As indicated by my last post, I finally bought a 360; thanks to some gift certificates I received for Christmas I was able to pick one up for the price of a Wii.  So far I'm not impressed; I've played Perfect Dark Zero, Need for Speed Most Wanted, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Fight Night Round 3 and Dead or Alive 4, and so far only Need for Speed has lived up to my expectations for it.  It's a fun racing game with the extra police-chase thrill, so I anticipate lots of tense chases/races in my immediate future.

As for Dead or Alive 4, I cannot even begin to conceive why this series is at all popular if this game is its best installment.  It might be a decent game, but I'll never know because it seems to be designed to keep new players from becoming good at it.  Dead or Alive has no easy difficulty; it begins at Normal and goes up to Very Hard.  Even at Normal the computer characters are very aggressive and give you no chance to develop any kind of strategy.  There is the obligatory "dummy mode" that allows you to practice on an inert opponent whom you can command to perform certain actions, but it in no way prepares you for the actual combat.  It's very fast-paced, which sounds good at first but the pacing eliminates any strategic element and lowers the game to just a simple button-masher.  Even wins are unsatisfying because you tend to luck into them rather than outsmarting or outfighting your opponent.  Once I learned how the countering worked, I found I was at a disadvantage from before because I actually tried to be the smarter fighter.  In other words, I was earning more KO's when I was just pushing random buttons.

Perfect Dark Zero is an okay game.  It looks great but the designers made some inexcusably stupid decisions with many of their levels.  Very few of the objectives make sense or have the effect they are supposed to.  For example, at one point you are expected to jam enemy radios only to find that your opponents have organized an ambush for you at the end of the mission despite the lack of communication.  In the same mission, you have to fend off an enemy airship by blowing out one of its engines, and whether or not you complete this objective, the same airship will be waiting for you at the end with a magically rebuilt engine.  Also, one mission's success or failure hinges on you doing surveillance on certain characters without them spotting you or you killing them, but once you do you're free to kill them and everyone standing around them.  It's all very superfluous and pointless, and the game is full or moronic bullcrap like this.

Even the Elder Scrolls IV, which might be a great game once I'm into it, is very frustrating because I chose to be a thief who cannot sneak and who apparently cannot get away with anything.  The stealth engine was designed by those who worked on the Thief series, which is the best stealth series ever made.  However, the stealth element in this game is mediocre at best, despite the Gamespot reviewer's claim that it works better than most games that specialize in stealth.  The sneaking in this game consists of an eye that pops up whenever you crouch, and it glows brightly when you're detectable and dulls when you're hidden.  That's it.  Also, the magistrates of Tamriel seem to know whenever you've stolen anything or done anything wrong even though nobody ever saw you or caught you in the act.  I even tried dropping all the articles marked with a red hand (meaning "stolen") in my inventory, and I was still caught.  I was hoping to do or be anything I wished, but that's just simply not the case in Oblivion.

I'm trying to find some more games for the 360 that are not simply dog turds that have been mashed down and shaped in the form of CD's, and that cost somewhat less than the ridiculous price of $60.  I have my eye on "Kameo," but I'll probably rent it first so I don't waste any more money.  I already have enough thirty-dollar coasters at my place.