Xbox 360: Bildo's New Hawtness

I received my Xbox 360 ordered through Dell by way of the store my work goes through just yesterday (can't beat tax free and shipping free). I stayed home (I'm a geek, like I said) so I could play all afternoon and all night and not have to run out to Middleburg Heights to get the damn thing after work, which is way out of my way.

Same as it ever was, this one day I could sleep in I found myself up around 7:30am and after failing to go back to sleep I was out of bet by about 8am. With plenty of time to kill, on break from my college classes for the holidays, and with nothing but Xbox on my mind I couldn't focus on any other game. So I did what any 20-something dork would do... I watched the original Star Wars Trilogy. Good times indeed. Did you know that Return of the Jedi was code-named Blue Harvest in order to avoid property owners that were charging an arm and a leg for the use of their lots? That explains the title of this years Family Guy spoof. Never knew that. Now, where was I?

Oh yes, my Xbox 360. It is GLORIOUS. It feels like forever since I had a console that was so gaming focused (love the Wii though I do, it feels like more of a toy than a gaming console to me, yes I know I blaspheme), and thus it's almost like I'm entering a gaming Renaissance. I'd played one a number of times before, but there's nothing like getting a new toy you know?

So anyway I ended up waiting until about 2:30pm before the DHL guy showed up. Jeebus rest his soul, the dude must be busier than crap this week so I thank him for being the deliverer of Joy for Bildo.

I got the system set up in no time at all, the only thing was that I had to swap places with it and the Wii. Since the 360 runs hotter I wanted it out in the open, and the Wii instead now rests inside of the entertainment center. The 360's less sleek looking sure, but at least I don't run the risk of it overheating this way.

Packed in the console came copies of both Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (which I've played before on the Wii) and Forza Motorsport 2 (a sim-racing game akin to Gran Turismo). I totally expected to be mildly pleased at best with the titles, given my lack of true interest in racing sims and my already extensive experience with Marvel. Lo and behold the difference highly upgraded graphics made for Marvel, and the difference sheer brilliance of customization and absolutely superb controls made for Forza. Wii Sports is great for a tech demo type of pack in... but these two games are by far the better freebie when it comes to pack-ins.

Marvel plays just as fun as it did before if not better than the Wii counterpart, and what's more... it just looks better. Shiny things and lots of explosions FTW. The same could be said about Forza's visuals. Not the explosions part, but the quality rather is through the roof. I guess, despite spending time with the 360 before I never realized just how much it (or the PS3 even) smacks the ever-living-crap out of Nintendo's more modest piece of hardware. I cannot wait to get NBA 2K8 and Mass Effect to see even better visuals on this thing, but until I can grab those two gems, my friend Brendon is lending me Oblivion and Conan to mess around with as well.

Oblivion and I have a long history together on the PC already, but I'm looking forward nonetheless to seeing it in action on the 360. What a difference a couch, a 32 Low-Def TV (obviously going to have to upgrade this now), and a console controller can make. And as for Conan... who doesn't want to play around with razor sharp swords and hack peoples' limbs off? It's a God of War clone, sure... but I just want to cause some mayhem.

I don't see any "bad sides" to the purchase yet, other than the fact that I have to have my cable guy come out and re-work the way our home network is set up so I can get on Xbox Live and partake in all the fun there. I'd do it myself, but he's got the actual cable going all the way upstairs through the ceiling and I don't want to screw with it. I'll let the professional break things so it's not my fault.

In all, I'm very excited to have finally jumped into the higher-horsepower Next-Gen of gaming, and look forward to going back and playing the titles I've missed (Saint's Row, Gears of War, Bioshock, etc) as well as the ones still to come (GTA IV, Too Human, Battlefield: Bad Company, Last Remnant, etc).

Cheers, you lot! And thanks Satan Santa for being so kind.