After a long thought out process of literally months I finally got a 20gb 360 to go along with my ps3. I've been stating that I was going to get one even while defending the ps3 and possibly bashing the 360 lol. And these are my initial thoughts on todays setup and gaming session with the 360.
For Starters MS needs to get some assitance on their next console atleast for the hardware side things lol. I was very happy to hear that all 360's had hdmi now and that was one thing that helped me make a purchase today. But while setting it up and plugging my hdmi in I turned to hook up my optical cable and thats when things went south lol. I couldn't use my hdmi cable and a optical audio cable at the same time the inputs are right on top of each other cause you have to plug in the componant cable pig tail to use the optical audio. So no hdmi use after all, there may be some different wires I can get but I really shouldn't have to when I got everything right here, its just because of the hardware layout.
The dash board compared to the ps3's is lively but it is very cluttered to do the things you need to do, which the new update in the fall will hopefully fix this. And to the lemmings that have lived with that for so long congrats, your patients is better than mine cause I just think there is way to much navigating to do anything.
The Market place, hmm after everything that I had heard about this I was dissappointed when I started navigating through that aswell. It really looks like it needs an update to look more up to date looking and fresh looking. The ps store hasn't got as much but with the new store it is very easy to find what you want and very clean and nice looking.
Downloads, well after hearing about the market place and such I was very dissappointed to see that the downloads were just as slow as on the ps store lol. Although there wasn't any installing to be done afterwards, though the install probably takes place during the download.
Adding friends seems pretty easy though I do hate that keyboard the 360 uses lol but maybe it because of being used to the ps3. It is nice to send a voice message when doing it but it would be nice to beable to send text also as an option.
I played the Bioshock demo and thought it did look pretty good but I did notice compression artifacts in dark areas and such, I may just need to do some more tweaking to my setup but the artifacts was pretty bad.
Now on to the one game that I was very excited about getting and with all of the rave over graphic comparisons and such I couldn't wait to pop it in and start playing "GEARS of WAR". This is the only game that has always got my attention and made me feel like I needed to get a 360 from the day it was released. I think the gameplay is awesome even though I think the controls feel a little twitchy hard to get a good exact aim. This may just be from not being used to the controls. But the action is pretty good and the guys running with you seem to help alot and not be in the way. As an action game for my first 2 hrs into the game I would have to say the game is pretty awesome.
Now to the bad stuff lol, I know you knew it was coming lol. The graphics put simply is by no means better than Drakes fortune, or Mgs4 or any of the other comparisons made on sw forums. The character models are quite good especially in some scenes down right solid looking. Textures really do look good. But after playing UTIII for a while on the ps3 and seeing Gears now I was definitly dissappointed in what I saw. Not to say the game looked bad by no means it looks great. But the animations are weak and the total look of the enviroments was just not what I would call wow looking by no means. And for people claiming that mgs4 has weak textures well there is some weak textures in gears aswell lol. Also I noticed alot of frame rate issues and also some areas where I felt like the game skipped a beat and I would be a tad further by a step or 2 than what I thought I should be, hard to explain that one, maybe loading or something.
But for the gameplay I would definitly give it a 9.0 or 9.5 and for the graphics after playing games such as mgs4, drakes fortune and UTIII I would have to say 8.5 and that is if considering the other games a 10.
If there is any tweaks I need to know about for the 360 please let me know.
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