Xbox 360 after a week

[FantasiaWHT]

So, I finally broke down and bought a 360. I picked up a Pro bundle, got my wife a pink wireless controller, bought a charge pack and an extra battery. Downloaded every demo that interested me, bought Carcassonne, and just bought Culdcept Saga. That's honestly probably all I'm going to buy for a very long time, heh.

My experiences so far:

#1 - OH MY GOD why can't I read anything on this system? I have a 27" standard TV and the print is just ridiculous. With my contacts in there are some games I literally cannot read from my couch 7' away. Is there any way to deal with this (besides what I guess is the "solution" - buying an HDTV)

#2 - XBLA is wicked. Very cool stuff. Love the downloads in the background.

#3 - The controllers are nice for the most part. The D-pad feels really inaccurate though - when I use it for letter/number enterring, it moves in unintended directions a lot. The feel is great though. I do wish that game developers mapped more common features to the TRIGGERS instead of the L-R buttons, though. My fingers naturally rest on the triggers, not the buttons.

#4 - Argh, why haven't they put wireless adapters in these things with all the hardware revisions, yet? I aint paying $100 for one, either. I'll just have to keep hooking it up through my laptop...

Overall, I'm very happy, despite the above concerns. My wife is too - she loves playing Culdcept and Carcassonne with me.

[otaku]

Buy rez!!! And an HDTV! And GOW and...

My only complaint with 360 is reliability and the lack of wifi I mean both of its competitors have wifi and so do both of the handhelds on the market I hate having to run ethernet cable to my 360.

[spoon]

You need to get an HD TV. Everything looks so much better anyhow. I would not play Dead Rising untill I got a new tv. I couldn't read shit.

Yes, the d-pad is horrible. Can mod it or get an arcade stick.

[Nesmaster]

1. Get an HDTV. it'll solve this problem.

2. XBLA is awesome, though there's not TOO many games I want to play on it, considering the vast amount of titles available. Waiting on Duke3D and SFIIHDR, and that's about it. Unless by some, unlikely chance that GoldeneyeHD eventually sees the light of day on the Marketplace.

3. Best controller ever made, ever if the Dpad is undesirable. I just love the way the controller feels in your hand, it's perfection. Makes using any other controller feel more like work after this one.

4. There are cheaper alternatives to this, namely if you can find the original wireless xbox adapter. It works with the 360.

Now, just try not to get addicted to achievements. Or please, do! LOL

[Graham Mitchell]

I've had my 360 for about 2 months now and I love it. I'd been opposed to Xbox for a few years because I didn't like most of the games that people were releasing for it. I went to the store and looked at the boxes and thought it all looked crappy. But Bioshock looked pretty damn cool, and that pushed me into getting one.

Now I'm really pretty into it. XBLA is great, as someone mentioned, and being able to download demos really helps you decide on what your next purchase should be.

I just got Mass Effect awhile ago, but I'm taking an xbox break to go back and finish some Wii games. Doesn't mean I don't love the machine! Here's hoping it won't tank on me in the coming months.

[Slate]

Welcome to xbox. There is a way to get a clearer screen, And that is to use a VGA cable. You can get them for $10 used at gamestop. However, this will only work on your PC monitor.

And yes XBLA is great but there are only so many games I want on there. I reccomend worms and gauntlet, though. Good fun. Uno is also good if only for group video chat and talking with friends. And making people leave because of my bad guitar playing.

The controllers are great, I have no complaints against the D pad though. My last controller wore out after many hours of use, The RB button broke and the left thumbstick stuck in positions sometimes. But I REALLY used it a lot.

Wireless adapters? Well I guess it all depends on your preference but I never had any need for one.

As for game reccomendations, There are so many, I don't even know if I'll list them all!

If you want value, Go with the orange box. If you want a great story and a mind blowing concept, Go with bioshock. If you want mindless alien blasting, Go with halo 3. (Ergh) And if you want some unique online play, Try monster madness (I siad "Try", not "Buy"). I know it was rated horribly, But I find the online (Key word is "Online") to be quite fun when you can get people in to play the game with you. You can turn into werewolves, Zombies, Vampires and frankenstein monsters online, Now that is cool.

[zektor]

Welcome to xbox. There is a way to get a clearer screen, And that is to use a VGA cable. You can get them for $10 used at gamestop. However, this will only work on your PC monitor.


Unless you are lucky enough to have a TV with VGA input that is...

[spoon]

Used wireless adaptors are 69.99 at GS. There are also other ways to get it up and running wireless I hear. I bought the damn thing new for 100. Arghhhhhh.

If you plan on playing any fighters and or shooters, the d-pad is awful. The problem is the inner pad part hits the outer wall. unresponsive and can give blisters during long sessions. At least the is my experience with it.

[Nesmaster]

Welcome to xbox. There is a way to get a clearer screen, And that is to use a VGA cable. You can get them for $10 used at gamestop. However, this will only work on your PC monitor.

My TV has VGA, and so do a lot of TVs. It just depends if it's an important feature for one to have and buying one with VGA. I use VGA on my 360 and would never, ever go back to using component cables. I'll use VGA until I get my hands on an HDMI 360.

[Graham Mitchell]

My TV has VGA, and so do a lot of TVs. It just depends if it's an important feature for one to have and buying one with VGA. I use VGA on my 360 and would never, ever go back to using component cables. I'll use VGA until I get my hands on an HDMI 360.

This was just my question...I have a 360 hooked up via HDMI and the max my TV seems to be able to handle is 1080i. Would a VGA cable be better than this? It's hard to imagine anything better than it already is--the image is just gorgeous. Sharp and detailed.

[PallarAndersVisa]

i was using my 360 on my 27" with component inputs (no progressive scan though) and it was difficult to read some text. Thats just the nature of these new systems though. They make games primarily for high def markets, and the text on a low res tv will just get unreadable at times. I had to sit pretty close to play a lot of games.

luckily my roommate splurged and bought a 46" bravia so now I can sit 12 ft away and not have problems

now if we could only buy some fucking batteries for the controllers....

[NE146]

#1 - OH MY GOD why can't I read anything on this system? I have a 27" standard TV and the print is just ridiculous. With my contacts in there are some games I literally cannot read from my couch 7' away. Is there any way to deal with this (besides what I guess is the "solution" - buying an HDTV)

I have zero problems reading most text on a tiny-ass 13" regular tv. So what games are you talking about? And please don't say "Dead Rising" unless you play that game ad-naseum :p

But yeah the majority of the time, you can read most text fine on a regular tv. No need for a hi-def set for the most part. I play COD4 with zero problem on the tiny screen with the only thing I have a problem seeing is the "A,B, & C" points in a game of domination :)

[FantasiaWHT]

I have zero problems reading most text on a tiny-ass 13" regular tv. So what games are you talking about? And please don't say "Dead Rising" unless you play that game ad-naseum :p


Culdcept's pretty hard during the cutscenes. But mostly just the Xbox dashboard, and the demos I've been playing.

[Nesmaster]

This was just my question...I have a 360 hooked up via HDMI and the max my TV seems to be able to handle is 1080i. Would a VGA cable be better than this? It's hard to imagine anything better than it already is--the image is just gorgeous. Sharp and detailed.

On my TV at least, HDMI gives me better blacks and a slightly sharper picture (I had an HDMI 360 for a few weeks). You could try VGA and see if you notice a difference, but HDMI is probably the better one anyways.

[NE146]

On my TV at least, HDMI gives me better blacks and a slightly sharper picture (I had an HDMI 360 for a few weeks). You could try VGA and see if you notice a difference, but HDMI is probably the better one anyways.

Yes. I noticed on my hi-def sets, when I plug in via HDMI it gives the video option for "optimized settings" which I dont see when connecting via Component cables. It's funny.

As to whether there's any difference between the HDMI running at "optimized", and a regular component connections.. yes there is. I could easily see it as I A/B'd on the same 50" tv it between 2 360's connected at the same time both playing COD4. It was definitely noticeable. However whether the HDMI one was "better"... I think that was debatable. They both looked nice to me :p