DeckMaster
10-20-2005, 05:34 PM
Review
FIFA 06
While all this Xbox 360 hand-wringing gets more and more furious, there have been some big, exciting releases for the big, bulky, original Xbox. Recent releases on the system include FIFA Soccer 06, Far Cry Instincts, NBA 2K6, and Ninja Gaiden Black. All of those are sharp, sharp games. Reading Justin's FIFA review almost made me want to figure out what this whole "soccer" thing is all about and give it a shot for myself. Almost.
Preview
Tony Hawk's American Wasteland
The upcoming releases are looking pretty bright at the moment, too. Next week, we'll see how well Blitz: The League stacks up, and it's looking more and more like Stubbs the Zombie is actually going to make it out onto shelves, as well. That one's been a bit of an office favorite, and it'll be interesting to see if the final version holds up to the promise it's shown while in development. Tony Hawk's American Wasteland will drop onto the Xbox with, for the first time in the history of the series, Xbox Live support. That's a big deal, but the Xbox controller still isn't the best control device for the Tony Hawk series. But with its four trigger buttons, the Xbox 360 controller might be exactly what we need.
Review
SSX On Tour
Stretching out even further, there's stuff like Battlefield 2: Modern Combat and Star Wars Battlefront II hitting this month. Next month, we'll get to see if the Path of Neo is one worth following, and Neversoft's other game, Gun, will finally be ready for the world. Some people around here have been dying for a good Western-themed game. Will Gun be that game? I have no idea. None. But I'm willing to bet that characters from Gun will end up being unlockable characters in Tony Hawk's American Wasteland. That just... seems like an obvious one to me. I'm playing THAW right now, so time will tell if I'm right or not. After mentioning that to Greg, he said it'd be much more interesting if Tony Hawk characters were unlockable in Gun. I tend to agree.
Microsoft held a local event here to show off some Xbox 360 games to the people that didn't make the trek out to Amsterdam to see them at X05, and I got to take a peek at DOA4, Perfect Dark Zero, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, King Kong, Kameo, and more. I even got to plug an iPod into a 360 and watch it work. We also got the demo of the dashboard's features, including the media center stuff. It looks like you'll actually need a Media Center Edition PC on your network if you want to use that stuff. If you just want photos and music, something called Windows Media Connect will have to be running on your PC. Why can't this all just use standard network shares? And will anyone really care about a networked video player that can only play Windows Media files and a few other formats? I know you all probably have drives full of illicitly acquired videos that are in all kinds of crazy codecs. But those won't play. Probably for the best, I guess, but for all the talk about "open standards" that Microsoft has been doing when it comes to plugging in a PSP or an iPod, it seems pretty crazy that the wide-open codec love won't extend over on the video side.
Aside from that little bit of business, I came away pretty impressed with the Xbox 360's dashboard and feature set. Stuff like achievements in every game that tie into your overall profile score seem like the sort of interesting innovations that could really catch on. As for the games, well, we'll still just have to wait and see what gets finished in time. Stay tuned, it's going to be a bumpy month and a half.
FIFA 06
While all this Xbox 360 hand-wringing gets more and more furious, there have been some big, exciting releases for the big, bulky, original Xbox. Recent releases on the system include FIFA Soccer 06, Far Cry Instincts, NBA 2K6, and Ninja Gaiden Black. All of those are sharp, sharp games. Reading Justin's FIFA review almost made me want to figure out what this whole "soccer" thing is all about and give it a shot for myself. Almost.
Preview
Tony Hawk's American Wasteland
The upcoming releases are looking pretty bright at the moment, too. Next week, we'll see how well Blitz: The League stacks up, and it's looking more and more like Stubbs the Zombie is actually going to make it out onto shelves, as well. That one's been a bit of an office favorite, and it'll be interesting to see if the final version holds up to the promise it's shown while in development. Tony Hawk's American Wasteland will drop onto the Xbox with, for the first time in the history of the series, Xbox Live support. That's a big deal, but the Xbox controller still isn't the best control device for the Tony Hawk series. But with its four trigger buttons, the Xbox 360 controller might be exactly what we need.
Review
SSX On Tour
Stretching out even further, there's stuff like Battlefield 2: Modern Combat and Star Wars Battlefront II hitting this month. Next month, we'll get to see if the Path of Neo is one worth following, and Neversoft's other game, Gun, will finally be ready for the world. Some people around here have been dying for a good Western-themed game. Will Gun be that game? I have no idea. None. But I'm willing to bet that characters from Gun will end up being unlockable characters in Tony Hawk's American Wasteland. That just... seems like an obvious one to me. I'm playing THAW right now, so time will tell if I'm right or not. After mentioning that to Greg, he said it'd be much more interesting if Tony Hawk characters were unlockable in Gun. I tend to agree.
Microsoft held a local event here to show off some Xbox 360 games to the people that didn't make the trek out to Amsterdam to see them at X05, and I got to take a peek at DOA4, Perfect Dark Zero, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, King Kong, Kameo, and more. I even got to plug an iPod into a 360 and watch it work. We also got the demo of the dashboard's features, including the media center stuff. It looks like you'll actually need a Media Center Edition PC on your network if you want to use that stuff. If you just want photos and music, something called Windows Media Connect will have to be running on your PC. Why can't this all just use standard network shares? And will anyone really care about a networked video player that can only play Windows Media files and a few other formats? I know you all probably have drives full of illicitly acquired videos that are in all kinds of crazy codecs. But those won't play. Probably for the best, I guess, but for all the talk about "open standards" that Microsoft has been doing when it comes to plugging in a PSP or an iPod, it seems pretty crazy that the wide-open codec love won't extend over on the video side.
Aside from that little bit of business, I came away pretty impressed with the Xbox 360's dashboard and feature set. Stuff like achievements in every game that tie into your overall profile score seem like the sort of interesting innovations that could really catch on. As for the games, well, we'll still just have to wait and see what gets finished in time. Stay tuned, it's going to be a bumpy month and a half.