Xbox 360

I ran over to Best Buy at lunch to pick up the new DVD of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (I also picked up The Abyss). Saw some interesting stuff there, like an Office Space Extra Special Edition, some widescreen televisions (my TV is having some issues and I am just trying to figure out what kind of prices are out there, to help decide if I want to repair it, replace it, or live with it), and more interesting still, an Xbox 360 kiosk with playable Peter Jackson's King Kong.

 

My initial impressions are kind of subdued. It looked good, but not great - it didn't appear much better than most regular Xbox games, and I don't think it looked quite as good as top graphical titles like Halo 2 or Panzer Dragoon Orta. Part of that may be that it was on a smallish LCD, and those tend to not look great to me. Another problem was a lack of control info, I had a hard time telling what to do in the demo. I was playing as Kong against a T-Rex and there wasn't much time to experiment with buttons before the dino attacked. The controller was nice, I still prefer the bigger original Xbox controller, but this was definitely comfortable. All in all I guess I am a little less excited about the Xbox 360 than I was before playing it, as usual I will really have to see some more games before I really decide. Gears of War does look like a tremendous game for instance. But that's not due til sometime in 2006. I also really need some more info on backwards compatibility. There are a lot of original Xbox games that are getting dirt cheap now, and I want to be able to play them. Anyway, I probably won't be rushing out to get a 360 at launch based on this impression. We'll see how that holds up, I have been known to be weak about such things in the past!