The Xbox Experience

The Xbox 360: sleek in design, consuming in its power, revolutionary in its cause. Now as the gifts have been long unwrapped but many visits to the local electronics chain to pick one up are still frequent, comes the review of this white beast. Speaking from one gamer to another, a lengthy breakdown of the 360’s experience will be covered, from opening up the box to present day. I am looking forward to sharing this experience with everyone, whether you have interest in the system or not; it is in itself a truly amazing piece of hardware, and if you have been lucky enough to get your hands on one, you know what I’m talking about. For those waiting for Sony's Playstation 3 or Nintendo’s Revolution (codename; subject to change), save your comments, those in turn will be just as badass, but for now sit back and take in this journey.

The Purchase - It was supposed to be so easy

Being a resident of southern California, as some of the frequent console readers may already know, and also an employee of retail giant Best Buy, I was lucky enough to have access to the major launch event in Palmdale, California. To make a long story short, Microsoft was kind enough to allow Best Buy employees in attendance to purchase an Xbox 360, which I obviously did. As the hardcore consumer that I am, of course I did not go home with only a big white box in my hands. As I rubbed my bearded chin, I peered into the big yellow shopping carts and reviewed the selection of games and accessories, tempted to grab everything in front of me, knowing that every one of these items could be sold out in a matter of hours. If I didn’t get things here, I might have to sit with my Xbox but no games or controllers to play with. After the decision was made, I dove into the carts picking up the Special Edition of Perfect Dark, NBA2k6 and Amped 3, along with an extra wireless controller and a play and charge kit, Hot Rod face plate, as well as a 2 Year Product Service Plan (I’ll get into that a bit later). Well over $600 later, I was set. Along with my premium Xbox 360, I signed up for a special edition Xbox 360 Zero Hour face plate, and snagged myself a sweatshirt, keychain, stickers, pens and all kinds of other goodies.

The Wait - Wait... wait for what?

So, my hands were full and at the end of the day, I headed back home with two of my good co-worker buddies and brought my heap back to my house. “Awesome,” one would say, if only I was able to tear through the package. *Cut to the day after the Xbox release* “If only you can open it?” a friend of mine asked, as he raised his large fist in anger, threatening to throw a punch. “What do you mean you can’t open it?” “Well… It’s not Hanukkah yet, I have to wait for Hanukkah.” If I repeat what my friend replied, I probably wouldn’t have a job here. Yes, it’s true; I could not open my Xbox 360 until Hanukkah, which fell 1 day after the popular Christmas Holiday, on December 26th. I was not upset that I had to wait, in fact I was even happier that my parents, the generous, crazy souls that they are, fit the bill for my 360 unit, a whopping $400 (the units cost). Days passed and I lingered in the aisles of my local store, drumming my fingers along the hard plastic cases which covered the delicate 360 games. “Hmm. Should I buy another game?” I remember asking to a friend who worked in the gaming department “Well… you don’t have to, you can’t even open it up yet right?” “Yeah, you’re right, but it might sell out.” I knew very well that the games were not selling out; the fact that there were so few 360s even available made the games pointless to purchase, because there was no system to accommodate them. But hey, whatever justification I could think of, you could bet your sweet can I was going to use it. “Yeah it’ll sell out. Can I get a price check on Fifa 2006?”

The Tease

You know it’s not easy having friends who are gamers. Not only are they typically lazy and poor, but they play games. Some of my friends are no exceptions, and who have clearly cracked open their Xbox’s and ask me on a daily basis, “Hey have you played Madden yet? OOOOH, that’s right you didn’t open yours up yet, well it’s awesome” A Steve Urkel-like laugh erupts from my mouth. “Hilarious,” I state very sternly as I storm away. Hooray for Holidays. The tick tock of the clock was painful, all sane and logical; I wanted to tear it off the wall. Well the time had come, Hanukkah Eve, also known as Christmas Day. The whole lot of two of my buddies who did not know they were getting an Xbox 360 for their beloved holiday gave me a phone call and ask if I had received mine yet. Apologetic they were, when I said I would not open mine until the next evening. So enough beating around the bush, Hanukkah had finally arrived.

I very carefully opened the sealed box and uncovered my heavy Xbox 360. The packaging was neat, perfect even. Inside was a thin plastic of the accessory, covered in thirty languages, so I learned what “controller” meant in Spanish, Dutch and Norwegian. It literally took a good 15 minutes to unravel and uncover every piece that was in my Pro Hardware bundle, including the special edition media remote. HD cables were included, but the HDTV was not, so that was a bit disappointing. I’m not a genius when it comes to plugging things in, especially multi-colored aluminum looking cables. It took several tries before I aligned my cables up with the correct TV mode and eventually I was on my way. I popped in the included batteries into my wireless controller, unraveled my wireless headset, and dove into Amped 3.

The Games - Reviewed

The selections of games that I have purchased along the journey, including day one of the launch are as follows:

Joanna can melt any man's heart, or find a way to destroy it
• Perfect Dark Limited Edition
• Amped 3
• NBA 2k6
• Dead or Alive 4
• Kameo
• Fifa World Cup 2006
• Need for Speed: Most Wanted
• Ridge Racer 6
• Project Gotham Racing 2

Yeah so I went overboard. To this day, I have eight games, but I have not played eight games.