A New Family Member

Posted by oddbob on August 8, 2007 · Lovingly Filed Under Personal 
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…and christ, she’s ugly.

With the impending release of Jeff’s Space Giraffe and thanks to the kindness of Mrs Bob, I nipped out yesterday evening to pick up a spanking new 360 to add to the heap under the television. The darn thing is nay too bad either - but I must confess to finding it one of the ugliest consoles that has graced the hallowed halls of Bob Towers. Maybe I’ve been spoilt by the elegant and sleek beauty of the Wii or maybe I just haven’t pulled the Jaguar out of its box recently to be reminded of what a truly ugly device looks like but regardless, I can’t say I’m too impressed with the design.

But of course, you don’t buy a console for the design - you buy it for the games. Slight problem with that at the moment, due to pissing away a large proportion of my budget on the wireless adaptor, I’ve only actually got a couple of games for it. I picked up the XBLA Unplugged package and Crackdown.  Annoyingly, Crackdown looks like utter shit on my poor ancient goggle box - the text barely readable unless I drag myself over right in front of the television and park my arse in the middle of the floor. So much so, that I can’t actually stand to play it until we get the battered old thing replaced.

This is, quite frankly, twatty. Fortunately we’re in the position to actually pick up a new television - so I won’t have too long to wait to get my mits on what looks like a great game. Disturbingly, having had a gander through some of the demo’s on the marketplace - it doesn’t seem to be an isolated problem. Whilst nowhere near as severe, Pacman CE tucked itself up tightly into the centre of the screen ruining what looked like a gorgeous set of visuals no end.

Needless to say, I’m glad I picked up the Wii earlier in the year rather than the 360 or I’d have been mightily pissed off at having to splash out on a television as well when we could ill afford to buy one.

So I’ve had to contend myself with the more casual end of the spectrum for my first day with the white slab of doom, Hexic and Bejewelled play nicely on the tele -I’ve only had a quick blast at GW:RE to pick up the pacifist achievement (hey, you gotta start somewhere) due to being quite, quite tired.

It took a fair bit of faffing around to get a Live account set up thanks to my MR mail not seeming to make it through to the inbox at the moment - one new hotmail account later and a lot of tedious “typing” with the joypad and it was go go go. I don’t know if I’m keen on how close to a PC for gaming the 360 is, having heard so much about the vaunted blades structure to the menu’s I was expecting something a little more easy on the eye than what MS have churned out. It’s very adolescent and a bit loud. The Wii Channel system is far more my style, it’s a shame that Nintendo don’t really seem to be doing much with the damn thing. (If you listen closely to the console market you can hear a firm “skkkkkrkkk” sound - that’s Nintendo dragging their heels that is).

So day one, and I’m not *that* impressed. For every thing it does well, there seems to be something that makes me emit an audible “ffs” sigh and want to throw my hands up in the air cursing whatever God rules over console gaming.

However, for whatever sins the 360 may commit, the salvation is at hand in the shape of Giles and Jeff’s lightsynth. Whilst I’m no virgin in the Neon stakes - this is the first time I’ve been able to use it in a more passive manner from the comfort of my own sofa with the television in the corner glowing away to itself, the lights down and my own tunes drifting around the digital ether. And lo, truly it is beautiful. Nothing I’ve seen comes close to it for style.

Shame I can’t feasibly surround myself with 4 controllers to get the full benefit out of the synthesiser.  Neon without being able to control the feedback, whilst still wonderous, just isn’t right.

Hopefuly, once Space Giraffe is out of the way, Team Llamasoft might find the time to rescue the PC version from distribution hell. Every home should have a Neon, especially given the ability to create your own effects within the beast.

I don’t doubt I’ll learn to love the 360 when there’s less disarray in Chez Bob and I’m a little less tired. For now though, less than 24 hours in and I’m quite underwhelmed by it and unconvinced that the gap between PC’s and consoles narrowing is a good thing. I don’t regret purchasing it though, not like I did Xbox The First (salvaged at the last minute by Outrun 2006 and Coast 2 Coast).

Oh, my gamertag is RR Oddbob because some silly bastard has already stolen both Oddbob and Oddbob0. The twats.

Also, in case you haven’t noticed - new look for the blog. I’ve gone back to the more readable Cutline. Still a fair bit of work to be done on it so consider it a work in progress ;)

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2 Responses to “A New Family Member”

  1. Tim on August 8th, 2007 12:08 pm

    lol… so that is what ‘teabags’ meant. :D

  2. gnome on August 8th, 2007 3:20 pm

    Almost felt like an Xbox 360 review and it was a great read indeed. BTW, the MegaDrive is definitely the sexiest console ever…

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