OK so I’ll spare you the log of my week for another entry. This is solely reserved for my impressions of the Xbox 360, which happens to be launched soon in the US and on December 2nd over here.
So what was the 360 Hour Tour? Well it was the usual demo pods with the HD TVs positioned around a small room with a screen with PR info being displayed at the back. In the centre of the room were four groups of four sofas placed in a square around HD TVs with a wired pad and game to play on. There was a DJ who looked really cool dude at the back, who was pumping out banging tracks! Which was banging man, those Microsoft boys know how to throw a party. Everyone was given a wristband and given an hour to walk around the room and play.
So what did I think then? Well the console looks as good or bad (depending on taste, I quite like it) as it does in the pictures. It seemed to be the size I was expecting it to be. The controller was pretty fantastic really, it felt good in the hand and the new smaller, lighter size was a joy to hold. The new shoulder buttons may take time to get used to, but it’s pretty much the same as the S controller.
Here are the games I played on, some I ignored because I didn’t like the look of them (cough EA, cough)
Project Gotham Racing 3: Well I have to say it was the favourite of mine. The cars handled well and it seemed to be tweaked to be slightly lighter. I was disappointed with some of the graphics on the 90% build that was on show. The jaggies looked worse, but that seemed more like an up-scaled picture like you get on an LCD monitor. To me this fueled the rumour that it wasn’t running at 720p resolution that Microsoft promised all games would run on. I’m sure they’ll fix it, or it may have been the TV. Some of the buildings looked more PGR2 than next gen. Again, having looked at Edge this issue just as I got in this evening, it seems to have improved. OK it’s not much of a leap over PGR2, but then it’s still a lot of fun. I’m also sure that it will be the same amount of fun over Live that PGR2 is.
Condemned: Criminal Origins – An impressive looking game, it was a slow starter on the tutorial, showing off the detective scanning and such. I got up to the part where you got a gun, with the enemies run about in the shadows avoiding you. This could well cause some scare factors for some. It seems like you might have a game of hide ‘n’ seek on your hands! It looked nice and all, however I’d like more natural skin tones rather than the “Doom 3 plasticine effect” that was present. Overall could be a good game, but not one I could play while under a time limit and standing up in a noisy room.
Kameo: Not a game I got to play much on, so I feel like it’s unfair to comment too much. It seemed a competent platformer, however I was left on a ball rolling bit after picking up the demo from someone else. Not knowing how to launch myself up the ramp properly didn’t help, so I left it at that.
Perfect Dark Zero: Not as bad as some might say it is. It felt very much like a spruced up Perfect Dark though. The cover move was good, but needed a strafe action, all I could do was aim and not move along the wall. Maybe it’s in there somewhere, but I couldn’t find it. I didn’t try the roll move much, but it didn’t seem as bad as I thought it would be. The rest is pretty solid but not too special, with a typical protection mission and a boss battle to deal with.
Gun: Blurgh! It’ll no doubt be a shit PS2/Xbox game too. Not worth the £45 they’ll be asking for it. Not even worth £30 if you ask me!
Need for Speed Most Wanted: Typical Need for Speed with the loose handling. The cars seem to have inertia compared to the last games, but it’s still no improvement.
Call Of Duty 2: It’s Call of Duty again. My PC runs it at that res and looks just as good. Which is either a compliment or not that impressive depending on how you see it. Not worth the money they’ll be asking for it.
King Kong: Not that impressed with what I played. The FPS bits are OK and can be pretty clever in execution at times, but the Kong bits were a bit average. Now I realise that you’ll all be saying that its a Michel Ancel game and that makes it brilliant etc. Well that doesn’t wash with me. Beyond Good & Evil is good but I feel overrated, and it doesn’t automatically make it a great game. I’ll stand by my comments for the other versions of the game too by the way.
Dead or Alive 4: Didn’t seem much different from other Dead or Alive games. Then again the demo wouldn’t allow for a CPU battle, and no one would play against me 
Tiger Woods: It’s Tiger Woods, with prettier graphics. Oh you want more? Well erm… his trousers looked good.
Overall, I would say lay off the 360 until next year. There were perhaps two or three games I would get the system with, but then I wouldn’t be too sure on the long term appeal of anything other than PGR3. We shall see what the developers truly have to make of the machine next year. Hopefully it will be the bigger leap we were expecting. MS should have held off the launch until the time when developers could get to grips with the machine and show off it’s power properly.