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CNN's Game Over On The 360
An anonymous reader writes "CNN's Chris Morris has taken a look at Microsoft's new system. He calls the system 'good, but not great' in a fairly lengthy, well thought out piece. The article also has an amusing gallery of rejected prototype designs." From the article: "Admittedly, tastes vary - so you could easily find a game out this month that's a 'must have' for you. (We'll have a closer look at the launch games early next week.) But if you're looking for something that's ground breaking and sets the trend for the system (as 'Halo' did with the original Xbox), you're not going to find it."
when he said "good but not great" he was talking about the games, not the system. Poster needs to learn how to read, very wrong statement.
But when it comes to must-have games, the Xbox 360 falls short. While there are several good - and even very good - titles that will be available at launch, there's nothing truly great.
Top 10 Reasons To Procrastinate
10.
It was the first console FPS that was actually playable with a decent control mechanism.
And on the marketing-side Halo had been at as high a level of anticipation and notariety as any of the FPS games of this era. Controversy (going from a Mac/PC game to just a PC game to just an XBox game) fed into that as well as the vehicles.
They sold a LOT of xbox consoles because of Halo.
It was the first console FPS that was actually playable with a decent control mechanism.
um can you say N64 Goldeneye??? Everyone always left it on the default control style (1.1 Honey IIRC) but if you switch to 1.2 Solitaire your skillz go through the roof. it used the analog stick to look around and the c-pad to walk/strafe
Xbox 360: Good, but not great
Right there in bold in big letters at the top of the article.
No. That honor probably goes to Goldeneye on the N64. Which was made by Rare, ironically. Another games company bought by Microsoft.
Launch titles have never been revolutionary. What revolutionary title did the PS2 launch with? The Gamecube? The Dreamcast?
The PS2 launch lineup:
Armored Core 2 (Agetec, Action)
DOA2: Hardcore (Tecmo, Fighting)
Dynasty Warriors 2 (Koei, Action)
ESPN International Track and Field (Konami, Sports)
ESPN X-Games Snowboarding (Konami, Sports)
Eternal Ring (Agetec, RPG)
Evergrace (Agetec, RPG)
FantaVision (SCEI, Puzzle)
Gun Griffon Blaze (Working Designs, Action)
Kessen (EA, Adventure)
Madden NFL 2001 (EA, Sports)
Midnight Club (Rockstar, Racing)
Moto GP (Namco, Racing)
NHL 2001 (EA, Sports)
Orphen (Activision, RPG)
Q-Ball Billiards Master (Take-Two Interactive, Simulation)
Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2 (Midway, Sports)
Ridge Racer V (Namco, Racing)
Silent Scope (Konami, Shooter)
Smuggler's Run (Rockstar, Racing-Adventure)
SSX (EA, Sports)
Street Fighter EX3 (Capcom, Fighting)
Summoner (THQ, RPG)
Swing Away (Paradise Golf in Japan) (EA, Sports)
Tekken Tag Tournament (Namco, fighting)
TimeSplitters (Eidos, First-Person Shooter)
Unreal Tournament (Infogrames, First-Person Shooter)
Wild Wild Racing (Interplay, Racing)
X-Squad (EA, Action)
Not a huge number of classics, but I would argue that SSX was pretty revolutionary and it's still fun today. The only game that really sort of approximated what it did prior to that was 1080, but it wasn't nearly as tight.
There were also some good niche titles in that list, such as Silent Scope, Kessen, and Dynasty Warriors 2. The 360 launch is lacking quality niche titles to draw in those who aren't all about sports or FPS games. The PS2 also had *two* triple-A fighting games; the 360 has none.
Here's the Dreamcast launch list:
* Airforce Delta | Konami | $49
* Blue Stinger | Sega | $49
* CART Flag to Flag | Sega | $49
* Expendable | Infogrames | $49
* House of the Dead 2 | Sega | $49
* Hydro Thunder | Midway | $49
* Monaco Grand Prix | Ubi Soft | $49
* Mortal Kombat Gold | Midway | $49
* NFL 2000 | Sega | $49
* NFL Blitz 2000 | Midway | $49
* Pen Pen Tri-Icelon | Infogrames | $49
* Power Stone | Capcom | $49
* Ready 2 Rumble | Midway | $49
* Sonic Adventure | Sega | $49
* Soul Calibur | Namco | $49
* TNN Hardcore Heat | ASC | $49
* Tokyo Xtreme Racing | Crave | $49
* TrickStyle | Acclaim | $49
You'll never convince me that Power Stone was not revolutionary, Sonic Adventure wasn't the best platformer of its time, and Soul Calibur was not the best fighting game ever made. Beyond that, again a good mix of mainstream stuff (NFL 2K being the best sports title available at the time) and niche titles (HotD2, TXR, etc.). The 360 just doesn't have the mix right, and it's lacking *any* true standouts.
It's also worth noting that the Dreamcast launch had a much better proportion of original titles to sequels than the Xbox 360 does.
The GameCube I might grant you, although at least the GameCube did have some of Nintendo's best franchises represented (though no Mario) - and it had one of my favorite games of all time, Super Monkey Ball. Show me that kind of silly fun in the Xbox 360's launch lineup.
I would agree with those that say the 360's launch lineup is relatively weak. It's not the worst I've ever seen (go back a few years and you'll find systems that launched with only 2 or 3 games total!), but it's not great by recent standards.