First Time Xbox Buyer – Update 1

For those of you who arn’t Scottish, today is St Andrew’s day, Scotland’s patron saint day. I might have taken this as an excuse for a drunken celebration and I might have got drunk enough to buy an Xbox 360, Call of Duty 3, Gears of War and Dead Rising.

Student? Me? Defiantly.

Having sobered up quite a lot during the rainy walk home, I thought I’d write a few bits and pieced about the system before I’d even turned it on.

First of all, the dammed thing weights a ton and a half. It is not a light console. However, now it’s installed in the lower shelf of my media cabinet, it’s a dammed sexy looking beast. I especially like the white finish. The lack of wired control pads is also good.

The second good thing about it is the hybrid AV connector cable. The 360 came out of it’s box with a cable that could be used for Composite or Component connections and a Composite to SCART connector. It also came with a good few metres of Cat 5 Ethernet cable, which pissed me off, since I just spent £10.99 on a 10 metre length of Cat 5 in Maplin.

The the main bad thing so far is the power brick. It’s about twice the size of my PC’s PSU and about five times the size of my laptop’s power brick. It’s biiiig. It’s also something that MS really need to redesign. I’ve currently got it parked to one side of my media cabinet to avoid overheating.

More on the Xbox 360 coming soon. (possibly when I’m not wrecked)

Update 1:

The Xbox and my Freeview box don’t like each other. I may have to buy a SCART switch. For now, I’m resorting to swapping the SCART cables by hand.

Update 2:

Well, I’ve spent a few hours sampling my purchases and I have to say that I’m quite pleased. Neither the console nor the power brick get as warm as I thought they would. On the other hand, the fans keeping the Xbox cool sounds like a small hovercraft. It’s not as loud as my PC fan (which I really should get round to replacing…), but it’s not far off it.

I like the Xbox interface. It’s definably well designed, if a little cluttered. It is very easy to use with the analogue sticks, which is the main thing. I defiantly like the Live Marketplace. I’ve already downloaded previews of Viva Pinata and a demo of Dead or Alive 4. When I’ve got a bit more cash kicking around, I’ll probably buy a couple of the Xbox Live Arcade games.

As I’ve said before, I really the design of the Xbox controllers. The 360 version fits into the hand really well and feels quite natural. You’re not stretching for any of the buttons. I’m still trying to get used to the whole thing where one stick controls character movement and one stick controls the camera. I know it’s basically the same as the WASD+Mouse controls used by most PC games. Also, because I have dedicated button for grenades in both Gears of War and Call of Duty 3, I’m actually remembering to use them, something which I seldom do in PC games.

I’ve only really played CoD3 and Gears of War so far, and then not for very long, but I’m quite impressed with both games. CoD3’s learning curve is a bit steep and could probably benefit from a longer training level, but it’s good fun and it feels the same as CoD and CoD2.

Gears is taking a bit more getting used to, mainly because of the third-person perspective. The only games that I can think of that I’ve really played in third-person before are KOTOR 1 & 2, Star Wars Galaxies and World of Warcraft, none of which involve the same kind of gameplay as Gears. That said, I quite enjoy the whole ‘cover, roll, shoot’ aspect of things in Gears. It makes a nice change from shooters where you can just charge in with all guns blazing.

I’ll probably write some more about the games when I’ve played them a bit more. Hell, I might even be able to put together a review or two. For now, I’m going to have some fun while I’m waiting on the Wii.

Japanese Virtual Console Release Dates Announced

1Up has managed to get it’s hands on a list of Virtual Console games due to be released between the Japanese Wii launch on December 2nd and the end of the month.

Most of the are the same as the titles which have been released in the States, albeit with a few additions. The biggest shock in the list is the fact that the price of Zelda: A Link to the Past, SimCity and Fire Emblem have had their prices raised from 800 points to 900 points. This raises questions as to whether or not other popular titles will be slapped with a ‘premium’ tax when they’re released.

Hopefully a European version of that list will appear sometime during the next week. If not, then we’re probably safe to assume that many of the titles will have a global launch following the Japanese and European system launches.

Revenge of the Sixth Generation

The Xbox has already bowed out of the game and the GameCube is on it’s way out. However, the first casualty of sixth generation of console has sudden reappeared on the game release lists. Yep, that’s right, the Dreamcast is back with one last release.

The game in question is a rather nifty looking arcade shooter called Trigger Heart Exelica and it’s due for Japanese release in February 2007. Unfortunatly, there’s no US or European release confirmed yet and it’s unlikly that there will be one.

It’s nice to see that there’s life in the old system yet. There’s a gameplay video below the break.

A Catalogue of Wii Disasters

A few weeks back, I reported about how several people have managed to damage their televisions thanks to broken Wii-mote wrist straps. Since then, Engadget and Joystiq have reported on a number of similar cases.

Now someone’s put together a website cataloguing these incidents. It’s called Wii Have A Problem and incidents so far include a broken window, a broken laptop and even a broken PDA.

I’m slightly skeptical about just how many of these accidents are due to Nintendo’s rather weak looking wrist straps and how many are due to people either being silly or just not holding on to the remote properly. I will reserve my judgement until I have a Wii-mote in my own hands.

Apple Related News

I like when several related news stories come out at the same time. It makes for tidy blogging.

Apple Story the First

A few months back, Apple and sportswear company Nike got together to release a series of products called Nike+iPod. It’s a pretty good idea. It’s aimed at people who run with their iPod Nano (there’s no love for the full size iPod) and includes a bluetooth receiver which plugs into your Nano and a small dongle which fits into your Nike+ shoe. The dongle then sends information regarding your running speed, distance and so on to your Nano which then uploads it to the included software when you get home. The idea behind this is that it can help you improve your running pace and so on.

In a feature in the popular men’s health magazine, Men’s Health, Nike revealed a new add-on to this system called the Amp+. The Amp+ is a rather sexy looking bracelet which adds exactly what you need when your exercising to the Nike+iPod system; a bluetooth remote. It also includes an LED screen which will allow users to check their running stats on the fly.

Further features are to be confirmed. The bracelet is prices at $80 compared to the $30 of the Nike+iPod kit.

Despite the cost, this is the sort of thing that might actually get me to the gym occasionally. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no fan of Nike, a company known for using sweatshops, but it does seem like a good way to get that little extra bit of motivation when your running. Especially the run comparison aspect of the Nike+ software.

Apple Story the Second

Yesterday Apple released Security Update 2006-007 for Mac OS X. This is a critical update which fixes 22 potential security holes in OS X. It’s an 11MB download for PowerPC users or 23MB for Intel Mac users.

Apple Story the Third

One of the things that 2006 will be remembered for (by Mac fans at any rate) is the number of rumours about the development of an iPod phone. However, as The Unofficial Apple Blog and the Apple Gazette report, it’s not the first phone that Apple have developed. In the two links, they look at five Apple projects that were shelved either for the good of mankind or for the good of Apple’s profits during the lean years (ie pre-iMac/iPod).

Out of the devices they look at, my personal favourite is the PenLite, a sort of hybrid between the PowerBook and the Newton, but then I am waiting for the day that Apple eventually release the iNewton.