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"Oh. My. God."

Meant to post this yesterday but was too busy, and yes, my enthusiasm on the news story was genuine...

It's not often I get to do anything at SR that even involves leaving the office, but I managed to worm my way onto the trip on Tuesday to go and play the Xbox 360.

It is awesome.

We had a presentation in which they mostly just showed trailers - big deal, who can't make a nice-looking trailer? - but we had a couple of hours in which we were able to play most of the launch titles. This just wasn't long enough, so I only got to play a handful of games before it was all over.

I've always been a sports game fan, so had a go on FIFA 06: RttWC and Tiger Woods 06, but the overall impression of these was that they looked ansolutely amazing but brought nothing new, gameplay-wise. Tiger Woods has hardly changed from the first time I played it on Xbox, which was TW04, and the FIFA wasn't even as good as the Xbox FIFA 06. Both of them did look gorgeous though.

DoA 4 is amazing. Seeing everything moving showed the power of the machine compared to the current Xbox: the hair; the clothes - flowing kimonos, etc.; the jubblies (of course). It's all so smooth and purdy. Gameplay, again, similar to before, but additions like seeing your opponent sliding down stairs were pretty cool.

But Perfect Dark Zero - holy sheesh. This was so, so good. In my opinion it betters anything looks-wise there is out there - I'm talking PC games here too - it just seems to look realer somehow. It was because of PDZ really that I didn't get to play too many other games, I had to keep on playing this. The guy actually did a short demo playing this to show it off and we were stunned. The details are incredible, from the graining on the planks of wood to the scarring on individual bricks to the pebbles on the ground and the rainbow sheen on oil-splattered tarmac. It just looks fantastic. It was also great when, during the demo, the guy paused the game and linked wirelessly to his iPod to change the music in the game. PDZ has a totally different feel when you have (Louis Armstrong's) What A Wonderful World going in the background!

I loved the N64 Perfect Dark, though was disappointed it didn't come close to being as good as GoldenEye, but this is just so far advanced. The guns are great, the bad guys are smart and the action seamless. The bad guys wear body armour, so if you don't get a head shot you hit the armour first and it shatters and flies off, then you can take the guy out. All the bodies you leave behind stay there, as do any stray bullet holes. How this does compare to PC games, I'm not entirely sure, as I don't do a great deal of PC gaming, but it all blew me away.

I flubbing loved the 360. Unfortunately I don't have a spare £300-odd quid lying around, a situation not likely to improve before xmas so don't know when I'll get one, but get one I will. Yes, I'm repeating myself if you read the news piece, but I don't care, it's my forum ;).

And I'm not doing this to try and sell anything - that's why I'm posting this here. I will be parting with my own cold, hard-earned cash for one and if you've not already pre-ordered it from anywhere you won't get one for launch anyway.

btw

Love the Alcohol and the Nurofen all on one table, it looks like a snap shot of my TV table, DS included, staring me in the face because I never use it. I shall get it all spruced up for when the 360 arrives.
I'm number 31 in the list at LAME, i'm still not sure I will get one though, although LAME seem to think I shall, I read reports about the US only getting 20 per store or some lame figures like that.

Be sure to post your names on live for a good PD0 fest

Spikecast, can you play battlefield 2 on your computer through your TV, mine doesn't seem to allow it :-( other games work ok though

To play through a PC monitor you need a D SUB connection to play in HD, it will have one hell of a difference.
I paid 800 for my 32inch HD LCD, worth every penny, only seen HD content through video clips on my computer but it does look fantastic.

Wasn't samsung one of the monitors that blew up at the X05 demonstration?

I'm glad I discovered Orbital.

Oriental Rib wrote:
> Custom soundtracks on PD0? I'm glad I doscovered Orbital.

There's custom soundtracks on everything fool. :P

£582 on ebuyer with delivery. But as they don't stock it I'm going to have to buy one elsewhere now which is very annoying. I hope I'm not waiting 30 days for a refund like their website suggests.

How much did you pay for your TV Spikecast?

I could use my 17" TFT with my 360 but would prefer something a little bigger, 28"-30" really!

Bullett wrote:
> sPiKeCaSt wrote:
> LOL...My TV is actually going back due to the fact it has a lovely
> red dead pixel in the middle of the screen.
>
> You have all the luck, don't you? :P

Nope..this one developed though. The image is crap too so I know it's the set. Plus I woke up this morning to a huge black burn in the top corner..the unit was boiling hot so I turned it off and on and the black just slowly disappeared..very odd, sounds like it was overheating.

Yes, they had HDTVs, but I reckon the 360 may well do a lot to drive forward HDTV in the UK. It is strange how crap the PD0 screenies on Xbox.com are - it's like seeing a PSone version of the game, it really does look so much better than that.

I didn't try PGR3, as it's not a game I've ever got into so wasn't really interested. I could have spend a whole day there, but time was tight.

There is a mahoosive video in the 360 thread which actually shows off how good PD0 looks. Quite big though.

So why is it the PD0 screens look bell?

Edit: Actually they look alright now, but I still wouldn't say they're as good as some PC ones.