That is a shame. I was thinking about picking it up, but between your review and some others that I have read, I think I will wait for it to end up in the bargain bin

 

I'm so disappointed with this game! I expected a lot more from Ubisoft.

 

The 'ocean' in over g fighters is just flat blue. Not even an attempt at any sort of detail, it just looks like someone picked primary blue and hit the 'fill' button.


and something shady is going on with Amazon... last week there were a bunch of negative reviews, now they are all gone except for mine.

 

thanks for the input... cause I was actually thinking about getting both of those games too...

(by the way, I've re-played Ghost Recon, and Call of Duty like 3 times now there is like... nothing else out that interest me)

 

BF2MC gets most of my usage these days.

 

Have you played Battlefield 2? I like it much better than Ghost Recon and COD2.

 

...yeah, I love that game too... but I'm totally stuck on one level.... and can't pass it... it's frustrating the fvck out of me... it's the one where you have to sabotage two missile silos... and you have like 10 minutes to do it...

 

Play it online.

The offline game is decent, but online is where the fun is at.

 

...are there different levels of play (online) cause the few times I've played anything online (mostly PSP) some of them kids were so good and ruthless... I didn't last long... it just got discouraging...

 

Xbox live does try and match you based on skills, I think.

But the only way to get better is to play, and BF2MC has a quick learning curve. You already know most of the basic controls by playing it offline, so it is mainly a matter of learning the maps.

 

^

I only play online. I suck ass at it but its still fun. There isn't any kind of skill matching, so it does get annoying to play with people who have been playing it 4 hours a day for 6 months.

 

OK...I think I've finially gave in...I told myself I wouldn't waste money on games anymore...But tommorow I'm getting a 360!

Few questions...Is it really worth it to get the more expensive version? And what games should I get if I'm getting 3...I was thinking PGR, Burnout, Fight Night...I love car games! Anyone have any other recommendations, I'm open to all kinds of games...

Also I have DSL at my house, but I do not have the DSL phone line in my room. How will I be able to play XBOX LIVE?

 

Yes premium has 20gb harddrive, wirless controller, HDTV cables, standard tv cables, and a bonus media remote and its only 399. The core has only the system and a conroller and the standard tv cables and is 299. And the harddrive is 100, hdtv cables are 60, and wireless controllers range from 30-50 dollars. So it would be better to go with the preimium saves more money.

 

okay... for those of you that loved COD2 (I don't know anyone that didn't), wait til ya see this!!

check out the video footages!

http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/8...49/vids_1.html


(sorry, if it's already been posted)

 

Yeah I'm in the same boat...I'm pretty sure that I'll have one within a few weeks. Some questions about Live with the premium xbox. At my house we have verzion fios, so is the xbox live wireless or would I have to hook it up somewhere.

A friend of mine had it last year at school, and he said he couldnt connect to the schools network for some reason. Have any of you guys had this problem at school?

 

I heard there was gonna be a price drop for the 360 in the near future...? Can anybody confirm that?

 

no, even if it is planned ms won't speak up about it. As when people know the price will drop, they won't buy right now.

Also there are rumors that instead of a price drop, the premium will have a bundle at the same price, like with games and things.

 

"Corporate Vice President of the Xbox Product Group, Todd Holmdahl has revealed to Reuters that Microsoft plans to slash the price of their Xbox 360 system every year" ~xbox 365.com

I guess I'll wait untill there is a bundle for the premium

 

this was released back in June :

http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/20060627/tc_zd/182022

 

Hey how do I switch the headset audio to play over the speakers? I overheard someone saying it can be done.

 

Bunch of new stuff at tgs.. Like apparently like, 1080p, hddvd playback and upsampling of dvd's and games via component on 360? WTF mate. Do Tv's even support that. I imagine you can get that resolution on a pc monitor, but i thought tv's had some complicated braodcast flag thingy and non supported over 1080i/ 720p for such a reason. I still won't be getting it I imagine, unless sombody brings over a hd dvd drive and somehow proves it will look like super hot sexy sexy compared to 480p on my 27 inch 720p bargain basement tv.

http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/20/x...17th-in-japan/

Then there are some games
lost odesy which looks damn good, but turn based stuff to me is like, waiting in line for a good ride but never really getting to it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9tMOMRboWs

Rainbow six 3 looks badicle.
http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/8...19/imgs_1.html

Danged tgs, why doesn't ms just come to tucson with all this new stuff to try. I mean they only have like 1000 xbox 360 users total to show stuff off to in Tokyo.

 

1080p TVs were first released in late summer 2005. The TVs on the market now are now at least second generatin 1080p sets. Most of the new ones either just released or being released this year support 1080p via HDMI/DVI. Now, the 360 does not have an HDMI/DVI output, only components... so therein lies the problem. How will the 360 output in 1080p via component, when the 1080p TVs only support component via HDMI? Like the article says, they will output at 1080p and the TVs will have to upscale it from 720p/1080i to 1080p. To 99.5% of the 360 owners out there.. they will not notice a difference. Keep in mind that the PS3 supports 1080p via HDMI, so there will be no converting necessary meaning that the PS3 will be TRUE 1080p. The "X" factor here is the VGA output. The article says it will support 1080p via VGA as well. Problem here is that... AFAIK, the Sony SXRD models are the only TVs which support 1080p via VGA... and that is supposed to change when they release their next line later this year (as they'll be moving to HDMI support for 1080p and away from VGA 1080p support).

So, to make a long story short, the 360 supporting 1080p doesn't really excite me one bit since it won't be true 1080p like the PS3 will have, but an upconversion done by the TV from 720p/1080i.

Now, as far as the HD-DVD drive itself goes... here's the best way I can think of to describe it. Regular TV channels are typically broadcast in 480i. Standard DVDs are shown in 480p... which is only slightly better then TV shows. Same resolution, but the progressive makes for a better picture. Now, HD channels broadcast in either 720p or 1080i. Both of which look far superior to 480i/p. And since progressive can display an better image... typically 720p broadcasts look better then 1080i on HD. Now, imaging having a DVD player which can broadcast at the highest resolution (1080), plus progressive. So a movie on 1080p will blow away anything you've ever seen on a standard 480p DVD.

Ask yourself this. Does a show or sporting event look better on regular TV, or on HD? So imagine your DVD player now as regular TV, and the new technology (BluRay or HD-DVD) players as HD. That's more of less how much better the new stuff will be and should put it into perspective. The problem here again is that the HD-DVD add-on for the 360 will not be true 1080p since the 360 uses component cables... so it will be upconverted by the TVs that support 1080p. It will still blow away standard DVDs, but won't look as good as if the HD-DVD player was connected via HDMI so no conversion was necessary.

Sorry for the long reply. Hope it makes sense...

 

FYI, if you hooked up your 360 to a 1080p set today, the set will upconvert your signal rom 720p to 1080p... so really the software upgrade doesn't do anything for you that isn't already possible today.

 

damn! Junior... where do you get these info!??!!??

 

I dunno, but I think he has a much stronger dosage of caffine than I do.

 

LOL... well, before I ever buy anything I do a ton of research and reading. Last year we purchased a TV and earlier this summer we bought another... so I'm full of info about TVs and how they interface with devices since that was part of what I researched.


You'd be surprised to know that I do not drink caffeine . In fact, I just ate breakfast 5 minutes ago... so all that was on an empty stomach

 

Sorry, but you are incorrect. I follow this topic quite extensively.

1080p is entirely possible through component and VGA connections. The requirement to use HDMI connections has nothing to do with limitations of Component or VGA, but due to DRM concerns from the movie industry. This limitation would be applied by ICT (Image Constraint Token)

The movie industry is close to reaching agreement to a delay this requirement until 2010-2012, so 1080p movies can be displayed over component today. Here is an article with some of the info:


Also, I have read from MS sources that the 360 HD-DVD drive in the future will allow a future HDMI add-on connection if the industry decides to require HDMI for 1080p playback which allows the drive to be future proof.

Here is information straight from Microsoft

The $500 PS3 model does not have a HDMI connection, which will have the same issue in the future.

Also, neither PS3 or 360 will have the majority of their games in native 1080p. The GPU's in both systems really don't have the horsepower to produce the visuals we expect of next-gen in 1080p. It's also a waste of resources as the vast majority of consumers don't yet have 1080p sets, so support 10% of the population with a higher native resolution and lose graphical effects or support 720p and turn up the effects.

It is already confirmed that all PS3 launch titles will run native at 720p but can be upscaled to 1080p just like the 360 will now be able to do. The only native 1080p PS3 game is virtual tennis. I expect Xbox Live arcade games to run 1080p native as well.

To your last point, image quality is actually affected more by the quality of the compression used for the movie (Mpeg2 versus Mpeg4 or VC-1) than whether is it 720p, 1080i or 1080p.

 

I never said it had anything to do with limitations of the component cables, b/c I know that's not true. The limitation is that the TV SETS out on the market today do not support true 1080p via component. Right now the sets on the market support it either VGA or HDMI. Samsung's 2005 1080p models supported it via VGA only (which is why I did not purchase last year or early this year), but this years model dropped VGA 1080p support in favor of HDMI 1080p. Sony is currently the only one who supports 1080p via VGA, and the rumors are that they too will be dropping 1080p VGA support in favor of 1080p HDMI on their next models since that is the direction all other manufacturers are going. As sets get better down the road all inputs will eventually be able to accept true 1080p via all inputs, but right now and for the short-term future, an HDMI or DVI connection is the only way to get true 1080p on almost all sets out on the market.

So yes, I agree, it's entirely possible, and I never said otherwise. The problem is the way the TVs are built since they are only accepting true 1080p via HDMI. The rest of the inputs are 720p or 1080i and upconverted by the TV to 1080p.

 

I was simply responding to the article posted, and that article did not mention HDMI for the HD-DVD drive. In fact, I have not read anything indicating that the drives will ship with HDMI. I wish they would.


Again, correct... and I think everyone who is interested in the PS3 with HDMI support knows they need the $599 PS3 model. This is not a secret.

One more time, correct with the initial games not being 1080p. Personally, I don't care so much about the games right away as I do the BluRay player which is the other reason why I'll be purchasing the $599 model. I understand that it will be some time before games are released in native 1080p... and that's fine b/c I'm looking forward to utilizing native 1080p for the BluRay player. When the games are designed in 1080p... that will just be a huge perk!

 

my roommate just picked up a 360 premium, pretty impressive graphics he picked up G.R.A.W. with it, but damn this thing seems like it can only be used on 36+ inch TVs or something, on my toshiba 24AF44 TV the text in the games are SOOOOOOOOO tiny that its hard to read from a distance, like me and him were having to get like 2 feet away from the TV to be able to read.

also the compnent inputs does it work with SD or only HD? cause i have component input on my TV, would it make a difference over composite?




if this is the case with the PS3, ima neeed to get a big DLP TV

 

Yup, I've heard that complaint a lot. You have to keep in mind that the resolution is so high on HD that on small TVs, it will shrink the text. It's like running a high resolution on your monitor. The higher you go, the smaller the text.

As for the cables, you can use the component cables for SD or HD. There is a switch on the cable to change it from 480i to 720p... so on a TV that does not support HD, just leave it on the 480i setting and you'll be fine...

 

experienced our first 360 lock up, was playing graw on live and it froze up


overall seems like a good system thou just we dont have any games for it? what ones do you guys suggest?

we're thinking about picking up dead rising

 

^ Luckily my system has been freeze-free since I got it in late July.

Can't help you much on games.... I'm mainly a sports/driver guy. I have Madden 2007 (OK), NHL 2007 (Awesome), and Test Drive Unlimited (Awesome). I also enjoyed the demos of Call of Duty 2 and Prey... so those are probably two other games I'd get if I had more time to play...

 

thus far dead rising and condemned have been two of my favorites, in that they are something a bit different than I usually play.

 

hey, really quick... suppose, if I was to switch my HD over to another 360 console... 1) will EVERYTHING switch over to the new console? like my Xbox Live account and 2) will there be any traces of the old console that it was already used?

(yes, I'm onto something sneaky, but unless someone really wants to know, I don't want to go into it)

 

deadrising is soo much fun

 

i dunno about that, cause i thought the hard drive was only for save games?

how do the non premium models w/o the hard drive save their system info?

 

November update:

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/community/...mpletelist.htm

 

now if making my tv 1080p were that easy.

Update is neat though, i can stream wmv's without a media center pc.
My pc is hooked to the same tv though. Mabee it's more exciting for sombody else.

 

Eh, I'd be more excited if they figured a way to add HDMI support. 1080p via component is useless b/c no TV supports 1080p via component. So unless you're 1080p TV has a VGA connection, that part of the update is useless.

The good news is that most of the newer 1080p sets do have a VGA connection, so the only people who will be screwed are those who bought some first gen 1080p sets w/o VGA....