Print Article: Xbox 360: Launch titles roundup



		Xbox 360: Launch titles roundup December 27, 2005 Jakub Wojnarowicz

Summary: With more shipments of the 360 inbound, you might want to start planning what games you'll buy. Jakub has a convenient round-up of mini-reviews, spanning the surprising Amped 3 and King Kong, as well as the killer apps like Perfect Dark Zero and Project Gotham Racing 3. Read on, Macduff!

Xbox 360 Page:: ( 1 / 8 )

It can’t be called a hacked PC any more. The three distinct IBM cores and the hard-drive less configuration put it firmly into the console category. Though it no doubt shares graphics technology with the PC, the way Xboxes did, so will the PS3 and Revolution. But this isn’t a hardware analysis, and that’d be pointless until PS3 arrives.

So, is the 360 worth getting? Yes, but maybe not just yet. The current crop of games is excellent considering they’re launch titles, but there’s nothing here we’d call a killer app.

What the console offers right now foreshadows considerable potential, though few games take advantage of it all right now. The 360’s killer feature is, again, Xbox Live. The level of integration some games show, notably Project Gotham Racing 3, is quite remarkable. You can watch players race live – heck, thousands of people can watch the same race on “Gotham TV”. The various stats, optional downloads and the ease of use of the entire system are definitely worth the subscription fee. Hopefully, Sony reconsiders its multiplayer system because Live quite frankly beats the snot out of it.

The lack of a default hard drive hurts the 360. This just lessens the chances that a developer will be inclined to create downloadable content and, if necessary, patches. Given how popular the premium bundle is compared to the core system, this isn’t likely to be a major problem yet, but will be once the 360 hits markets that are not as affluent.

A great step forward is the multimedia console. At any point, in any game, you can press the Xbox logo on the middle of your controller to bring that menu up. Not happy with the music a game ships with? Play some off the hard drive. Of course, the selection is limited and the only way to expand it is with obnoxious legal methods – iTunes and so on. Got some MP3s you’d like to put on the 360? Good luck, sonny. The system is basically forced to assume that any MP3 you have is illegal, due to the wonderful copyright laws being perpetrated on the public by the entertainment industry. On the bright side, you can hook up an iPod without any problems.

Otherwise, the idea is absolutely fantastic. It’s not often someone can commend Microsoft for innovation rather than stealing a rival’s idea and then clubbing them to bankruptcy, but the combination of Xbox Live and the root menu is excellent.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled games programming!

Kameo Page:: ( 2 / 8 )

Call of Duty 2

Page:: ( 3 / 8 )

NHL 2K6, Tony HawkPage:: ( 4 / 8 )

NHL 2K6

THAW is another edition in the venerable Tony Hawk franchise. The series is starting to show its age, however. Little has been changed in terms of gameplay or mechanics – all the tricks basically play out the same and nothing has been changed of the style. The balance between realism and gameplay remains untouched – your skater can still pull off impossible moves and combos, with the game willing to fudge landings and transfers for the player to give a generally forgiving experience. On the one hand, the rule about not messing with success applies – there’s an undeniable appeal in coming into the game and already being skilled at it. Yet on the other hand, the system is starting to show its age.

The graphics are more visibly better than Xbox or PS2 versions of the game, but it’s still clear that the game shares an engine and much of its art work – namely models and animations – with more primitive systems. Some textures may be higher resolution and there’s a fairly liberal application of shaders, bump mapping and improved lighting.

The ability to travel manually between areas is a nice addition, but more significant surgery is necessary to completely revitalize the Tony Hawk series. Small additions aren’t quite cutting it any more.

Amped 3 Page:: ( 5 / 8 )

Gun & King KongPage:: ( 6 / 8 )

PGR3 and Quake 4Page:: ( 7 / 8 )

PGR3

Quake 4 on the Xbox 360 is like Quake 4 on the PC – an underrated first-person shooter whose singleplayer mode is surprisingly good. Of course, if you’re reading this on FiringSquad, you’re asking yourself the same question as when you were reading the Call of Duty 2 article – why would I buy it for the 360? We don’t have an answer, unless your PC can’t run Quake 4 in the first place. Quake’s greatest appeal to us is of course multiplayer, so we’re at even more of a loss at recommending it for our regular readers – but their families and PC-less friends are another matter.

For those looking for a good shooter on the 360, Quake 4 offers something more action-oriented than either Perfect Dark Zero or Call of Duty 2, though those would be our first choices. So if you have a friend who absolutely refuses to play FPS games on the PC due to some sort of deep-seeded mental issue, Q4 for the 360 is a good choice for him.

Perfect Dark Zero Page:: ( 8 / 8 )

Perfect Dark Zero follows of the story of Joanna Dark, of Perfect Dark, as she strikes back at whatever generic evil corporation made her life miserable. The story is even less important than most shooters, since the game is really about doing missions that the player chooses.

PD0 has great graphics but a little short of what the 360 can ultimately offer, we think. Surprisingly limited is for example the choice and resolution of textures, especially on the environment. Compared to PGR3 or Kameo, the environments are more repetitive and bland – still a far cry from the Xbox but they don’t match what the rest of the game offers. Character and especially weapons details are so excellent that the environment textures seem even more shabby by comparison. As with PGR3, the addition of some subtle shader effects in the right places goes a long way to taking Perfect Dark Zero to the next level. It’s just too bad about those wall textures…

The feel of the weapons is no doubt helped by their James Bond nature – they have multiple options each. Almost all weapons have scoped zoom views and special abilities to boot – the assault rifle can deploy as a miniature turret, for example, and the SMG creates a Holo-Duke… er… Holo-Dark.

Perfect Dark’s excellence comes through in the co-op mode. Every mission can be done together with a friend – online or on split-screen. There aren’t two Joanna Darks, though. One of the players takes control of another character, sometimes not anywhere near his friend. Working across a map and puzzling your way through to each other is the best experience in the game. If you’re not experiencing co-op, you’re not even getting half the game’s value.

One thing we can’t be too happy about are the autosaves – they’re not as generous as some games and sometimes not placed ideally. In a console where almost every owner has or will have a hard drive, it’s not acceptable to not include a quick save.

Perfect Dark’s health system doesn’t help – Joanna can heal herself after taking damage, but her maximum health goes down a bit every time. Consequently, you can easily find yourself with just a sliver of maximum health at the end of a mission. This forces some caution into the player, but an unlucky fight or the usual controller problems with console first-person shooters can turn a well-intentioned feature into a sadistic flaw. It feels quite unfair to lose a major portion of your health early on because you were unable to spot a turret or low-lying enemy due to the slow view panning speed of console shooters. Suddenly you’re faced with replaying the past 10 or 15 minutes, or going ahead, not knowing what troubles you’ll face.

Overall though, the complaints are heavily outweighed by PD0’s strengths. In one of the strongest launch lineups ever, Perfect Dark Zero takes the cake away from gems and powerhouses like Project Gotham Racing 3, Call of Duty 2 and Amped 3.

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