The Video Game Revue

So I got an Xbox 360

The real question is, why? I've been rationalizing to myself for a while now why I don't need a 360. Geometry Wars is available on Steam and coming to Wii. Xbox 360 wired controllers work on PC. Gears of War is coming to PC, Bioshock launched simultaneously on PC and Xbox 360. Stranglehold and Skate are available on PS3. What does that leave for exclusive 360 titles? Halo 3 and Blue Dragon? I could live without those. Recent PS3 price drops have brought it down quite a bit too. So why would I go out and buy an Xbox 360 now, when I could have either waited or chosen a PS3 instead?

The short answer is "because I could." I still intend to get a PS3 eventually--probably when Metal Gear Solid 4 and/or Devil May Cry 4 become available. In the meanwhile I hope and pray that the hardware revisions will get better and better. Of course, I could have waited on the Xbox 360 as well, and it might have been wise to do so. But that's just the thing: I don't care as much about the Xbox 360 in that way. It's more of a casual gaming console for me. In a sense, I only bought the Xbox 360 to tide me over until the PS3 is ripe. I've got some money saved up and I've got some time off coming my way, so I just went for it.

I know from recent experiences that Xbox Live has become a really cool thing. Online services in many Xbox 360 games are pretty good. The achievements system is excellent, and Xbox Live Arcade is one of the better digital delivery systems for cheaper games. (By the way, Ikaruga is coming to Xbox Live, if you haven't already heard.) The ability to link up with other Xbox 360 owner's gamertags and compete on leaderboards is very appealing, since many of my friends at work have Xbox 360 consoles at home. This was certainly a factor in my decision.

The real reasons are more subtle though. There is the very real chance that the Xbox 360 could win this round of the console war. It's far from a lock, but it is possible. My closest gamer friends believe that this is not so, and I don't blame them; I too hope for an eventual PS3 victory, or even to see the Wii take gold. But the Xbox 360 is undeniably good. One evening with Skate, Bioshock, and Stranglehold brought me to the stark realization that the Xbox 360 now is as exciting as any other console has been at the time that I purchased it. There is some real power there--and it's not just the "hardcore" brand image that Microsoft has been whoring to the public, or the fancy hardware. The Xbox 360 actually has things to offer to real gamers.

Skate and Stranglehold could have been PS3 titles for me, and this thought haunts me a little. But I also know from first-hand experience that North American developers take the Xbox 360 more seriously than the PS3, and for this reason many such games end up being just as good or slightly better on the Xbox 360 than on the PS3. Only time will tell for certain if I've made a blunder here or not, but right now I'm feeling confident that I won't look back and wish that I'd gotten the PS3 version instead. (Classic example: I once foolishly chose the GameCube version of Capcom vs. SNK 2 over the PS2 version. Whoops.)

For Bioshock and Gears of War, I could have made due with the PC versions. But having talked with gamer friends about this and seen some of the differences first-hand, I know in my heart that these games are truly meant to be played on a console. FPS games like these that were made for console gamers always lose something in the transition to PC, and what I ultimately realized is that I won't make time for these games as PC titles. I will, however, get a lot of mileage out of them as Xbox 360 games, and so these games are Xbox-exclusive to me, in a sense, even though technically they are not.

Finally, while I was watching the final round of the Omegathon at PAX, my heart did warm a little to Halo 3. I have known for a long time now that Halo really is a pretty cool multiplayer game, even though it is a console FPS (which I consider to be a second-rate genre alongside PC FPS games, although even that opinion has softened in recent times.) There was just something about it that made me eager to play, which is a feeling that I've never felt about Halo before. I actually plan to buy it and expect to enjoy it. Who knows, I might even try to get respectably good at it.

Skate really is an amazing game, in my opinion. I've wanted to get into the Tony Hawk series before because I find the idea of a skateboarding game very appealing, but one of the barriers to entry was how artificial Tony Hawk skateboarding games feel. Skate has taken a lot of criticism for how difficult it supposedly is to land tricks, but personally, I really like having to land on a rail to grind it (as opposed to just standing near it and holding a button to jump on), and I like having a more realistic feel to the game. Skate feels like the kind of game that actually teaches you things about real-world skateboarding (if only a few things), whereas Tony Hawk series games are obviously forays into utter fantasy. Simply put, I've been waiting for a game like Skate to come along for years now, and it delivers in a huge way.

What it all boils down to is that I've put a vote of confidence in the Xbox 360, and it seems to have been well deserved. Hopefully I don't experience the "red ring of death" issue and have my trust shattered. :)

posted by Parappa @ 3:39 PM