Slashdot Mirror
First Xbox 360 Reviews Hitting the Web
An anonymous reader writes "The first reviews for Xbox 360 games are starting to hit the web! 1UP has reviewed Kameo, Project Gotham Racing 3, FIFA Soccer 2006, NBA 2K6, and Amped 3, while IGN has reviewed Madden NFL 06, Kameo, and NBA 2K6. Judging from both sets of reviews, it looks like Project Gotham Racing 3 - which scored a 10/10 on 1UP - is the only sure winner of the 360 launch games thus far."
I'd go with a chipped Xbox and run the Xbox Media Center now. Then in a year or two you can see which console has the best media playback. The 360s default playback is severly limited compared to the Xbox Media Center.
Perfect Dark Zero fits into the FPS category.
However, I just tried playing back some HDTV recorded content from my MythTV and Xbox chugged on both 1080 and 720 playback of my recorded shows from OTA. Anyone have any tips on getting it to play past the 15fps or so in mplayer it was getting from my Xbox Media Center? Since XBOX 360 has the Media Center for Windows free, I was thinking I could just mount my MythTV recordings on my Windows Media Center PC and stream the HDTV shows that way to 360.
If you want a media machine for the living room, I can really recommend a Mac Mini. It already has everything you need for multimedia. Get the bluetooth wireless keyboard and mouse.
You don't even need a chip. Soft modding the xbox is very easy, especially if you don't care about Xbox Live.
ttyl,
--buddy
1UP
Kameo: 7.0
Project Gothem Racing 3: 10.0
Fifa Soccer 2006: 7.0
NBA 2K6: 7.0
Amped 3: 7.0
IGN
Madden 2006 : 8.0
Kameo : 8.4
NBA 2K6 : 7.8
I recognize that most of these are sports games, and sports game revies have been dropping lately, but these scores seem pretty 'Average' (that is, not very impressive). Certainly PGR 3 seems to have scored well, but is one racing game really going to move systems?
Seeing these scores for Kameo is a real dissapointment; I really enjoyed Rare's games for the N64 and wanted them to recapture their greatness.
Uh, well, yeah. Your eyes are not cameras.
The use of motion blur is to simulate filmed entertainment. We know what high-framerate 3d looks like when simulating fast speeds; it looks like that odd shutter effect at the beginning of saving Private Ryan. It can be an interesting effect but it does not look natural. For most people, the filmed 'blur' is closer to the actual experience than razor-sharp frames across the board. This is the reason they use motion blur in 3D animation.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
That's actually always been one of the problems games have had next to movies for realism. I mean films are still shot at 24fps. It's rare to play a game at less than 30fps, and many people insist on 60fps or more. Yet the film, despite it;s low frame rate, still has a smoothness that games don't. Why? Motion blur.
If you look at a game screenshot with lots of motion, everything is crystal clear. It's a snapshot of precisely what was happening at that given instant. It's like having a still photo with an infinetly fast shutter speed. If however you look at a movie frame with teh same kind of action, you'll notice it's heavily blurred. The camera is leaving the shutter open long enough to capture more than just a single instant.
Now the net effect, when played back is that the blurred scene looks more smooth. The faster something is moving, the more true this is. I mean let's say you have a game running at 30fps, and you have a rocket fly across the screen in just 3 frames. The way it will be rendered, without blur, will be with huge gaps inbetween. You'll see it on the left side, then the center, then the right, then gone. It looks jerky, cut up, unrealistic. However if that rocket were blurred as it moved, it would look more smooth and realistic to you.
Like any effect, it can be overused or used wrong, but blur can really enchance teh smoothness of images changing at high speeds.
If you want a media machine for the living room, I can really recommend a Mac Mini. It already has everything you need for multimedia.
Except a TV tuner, TV output, digital audio output, the processing power to encode or play back HD content, and a proper remote control.
On the plus side, it CAN play DVDs.
Damn, with an ID that low you must be Methusela or something.
You can use the Windows Media Connect software - available free from Windows Update - for everything other than HD content, for which you need MCE.
Here at GarageGames we have had XB360s since Alpha hardware. Currently, we have about eight dev-stations in place while we are finishing up Marble Blast Ultra for distribution through the Live Arcade feature of the system. I can tell you that with everything that I know about the system, I will be the first in line at Best Buy to get my own system for home. Here's why.
I could care less about processors or GPU's, but even if I did the XB360 is great in this area. But, it is everywhere else that the system shines even brighter. The wireless controller feels JUST RIGHT, and I can finally sit on my couch and play games on my HD television (which has precious few other HD signals where I live). No other wireless controller in history, other than Wavebird for Gamecube, has felt right. This time MS nailed it.
If I'm not feeling like I want to play game, I can easily plug my iPod into the front of the system and listen to my music. Currently, I'm not much of a techie, so I listen to my music by plugging my iPod into one of those cheesy little self powered speaker systems. This might not impress the Slashdot crowd, but I don't care enough about this kind of thing to take even five minutes to figure out which input, which cable, etc. it takes to hook up to my myriad amps, etc. to make it work.
Live Arcade downloadable games are the biggest thing that will make this system a hit. Being able to sit on my couch, and choose from hundreds of games without going to the store is a HUGE WIN. Many other things such as transferrable memory cards that allow "roaming" so you can take your downloaded games to a friend's house, micropayments so you can easily buy add-ons to your game (or allowing parents to give their kids purchasing power) all add up to a system that is light years ahead of current systems.
Microsoft has done so many things right with this system that we continue to be amazed.
Jeff Tunnell
www.garagegames.com Independent Games
Sorry to nitpick, but as a fan of the series for a long time...
Oblivion is TES IV. TES I was Arena (released in the early 90s, now available for download from behtsofts website), II was Daggerfall, the first one I played and an awesome and mindblowingly huge game for the time (later in the 90s, first one I played). Finally, III was Morrowind, which you're probably familiar with.
[/fanboy nitpicks]
Pikman. (Awesome game by the way)
AirSpeak - http://itunes.com/apps/AirSpeak
"Where are the first person shooters and Adventure/RPG games? Or better yet something completely diffrent. Are there going to be any launch titles like that?"
Kameo is an Action Adventure Game
Gun is an Action Adventure Game
Quake 4 is an FPS
Perfect Dark is an FPS
Call of Duty 2 is an FPS
Condemned: Criminal Origins is a First Person (Action Adventure?)
As well if you look at the list of Xbox titles, including the very new ones, which will be playable on the 360 fully scaled up and antialiased @ 720P or 1080i... there are quite a variety of good looking games going to be playable at launch on this system. The launch list isn't perfect, but its a big step up from the Xbox's launch.
That's actually always been one of the problems games have had next to movies for realism. I mean films are still shot at 24fps. It's rare to play a game at less than 30fps, and many people insist on 60fps or more. Yet the film, despite it;s low frame rate, still has a smoothness that games don't. Why? Motion blur.
Playing a game a 24fps is a terrible experience but movies seem mostly ok at that. As far as I know the reason for this is not motion blur, but evenly distributed frames. In a movie you get 24 solid evenly spaced frames a second, whereas in a game the rate is constantly changing. Even if nothing much was happening and the counter stayed at 24fps it would probably be unevenly distributed....hmmm how to say this....the eye percieves changes in frame rate as well as the frame rate itself. Also some of the (time) gaps between two frames could be quite large (and quite small other times relative to the average) in the game so this will be noticeable.
This guy are sick.
The Apple Video Adaptor enables you to connect your mac mini to a regular television. (Sorry if the link doesn't work. It's from the apple store.) It costs 19.99 US.
Elgato makes TV tuners with Tivo-like recording capabilities. These products range from standard television signals, to DTT to HD, etc. Most handle encyption/decryption outside of your computer. Some even have remote controls.
If your HD television has DVI input, you can connect your mac to your HDTV without an adaptor.
So, out of the box, you are right, the mac mini doesn't do those things. Apple doesn't make pre-packaged "media machines" as some PC manufacturers do. However, it is trivial to build a system to do all of those things and more.
Taft
Pilot Wings, Wave racer
Name one Nintendo launch title in the last 15 years that hasn't been derivative of a franchise. Take your time.
Pikmin.
And as a side note, while most Nintendo games are derivative of a franchise, that doesn't mean that the games themselves are devoid of originality, as something like Kirby's Canvas Curse for the DS shows that Nintendo is always trying to find new innovative ways of playing.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
From everything that people have seen, yes(*). So far keyboards and mice work just fine.
* Depends on whether or not the game companies support what's in the dashboard. Since we have no fpses to go off of, we can't say with certainity either way. But the hardware is recognized and works in dash.
It's inherent to the film and camera itself.
At 24 fps, the camera shutter will be open for (don't know the exact number) 1/30 of a second each frame, and any motion that occurs during the time the shutter is open will appear on the film as a blur. It's the same blur effect as when you use a slow shutter speed to take a picture of fast action. When viewed as part of a sequence of moving pictures, your mind interprets the blur as a moving object.
Games try to emulate this effect with motion blur, since the alternative of using instantaneous pictures can be visually jarring. I suspect (don't know) that motion blur does take more processing power than just throwing out more frames, but the end result looks much better to a human observer.
Everything I've seen stated that keyboards and mice would ONLY work in the dash. :(
You cannot use a keyboard and mouse for game input. This is one of Microsoft's technical requirements of developers. I can't offer proof, but I work for a 360 dev studio and as I understand it, this is the case.