Go on then. What's it like? Is it worth all the hype?
It's no jump between SNES-Playstation and PSOne-PS2. And the games are hardly killer apps. So why all the fuss?
> So why all the fuss?
Good PR
Think I'll wait for the PS3. But before that, I have to still wait 8 months for sodding final fantasy 13!
Not interested in the slightest, I'm afraid. The Xbox was the only one of the current-gen consoles I didn't pick up - all the games on it that interested me I could play on other platforms, and the exclusives it did have weren't my cup of tea.
The 360 looks to be much the same, but bigger & shinier with added features that I could care less about.
The PS3 is also fairly uninteresting at the moment, but I'll keep an eye on it - there were plenty of games on both the PS1 and PS2 that I enjoyed, and unless Sony really fuck it up the PS3 will likely have a bundle of must-have titles.
The console that I'm really fired up for is Nintendo's Revolution. The "Virtual Console" - downloadable versions of NES, SNES and N64 games - plus backwards compatibility with the GameCube, plus remarkable new interface, plus all of Nintendo's usual class-A titles & franchises = me sold already. It might well be an utter flop, but - as with the DS - Nintendo are trying something new & offbeat, and that's what really turns me on about gaming.
If they'd been widely available from day one I might have looked into getting one. But as theres so much of a drought I'm just going to wait until the P3 comes out and then wait some more.
I'm still having difficulty in coming to terms with the fact that I bought Ultimate Spiderman on a whim and was actually surprised to find that it was crap...
JEB i dont think your alone in that has all the elements of a very cool comic adapt. then removes all the interesting bits that make game play intence
I've gat a 360 and I think it's lush. Say what you like about this gen, that gen, innovation and Nintendo pushing boundaries-it's white, shiny, smooth, the interface is lush. PDZ is so far pretty meaty, time will tell if it's really any good. I reckon it will be. PGR3 is solid. Shame i'm shite at it.
Something Fishy's got one too.
did you get the core system or go for the whole shabang?
Shebang. Core is for pussies.
Sounds like i've been on LIVE with too many Americans.
No offence to any Americans here.
It's a cracking machine.
Looks stunning, especially in High Def.
Some of the games are very good.
I really love the stuff it goes beyond a console.
Such things as media centre , which connects to media centre on my PC is fantastic.
Full live integration and the market place with the ability to download demo's and things is ace.
The interface with it's "blades" is very slick too.
All in all great.
can you use Media centre and other options if you don't have a P.C., can it be used like a cheap media centre or is it only half the machine that does it all thats been touted(I'm completly P.C illiterate and NEVER plan on getting one can I still use all of the XBox 360 features?)
Games Look nice though.
CU Steamboy
I'm pretty much the same as Amstor, I'm not interested in exclusives & most of the games will crop up on PS3 or Revolution. I really want a revolution, after reading about it, but then I felt the same about the Cube, which was neglected in favour of PS2, which I saw as the better option due to the market share allowing for a wider variety of games. I'll probably buy a DS Mario Kart Pak with Chrimbo money as I think the PSP looks a tad ... meh. Plus it's all so much cheaper.(On a related note, ?50 for the launch titles? no offence, but I'll wait a while before I go all whateverthey'reuptothesedays-bit).
I'm pretty disappointed with the Xbox, so the next generation of the console equivalent of a shell-suit holds no interest whatsoever - certainly not when you consider the lack of any decent gaming heritage with Xbox in general, the low specs just so the machine could be rushed out to beat the launch of Sony's new console (didn't work too well for the Dreamcast, this tactic, and it actually had lots of solid games, too), and what the hell is this 'media center' bullshit? I want a bloody console to play games with, that's why I buy the damn things, and the chav-friendly approach of Microsoft throwing money into publicity and bully-boying their way through the industry in an attempt to get a share of the massive amounts of cash involved - in their terms of understanding, this means monopolising the market - just smacks of everything that's wrong with western culture in general.
I can't shake the belief that Xbox 360 is a console for people who wear sportswear to a funeral.
I'll wait to see what the price levels at for the console and the game before even considering a purchase. Plus, I'm hacked off at shops using the old supply-demand route for hiking up some prices ridiculously.
The only next gen that has me excited at the minute though is the Revolution. But, I know nothing about the PS3 at the minute.
if the original xbox had low specs then what on earth did the considerably less powerful PS2 have?
As for Chavs. i'd have thought a machine that people buy purely cause everyone has heard of it and "my mate Dave has got one" would be much more of a chav mobile.
Xbox tended to be bought by those of us who understood the difference and i don't imagine many chavs would.
I'm not talking about the most popular console - I'm talking about the attendant fanboy mentality surrounding a console, and if anyone reads the Eurogamer forums, you'll know why quite a few people have turned away from the 360. The sad, delusional fanboyisms that greet poor reviews or 'wait and see' comments have gone beyond irritating into the realm of the truely disturbing.
Consoles are toys, whatever the games industry are trying to tell us these days with talk of 'interactive experiences', and creating your own fanboy tribe gets a little sad when you're in your twenties.
I will be getting one but I am gonna wait till february when the hype has gone a little. I currently own an xbox and love the system and just want to upgrade to a new version. A few of the games have grabbed my attention as well like Gears of War.
The comment about wearing sportswear at funerals has twat written all over it!
Personally I couldn't see anything wrong with the Dreamcast. Great little system that was!
Hehehe. This thread is beginning to give me flashbacks to the 80s and the whole Amstrad/C64/Speccy nonsense. ;)
I had a Speccy 128k +2.
Now that was computing power. Games on tapes, pirating games in Dads Hi-fi using the hi-speed dubbing.
Ah, those were the days.
either myself James, Wod and several of my friends are the only non chav adult gamers or that sportswear comment was just darned silly.
Whos going to call a reknownedly unsporting piece of equipment "Sportswear" anyway?
> Good PR
You know, if these delays and shortages ARE an attempt at exciting more interest they've pretty much failed... coupled with the o verheating problesm all I'm hearing about the 360 launch is confusion and anger.
Given all the hype, planning and strategic marketing that goes into a console launch nowadays it's suspiciously conveniant that there always seems to be a shortage when launch day arrives.
Surely they've got estimates as to how many units they're likely to sell at launch and know how much time they need to produce them. Unfortunately they always seem to be "surprised" by demand.
I did get a 360 on launch day but had unplanned expenses elsewhere which meant I couldn't actually afford to keep it and pay the rent. None of my friends wanted it so it got ebayed.
Since when did this turn into fanboy war? I bought a 360 because I like playing games, and this represents the first of a new generation of hardware that I could enjoy. I will probably buy a Revolution when it comes out. I will consider buying a PS3 when more information becomes available for it.
Yes I own a XBOX(1) and I also own a Gamecube, PSP, GBA, Dreamcast, SNES etc...doesn't mean I hold any of the respective companies responsible for the production of any of the machines in any higher regard than another.
Reminds me of a mate of mine who said when I told him I got a PSP, "I thought you didn't like SONY".
Narrow. Mind.
Hur hur hur.
Light touchpaper and stand well back.
Well, it might be suspiciously conveniant, but it cerytainly isn't working out very well for them.
Don't know about that. Sony did the same thing with the PSP and it didn't do that any harm, despite the games being not much better than PS1 standard, from what I can tell.
I've maybe missed the point of the PSP, though. I spent all my time on it playing emulated megadrive games and Medieval (a PS1 port).
Ahh...so no GTA for the Bear then...
No, I have Liberty City Stories, it just doesn't work on the handheld, is all.
All that backtracking and stuff isn't too well designed for playing whilst bus travelling and so on, and the controls are bloody annoying, but that's more the fault of the PSP's design than anything else. After all the bells and whistles of San Andreas, it seems like a big step back to not have a customisable main character (different suits don't cut it), weapon and vehicle stats, gang missions, jetpacks, harriers...
If anything, it just reminds me more of an expanded Driver 2.
I don't have Advance Wars or Nintendogs for the DS, mind - possibly this is more of a loss, but I just don't know.
Well, yes, it is :-)
How much you get out of Nintendogs really depends upon your tolerance of what is, essentially, a done-up-to-the-nines virtual pet. Although it does have traditional game elements - an experience point system, minigames with multiple difficulty levels - it's distant enough from trad game designs to make it unpalatable for some people (mostly people who are actually into games, I've found - non-gamers are the ones who respond to it and seem most fascinated by it. Perhaps it's something to do with a combination of interface, the convincing behaviour and the lack of traditional game "rules"?)
Advance Wars DS is simply fantastic, and if you enjoyed AW and AW2 you'll love AWDS. The stylus interface is a perfect little addition, and the tweaks to the core game are welcome. The "two front" dual screen battles are great fun, if perhaps not quite as well-implemented as I would have liked. It's not groundbreaking stuff, but IMO it's a perfection of an already strong game design.
Both titles are - like most DS games I've played - perfectly suited to mobile gaming, with a nice balance of "burst" gaming (my 10-minute bus ride in the morning is perfect for a couple of levels of the AW arcade mode, or just enough time to walk my three puppies) and more involved modes (the later campaigns in AW can take a good hour or so to complete, and extended training sessions with your Nintendogs just gobble up time).
I'm now eagerly awaiting delivery of Electroplankton and Metroid Prime Pinball (a game that I ignored totally until the rave reviews started appearing) and I've got a list of around a dozen other titles I must buy - and that's before we hit the burst of great DS games appearing in the next 6 months.
Bear - how did you get GTA-LCS to run? I had to let it upgrade my operating system first and I thought that meant no lovely emulation (which is something I really wanted to have a go at).
I downgraded the OS once a reliable program became available off the internet (can't remember where I got it, though - try torrentspy). You can't run any PSP games while the OS is downgraded to less than 1.5, but then apart from Medieval, I didn't really consider that much of a loss - and you can reload a higher OS anytime, so it's nothing irreversible.
Emulation isn't the best either, though - arcade games can't be bigger than about 400kb, which rules out the better games, and the megadrive emulators don't run every game. The GBA emulator doesn't work at all, but you can get quite a few classic megadrive games to run well whilst having a poo or travelling (though hopefully not while doing both at the same time).