first impressions:

• The 360 looks petite in pictures, but it's really not that much smaller than the original Xbox. And it's heavy. If you get mugged while holding one and the power brick doesn't do them in, you might save your life with the console itself. But place it in an upright position and you'll get the illusion that it's smaller, and it's certainly nicer to look at.
  
  
  
• The wireless controllers are as great as everyone's been saying. Better than the Logitech contollers for the original Xbox and even the gold standard, the Nintendo Wavebird. Personally, I prefer the original, massive Duke controller for the Xbox over the Controller S - but I had no trouble with the 360 controller. It just feels right. You'll have to get used to the two new front-mounted buttons above the triggers - unless you're a PS2 veteran.
  
  
  
• I've hardly touched the retail launch titles, but Amped 3 is my favorite so far. It's funky and funny and very open-ended with challenges and missions you can accept at any time, a la Grand Theft Auto. I already like it better than the first two in the series.
  
  Perfect Dark Zero is a nice looking stealth shooter, but I haven't logged nearly enough time to comment on it.
  
  Project Gotham Racing 3 is a little disappointing. Yeah, the graphics are extremely pretty, but I've been spending more time staring at load screens than actually racing. I need to spend more time with this title, but I wish they would cache tracks on the hard drive (if you have one) for a faster reset when you redo a race for a better medal.
  
  Kameo is gorgeous and easy to learn. And it saves your progress very often, so you can switch off at almost any time. Which reminds me�
  
  
  
• Much of the 360 experience has been standardized, so - for instance - you use the same on-screen keyboard and shortcut techniques in every game that asks you to enter text. But save games are all over the place, and I've lost more than a little progress in games where I thought I had saved but hadn't. A uniform Save and Quit routine would have been nice.
  
  
  
• Much has been said about the new Dashboard, and it is a huge improvement over the old one. But I found it sluggish and confusing at times. The Blade interface is easy to use and very fast to navigate. But some choices take awhile to navigate. Finding the place to change Themes took forever. I kept looking in Display settings. That's where the giant X button on your controller comes in. You use this to select Themes and other personal settings. Why not have this in both places? Oh, and if you have more than one profile on your 360, use the X to switch. Save games are associated with profiles now, which is nice but will take some getting used to.
  
  
  
• The Xbox Marketplace is fun to browse, but I felt like I should be able to continue shopping while downloading a file like a demo, purchased game or movie trailer. Some of these can take several minutes to download and you're stuck staring at a progress bar that often stalls out. Oh, and picture packs and themes can't be previewed before you buy them - though some of them have pictures posted to Xbox.com. The nice thing is that if you abort a download, you can pick up where you left off later.
  
  
  
• Xbox Live Arcade is da bomb. Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved and Hexic HD alone are enough to while away an afternoon and, in fact, that's pretty much what I did the first day. I think Arcade may prove to be one of the best things about the Xbox 360. Here's a tip: Download the free demos and, if you want to buy a full game, you can unlock it from the demo screen without downloading again. Nice.
  
  
  
• Backward compatibility, for those titles that are emulated at launch, is like butter. However, I've been unable to figure out how to make the original Halo go widescreen, as promised on Bungie.net. The games I've tried do look nicer and everything seems to work seamlessly. Except one thing: The 360 dashboard won't let you copy ANY of your new original Xbox saves to a memory card. Hey, I thought we moved past this locked saves thing?! So far, none of the 360 saves or even downloaded content appears to be locked (though purchased items seem to have some kind of DRM)! I know that original Xbox saves won't work without a hard drive, but why can't I back them up or move them to another 360 hard drive.
  
  
  
• You can now change your Gamertag, for a price: 800 Microsoft Points, or about $10. I changed mine last night to Gamewatcher, as you can see on my Gamercard now over in the right column.
  
  
  
• The progressive scan DVD player appears to be a decent workhorse, no frills unit. I checked out a couple of discs and they looked fine. More testing is required before I give up my buggy Panasonic player, which has tracking problems with certain DVDs but also offers 3:2 pulldown and some other advanced features. I did notice that the 360 won't hold your place on the DVD if you open the dashboard, which would have been nice. You'll have to sit through all of the FBI warnings and pre-menu crap again if you quit a movie and come back later.




• I ripped a few CDs and found a nice array of visualizations, any of which can be blasted full screen. I haven't tried plugging in an iPod yet, and I won't be able to stream music from my PC until I upgrade to Windows XP Service Pack 2, which is an adventure for another day.

I haven't even cracked Call of Duty 2 or Condemned, so I'll try to post some more impressions over the next week.

My recommendation is this: If you have a high-definition TV, broadband Internet and can find a 360, get one. Sure, there are adjustments and a few minor disappointments. But it looks and plays awesome, and in my mind the launch lineup is solid and includes something for nearly everyone, even if it's casual game nirvana and the heavenly visual upgrade to last-gen launch titles Halo and Dead or Alive 3.

-=Gamewatcher