First, I got a premium. Contrary to all that I've heard, the unit and accessories seem well made. The date of manufacture was August, 2006 though I just bought it so it's been sitting around a while... Getting it from Buy.com I figured it would be "fresher" due to more stock movement.
First, setting it up was a piece of cake. The little Standard/HD switchable cable is pretty slick. The menus and such were easy to navigate and set up so it was up and running in nothing flat.
I've heard they were noisy, but I don't get it. There is a very mild "whir" but even just low TV volume completely masks it. I can't hear it unless I turn all sound off and play in silence so noise isn't a factor here.
The first game I tried I had it on composite -- red/white/yellow into the back of my sony wega 32" TV. (standard def.) I was not all that impressed with the quality of the graphics and put the RGB connectors into the component input on the back of the TV and graphic/color quality was much improved.
I don't have the wifi connector yet so I can't say anything about xbox live arcade or any of the online content. I probably won't have that in hand until friday.
I bought a bunch of games -- 10 to be exact with 4 of them being original xbox games. Here are my thoughts after spending a bit of time with each of them:
Crackdown -- seems cool, but I was told it was local co-op and it isn't. It's either system link or online but local co-op doesn't appear as an option in the menu. Am I missing something?
Viva Pinata -- very neat game though my daughter is very disappointed that the pinatas eat each other in some grand food chain kind of way. The basic rule is don't make friends with the farm animals as they will end up on someone's plate soon. Cute graphics. Neat overall but the whole food chain kind of sticks a fork in it for my daughter. :(
Samurai Warriors Empires - Too many options and reading to just jump in. Jury is still out.
Gears of War -- I've heard the graphics are amazing. They are good no doubt but I guess I was expecting a religious experience or something because I'm just not blown away. I'll have to give it a little more time. It's pretty intense, lol. My wife and I were struggling with the dual stick control for camera and firing though I'm sure we'll get the hang of it.
Burnout Revenge -- 10 minutes on it or so... fun so far.
Marvel Ultimate Alliance -- X men Legends was cool. this is an improvement but the graphics could have been better.
I also have Kameo which says 2 players but the manual states that each level has to be beaten single player before it can be played co-op. Is this true? I didn't have time to play it, but if that is the case, that's friggin stupid and makes me wonder what the hell is wrong with software developers that they would implement such a system.
Overall I was expecting a 9 out of 10 rating on the console, the games, the experience, etc., after having spent so much time researching, shopping, etc. I'm more along the lines of 6.5 or so and wondering if the $700 bucks or so worth of stuff I got was really worth it
Color me disappointed for now. Time will tell how it grows on me after some more time on it, I guess, since I own it now.
I hate trolls.
Systems I currently own: 360, PS3, Wii, DS Lite (2)
Systems I've owned: PS2, PS1, Dreamcast, Saturn, 3DO, Genesis, Gamecube, N64, SNES, NES, GBA, GB, C64, Amiga, Atari 2600 and 5200, Sega Game Gear, Vectrex, Intellivision, Pong. Yes, Pong.
