GF! Weekly Wrap-Up #12

Intro

Welcome, gamers, to a special edition of the GamesFirst! Weekly Wrap-Up for the week beginning Monday, November 21, 2005.. I’m Val Townsend, the Atomic Goddess. This week, the Xbox 360 is hitting store shelves, and we’ve been locked in our labs poking and prodding at the little white box like alien scientists to bring you the early line on Microsoft’s next big thing.

Xbox 360 Launch

The numbers are in, and it looks like shipments of the Xbox 360 are not quite as robust as was hoped. Many retailers are reporting that they will receive fewer consoles than they had hoped. The Ultimate package is far and away the more popular of the two bundles, but there is little doubt that gamers will take whatever they can get come tomorrow morning. Many game shops are reporting that they expect to be sold out of the Xbox 360 console until next year.

To offset the demand, stores have put into place plans of action for dealing with the expected crowds of gamers who didn’t preorder the system, or who had their preorders cancelled at EB Games or Gamestop because of low shipment numbers. Target stores, fo r example, will reportedly distribute their consoles to customers beginning at 5:30am, which means the early gamer will most definitely get the system this year.

First Impressions

Since the odds are pretty slim of you just stumbling into an Xbox 360 sitting on a store shelf, let’s assume you made the right preparations and will have an Xbox 360 bright and early on November 22. You’ve called in sick to work, got your friends to skip class, and have holed up in front of the Cirle of Light for some gaming goodness. What are you going to play first" That’s where GamesFirst! Can help: We couldn’t play them all, but we tried, and we’ve got a few hands-on first impressions to make your de cision easier.

First up is the very highly anticipated Perfect Dark Zero. Perfect Dark was one of the most popular games on the Nintendo 64, and helped define the First Person Shooter genre on the home console. Ever since Perfect Dark developer, Rare, left Nintendo for “greener” pastures, fans have been looking forward to a next-gen, online Perfect Dark. And now it’s here, and we’re playing it. And so far, we really, really like it.

Perfect Dark Zero is a prequel to the former game, and features a younger, hipper Joanna Dark working with her father at the family bail bonds business (who’s kind of like a futuristic, techno Dog the Bounty Hunter). The art style retains the signature Ra re aesthetic, with bright colors and clean, crisp characters and environments. The story mode is comprised of linear missions, each of which features a handful of different weapons and spy gadgets.

Of course, the meat of Perfect Dark was in the multiplayer, and so far it looks like Perfect Dark Zero is not going to disappoint. The first major move in the right direction is full-blown online cooperative multiplayer, which is something gamers have bee n asking for. Online matches can feature dozens of people blazing it out in scaling maps that get bigger and smaller depending on how many people are in the game. We haven’t been able to find any really big games yet, but the few we’ve gotten into ran well and brought back those old-time Perfect Dark feelings. And that’s worth a lot to us, even if those feelings are all mixed up with some new-fangled Halo qualities. We still aren’t sure exactly where we’ll come down on Perfect Dark Zero, but so far, we’re g iving it a strong recommendation for launch day.

Another first-person shooter out at launch time is Condemned: Criminal Origens. Condemned is a forensic thriller, a lot like CSI meets Manhunt. It is by no means for the feint of heart or the kids. You play an FBI officer who is framed for murder and must prove his innocence. Throughout the game, you use various gadgets to collect forensic evidence at crime scenes. The evidence is analyzed by your assistant, who manages to digitize everything through a really cute cell phone.

Everywhere you go, you find addicts and vagrants who are turning more and more psychotic and violent. You are ultimately tracking a serial killer who has been murdering people around the city. Most of the time you are under-powered: Ammunition and guns ar e scarce, so when the junkies come running, your only option is to grab a lead pipe or two-by-four off the wall and start swinging.

The graphics of Condemned are clear and intense. Everything is gritty and realistic, which contrasts nicely with the creepy visions that appear sometimes in real-time. Condemned is a very well-made game with a suspenseful and gory storyline, but it is als o fairly slow and methodical, which will turn off some gamers. If you are a fan of horrific games, and need a quick fix on your new 360, then Condemned is an easy purchase to make. So far, we like it.

The first of the 2K Games lineup to grace our box this weekend was Amped 3, created by Indie Built, who also made the previous installations of Amped. Amped 3 injects some much-needed personality into the series, which has always been good but a little bo ring. The first thing you notice in Amped is the unorthodox style in the cinematics. Each character in the story mode has a visual style, representative in some way of their unique snowboarding style. The variety in movies ranges from sock puppets to cut-o ut stop motion animation, and everything in-between. The quality of all these videos also ranges from Adult Swim to college art class.

The gameplay is nicely balanced, implementing some small changes to make Amped 3 a little less touchy and a little more textured than its previous installments. The new features of Xbox Live also come into play throughout the game: For every challenge you clear, you can immediately see your position on the overall Xbox Live rankings. The ability to see how your performance ranks in relation to everyone else on specific in-game tasks adds another level to the game that had us re-trying challenges just to sa ve some face.

Amped looks great and sounds good. It features loads of indy bands (as well as “the Adult Swim theme”, which adds to the whole late-night animation feel). But in the end it is still a relatively die-hard snowboarding sim, which is not a bad thing. The mas ses will most likely want to hold out for SSX to come to 360, but fans of Amped and snowboarding sims will find plenty of terrain to explore.

Xbox Live

Moving from the games to the system, Xbox Live has been reinvented for Xbox 360. Every 360 comes with free Silver Level Xbox Live service. This level of service allows gamers to create a gamer card, which stores their profile and in-game accomplishments. Silver Level users can also access the Xbox Live Arcade and Xbox Live Marketplace. The Arcade offers games for demo and download ranging from Hexic, a custom puzzle game made by Tetris creator Alexy Pajitnov, to classic arcade games such as Joust and Gaunt let, both of which feature online multiplayer. The Xbox Live Marketplace allows users to download themes and images to their Xbox 360 dashboard, as well as downloading game demos and trailers. The demos and trailers are all free, but most of the themes and images cost Microsfot Points. Points can be bought at a cost of just over a penny per point.

The only limitation to Silver Level membership is that only certain games can be played online. For full online multiplayer, users must upgrade to the Gold Level of membership, which also includes all of the other features of the Xbox Live service. Gold L evel subscriptions are available at eight dollars per month, twenty dollars per three months, or fifty dollars per year. Of course, other pacakages are being sold to include some pre-paid Microsoft Points for use in the Xbox Live Marketplace. Gamers can su bscribe directly on the 360 wih a credit card, or they can purchase a pre-paid card at a local game shop.

Media Features on Xbox

But what do you do when you can’t game anymore" I mean, like, when your eyes are melting out of your head and your thumbs can barely move" Fortunately, the Xbox 360 has some killer media features that can help you recover your energies.

The Xbox 360 can connect to portable devices including Sony’s PSP and Apple’s iPod. Gamers can either listen to music accompanied by trip-tastic visualizations, or they can listen to their music as they play any game they own. That’s right: On Xbox 360, e very game can have a custom soundtrack. What’s even better, all of the playlists you have on your MP3 player or iPod remain intact, so you can listen to your music, your way.

If your 360 is connected to your home network, you can install Windows Media Connect on any PC with audio or image files in order to share them with the Xbox 360. The Xbox will stream audio from your other PCs. In fact, if you have a PC running Windows Me dia Center Edition 2005, you can access the incredible live television and video recorder functions of the 360, which can also work as a media extender. If all this sounds confusing, check out GamesFirst.com for complete how-to articles covering getting th e most out of the 360’s media capabilities.

All I care about is that I can press the Xbox Guide button (you know, it’s that big silver one in the middle of the controller) and pull up my music on my iPod or on my PC in the office, and that’s a beautiful thing. Gamers will enjoy playing games with t heir own music mixed into the soundtrack. The system is even smart enough to pause the music whenever a cinematic sequence occurs, which is icing on the cake. We’re really excited about the media functions in the Xbox 360, and we’ve only begun to scratch t he surface.

Conclusion

And that’s the lowdown. Get your Xbox 360, grab a few games, and lock yourself in a room with a nice HDTV. Don’t come out until you’ve got 500 gamer points and have figured out how to play the GamesFirst! Weekly Wrap-Up Podcast during your multiplayer ses sions of Perfect Dark Zero. Here’s a hint: You can find out how to do that, and lots more about the Xbox 360 on GamesFirst.com where we post up news, reviews and previews every single day. I’m Val Townsend, the Atomic Goddess, and I’ll be back next week wi th more of what you love.