So, got five minutes? Want to read what I think about my new 360? If so, settle in for a long read. If not, skip to the tl;dr at the bottom. Enjoy.

I HAVE NO REASON TO BUY A 360!

I’ve had a PS3 since launch and game on PC fairly heavily. I once said: ‘I have no reason to buy a 360 – not one – so, I’ll not bother.’ So, it’s with not a small amount of bemusement that I find myself here, creating a thread with my first impressions of my new Xbox 360. I didn’t win it. I wasn’t forced to buy it. I didn’t receive it as a gift. I, contrary to my earlier claims, had a reason for buying it.

SO, WHAT WAS THE REASON?

Dancing.

Yes, I said dancing.

Look, I’m 35 and male. I don’t dance. Unless I’m in a kilt (or, if you prefer, a skirt – I’m quite at one with my sexuality, I’m Scottish after all). And even then, I’ll also need to be drunk and, or, be offered to Strip the Willow by a pretty girl in a short skirt (or kilt – but we’ve covered that). However, my wife dances a lot. Only fun and fitness, not professionally – she’s upper management in a bank, not a dancer – which is why I went searching for dancing games. She’s a gamer (yes, I have found and married that holy grail of women), so it made sense for me to buy her a gift that married two of her favourite hobbies: gaming and dancing. Further, as I have two young daughters, dancing games were bound to go down a storm in my house.

I first turned to my trusty PS3. It had several dancing games available. The first I tried was Singstar: Dance. Let’s keep the review short here: the dancing was great – surprisingly good, said my wife – but the tracking was lacking. All that the PS3 followed with its little eye was two sticks – the Move controllers – and nothing else. She could have been doing semaphore, not dancing at all, and still scored 100%, so it all felt decidedly, well, rubbish. I tried again with Dance on Broadway, knowing my wife liked a good show tune. Again, good dancing, bad tracking. Not a surprise, but still disappointing.

So, I looked about. The Wii, as should be expected, was just like the PS3 in this arena, but crapper in almost all regards, so that was right out. And the 360 was just a PS3 with less exclusives, so that was also a waste of... ah... no... wait... Kinect...

Balls.

Kinect.

As we all know, the 360 now has Kinect. And Kinect tracks the entire body, not just glowy sticks. Which, of course, is perfect for dancing games. But we don’t have a 360. We’ve had no reason to buy one.

Until now.

It was time to eat my words.

SO, WHAT DID YOU BUY?

I bought a 250Gb Slim 360 with Kinect and a bunch exclusive games. I’ll get to those later. Included in this, obviously, was Dance Central. Y’know, the dancing game that was the sole reason for picking up the console.

My wife and kids were, hopefully, in for a treat.

SO, FIRST IMPRESSIONS?

So to the point of the thread: first impressions. We had many of those. Let’s take them one at a time.

Hooking it up: Piece of piss. Getting the thing working is very easy, especially if you have owned another console. The initial start-up menus felt very Wii, but in green instead of white, as they were childish, cartoony, and featured over-sized heads. Given I bought the console for the wife and kids, this was a positive, but the incessant dingly tones and ever-present avatars were clearly not aimed at me. Still, it was all quite easy to like, primarily as it was presented in a user-friendly fashion and every section took time to explain itself. The PS3, my other main console, doesn’t do that – it’s a bit of tech, clean and slightly soulless, and not exactly user-friendly until you’re used to it – so it was a welcome difference, for all the forced-grins, waving hands, bright colours, and vacant eyes slightly grated at my nerves.

The Dash: Okay, let’s start with my first real negative. I really don’t like the Dash. Not only are the Dash’s icons Duplo-brick massive, oddly organised, and full of adverts, it’s also not displayed in 1080p to fill my TV’s screen with HD awesomeness. ‘What is this nonsense!’, I hear some 360 owner’s cry, ‘my TV says it’s 1080p!’ Dude, it’s not 1080p, the 360 has a scaler chip: the Dash is upscaled 720p. It was immediately obvious that all the icons were really big for a reason: to hide the inevitable blurriness 720p causes on large HD TVs. I spotted this immediately as I was so used to the super-crisp PS3 XMB, and the much smaller icons this allows. I was, and kinda still am, disappointed by the resolution, but not as disappointed as I am with the colourful, advert-strewn mess that is the Dash. Fortunately, a long-term 360-owning friend of mine explained what to do: ‘Oh, just ignore the Dash – it’s horrible – press up and A, that’s pretty much all I do with it. It’s something I have to deal with to play my games.’ Blatantly simplistic, but he did have a point. My wife, by comparison, was more scathing: ‘Not only does this look shitty, but everything is so hard to find!’ The kids, of course, loved it. Perhaps, with time, I will, too, but I doubt it. It’s a user interface clearly not designed with me in mind.

The Controller: Again, let’s clear out another negative. I hate that the controller has batteries*. Not only does it use batteries up (and do so at a tremendous rate when using the mic), but it also leaves a big bump on the bottom of the controller that my fingers bash against (I don’t have that with the wired 360 controller I use on the PC). Beyond that, and it being a little on the big side for me (for a guy over 6’ tall, I must have pretty small hands), there’s not much more to add to the general consensus: the triggers are good, the dimples in the sticks have their uses, and the d-pad is rubbish. I don’t find it better or worse that the PS3’s Dualshock; it’s just another gamepad (and one I’m fairly used to). My wife, by comparison, hates it, and much prefers the Dualshock (not ideal, as I bought the 360 for her!). Put simply, it’s too big for her, meaning her thumbs don’t rest on the sticks at all well. This results in her thumbs occasionally slipping during play, or simply hurting as her thumb-pads are always pressed against the edge of the sticks, and never in the dip. She’s had to stop playing Fable on more than one occasion because the pad was hurting her hands. She’ll probably get used to it, but, as it stands, she really doesn’t like the 360 gamepad, putting her off playing on the machine. My kids have a similar issue, but being kids, they don’t really care.

*: Yes, I know, there are ways around this, but I’ve not bought into them yet. This is a ‘first impressions’ post, not a ‘what could be’ post.

Kinect: This is both surprisingly brilliant and spectacularly rubbish. Voice control works perfectly, and it feels all Star Trek-awesome to command the Xbox to get its arse in gear with nothing but a word. Unfortunately, very few commands are implemented, meaning the super-cool feature is under-used. If SingStar can have voice recognition for every artist and every song in the game, surely the 360 can get a few more useful commands? And being unable to switch the console off by voice is just a missed opportunity.

As for navigating the Dash with Kinect: well, you can’t, which is crazy. Instead you get a sub-dash with super enormous icons that you navigate to by waving like a loon or commanding it to appear before you like a computerised genie. Sounds alright, but it isn’t. It’s inferior to using the controller in every way, and slow. Fun for a 5-second piss around or for showing off, but not worth your time otherwise. I was pretty disappointed.

Further, the Kinect controls also work pretty poorly in several games. Kinect Adventures, for example, is just a bit rubbish. The lag is painfully obvious, the tracking is often poor, and the game too frequently loses track of who is playing, especially in two-player mode, swapping avatars on the fly at random, leaving my youngest daughter in tears when she turned into a man. Bless her.

However, not all is bad. Far from in, in fact. For dancing and exercise games, it’s a bloody revelation. It tracks every movement very well – assuming you are standing in the correct space, and it tells you when you aren’t – and it does it without any issue. Here, my wife was very happy indeed, and so were the kids. When it comes to full body tracking games, Kinect is pretty damn good. Not perfect as there is ever-present lag, but this can be mitigated with some clever programming, or by simply ignoring the tracking in terms of what is presented on screen, meaning it is never an issue. Kinectimals demonstrates this well, where you never see yourself onscreen at all – at most, you get a couple of hands to pat animals with and the like. This worked much better than the alternatives as the flaws of Kinect – when it fails to detect you properly or lags severely – were simply invisible. In short: it works bloody well when properly utilised.

So, inferior to Move when it comes to playing traditional games – I can’t imagine completing Killzone 3 with it, like I did with Move, and coming away surprised with its accuracy – but superior to Move when it comes full-body tracking, which was exactly what I bought it for. It does leave me feeling like it’s a gimmicky toy rather than a ‘serious’ game controller, but as I was kinda looking for exactly that, I can’t and won’t say I’m disappointed. It’s pretty good at what it does.

Also, before I move on, Kinect needs a serious amount of space to track you properly. This is not for average-sized rooms, it’s for big-ass rooms. Not really a problem for me, but it will be for many.

Games: Remember when the PS3 ' had no games’? Well, as a PC and PS3 owner, that crown now firmly rests on the 360’s shoulders. If I didn’t have a PC and PS3, there would be tons of brilliant multi-platform games for me to buy, but I do, and I have bought most of them already. This has left me with surprisingly few games on 360 to buy. Still, I diligently bought Halo (kinda rubbish and dated now – I’ll get ODST and Reach when I’m done with 3), Fable (enjoyed this, but it’s hugely simplistic and often misses the mark with its humour), Gears (I already own 1, so 2 was a must), and... and... well, Crackdown I suppose (kinda rubbish, but good in co-op), Alan Wake (not what I'd hoped), Too Human (stupendously bad, but you get to be cyber-norse!), and... erm... let’s just quit while I’m ahead. The other offerings are a little thin on the ground (barring Lost Odyssey, if JRPGs are your thing, and a few kiddie games – all old now). There just aren’t many decent exclusives, and certainly not many new exclusives. Sure, I could have bought a Forza game, but I ready have the mad genius that is GT5 and I don’t even like car simulation games that much. As I already own all the good games on PC or PS3 already, there wasn’t much for me to buy.

But, it’s not all bad. Get this. I bought Crackdown for £5. Well worth it. And Fable 2 for £5. And Gears 2 and Halo 3 for a fiver each, as well. Too Human was £6 (funny how the expensive one was the worst). The older exclusives, as the machine is so old, are bloody cheap, which is good news for anyone. I’ve had a hell of a lot of good (if not brilliant) gaming for comparatively little money, and I’m a happy man for it.

Fortunately, the derth of exclusives is not so much of an issue on XBLA. Here there were several games I wanted, and have bought. Limbo (brilliant first half, duller second half), Trails HD (Brilliant in all ways, but so bloody hard!), Shadow Complex (not as good as I’d hoped, but still a good game) started me off, and soon I bought more. There is a lovely mix of quality games, all with integrated top scores listed in the Dash for me to check (and I did, frequently), and even a couple of free ones (that Doritos Dash game is actually quite good!). XBLA, assuming you buy during sales and not at full price, is well worth it. Where the 360 has kinda failed at delivering exclusive full-game content to me, it has more than delivered on the XBLA side. It’s such a shame Microsoft had to use...

Space Bucks!: Microsoft Points. I hate them. ‘Nuff said.

Live: Oh, controversial one. Paying to play online. Getting a Gold Account cost me £24.99. It’s like pissing money down a drain. No argument, no matter how reasonable, will convince me that paying that much money every year to play online is worth it. I can get more features, and for free, when I play on PC. Still, I buy a lot of games, so perhaps I’ll make up some of that money in exclusive discounts? Hmm, I’m not convinced by that argument at all, but it is a slim hope. Let’s not dwell on this, as I’ll get annoyed at the people that twisted my arm to get a Gold account to play online with them. Still, for all I complain, there is a significant positive here:

Chat Rooms and Voice Messaging: Look, this is da bomb. If you have only played on PSN, then you are missing out on a wider experience when gaming online. Being able to hook up to friends easily, and stay hooked up to them regardless of the game you are playing, is brilliant. It’s not £25-a-year brilliant – and certainly not £40/year brilliant – but it is a bloody good feature, nonetheless. It makes gaming online a significantly better experience. In the short time I’ve had my 360 I’ve gamed online with the 360 much more than I have on the PS3, and that’s not just because the PSN is down, or because the 360 is my new toy, it’s because the 360 does it better. Communication is key, here, and the 360 does communication well. Admittedly for a ridiculous price, but it is still good at the job, especially as everyone with a 360 has a mic. That’s just damned handy (and a subtle way to convince you to purchase a Gold account – Microsoft certainly aren’t altruistic in supplying a mic, but I’m not complaining!).

NOISY!: The down side to all this voice chat and ease of online gaming as the noise. Gods, Halo 3 is a racist, childish bitch-fest online! Hit the mute button, please! And I’ve found I receive far more invites to play games on the 360 than on PS3, and it can be hard to say no to a co-op session when a friend comes knocking, even if you want to (although, to be honest, I rarely do want to say no – my wife is quite different, she prefers playing solo for most games and hates being interrupted). Or, worse, people sometimes just join your games without even asking. This happened to me in Fable 2. Twice. It was a bit of a shock to find another player’s globe wandering into my game unbidden, then chatting to me when I was quite keen to be visiting Stephen Fry to see what happened next with the main plot. Alone. Annoying, but not too annoying.

Disk Tray: It’s a tray. That’s rubbish. On the positive side front, though:

Touch-sensitive Buttons: These are good, and make a nice ding noise. The new clicky buttons on the slim PS3 are crappy by comparison (but, I suppose, don’t accidentally turn the machine one when you are polishing).

DVDs: These scratch. Blu-Rays don’t. One is good for kids, then other isn’t. Given I bought this machine for the wife and kids, I have to ensure the kids are super careful. It’s a small point, but it’s worth making. Also, swapping DVDs because a game is spread over multiple disks is shit. It feels like stepping into the last gen. On that...

Game Installations: This is a brilliant feature. Being able to install all games on the 360’s HDD is just damned handy. Sure, it takes a while, but I don’t care as it makes the gaming a smoother experience and, besides, I can do it whenever I’m about to do something else, like make a sandwich or do homework with the kids. This is a fine feature that isn’t talked about enough, and has become a standard process in my 360 gaming. A new game arrives – let’s install it!

Media Centre: I use the PS3 to stream all kinds of stuff, from home movies and photos to films and music. The 360 had an option to auto-synch into my PC, so I set that up, quite keen to see if I could avoid the PS3’s less than ideal UI for steaming. However, I was annoyed to find half of my videos didn’t play, and none of my home videos did. Bah! To make matters worse, it didn’t seem I could transfer them to the 360. I’ll be sticking with the PS3, then.

Achievements: I’ve been collecting GfWL Achievements on the PC across various gamertags for several years, so I know the system well, so I wasn’t walking in blind. I prefer trophies for several reasons, and like platinums, but still like Achievements for what they are. I’ll chase a few if they seem easy enough to get, and they can prolong the life of an otherwise finished game. The only thing I don’t like is the sound they make when they drop, and that’s only because it’s the same sound for when someone comes online. It’s never cool when the ding drops as I play, I get excited, then see that it’s only my brother coming online. Bah!

Console noise: Negligible. Broadly equivalent to my slim PS3, perhaps a little louder with the fans. Regardless, it’s quiet enough that I rarely notice it.

Power brick: It has a big one. I don’t like it. Had to stuff the blighter behind my TV stand. Less than ideal. Why is the 360 so big besides my slim PS3 when it doesn’t have that big bastard inside, and the PS3 does?

CONCLUSIONS

This is a good console and I’m glad I have it. Sure, quality exclusives are a little thin on the ground, but if I didn’t have a PS3 or PC there would be a hell of a lot of good gaming to be had. What remains for me is still quite good, especially as I can pick up a hell of a lot of disk games for a very small amount of cash, and because there are several high quality XBLA games worth dropping in on. By comparison, Kinect is currently under-used by Microsoft and has yet to have a killer app, but it does dance and fitness games very well, and makes a decent enough, though expensive, toy for the kids. Online play is the best on console just now because of the communication options, but it comes at a premium, and I don’t like that. Still, I paid for this first year, so we’ll see how that pans out. As it stands, I deeply begrudge every penny I gave Microsoft for the Gold account.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Own a 360 but no Kinect?: Don’t buy Kinect unless you like dancing games or want to amuse some children. Also, don’t buy it unless you have a large room to use it in. For everyone else it is currently a waste of money. Given its lack of multi-player options (beyond 2) it doesn’t even make a very good party machine – though it can be fun. As it stands, I’d hold off until the killer app that appeals to you arrives.

Own a PS3 and gaming PC, but not a 360: Don’t bother with a 360 unless you desperately want Kinect. There just isn’t enough quality content to make it worth the cash. It’s good for me and my family as it fulfils a unique role as toy and dance machine, but it won’t suit most.

Own a PS3, but not a 360: There are several consoles exclusives worth dropping in for, so I’d consider it if you have the cash. That said, there isn’t enough sufficiently different games to make it a worthwhile purchase for most. The PS3 still has more exclusives just now, and their quality, in general, is higher, so you can feel a little smug as you simultaneously curse the lack of cross-game chat (really, it’s that good).

Own a Wii and a gaming PC, but not a 360: If looking for an HD console I’d recommend the PS3 for you, not a 360. Lots of brilliant game exclusives, far more than the 360 will offer, and several other key advantages, such as Blu-Ray and free online play, mirroring what you already have on PC and Wii.

Own a Wii but not a 360: If you want a new HD console I’d probably recommend a PS3 over a 360 just now. Both have good exclusives, but the PS3 offers more, and the online gaming is free.

TL;DR

I like the 360, but it has few exclusives for me since I own a PS3 and gaming PC already. Kinect makes a good toy for the kids and provides a good platform for dancing games, but is currently lacking decent software. The exclusive XBLA games are great, but not a reason to own the console by themselves. I hate the user interface; it’s designed for kids and is full of adverts. Gold accounts are a clever swindle (hell, I bought one). Cross-game chat is a great addition to online play, but not worth Gold’s asking price.

Anyone have any comments?

Also, ignore the font, it's a relic from cutting and pasting from Word.

I cant believe I read your wall of text :P

anyways, from what I gather, you most probably have a Move and Eye for your PS3, how much more space does the Kinect need when compared to move? I have the Sports Champion move bundle and the space requirement is killing me. I'm somewhat interested in getting a x360 again just for kinect and i'm not sure if my available space can handle it.

I'm trying to get my wife interested in gaming and so far, the only game she enjoyed was the game for the wii with a bunch of minin games that i cant remember for the life of me. And not all the mini games mind you, just the shooting game. i figure, if she likes kinect, it would give me a reason to go crazy on games and accessories :P

Nice write up, it's always interesting to see how others percieve things, that are for me, now taken for granted.  So, congratulations on your new 360, hopefully you will find other games for it that you enjoy as well.

I think that generally your impressions on the 360 are very similar to how I would describe my PS3.   I won't go into details as I don't want anybody (not you, but anybody) derailing the thread by taking offense to my opinoin of the PS3, but generally I would say, I like the PS3, it has a few exclusives* that I've enjoyed, but it is not my console of choice for numerous reasons. 

Different strokes for different folks you know!  

Regardless,  I hope your wife and kids enjoy the 360.  Since you have Gold, you should try the Gears 3 beta...it's a thing of raw, visceral, beauty!

* I am NOT comparing the number of exclusives to the 360, I'm saying there are few that I am interested in.  The ones I AM interested in, I have purchased and for the most part, really enjoyed.

I find your review quite odd.  Alot of things that people almost universally find to be superior on 360 (including myself, and I have owned all 3 consoles for quite a while) you seem to criticize.  You hate the UI?  You hate the controller?  You hate microsoft points with no reason?  You're complaining about other online players? Really?  

You sure this review isn't just flame bait?  Maybe I should post my own reviews...

I'd say write an update in 6 months and see how you feel as a lot of your critiques are about your familiarility with the way the PS3 does things.  You can get the 360 to work great using streaming software on your PC also, might be worth looking into as it would increase the compatability for your PS3 too.  Other than that it's pretty much what I expected from someone who is used to gaming on the PS3 (controller issues, battery complaint (wtf), number of exclusives, etc, etc).

Nice write up though.

Nice writeup and I like the font :). It seams to miss a more specific comment from the wife on Dance centrall, since that was the main point of the purchase as ti seams. Also, when do you have all the time to play all the games? 

When it comes to controller it just depends what your use to if hes only used PS controllers for like 15 years then its clearly fine that it could still be his favourite.

Ive never heard anyone say before that people universally find the 360 UI better, on the contrary its a lot slower and cluttered to get to anything you want, and my biggest bug bear browsing acheivements in game is a right pain in the ass, having to go in and out of each one to see the descriptions. 

Points again is not a universally loved truth, some people get on with it, some just dont understand the need for it as they dont feel comfortable not knowing the real value of what things are at a glance, but anyone bothered by this should just realise for 90% of stuff it does work out sligtly cheaper on the market place over PSN. 

OT:

All in all a good review, its certainly is nice to have access to all consoles for the exclusives. 

I can't believe you suggested the PS3 over the 360 for a person without either for games.

Of course, since you've only owned a 360 for all of but a few minutes, I guess I should expect that. For a person that's owned the system since November 2005, I can tell you there are plenty of excellent exclusives to want to buy the system for. Far more than the PS3, IMO.

I enjoyed your post and your font. I think I would probably write something along similar lines but upholding the 360. I guess this is the horses for courses thing. I can honestly say I have no desire to purchase any first person game that has been announced for the PS3 which I find odd myself so understand if you do too. I also have a PC although I do not spend much time and effort upgrading it so would strike a balance but the bulk of my FPS actually get played on the PC and not the 360. I do however enjoy a raft of XBLA (Toy Soldiers and Kingdom of Keflinks are interesting games if for different types of people) games and Kinect games as well some classics

As you have potentially 3 gold accounts I can thoroughly recommend the family gold membership which I think is an absolute steal plus sign up to the rewards scheme and get some of that funny money credited back.