A review of the Xbox 360 Gaming Console

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The following is a narrative review of my experiences with the new Xbox 360 console from the perspective of an average videogamer. You won't find discussion of the intricate workings of the Xbox, rather the system is tested in terms of its appropriateness as a component in a moderate-end home theater.

As per usual I'm a day late and a dollar short. While I saw the signs on my local electronics shops trumpeting the fact that they were "Sold Out of Xbox 360s," it never occurred to me that the next generation of videogame consoles could have a place on my shelf. You see, I'm not a regular gamer. I own a Nintendo Gamecube, purchased 4 years ago to play Metroid and Zelda games, but its usage has been limited to twenty minute unwind-after-work sessions of Mario Golf once a month at best. The demos for some of the games caught my eye in Best Buy—and I will admit that they looked snazzy when hooked up to the latest HDTV—but mere aesthetics aren't enough to get me to drop a ton of cash on what amounts to an Atari on steroids.

You see, I'd been burned before. I trumpeted the promise of a videogame console that could play PC games on the TV here at DVDTown a couple of years back. I was the first on the bandwagon of a technology that never panned out; the first American set-top replacement. It would play DVDs, music, access the Internet—essentially act as a computer without any of the fuss or muss of dealing with these retched machines. I'm what you might call a Luddite-technophile. I love technology, but only once it has proved itself. And Microsoft was making a lot of claims about the Xbox 360 that I wasn't certain they could back up. Complete and seamless networking, multimedia capacity, full HD support and digital audio were things I could never believe a single tool could do, or at least do well. Boy was I ever wrong.

Before we get into the nuts and bolts of how the system runs, let's talk about setup. I'll be the first to admit that I am your typical man. It's just who I am, I'm okay with it. I do not read directions. Fortunately the way Microsoft has put the Xbox together you really don't need to read any. If you've ever plugged in a VCR, you're doing the same here. The box I got for review had the HD cable setup—a must for anyone using this system on an HDTV—so connection was a snap. I swear it took me no longer than five minutes to run the cables and hook everything in to my receiver and television. About the only point I had trouble was in setting up the wireless controller that comes with the system. That isn't quite as simple as you would think since there is a special sequence of buttons that has to be pushed. Of course reading the manual proved it to be a thirty second chore instead of the three minute exercise I made it out to be, but I digress.

Once the system was connected and powered up, it was a snap to get it set to full HD mode with digital audio. I set the system to output at 720p, the same as my Sony 42" LCD, though 480p and 1080i were also available for those so inclined. The system also offers several audio options, including Dolby Digital Stereo, 5.1, and 5.1 with WAV support, if you have a compatible receiver. I had recently done a rewire of my wireless router and had it sitting near the TV, so I simply ran a network cable from the base to the Xbox and—voila—I had access to the music, picture, and video files contained on the 250gb hard drive I keep attached to my computer in the basement on the big screen television in the living room. All told the setup took me less than thirty minutes from opening the box to putting in the first game.

Microsoft was kind enough to include copies of the games Project Gotham Racing 3, Perfect Dark Zero, and Kameo: Elements of Power. Not being much of a gamer, I grabbed the only game that seemed like it would be intuitive to play; the racing game. You see, I was never much of a racing game fan. Even Mario Kart, which apparently everyone in the world but me loves, was never a title I fell for. While I expected to be impressed by the graphics, I had no idea what I was in for.

Not only is this game pretty, it sounds and plays even better. I switched to the cockpit view, of the driver, and the 5.1 audio track was buzzing all around me. Every speaker was chiming in with different sounds. Not only did it look like I was whizzing around the streets of London at nearly 150MPH, it sounded like it. And, to my pleasant surprise, I felt it. Not only from the subwoofer (which got an extensive workout) but also from the controller; this little guy shakes! The only complaint I had about Nintendo's amazing Wavebird controller was that it lacked the rumble feature that was so crucial in playing games like Metroid and Zelda. Microsoft has upped the ante with a controller that feels comfortable in my average-sized hands and has all the features (and response) of its wired brethren.

The other games I sampled, Project Dark and Kameo, were equally as aurally immersive and each a slight improvement on the video quality. I did some comparisons to my Gamecube, hooked up through the elusive component cables, and they are incomparable. Even the best picture on the Gamecube looks shallow and lifeless in comparison to the Xbox. But, of course, graphics aren't everything. In fact I still like to play old Final Fantasy games on Super Nintendo, and A Link to the Past is my favorite game of all time. Gameplay supplants a lot in terms of production value, just as story can overcome technical limitations in a film. The games I played for the Xbox 360 were certainly fun but were not classics in any sense of the word.

There are also games embedded into the system itself, akin to the traditional solitaire and free cell of Windows machines. You have the ability to download new time-wasters, and while playing a tetris-like game in HD was pretty, it also felt like a waste of horse power. One great feature of the system is the ability to download demos of existing or upcoming games to try. Too often people are just afraid to try a new game because they don't want to get burned; this eliminates a lot of those problems and is an outstanding addition.

Enough about the gameplay, let's talk about one of the main draws for the Xbox 360 for people who are marginal gamers and more interested in the system as a set-top box. Microsoft has created a nice graphical interface that is extremely easy to navigate. The colors are bright and the options quite obvious. If you have another Microsoft-based computer on your network you will easily be able to access audio and video materials. As a test I took my digital camera around State College, PA and created a slideshow tour of the city. I uploaded them to a Windows XP laptop and added it to the network. It was a simple matter to use the Media Center software to present the show. I also dug up some photographs of my last vacation to Las Vegas (including a shot of myself and Yunda Eddie Feng geeking it up at the "Star Trek Experience") and ran them. One of the biggest problems about taking digital photographs is that showing them to friends and family is difficult. Though you can send a copy, you can't just hand them around when people come to visit. The Xbox 360 takes the place of the old fashioned slide-show and becomes a nice tool for presenting photographs through television. I couldn't figure out how to play music while simultaneously showing photographs, though I think it is possible, I'm just a little incompetent.

I've got several pieces already hooked into my home theater that the Xbox could simply replace through consolidation. I run an iPod through my receiver to provide tunes for the house and have cabling run to allow me to connect my laptop and run personal videos or photographs. But, as you can imagine, that results in a lot of remotes that quite often get lost in sofa cushions or lost under a pile of junk on a coffee table and difficulty for anyone who isn't intrinsically familiar with my chaotic system. The Xbox streamlines the process with one simple-to-use remote. The system can be managed through the wireless controller or a wireless remote that is also available separately and in the more expensive HD-ready package. It's really quite simple; and simple is good.

The ultimate test for any next-generation set-top box replacement deals with how they play DVDs. A criticism that has been leveled against the Xbox deals with the lack of HD-DVD or Blue Ray DVD support--part of the problem with the Xbox hitting the streets some six months before the new players start showing up on store shelves. I'm actually just fine with the lack of support for one format or another. It will be another year at least before one format emerges as the victor and the concept of Microsoft supporting one or the other (and thus delaying the release of this console) would have meant a higher price tag and some inevitable bugs.

So, back on task, how does it play DVDs? Pretty well. I had the system connected through the HD Component cables and ran a six-foot optical audio cable that I picked up at Radio Shack for 10 bucks. The audio, unsurprisingly, was magnificent. I ran tests on a few different reference-quality DVDs, including "The Lion King," "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," and "King Kong." The audio is just as powerful while playing DVDs as it is during video games, with excellent bass resonance and surround support. The video quality was decent. I regularly play movies on an upconverting Denon 1910 connected through HDMI, so I have pretty high standards. While the lines weren't as crisp or sharp when coming out of the Xbox, it still looked pretty good. Colors were bright and everything matched up nicely. Problems I've had running "The Lion King" on my home system, including blocky discolorations, were minimized, though not eliminated. On rare occasion the picture blurred during fast motion or cuts. It reminded me of compression or macroblocking. It's something I never before noticed on the transfers previously and can only blame on the player. It's not prevalent, nor did it happen more than twice and only if I weren't looking specifically for errors, likely would have missed it.

Overall the Xbox 360 was not a bad little DVD player. Surely high-end users won't be supplanting their current equipment for this box, and an HDMI or DVI option would have been greatly appreciated, but people who buy the system solely for the video gaming will find it quite tolerable. I was impressed by the DVD quality put out through a Playstation 2 via component cables a few years ago, and the Xbox 360 absolutely blows it away.

Thus far I've been very complimentary toward the Xbox 360 and the praise is absolutely due. It's a wonderful gaming system and home theater supplement. There are a couple of peccadilloes that should be addressed. The first is the volume of the fan. While playing games the fan in the Xbox roars so loud that I was forced to turn up my audio system to cover it. The volume of the fan was noticeably softer while playing movies, but I initially thought there was something wrong; it was that loud.

The incompatibility with Apple products does count as a major strike against the Xbox. I was unable to play the substantial amount of iTunes songs I've got on an external hard drive because there was no way to read those files. I know that I'm not the only iTunes user that wanted to import a playlist into "Project Gotham Racing;" the inability to do so is maddening, especially since I can play them—quite simply—on my Windows-based home computer.

Conspicuously absent in my discussion of the system is the role of online gameplay. To be frank, I am not an online gamer and never really have been. Furthermore, if you don't have a broadband connection, I wouldn't even bother trying to connect to Xbox Live. I've got a mediocre cable connection and experienced a little bit of lag. The addition of built-in voice to the Live system was awesome, but I didn't find a lot of people worth talking to during the course of the game.

Lack of interesting conversation aside, online gaming was pretty neat. Racing against people from across the country in "Project Gotham Racing" and getting into a firefight with some punks from Ohio in "Perfect Dark" was thrilling. Of course my judgment may be skewed by the fact that I got absolutely schooled each and every time I attempted to log online. I'm not very good, to say the least.

There is no direct ability to access the Internet and I'm of two minds. While it would have been convenient to hook up a wireless keyboard and mouse and surf my favorite sites from the comfort of my couch, the malicious viruses that are out there and the various ways that different programs could screw up a person's system makes me realize that I absolutely understand why restrictions would be put in place.

Finally, the size of the hard drive is a bit of a pain. Clocking in at 20GB, the drive is half that of my laptop. It's easy to crowd it with music or picture files, and I don't know that it would have been cost prohibitive to include a larger unit.

The Judgment:
So should you drop your hard-earned cash on an Xbox? My ultimate judgment is a solid… maybe. The video quality of DVD playback isn't as big a problem as I made it out to be; by and large it is very good. I won't be using it as my primary player but those who have a mediocre player will likely see some improvements. If you're big into home networking and photography/videography you'll likely love the ability to draw upon those sources via the Windows Media Center. It was a novelty to me but I could see my father becoming completely enamored with the technology. Finally, regarding the primary use of the Xbox—the gameplay is stellar. Graphics, sound, play, everything is absolutely wonderful.

Microsoft has created a system that is a definite step toward the American equivalent of the long-rumored all-inclusive set-top box but isn't quite there. Improvements need to be made to the system's aesthetics and application to average users. At this point it is a toy that people can live without, but if you do have it there are lots of fun things that can be done. If you have the cash and are looking for a new game system I can easily recommend spending the money to pick up the Xbox 360.

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