I finally got my hands on a shiny new Xbox 360 for Christmas. So lucky. And I've been glued to Gears of War ever since. Well, except today, since I haven't touched it since I unglued myself last night. But I'm itching to get back to it and defeat the final boss (right pain in the arse).

Before I go on, THIS is the package I got. Its one of the best deals out there at time of writing. It arrived from play.com very quickly as well.

So! Now to impressions and pictures!

The Xbox 360

Firstly, the box. Its not as tall as the original Xbox box, but its deeper, and overall is smaller. I got the Limited Edition Gears of War Xbox 360 premium pack. And, as you can see, I also have the Limited Edition Halo and Midtown Madness 3 Xbox package. Two generations of Xbox, both limited Edition packages. I've never though of it like that before.

At first I was a bit confused on how to open the damn thing. Its not like the original Xbox where you just open one end. No. This thing you have to swing open from the side. As you can see on the right.  The Xbox 360 itself (with 20GB hard drive already attached) sits on the top in plastic wrapping. Along With a little handout that talks all about the awesomeness of the system.

On the left you can see the 360 standing tall in its packaging. As you probably know, its smaller than the original Xbox in ever single way. Including weight (minus the power brick, I'll talk about that later). Its got a shiny chrome DVD tray, that slides out much easier than the original Xbox did. And the fancy "ring of light" around the power button at the bottom. Its all very well built, with strong, tough plastic that has a slightly rough surface for better grip. On the top and bottom (or both sides if horizontal) it has a dark mesh for ventilation, and this dark gray colour is consistent with the other parts of the system like power cables and charging cables. All very nice.

It apparently has a removable faceplate, but I've only got it half off so far. I didn't want to try and pull it all the way off because it felt like I would break it. Anyway, I'll have another go, and hopefully I can get that sweet looking Halo faceplate I've had my eye on.

 Back to the packaging for a minute. Underneath were the 360 sits, is another compartment were all your various cables and connections sit. All individually wrapped. There's the wireless controller (which is awesome btw) and the Ethernet cable down the bottom, power cable (with power brick) and component a/v cables on the left. Then that mysterious thing in the top left is the XBL headset. I haven't used that yet, I'll boot up Rainbow Six: 3 in back compatibility mode soon and test it out.

The console is quite noisy it must be said. Its reasonably quiet when in the dashboard (the standard GUI you see without putting a game in) but is very noisy when you play a game. Fortunately for me, I always play with headphones, so I hardly ever hear it. But if you don't, and either are watching a quiet film or playing a quiet game, it would get distracting. Which reminds me, I need to get some wireless headphones to totally de-wire myself from the TV.

It gets warm to. Not only the console itself, but the huge power brick (it literally is the size of a house brick, and weight to). I've had no overheating problems, but it can raise the average temp in my room by 2 or 3 degrees Celsius. I've had to have the windows open most of the time to prevent my room getting too hot, and this is the middle of winter (albeit a mild one).

The power brick is quite weird, and spooky. When the 360 is on, it has a bright green LED to indicate that its is on. But when you turn off the console, it changes to an orange light. So now that I have the power brick behind my TV, there is this strange ethereal orange glow illuminating the rear of the 360 at night. Weird, and it kind of spooked me the first time I saw it.

Wireless Controller

The Controller is pre-connected with the console, and comes with 2 AA size batteries to get you started. But you'll want to either get the Play and Charge kit or it the Quick Charge Kit, because, this is next Gen! Who wants to to be swapping out AA batteries all the time?

Its very comfortable, and I haven't gotten used to the wirelessness of it yet. I'm still holding it the way I did with my wired Xbox one, but the freedom wireless affords is great.

If your console is connected to a live power supply, you can also turn on your Xbox 360 with your controller. Simply hold down the Xbox guide button for 3 seconds like you normally would to turn on the controller itself, and the 360 will turn on as well. Really sweet, and great for lazy gamers like me.

The bumper buttons are great, and i've been using them a lot to master my active reload skillz in gears. But I'm still not sure that the placement of the start and back buttons is best. I would have prefered them were they were on the Xbox Controller S, I think.

Play and Charge Kit

As a Christmas present to myself, I also got the Xbox 360 play and charge kit. I highly recommend it as AA batteries are SOO last gen. and offers long periods of play time and are only interrupted to connect the charge cable if you do run out of juice. I charged the pack fully on christmas day, and i've played for a good 15 - 20 hours and its still not showing any signs of dying on me yet.

I had a little trouble disconecting from the cable the first time i used it, but i think that was just the newness of it, and it hadn't got properly worn in yet.

Fin.

That will be all for now. I'll be back with impressions of the software side of things when I've defeated the last boss in Gears. Oh, and in case it wasn't clear already, I recommend the 360 itself. In fact, if you don't have one, do everything you can (thats legal) to get one. :)

Adios

 

Quote

YouTube - Success

Dispite its misleading title, this is actually a video of one of the mini-games that will be in the upcoming "Wario Ware: Smooth Moves" for the Nintendo Wii console. Give the Video a look, its really funny.

 

 

In other news, i'll be getting a 360 for christmas (UBER YAY!!!) and so expect some form of impressions from me regarding 360 games and hardware to start sometime after christmas.

Wow. Just, wow. Its amazing. I suggest (strongly) that you stop whatever the hell it is that you are doing at the minute, and go watch it. I have assembled a reasonably complete list of download and streaming links. At least one of them should work for you. Oh, and get one of the HD versions when you download it as well. Its super sweet. Yes, SUPER sweet.

Obviously, streaming on Youtube is the smallest file size, and HD versions are obviously the largest, ranging from 31 to about 50MB)

Streaming:

Youtube (low res) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPQLWaeaLbo

Soapbox (on MSN) http://soapbox.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=ebf516b5-7cc5-4d91-b528-8cfbe896e379

Xboxyde (low quality) http://www.xboxyde.com/stream_3406_en.html

Xboxyde (high Quality) http://www.xboxyde.com/stream_3407_en.html 

Xbox.com (low quality, asx) http://www.xbox.com/NR/rdonlyres/A270490F-8C66-43CD-ACC0-89FC6B191912/0/vidhalo3tvadlo.asx

Xbox.com (high quality, asx) http://www.xbox.com/NR/rdonlyres/2CC82B8F-4600-49B8-B2EF-1495EF289014/0/vidhalo3tvadhi.asx

Gamespot (low res*) http://uk.gamespot.com/pages/video_player/popup.php?sid=6162699&pid=926632 (* members get Hi-res and downloadable)

IGN (low res) http://uk.media.xbox360.ign.com/media/734/734817/vid_1757677.html (hi res for subscribers)

IGN (hi res) http://uk.media.xbox360.ign.com/media/734/734817/vid_1757700.html 

Google Video http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8579904961069553819 (not recommended. really low quality) 

 

Streaming with download links on page:

TeamXbox (Standard) http://xboxmovies.teamxbox.com/xbox-360/4000/Halo-3-Trailer/ 

TeamXbox (HD 720p) http://xboxmovies.teamxbox.com/xbox-360-hires/4001/Halo-3-Trailer-HD/

Totally 360 (HD 720p, D/L Link bottom of page) http://www.totally360.com/popmovie.php?movieid=95&type=wmv 

Totally 360 (medium ) http://www.totally360.com/popmovie.php?movieid=94&type=wmv 

Totally 360 (low res,)  http://www.totally360.com/popmovie.php?movieid=93&type=wmv 

Game Trailers (HD res wmv, QT and WMV d/l links on left) http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?id=15444&type=wmv&pl=game# 

Game Trailers (HD QT, same as above) http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?id=15444&type=mov 

Game Trailers (medium wmv) http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?id=15442&type=wmv 

Game Trailers (medium QT) http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?id=15442&type=mov 

Game Videos (Low res) http://www.gamevideos.com/video/id/7827 (D/l links are on the right)

 

Downloadable:

Teamxbox (Standard Def) http://movies.teamxbox.com/xbox360/halo3/halo3_1242.wmv

Teamxbox (HD 720p) http://movies.teamxbox.com/xbox360/halo3/halo3_1242_hd.wmv

Xboxyde (low quality) http://www.xboxyde.com/leech_3406_en.html (open these in a new tab/window then choose one of the links)

Xboxyde (high Quality) http://www.xboxyde.com/leech_3407_en.html (new window)

Xboxyde (HD 720p Version) http://www.xboxyde.com/leech_3408_en.html (new window)

GamingTV.org (HD wmv) http://www.gamingtv.org/hvids/halo3_1242_hd.wmv 

GaminTV.org (HD .MP4) http://www.gamingtv.org/hvids/halo3_1242_hd.mp4 

HaloPortable (low res, mobile versions) http://haloportable.com/251/halo_3_tv_spot (new window)

 

Also Available on:

XBL Marketplace (xbox 360) (info here)

 

That should be enough links for now :DA

Adios!