By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Microsoft Discussion - A few questions before I purchase a 360

pearljammer on 14 October 2008

I'm finally caving in and buying a 360. I'm a huge JRPG fan and have been more than happy with what I've been getting on my DS and PSP. However, I miss the expansive, grande-sized worlds I experienced on the PS2 and other consoles previous. I want some console RPG's. Disgaea 3 was awesome as I'm sure Valkyria Chronicles will be, and I can't say enough about White Knight Chronicles, but I simply want more! TGS really wasn't that comforting for me as either a PS3 owner nor a prospective 360 owner, so I've decided to combine the two.

So anyway, here are some things I'd like to know:

  • I don't intend on paying for Live... at all, ever. Can I play games online without this service? (not a big deal either way) Can I purchase games like Braid or Castle Crashers without it?
  • Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Netflix unavailable in Canada? So does that make this service as useless as the PSN one is to us Canadians?
  • Is a 20gb drive sufficient? I wouldn't mind taking advantage of uploading a game to the hard drive and have no issues only having 1 or 2 games on there at a time. But because my preference is for JRPGs, does anyone know if you can upload one disc at a time as opposed to having to upload all the discs belonging to a single game?
  • To be honest, I haven't followed much outside of JRPG's on the 360, so some suggestions would be nice. I pretty much like every genre with the exception of WRPG's.
  • I have already bought Blue Dragon (only 14.99! I plan on playing this first) and plan on getting Lost Odyssey, is Infinite Undiscovery truly as uninspired as many say it is. I thought the first few videos seemed to fit that description and haven't payed much attention afterwards. If anyone thought otherwise, I'd like to hear about it!
  • For Tales fans: I hated Radiant Mythology for PSP, I thought Eternia was pretty good and I thought Symphonia was ok. How does Vesperia stack up against those. I'm really only interested in hearing how it compares to those listed.
  • Can I purchase MS points via Credit Card online?

That's all I can think of at the moment. Thanks in advance for any responses!



Around the Network
jlauro on 14 October 2008

I don't know much about the 360, but I think Netflix is useless (in terms of using the 360) without live. So it's moot if you never intend to pay for live.

PS: I would prefer a PS3 and skip the 360, but honestly the 360 is more tempting.  Good chance I will get neither until I get a HD TV.  That said, it would be nice to watch netflix on our large SDTV instead of on the PC.



craighopkins on 14 October 2008

- Yes u Can I purchase MS points via Credit Card online

- 20 gigs is good enough

- u can still purchase games without having gold status ( $40 bucks a year)

- u need gold if u want to play online though

- Make sure you buy Kameo, Bioshock, Ninja Gaiden 2, Crackdown, Halo 3, Gears of War, Dead Rising, Oblivion, Mass Effect, Forza 2 and Lost Planet. And pre-order Fable 2, Gears 2, and Banjo 3.



Dolla Dolla on 14 October 2008
pearljammer said:

So anyway, here are some things I'd like to know:

  • I don't intend on paying for Live... at all, ever. Can I play games online without this service? (not a big deal either way) Can I purchase games like Braid or Castle Crashers without it? Sign up for a silver (free) account, and you get a free month of online play. The silver account allows you to download all demos, arcade games, trailers, online content, etc. The gold account lets you play multiplayer. You can buy Braid and Castle Crashers without having a gold account.
  • Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Netflix unavailable in Canada? So does that make this service as useless as the PSN one is to us Canadians? Yes, Netflix will be useless if it is unavailable in your area.
  • Is a 20gb drive sufficient? I wouldn't mind taking advantage of uploading a game to the hard drive and have no issues only having 1 or 2 games on there at a time. But because my preference is for JRPGs, does anyone know if you can upload one disc at a time as opposed to having to upload all the discs belonging to a single game? 20GB should be sufficient. There hasn't been much news about uploading multi-disc games. If I was a guessing man, I'd guess you can install whichever disc you want, and not install others.
  • To be honest, I haven't followed much outside of JRPG's on the 360, so some suggestions would be nice. I pretty much like every genre with the exception of WRPG's. Gears of War 1/2, Bioshock, Crackdown, Dead Rising, Left 4 Dead, Lips, Banjo, Kameo ... lots of games Past, Present, and yet to come.
  • I have already bought Blue Dragon (only 14.99! I plan on playing this first) and plan on getting Lost Odyssey, is Infinite Undiscovery truly as uninspired as many say it is. I thought the first few videos seemed to fit that description and haven't payed much attention afterwards. If anyone thought otherwise, I'd like to hear about it! Some like it, some don't. I think there are much better offerings in Blue Dragon/Lost Odyssey, and Tales of Vesperia. Even the Last Remnant looks interesting.
  • For Tales fans: I hated Radiant Mythology for PSP, I thought Eternia was pretty good and I thought Symphonia was ok. How does Vesperia stack up against those. I'm really only interested in hearing how it compares to those listed. As I understand, it's close to Symphonia, but I could be wrong.
  • Can I purchase MS points via Credit Card online? Yes. Through Xbox.com, sign in with your account, and then you can add points to your account. Or, you could buy point cards from Amazon.

That's all I can think of at the moment. Thanks in advance for any responses!

Responses in bold. Can't go wrong with an Arcade, and then signing up for the 20GB for 20 bucks!



Threads of Interest:
The Movie Thread: http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=6880
The Crow Eating Thread: http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?start=0&id=3886
The Betting Thread: http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?start=0&id=7104
Custom GIFs Thread: http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=18963
The Greatest Game Ever Conceived On Any Platform
Tag: "I have tasted Obi-Wan's bitter tears"

pearljammer on 14 October 2008
craighopkins said:

- Yes u Can I purchase MS points via Credit Card online Excellent!

- 20 gigs is good enough I thought so, really helps with the budget too! I may even get the arcade with the $20 HDD.

- u can still purchase games without having gold status ( $40 bucks a year) Also thought this was obvious, just wanted to make sure

- u need gold if u want to play online though Not a deal breaker in the least. I'm mostly getting this for RPG's and most of my friends have PS3's, so that's where I do my online gaming.

- Make sure you buy Kameo, Bioshock, Ninja Gaiden 2, Crackdown, Halo 3, Gears of War, Dead Rising, Oblivion, Mass Effect, Forza 2 and Lost Planet. And pre-order Fable 2, Gears 2, and Banjo 3. I think I may eventually rent Kameo as well as Bioshock. NG2 will be a purchase for sure. I haven't heard of Crackdown, I'll look it up. Halo 3 may be a rental, I have Gears on PC and Dead Rising I haven't heard much about besides it's porting to the Wii. I'll look that up as well. I'm also planning on getting all of the last three you mentioned.

I'm also thinking Left4Dead but I'm leaning PC for that.

Thanks for the suggestions! I'm curious if there are any hidden gems that may have completely went under my radar. Namely ones with a great singleplayer component.

 



Around the Network
pearljammer on 14 October 2008

@ DollaDolla

Thanks for the response!

I had forgotten all about Lips! My girlfriend and I love Singstar, so I'll definitely be looking more into this. Being made by the same folks as Elite Beat Agents can't be a bad thing.

That's what I'm hoping for, being able to install whichever disc I was on. It really isn't a deal breaker anyway.



De85 on 14 October 2008

Some have already pointed out that you can buy points online at xbox.com, but you can also purchase them directly on your 360. Off the top of my head I can't remember if it's in the account management option in the marketplace, or an option on the purchase confirmation screen, but I've done it twice, before purchasing Braid and again before Castle Crashers so I know it works.



Garamond on 14 October 2008

From time to time a store like Best Buy or Target has the X-Box point cards on sale, so if you wait you can eventually get them at less than their normal cost. You could check Amazon as well, since they go on sale there every so often there as well.

If a Target near you as Lost Odyssey it may be on clearance for $14.99, so you may want to check that out.

Vesperia is probably the best jRPG on the 360, so you should probably get it unless you for some reason know you'll hate it. I personally got bored of it at the end and stopped playing, but that's probably more or less because I've grown more and more disinterested with RPGs as a whole and would rather spend my time beating Bison in Street Fighter.

...

Kirby is awesome.



Mendicate Bias on 14 October 2008

Most people have answered your questions but I'll reply anyways

-Games can be purchased with a silver accout, the xbox comes with three 1 month trials so you can play games online through that, also windows live games are free to play online so off the top of my head shadowrun and gears of war are free to play with a silver account.

-I'm not sure about netflix in canada but you would need a gold account to use it anyways.

-The hard-drive space all depends on how much your going to take advantage of the downloadable content on xbox live. If not very much then I would imagine you would have enough space to burn a game or two to the drive.

-Im too lazy to list all the good games but if you go to IGN they have an article listing the top 25 released 360 games and even though I disagree with some games overall its a good list. Oh an if your an RPG fan don't forget about Mass Effect.

-Yes you can purchase point online via credit card



                                           

                      The definitive evidence that video games turn people into mass murderers

mrstickball on 14 October 2008
pearljammer said:

I'm finally caving in and buying a 360. I'm a huge JRPG fan and have been more than happy with what I've been getting on my DS and PSP. However, I miss the expansive, grande-sized worlds I experienced on the PS2 and other consoles previous. I want some console RPG's. Disgaea 3 was awesome as I'm sure Valkyria Chronicles will be, and I can't say enough about White Knight Chronicles, but I simply want more! TGS really wasn't that comforting for me as either a PS3 owner nor a prospective 360 owner, so I've decided to combine the two.

So anyway, here are some things I'd like to know:

  • I don't intend on paying for Live... at all, ever. Can I play games online without this service? (not a big deal either way) Can I purchase games like Braid or Castle Crashers without it?
  • You can't play games on Life without Gold. That's what Gold does. However, you can buy 100% of content, and use it via the marketplace, without Gold. So you can buy CC, Braid or whatever.
  • Is a 20gb drive sufficient? I wouldn't mind taking advantage of uploading a game to the hard drive and have no issues only having 1 or 2 games on there at a time. But because my preference is for JRPGs, does anyone know if you can upload one disc at a time as opposed to having to upload all the discs belonging to a single game?
  • It should be enough room. However, I doubt your going to get to install a whole big JRPG such as Lost Odyssey or Blue Dragon onto a 20HDD all the way. But you could do 2 at a time.
  • I have already bought Blue Dragon (only 14.99! I plan on playing this first) and plan on getting Lost Odyssey, is Infinite Undiscovery truly as uninspired as many say it is. I thought the first few videos seemed to fit that description and haven't payed much attention afterwards. If anyone thought otherwise, I'd like to hear about it! 
  • Can't speak much about IU, but most VGC-ers thought it was good, but not great. I am sure if you want an ARPG, it'd be a good compliment for most ARPG fans.
  • For Tales fans: I hated Radiant Mythology for PSP, I thought Eternia was pretty good and I thought Symphonia was ok. How does Vesperia stack up against those. I'm really only interested in hearing how it compares to those listed.
  • Can't say as I haven't played RM or Eternia, but every forum I frequent by Tales diehards put Vesperia into the solid #1 spot for best Tales game made. Ever. It's my favorite tales of the few I've played (Phantasia, Legendia)
  • Can I purchase MS points via Credit Card online?
  • Yes.

That's all I can think of at the moment. Thanks in advance for any responses!

 

 



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.