Xbox 360

May 2, 2006

I became the proud owner of an XBox 360 last weekend, thanks to the lovely Mrs Terry. I’m not sure what I did (or what I’m going to be asked to do!) to� deserve such a great present but, Hey!, I’m not complaining! Especially when Mrs T had the foresight to get the Premium Edition - with XBox Live Gold subscription, 20gb hard disk and a wireless controller included, along with a couple of games: Kameo, GRAW and Tomb Raider Legend.

I won’t go into a full-blown review of the XBox 360 here. It’s been done before, and with much more technical knowledge of these platforms than I’ve got but, from a consumer perspective, my first impressions are really positive. The Getting Started guides were plain and simple, and very obviously aimed at getting the hungry gamer up and running in the least amount of time. The wireless controller comes with a set of AA batteries, so that saved hunting around (or pillaging a remote control!).

The XBox itself looks a little bit out of place alongside the rest of the silver and black A/V gear in the rack, because the case colour is a little retro. Remember when corporate PCs and monitors were a pale beige colour? It’s like that, so I think a silver faceplate will be on the shopping list pretty soon, as will the wireless network adapter; my XBox is in the living area, and I don’t have wired connectivity in there.

At this stage, having opened the box, read the manuals, hooked it up to my wallscreen, switched on the wireless controller and powered up the console, I just wanted to get playing, but you have to go through a bit of configuration first which, to be fair, is quick and easy. I would have loved to get started with the XBox Live service too, but that will have to wait until I get my hands on the wireless network adapter.

The first game I wanted to try was Ghost Recon:Advanced Warfighter (GRAW) and after finding my way round the training level, I hit pause to look at something in the GRAW instruction manual, and was blown away by the noise coming from the console. When the volume is turned down the thing howls. I wondered if it wasn’t getting enough air circulation, since it’s sitting in a free shelf in my A/V rack, but the air around it doesn’t even feel warm. While I’m having a gripe, another thing that surprised me is the power pack - it’s enormous; easily the size of a house-brick and probably the same weight too.

Having said all that, you kind of forgive those things when you see the quality of the images and sound being thrown at you. It’s been a long time since I played a console game - Halo on the original XBox - and the leap in quality between then and now is truly amazing. And the wireless controller is a genius idea - no more trailing wires from the console to the controller; or sitting on the floor in front of the screen. Not that you can get too comfortable because GRAW is so intense I found myself squirming around on the sofa, ducking for cover, or standing up to peer over walls the were on the screen!

Once I’ve had more time to play with the games, I’ll do a more of a review on them, but for now I am one seriously happy boy. XBox Rox!!!

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