Few XBOX360 Questions:

Mekrel · 3 Sep 2006 at 11:06

Hi all,

Have been an owner of an Xbox 360 now for about 3 weeks, and have mixed feelings on it.

Firstly, the choice of games out at the moment seems to be limited in my opinion especially when you take into consideration it was launched in December.

Secondly, some games look amazing - such as condemned, and do rival my PC in terms of performance and graphics. Yet COD2 for instance looks miles better on my computer, there are still jaggies. This could be me getting my info wrong? I heard that not all games have the performance hit free 4*AA applied to them yet?

However, I do not regret my purchase. I have had some multiplayer fun with friends as of late - something I could not do with my PC.

I have a 20" Sony Bravia HDTV, and wondered what people think is the best display mode?

I think 720p looks better compared to 1080i.

I also downloaded a HD trailer for a game, so it's saved on my PC and my Xbox360 is on my network and has access to my PC files. How can I get te vid to play via the Xbox on the HDTV?

Very disapointed with FarCry Instincts, it doesn't touch the PC version at all. COD on the other hand does in some respects, just wish the jaggies would go away that seem to be there.

sanofi · 3 Sep 2006 at 11:17

In terms of games, the next couple months we are going to be spoilt for choice when it comes to new games:

Dead Rising
Madden 07
Enchanted Arms
Test Drive Unlimited
Pro Evo 6
WWE Smackdown 07
and lots more.

BigBrisy · 3 Sep 2006 at 11:19

I'd imagine the likes of COD and earlier games were rushed on to be released for the 360, i was a little annoyed at the lack of games at first but i suppose it the old story, all good things come to those who wait, im sure you'll notice yourself the amount of games that are coming out soon and even this month there are loads of top notch games, the games to come out later no doubt will use the full power of the 360 and thats when you'll probably notice how much better it looks that PC games. Only thing about PC's are you always have the option of upgrading the hardware to keep up with the demand of some of the newer games. My PC is getting on a bit now and i have both Prey and Condemned on it, Got to say Prey just looked the exact same as 360 but the 360 version of Condemned was much better but like i say maybe if my PC was top of the range by todays standards there may have been a difference, this arguement will always go on i suppose, FPS games are better on the PC for ease using the mouse and keyboard but i reckon these will appear on the 360 anyway as Xbox Live Anywhere gets launched the PC owners would have an advantage on certain games compared to the 360 owners.
As far as playing vids through your Xbox you need WMCE, but i believe that also limits you to what type of vid files you can play, but you can get that Xploder now for WMCE which gives you more choice fo what you can play.

NokkonWud · 3 Sep 2006 at 11:30

I disagree about the games catalogue.

Whilst there aren't millions out there like we've come to expect from Sony, the Xbox360 does have the majority of it's games worth owning, infact, I would say over 50% of the games are worth owning.
It's also at a very strong part of it's life-cycle with more and more good games coming!

As for the 4*AA, it is true, it can do it with very little hit, but games need to be coded with that in mind from the ground up and it was employed very late on in the Xbox360's life-cycle, it would have been financial suicide to build a game up from scratch.

My friend has a PC (X2 4400+, GeForce 7800GTX and 4gb RAM) and on the highest settings it's no better graphically bar a few shader enhancements. The game does play better on the Xbox360 though.
On another note: I agree about FarCry not being as good as the PC version, but in it's own right it's far from a bad game. It's made by a completely different company who don't see it as their passion (like Crytek did for years when making FarCry). It's easy to see the games that don't have that extra tender-loving care.

iGiDK · 3 Sep 2006 at 11:49

I think we'll begin to see the true potential of the 360 very soon graphics-wise

If you've not seen the Madden demo yet you should download that (even if you don't like american football), it looks great!

I usually get the best results at 720p

DaveyD · 3 Sep 2006 at 11:51

Games wise, it's all down to personal opinion, as most of the games on the system don't appeal to me.

For the jaggies etc, it's already been summed up, and likely down to development constraints and it being a launch title of the 360.

720p is the best resolution to run your 360 at. The 360 renders all (well the vast majority) of games at 720 and scales up or down accordinly. Plus 720p is progressive, and 1080i interlaced, so 720p should provide the better all round picture and movement performance on screen.

With regards to playing videos from your PC, you need windows Media Centre 2005 installed on your system, and .wmv files, or a program called transcode 360.

Tunney · 3 Sep 2006 at 13:18

I have to agree with the original poster on the games front. Considering the console has been out for nearly a year, the games catalogue is small and there's no real killer titles.

I'm dying to buy some new games for my 360 and I can't find a single game that I'd pay £40-50 for at the moment. Maybe this is due to the summer lull, but it's still disappointing.

Some people have been raving about certain games, but look at the scores these days are getting in the gaming press. Saints Row - 82%, Street Fighter 2 - 75%, Enchanted Arms - 69%, Ninety-Nine nights - 60%, etc. Taste certainly comes into it, but those are some pretty disappointing scores and most of the decent games were available at release.

Even Xbox Live! Arcade, which should be the best thing ever, is short on quality titles too. The initial batch of games was good but the releases since then have mostly been lazy arcade ports. I'm hoping that bedroom programmers will get a chance to release their XNA Studio creations via XBLA, but that remains to be seen.

I still think that the 360 has the potential to be the best console ever released. The hardware is excellent and Xbox live! has taken gaming to another level. What the 360 really needs now is some proper next-gen titles to fulfil its promise.

And yeah, I prefer 720p to 1080i.

Mekrel · 3 Sep 2006 at 22:44

Thanks for the input, I feel a few posters have tried to take what I say as a bash at the 360, it certainly isn't as I enjoy it. I agree with the last poster about there being a handful of few titles which are must owners really. I can only say out of the 7 games I own at the moment, only PGR, COD2 and Condemned are outstanding titles, everything else is mediocre.

So much in fact, that since my PC reformat around the same time as the purchase, has lead to no games being installed on my PC at the moment. Although BF2 would be on it, but the disk is cracked.

Yeah 720p does look all round better. Today I bought Fifa road to world cup 06 and it is a great game. The game itself has a great feel and the charachters look so realistic, I mean Rooney is a spitting image of Shrek! Coming from PS1/PS2 and prefering Pro Evo, it says a lot.

Im looking forward to what the XBOX360 has to offer, I think its capabilites with media outside gaming is also great. I'm moving out soon with my brother and we will have the xbox in the living room so my whole iTunes library is available to listen.