Xbox 360

[Kor Qel Droma]

I played through a few of the recruit missions tonight. I'm a bit of a , no make that a total noob to this series. But I'm liking it so far. I just wish I could customize my name like to something cool like Private Parts or Major Woody.

[Krookie]

Single player is very, very short. I wouldn't have recommended the game if you didn't have Live. That's where it's at,

[Kor Qel Droma]

Hopefully we can kill some revolutionaries or whateverthehellthey are after the Oilers game tonight, Kyle.

[Llyranor]

I wasn't going to get the game at full price because of the lack of a co-op campaign. However, I did trade it in for some old useless games. The multiplayer is a lot more fun than I had expected, I'm pretty impressed. Jerkface is going to get it around Xmas-time. It plays very differently from H3, so they could complement each other quite well.

 

"Baby duty"

[Hurlshort]

"Baby duty"

 

It's just like Call of Duty, but when the poop starts flying, it's even more intense.

 

I had originally planned on getting COD4 on my PC, but you guys are making me question that decision.

[Llyranor]

I played the PC demo. It plays more or less the same way, except the 360 version doesn't allow you to lean. I don't particularly miss the feature, though. If you have more dexterity than, say, Hades, then you should have no problem with the 360 version.

 

Depends why you'd get the game. If you want to MP with us, then you know what version to get. If you have your own brand of PC gamers, then that's another option. If you want to post on gaming forums and brag about how your PC can run COD4 so flawlessly at high settings and post screenshots, you can also opt for the highly superior PC version. For the SP (which is apparently short), I doubt there's much difference either way. The game runs at 60FPS on the 360.

[Pidesco]

Can anyone please explain to me how circle strafe works with a gamepad?

[Llyranor]

You have two analog sticks. The left one is used for moving forward/back and strafing - the equivalent of WASD. The right one is for looking around/aiming, like the mouse. Sure, it's not as efficient as KB/M, but once you're used to it, it becomes pretty easy. I can't say I miss KB/M much, despite the advantage.

[Pidesco]

But are there sensitivity settings for the right analog stick? Isn't the aiming very slow/imprecise when compared to the mouse? One recent game I tried with a gamepad was Resident Evil 4, and the aiming was godawful.

[Llyranor]

Most of the games I've played *have* had pretty low sensitivity, making for quite slow aiming; but they usually have a good array of options. You can have it turn around very fast if you want.

 

I can't attest to the PS2 controller, but I found the GC controller pretty horrible for 'FPS' controls while playing through a bit of Metroid Prime. The 360 controller, in contrast, I found to be easy to get into. The actual gamepad likely makes a big difference.

[Kor Qel Droma]

Hey Nick, have you picked up CoD4 yet?

[Nick_i_am]

No, like moron said, i'll probably be getting it around christmas, cirtainly before the new year.

 

I WOULD get it now, but there's a chance that someone has already bought it for me.

[Sand]

Hey, is the backwards compaitibilty aspects worth getting into or am I better off playing the old XBox games on the old Xbox?

[angshuman]

A few games look better on the 360 due to antialiasing (e.g. Ninja Gaiden), most games in the compatibility list play and look fine, and a few games don't run too well (e.g. Fable). All in all, if you're only interested in Xbox games, I'd say you're better off playing them on the original box, but a 360 does pretty ok too for most titles if you only want to keep one console.

[Kor Qel Droma]

You could always check out the official XBOX site and look under the 'backwards capable' list.

[Tale]

It's interesting that Fable supposedly runs poorly. Isn't that one of the games they were offering as downloadable over XBox Live for the system?

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

Kotor also has some more lag, I think, not to mention sound problems in the second one.

 

Also, Halo 2 has burn-in issues.

[Llyranor]

Heh, I remember those Halo2 burns. Almost thought there was something wrong with the TV.

 

Overall, though, what Xbox games I've played on the 360 (Halo 1/2, Ninja Gaiden Black, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Crimson Skies, Megaman Anniversary Collection, Jade Empire, Thief 3) have run pretty well.

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

Though I'm surprised none work better than on the old Xbox.

[Nick_i_am]

It's software emulation, the machine isn't optimised to run the games, same for the backwards compatability of PS3s that don't have the emulation chip (like all the PAL models).

[angshuman]

Though I'm surprised none work better than on the old Xbox.

Like I said, Ninja Gaiden does look better, but it's an exception. Do keep in mind that the 360 uses 3 relatively anaemic PowerPC CPUs and a very unconventional ATi GPU while the Xbox had a standard wide Pentium3 CPU and an nVidia GeForce3. These are pretty much as different as two architectures can be, so the 360 has to rely on a combination of software emulation and dynamic binary translation to get the job done. Given that there isn't really a huuuge difference in computational capabilities between the two platforms, I am actually shocked the 360 manages to do what it does so well. MS must have had some truly exceptional programmers working on BC.

 

Or, they might have pulled the PS3 BC trick without telling anybody.

 

 

Edit: Nick said the same thing... didn't see his post.

Edited December 4, 2007 by angshuman

[Hurlshort]

My copy of GTA: San Andreas seemed to look a bit better on the 360. Of course the only reason I still have it is because I can't trade it in after the ratings change.

[Musopticon?]

Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction looked a bit better as well.

 

Darned best 3rd person action game since Ninja Gaiden.

[Nick_i_am]

Looking forward to the sequal in 2008.

[Musopticon?]

Campaign co-op! Near endless jungle! Mad cultists and explosions! Carpet bombing the **** out of your mate!