Official XBox 360 Launch Thread

Clearly it was Call of Duty 2. It may have not had quite as good graphics as possibly some of the others but it was definitely a spectacular game. The AI was incredible for both friendlies and enemies. The graphics were great and the diversity and life likeness of the environments were unparalleled by the million other WW2 games out on the market right now.


Perfect Dark was a bit of a let down to me...I was expecting quite a bit more from it. Still, it was a good game and the multiplayer is fantastic.
 
Is Call Of Duty 2 the WWII shooter with that crazy commercial with tanks and buildings exploding? All that stuff looks pre-rendered to me.
 
No, I think that's Brother in Arm the expansion thing. That's definitely prerendered. I've not seen a commercial for Call of Duty 2. However stop by any store that has an xbox 360 on display and you'll likely find Call of Duty 2 in it. I can't say it enough, great, great, great game. Multiplayer is excellent as well but unfortunately limited to only 8 players. (I believe system link is 16 players but its one person per screen and that just defeats the purpose. Why don't more companies allow for 4 player per screen on system link!?)
 
Pedro said:
Anyway PDzero was the only launch title and whilst its nice to look at (especially at 1360*768 by means of the VGA cable) its not blown my socks off. I don't normally buy a title for visual appeal but the launch of a new system is a little different; what would you guys say was the ultimate demo piece for the system? Kameo?
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Both PD0 and Kameo are pretty ugly looking I think. I'd highly recommend Call of Duty 2. It's lacking in multiplayer stuff, but the graphics and gameplay mechanics will be a lot better than Perfect Dark. Project Gotham and Need for Speed are both amazing looking racing games.
 
ChrisReid said:
Both PD0 and Kameo are pretty ugly looking I think. I'd highly recommend Call of Duty 2. It's lacking in multiplayer stuff, but the graphics and gameplay mechanics will be a lot better than Perfect Dark. Project Gotham and Need for Speed are both amazing looking racing games.
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Yes I was dissapointed by PDZero's appearance, not least of all the lack of FSAA when 2xFSAA is supposed to be practically free to pull off on the 360. I saw call of duty 2 in stores but having just checked out one of the reviews I can only assume they chose to demo a very poor level because some of those shots do look stunning.
I was never very good at PGR, so as to give me some chance of actually beating my flat mates I think I might do better to look into picking up Need for Speed.

I'm always surprised people are so quick to to put down the gameplay mechanics of PDZero though, perhaps its just because I have played several "new" PC FPSs every year but I found it to be a superb breath of fresh air (rather surprising given that it hasn't changed much since its 64bit incarnation in that regard).
 
Pedro said:
Yes I was dissapointed by PDZero's appearance, not least of all the lack of FSAA when 2xFSAA is supposed to be practically free to pull off on the 360. I saw call of duty 2 in stores but having just checked out one of the reviews I can only assume they chose to demo a very poor level because some of those shots do look stunning.
I was never very good at PGR, so as to give me some chance of actually beating my flat mates I think I might do better to look into picking up Need for Speed.

I'm always surprised people are so quick to to put down the gameplay mechanics of PDZero though, perhaps its just because I have played several "new" PC FPSs every year but I found it to be a superb breath of fresh air (rather surprising given that it hasn't changed much since its 64bit incarnation in that regard).
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I don't have any thing against the gameplay of PDzero. It's a good game, I especially like the Multiplayer feel and the excellent "borrowing" from Counter strike where you get to buy weapons and equipment. That's always been a fun option for me. My complaint was against what I felt was a bit weak Single Player mode, the plot wasn't the greatest, the AI was adequate but nothing compared to Call of Duty. Still, I enjoyed it and I'm definitely keeping my copy.
 
People were asking about my launch pictures, so here they are!

Ryan and I arrived around 2:00 pm and there were already about five hundred people in line (about half of which were buying xboxes, half there to support their friends). We were trying to hurry and see how far back the line went, so I missed taking daylit pictures of the line wrapped around the actual Best Buy. These start where the line broke off from the Best Buy and started going around the Home Depot.


This was taken from our spot in line. You can see the Best Buy shipping area at the far end. The line took a right and wrapped around the Best Buy building from that point.


Here we settled in for the long cold wait.


A number of people brought projectors. These two people system linked theirs and did 8 player Halo on the back of the Home Depot.


The line was getting super long. By this point, it had doubled from when we had arrived and they handed out vouchers to try to maintain some order. They only had a few hundred systems to sell, so we missed out on that, but since Best Buy ran the Zero Hour Mojave Desert event, they were going to ship all those up to Seattle and we were allowed to buy from the next day's shipment.


About half a dozen television stations where there to cover the launch and get footage of Bill Gates coming to the event.


Microsoft reps would periodically work the line and throw out free games, shirts, posters and other things. That got pretty chaotic.


So they decided to just throw stuff out the sides of their bus, but that got mobbed as well.


When it got close to midnight, all the people who had arrived within the last few hours realized they had no vouchers and weren't getting anything. People got crazy and the line fell apart. Fortunately the people with their tickets were still okay.


It took a couple hours to get inside the store after they opened up at midnight. They had lots of games and accessories. I paid for my unit out of the Zero Hour shipment and went home to sleep for about an hour before work.


And we were back the next day to pick up our systems.


This is right after we got out of the store with our systems, about 27 hours after we arrived to line up.


In this shot you can see the Midnight Launch commemorative scarf and hat they gave me.


More ChrisReid


Connecting my laptop and 360 to share music and files over the network.
 
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I've been hearing rumors that a lot of the launch systems are defective. Is this true, or is it nothing more than a rumor?
 
It's definitely media sensationalism coasting off the initial hype of the launch. In contrast, the PSP launch earlier this year had a lot more defects (square button broken, discs accidentally ejecting, dead pixels) and Sony brushed aside most of the complaints. The only issue we have here is that a small percentage of the systems seem susceptible to overheating if you keep them in a confined space or on a thick carpet, and Microsoft announced they'd overnight a box to you for quick turnaround if you had this problem.
 
woah that’s one hell of a wait.

The launch at the local Asda/wall mart centre over here in the UK was pretty chaotic. I managed to get one of the last 360s available in store (they had 11 in stock). 7 hours of waiting around in store after putting my name down for one I walked out with an Xbox 360 :D

I think perfect dark is a decent if a bit disjointed game. I really enjoyed the gameplay and it’s probably been my most played game, PGR3 is an amazing looking game. Call of duty 2 is a very good game as well, but I feel it is too easy on anything but veteran difficulty; Im not sure that im going to get a lot of replay value out of it.

The 360 certainly is a polished system, im looking forward to seeing what the future titles will bring.
 
The online gamer cards are really neat. They really give me a lot more motivation to play. I don't think I can link directly to it, but it's pretty neat to check see what levels Hades has beaten on Veteran in Call of Duty or what the most elaborate Hexic starburst ace has achieved is.
 
Wow. Looked like you guys all got your luck on this. Sadly, I wasn't able to earn up the cash for getting the system quite this early, mainly since I spent all my summer earnings on something to use with it. But that's fine, I'll get one in March or so, when games start coming out again(after the no man's land for video games of January and February). It's looking good, and I'll probably pick up PGR3 and Call of Duty 2 if there's nothing better out when I finally get one. I also hope to purchase Live this time...looks far more worth it.
 
Holly crap, chris, what size is that TV???? :)
Congrats on getting ans xbox360, I wish I had the opportunity... I"m seriously considering buying a PS2 :)

BTW, How does that area thing works?
 
Mav23 said:
So what are everyones' gamertags? Mine's UltraMav.
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I'm ChrisReid.

Jesus said:
I'll get one in March or so, when games start coming out again(after the no man's land for video games of January and February). It's looking good, and I'll probably pick up PGR3 and Call of Duty 2 if there's nothing better out when I finally get one. I also hope to purchase Live this time...looks far more worth it.
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Yeah, once the no man's land of video games is over, you can finally get some launch titles. Live's always been worth it. I'm surprised your dad lets you have fish tanks exposed in the open like that.

Edfilho said:
Holly crap, chris, what size is that TV???? :)
Congrats on getting ans xbox360, I wish I had the opportunity... I"m seriously considering buying a PS2 :)

BTW, How does that area thing works?
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It's 52". I made a thread about it back in the day. http://www.crius.net/zone/showthread.php?t=17956 ace and Blonde got the same one to match. The good news is that that they finally got their 360 today after more than a month of trying to hunt one down. What area thing?

Maj.Striker said:
My xboxlive user name changed due to problems with the converting of my old account. It is now: Scipio Afrikanu
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Is that a joke?
 
The gamer cards have some "Zone" info, like, recreation, etc. (that's what I meant with Area, sorry). What's the difference?
 
Oh, it's not really a big deal. You can put your preference as family/professional/recreation/underground/etc and it'll attempt to match you against people with similar preferences after it matches you against people of similar technical skill.
 
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