xbox 360.

[solipsistnation]

Okay, so my first impressions, after a day of playing with xbox360 and xbox live and stuff, are generally positive. Xbox live is a money sink, but it WORKS. It just works, with no messing around. Stuff downloads, and within an hour of getting it all working, stophittinyrslf's brother had requested an online game of Guitar Hero III, which we played, and which worked flawlessly along with voice chat and everything. It was pretty amazing-- especially considering the pain my PC has been for the past couple of weeks, what with driver problems and so on. I can see why people are abandoning the PC as a gaming platform... This was out-of-the-box flawless. Heck, I'm even playing games in HD on my fancy-pants LCD monitor, and they're gorgeous. Again, comparing that to the driver issues with my PC lately (not being able to drive my monitor at its native resolution _and_ play 3D games with the same drivers), the Xbox wins outright. (stophittinyrslf picked up Eternal Sonata, and we've been playing that. It's pretty decent, for a game that appears to be about the Japanese-RPG-style deathbed hallucinations of Frederic Chopin. Yeah.)

If you can play first-person shooters with keyboard and mouse on this thing, well... It might be enough. We'll have to see. I still don't like console controllers for shooters.

If anyone else wants to send me a friend request on there (or acknowledge the one I sent them, Mr. memetic_glutton), my gamertag is the same as this LJ.

Comments

[dariusk.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming this is you? I got semi-burned on Steam because more than one person can identify as one thing and there were several solipsistnations.

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

...were there? That's confusing, indeed. Mine has an astronaut picture from 2001, with the faceplate entirely black (it's like one of my LJ icons). I am kind of annoyed by how SLOW the Steam community stuff is. Here:

http://steamcommunity.com/id/solipsistnation

And yeah, hee, that's me with the Thoth icon on Live... (Okay, so I bought the damn Durandal icon set. I SAID it was a money sink, and "Microsoft Points" are very good at making you forget it's real money.)

[dariusk.livejournal.com]

I figured out who you were, since you were also part of the Gweep group. But yes, if you search "add a friend" and "solipsistnation" you'll come up with someone who isn't you. I think this is because it searches SteamID, Steam login, and maybe even email address.

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

Funny, because I don't get _any_ hits. Their searching is very broken.

[z-gryphon.livejournal.com]

There's a certain irony in multiple solipsists.

[air-hadoken.livejournal.com]

And in the fact that Josh's handle always reminds me of Alternative Nation (the MTV music video show, when MTV, um, played music videos)

[pir.livejournal.com]

I did see an adaptorthing to plug a keyboard an mouse into a 360 to play first person shooters, but to be honest even though it's not as good a way to play them I couldn't be bothered to get one and faff around with it in the livingroom.

I've played through all of Halo 1-3 and a couple of others with the controller and mostly it just takes me longer to aim properly.

I used the link to find you and just sent a friend request :)
Haven't paid for xbox live, I don't really do multiplayer stuff enough.

[pir.livejournal.com]

Ah, yeah, here it is; http://www.mod-chip.com/en/xfps_360.php

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

That does look like a lot of messing around. I guess I'll see...

[z-gryphon.livejournal.com]

I can see why people are abandoning the PC as a gaming platform.

... because developers are abandoning the PC as a gaming platform. No games, no gamers. You ought to remember that from your Mac days...

[kadath.livejournal.com]

I also don't like having to own a damn supercluster to run games, which is why I defected entirely to consoles c. the PS2.

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

Well, and developers are heading that way for the same reason-- PCs are such a pain in the ass to develop for. Check the various update notes for, say, ATI's driver releases-- half of the bug fixes are for specific games. Why is that something people have to do? It's absurd.

Heck, the Mac is a _better_ gaming platform, since the hardware and software are more tightly controlled. Pity about the userbase.

[z-gryphon.livejournal.com]

To be fair, that's the absolute worst-case scenario for PC development. ATI's drivers have always been sixty pounds of arse in a thirty-pound arse-bag.

[greyarea.livejournal.com]

Glad you're enjoying it; the 360 definitely still soaks up much of my gaming time. I'm the opposite to you though - I'd rather play stuff on it than my PC - it's just so much more comfy to be splayed out across the sofa, near the fridge etc. I've come to love pads; analogue movement more than outweighs the loss of mouse-sensitivity for me.

I'm "Suntory Boss" - I'm going on shortly, so I'll add you.

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

Heh, I've had my PC in front of the couch for years now. I actually hooked the 360 up to the same monitor.

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

Indeed, Xbox 360 and Live would kill iTMS if not for it's rather clunky UI. Aside from that, Microsoft Games nailed this one.

The description of Eternal Sonata? Is spot-on. That's *exactly* what its supposed to be.

You see a friending from "Ghintec"? That's me. :)

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

...well, and the near-total lack of audio and video content.

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

No music, no, but the Marketplace has a substantial movie (rental) and TV (purchase) library.