Finally, the Xbox 360!!

So as I mentioned in a previous post, I received an Xbox 360 for Christmas from my dad. A great present it was! I've had 3 weeks to enjoy it so I guess I can give you my impressions of it now.

First the controller. In truth, I haven't felt a controller this comfortable in my gaming life before. As a child who grew up on the 8-bit generation, with just a directional pad and 2 buttons, there was quite a learning curve getting used to using two analog sticks at the same time. You might say, "Hey Lam, how bout the PS2? You have that machine, and that has analog sticks". True, but of the twenty or so games I have for that, all of them used either only 1 analog stick, or allowed the option to switch on to the directional pad. Using 2 sticks at the same time was at first just uncomfortable. This made for all sorts of trouble as I was playing Gears of War. Luckily for me, I had computer controlled teammates that watched my back.

I love the Media Center capabilities of the machine. Setting the machine up on our network at first was cumbersome, especially syncing it to my computer. I had to read several forums and threads upon threads to resolve some of the issues that I had had. After 3-4 hours of reading, I finally got the thing to work, and now all those worries are away. After updating the firmware to the latest version, the Xbox 360 was able to play all my movies (includign DIVX and WMV formats). No longer do I have to burn movies to a disc and play it on the DVD-player. The Xbox saves me a step or two.

Another feature that I wouldn't have thought of loving was the ability to basically customize the music soundtrack while you play your games. At first I brushed it off, but later on tried it while playing GoW, and loved it. I was able to select any music sitting on my PC and have that play instead of the generic soundtrack that was in the game. If you're one that feels music can be atmospheric, it can make so much of a difference in adding an intensity and urgency.

Anyhow, those are the only thoughts that come to mind right now. If you have the Xbox 360, please feel free to share what you love or don't about it. Later geeks!