Commodore Amiga Retro

Microsoft

XBOX 360 Elite

360 360 360 360

360 360 360 360

360 360 360 360

I hated the machine so much I bought a second one

Elite Elite Elite Elite

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Elite Elite Elite Elite

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360 360 360 360

360

Dead or Alive Pure Lego Batman FIFA 09 Tiger Woods

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The magnificent wonderful XBOX 360. The machine that has
dominated the games market this last few years and which
threatened to destroy the SONY hold on gaming. Thank goodness
the Wii stepped in to help is all that I can say...I am
not impressed.

I finally bit the bullet and bought an XBOX 360 Elite. I had
to get their flagship model to compare with the PS3. No good
getting their arcade one. I have been playing a magic game
called Bayonetta which has been ported to the PS3 with supposed
problems. The issues are graphics, frame rate slow down and
loading times. SEGA released a patch to deal with the loading
which basically alowed you to install onto the hard drive.. Anyhooo...

My review...

First up it is heavy, nearly gave a heart failure carrying the
box back to the car. Also I was faced with the usual sales crap
about warranty issues, battery charging controllers, HD cables etc
So the bag was full by the time I got home

My biggest gripe was the money I had to shell out for the XBOX LIve
The box boasts XBOX Live then charges you for it.. Not so on the PS3

Anyway... Let us not be too judgemental

I opened the box with all the bags stuck together with Selotape
which is a pet hate of mine being a collector. Clip bags would
have been nice. The unit was in the top of the box and fit perfectly
so you struggled to get any fingers round it. That dispensed with
you had the usual array of wires that you will never need, and
a set of headphones and head mic..I would have been happier to
have dispensed with the head set and had a HD cable

The instructions for assembly were easy to understand and I
plugged stuff together. Amazingly the power supply is like the
old Amiga, so now you get this brick on the floor where ever
you use the thing. There is no obvious power saving light feature
other than a plugged in notice on the brick so I guess you would
have to have the brick visible to see if it was on.

The controller. That dam controller. Microsoft mimic but never
ever get it right. Who the hell uses this thing. It is heavy
still and a pain to use. Add to that the batteries and the
fact you gotta keep charging the batteries up. So annoying that

Having switched on I struggled for ten minutes or so filling in
the details and immediately got MS emails. This time I used and
obscure email address so I can dump it

Most annoying was XBOX Live and the stupid avatar. I got the
feeling that Mr Gates and co were trying to be the cool guys
You know with the ' Hey dood... Give me a high five ' . You have
to pick a 'fabric softener' style character that suits you...
I don`t want to be a person .. I want to be a dragon or a Lemming
I got so angry with that...

The interface... What interface ? It's about as user friendly as
Microsoft. They haven`t got a clue... It was like opening junk
mail.. You know those letters you get that you think are
important but after wading through loads of leaflets you just
bin. So difficult to understand.. Especially as I just wanted
to open the disc tray

And so to the acid test.. The game. In went Bayonetta, and guess
what .. It was worse. The image is darker. The picture is not as
sharp. The load times are the same and the game was ruined by the
controller. Pointless exercise

I may love my PS3, and I have never ever had any love for Microsoft
but seriously, I do give kit the benefit of the doubt, but sadly
the XBOX 360 Elite is very poor... I judge things immediately.
Maybe that is a fault of mine, but over the years I have generally
been right. The Amiga was a joy to play with from the minute I
switched her on. The PS1 was a dream console....

I shall not be using the XBOX 360 Elite.. It goes into the collection
and gets stored without use along with all the other Microsoft crap
I have ever had the misfortune to collect.










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Last updated 01/05/2010