A Mac fan's impression of the XBOX 360...

The Game Room
1

I wanted to hate it, really I did, after all, it’s a Microsoft product and therefore it’s evil and it sucks, right? (that’s the mindset of the typical rabid Mac Zealot, such as me :wink: )

I will say this, ever since I started working part-time at a local computer shop that services both Mac and PC, I’ve had a lot of exposure to Windows, and let me just say, it’s not as bad as I thought, I fully admit that I was wrong in my rabid, blinding, irrational hatred of Microsoft…

anyway, tangent aside, I’ve been in the mood for a new game system, my newest system is an original “pannini press” style Sony PS2 and a Nintendo Gamecube (oh, and also a Sega Dreamcast…), so it’s plain to see I’m on the trailing edge of high-end console gaming

I purchased the entry-level base-model XBOX 360S Slim (4GB model, no hard drive), Why did I finally decide to “Jump In” as it were?, well, I can sum that decision up in two words (and two numbers…) “Left 4 Dead 2” (Braaaiiinnnns!!!) I’ve heard great things about the game, and I’m a big fan of “Post-Apocalyptic-World” (PAW) movies/novels and the like, basically, anything with Zombies, adding zombies to any entertainment improves that entertainment, think how much more fun Mario would be if he was, instead of running from mobile fauna and reptiles, he was running from a thronging zombie horde intent on eating his “Spicy-a Brains-a”… (he should probably throw Luigi at them as a sacrifice/diversionary tactic, let’s be honest here, Luigi has never pulled his own weight and has been riding on Mario’s reputation from day 1… freeloading bastard…

Anyway, back on subject…

So, when I got the 360S home, I opened the box with much trepidation, expecting a cheap, cheesy piece of hardware, and initially that’s what I thought I got, after all, the outer casing of the 360S doesn’t exactly feel very “sturdy” (IIRC, wasn’t the previous 360 casing metal?), however it had a lot of ventilation openings and what appears to be at least an 80mm, if not a 120mm cooling fan with a substantial vent grille over it, that’s one way to solve the “RROD” oveheating problem…

Once it was hooked into the home theatre and the batteries installed in the remote (I’m not exactly sure if a battery powered controller is a good idea, after all, Murphy’s Laws state that the batteries will fail when you can least afford it, like in the middle of a huge battle with the Undead…), I hit the power switch on the front of the 360…

Cool, a touch-sensitive button, I was expecting an actual mechanical switch… (incidentally, the touch switch also works if you use your big toe to turn the console on/off… :wink: ), looks like the disc tray open/close button is also a capacitance based touch-switch, it has plenty of USB ports, and a wired ethernet jack (I have mine hooked up via my AirPort Express base station though) and an optical audio-out jack, pretty nice bit of hardware, even if the plastic case feels a bit thin and cheesy…

MUST…RESIST…URGE…TO…DISASSEMBLE…UNIT…TO…SEE…WHAT…MAKES…IT…TICK…
(sorry, fighting off Technicians Syndrome there, it happens every time I get a new electronic “toy”)

From the research I have done, it seems that the wireless controller(s) are actually WIFI devices themselves, that’s also pretty cool, I was not expecting that, that’s a nice feature as well, overall, aside from the cheesy case plastics, the 360S seems to be a well put together bit of kit, in fact, it’s such a good setup that I’m even contemplating using it to replace my four plus year old tempermental old Panasonic DVD player, the Panasonic is getting a little fussy on some of my older DVD’s that have previously played just fine and have no scratches or any other flaws on them

I’m not exactly sold on XBOX Live yet though, I’m not a fan of subscription-based entertainment (aside from SDMB, that is ;), I have no plan to subscribe to their dubious “Gold” service (I still find it difficult to voluntarily give Microsoft money…), I’m antisocial by nature and would get no value from the “social” features of Live, as long as I can find online matches of L4D2, I’m perfectly happy with a “Silver” level membership, the only thing that could tempt me to Gold are the downloadable games, Worms Armageddon in particular, I’ve always had a soft spot for that endearing Heavily-Armed-Annelid-Strategy-Game series

I may have to pick up a couple other games, a decent driving sim (Forza?) and a few strategy/puzzle games, but the main reason I bought a 360S, the “killer app” for lack of a better term (yes, I know, bad pun) was for L4D2

The 360 is nice, I can’t deny it, it’s a solid gaming platform, it’s also nice that it doubles as a DVD player and can link up with my MacBook when I have it running Win7

Oh, and L4D2?
Frakkin’ Awesome!, aside for the weapon inaccuracies (overpowered, incredibly accurate shotgun shooting buckshot, accurate AK-47, no recoil impulse effects, no muzzle-climb when shooting full-autos with the “Giggle Switch” turned on, the lack of the ability to select between single, burst, and auto on FA guns, the fact that all the rifles and submachine guns appear to do almost the same damage** oh, and the biggest firearm flaw in the game… Infinite ammo in the handguns, at least they do need to be reloaded and can be topped off manually

then again, it’s a bit silly that in a game where I’m surrounded by reanimated corpses intent on making me into their next meal, I’m griping about trivial little glitches with the firearms…

I do love the humor in the game, I’ve been playing the “Bayou” level, and when I arrived at the first safe house, I was reading the grafitti scrawled on the wall, most of it was about how the Infected weren’t actually “undead” and the like, then I went over to the wall next to a staircase and saw the following graffiti-d “converation”

“I HATE Zombies”
below that;
“Way to think outside the box, genius!”
below that;
“I LOVE Zombies!”
below that;
“I want to take a zombie out on a date”
and below that, in smaller text;
“can someone please put the markers away?”

I initially hated L4D2 as I was having trouble adjusting to the controls, seperate look and movement controls, compounded by the fact that the look controls were set to “standard” (pull back on the stick to look down, push forward to look up), and I prefer “reversed” (pull stick back to look up, push forward to look down, it’s a holdover from my flight sim gaming), once I set the look controls to “reversed”, the game became a lot more enjoyable
If any Dopers are playing L4D2, my gamertag is “MacTechG4”, it’d be fun to set up a L4D2 Doper gaming session…

(**an AK-47 shoots a .30 caliber bullet, and the M-16 shoots a .223 caliber bullet, the AK bullet has more damage potential, but the AK is less accurate than the M-16)

2

There’s a program called Rivet you can download that lets you do media streaming from the Mac to the 360. Works well, I use it all the time.

The 360 is indeed pretty nice. There are some aspects of it that could use improvement (the video library interface is really poorly thought out–it looks like the kind of thing some engineer threw together in an hour and a half so they could list another feature in the marketing materials), but overall it’s a good machine.

3

Just wanted to say: good review. Very entertaining and informative.

Plus, I can’t wait to read the supplemental edition, where you take the thing apart finally. Isn’t it killing you not to? You should prolly go open it up right now.

:p;):smiley:

4

I’m going to send you a friend request when I log on xbox.

An AK-47 shoots a .30ish, but it’s closer to the .308 than .223, the AK-74 shoots a more .223-like round. In fact, it’s the AK74, like the M16 in the USA, that’s the main service rifle for the Russian military.

Also, shotgun spread is pretty accurate, more accurate than the average person believes. Also, most selective fire guns are Safe-Single Shot-Multishot (Either Burst or Full auto, not both).
As for rifles and submachine guns doing the same damage, you didn’t actually list a rifle and a submachine gun. You listed a Battle Rifle and an Assault Rifle (or two assault rifles, depending who you ask), both of which have far more complex damage-to-flesh factors than simple bullet size.

5

Bo, you’re not helping matters any… :wink:

here’s a link to the Wiki page on the graffiti in the L4D series the exchange I found in “The Parish” was;

* God I hate Zombies
      o Really? Way to step away from the Pack
            + LOL what a moron
                  # I LOVE ZOMBIES
                        * I WANT TO TAKE ZOMBIES OUT ON A DATE.
                              o Would someone please hide the pens?
6

hehe

It’s just that I’m exactly like that, dude. Nearly everything I buy I take apart and put back together. Been this way since I was a kid.

So, yeah, I know exactly what I’m doing! BWAHAHAHAHA!

7

The accuracy issue I have with the L4D2 shotguns is that I can be in an outdoor level, just barely see a zombie on the horizon, line up the crosshairs and take it down with 1-2 shots, same as the rifles, well beyond the 50-100 yard range that has been my real world experience is the outer edge of shotshell effectiveness, to say nothing of the pattern at that distance…

shooting either my Mossberg 500 pump or my H&R Topper Deluxe Classic single-shot break barrel action, both with Federal 00 Buck 2 3/4" shells through a medium choke, the “pattern” at 50 yards is such that only two of the nine pellets end up on paper, the “pattern” at that range is measured in feet, not inches, move back to 16 yards or so, and either gun will throw a 4-5" pattern…

So, lets use the “Chrome Shotgun” in L4D2, it appears to be a Remington 870, perhaps the Marine or Marine Magnum, at the “BVR” ranges I’m shooting buckshot at in the game, the shotgun should be little more than a noisemaker, now, if I’m shooting slugs, getting hits at that range should theoretically be possible (Forster or Brenneke style rifled slugs)

I’ll look for your invite when I log back on

Oh, and the other “issue” I have with the game is I take too long to shoot, as I was raised with the “make every shot count” philosophy, I just can’t force myself to “Spray and Pray” unless I’m mobbed by the Horde…, I’m probably one of the few L4D2 gamers that tries to shoot an Uzi/AK/AR like a bolt-action hunting rifle, one shot at a time, the most I’ll do are 3-4 round bursts on fast movers, but i won’t use my gun as a “bullet hose”, wastes too much precious ammo…

oh, and why isn’t anyone in the game picking up all those perfectly good fired cases undoubtedly littering the landscape and reloading them? waste of perfectly good resources, I tells ya… :wink: throwing away perfectly good brass/shells, sheesh…!

8

Isn’t Left 4 Dead 2 available for Mac now as well? Kind of wasted your money, IMHO.

Nevermind, I see it’s windows only. I still think going with a dual boot would have your best choice though.

9

Kinthalis, my “newest” Mac is a 2006 vintage black MacBook 2.16GHz with the integrated Intel GMAX3100 chipset, it wouldn’t even be close to capable of running L4D2 even if it was available

I’m also running Win7 on the MacBook, but again, the hardware limitations are what’s getting me here

in my case, a 360 was the cheapest option that would get me acceptable gameplay, sure, I could get a $300-400 PC, but that wouldn’t be capable of getting decent performance with high end games

Plus, the Kinect accesory looks intriguing, imagine playing L4D2 using one of my real firearms (no ammunition in and mags removed, obviously…) to sight, aim and “fire” at the Zombies

If I set up a SDMB game on my 360, I’ll put the [SDMB] descriptor in it, the password will be Cecil

10

Not yet. Steam is exceptionally slow at releasing new titles for Mac. Upon the Mac launch they were putting out a bunch every week, but it’s since slowed to more like one game every month.

11

Mac, you won’t be able to play games online unless you are a Gold subscriber to Live.

Also, there’s already a Friends of Friends Gamertagset up for the 360 for Dopers. Some of us don’t have open spots on our Friends List, so you can artificially expand it by adding a Friends of Friends Silver account to it. After you send a request to it, select the Gamertag from your Friends List, select right, select “View Friends”, and then you can see the people on the SDMB Gamertag without using your Friends List to get them on.

It’d be a good idea to get a game of L4D up. I’m going to sell it very soon otherwise.

12

If you think Kinect is going to provide you with an experience anything like Left 4 Dead with a controller or keyboard + mouse, I think you’re over estimating it.

13

  1. Who knows what Kinect will be like? I’m leaning towards “really lame”.

  2. That’s not how you set up a private game. Details tend to change between game to game, but you create a custom or closed lobby and invite those you want to the game.

14

Nope.

You need Gold to play people online.

And you don’t need Gold to download games, just Silver (the free one).

15

Well, the whole “need Gold membership for online play” thing is discouraging, then again, this is the first console I have actually connected to the internet, so if I end up using it as a standalone offline box I won’t really be missing anything much as I haven’t played any online games yet…

…well, I did play one match of L4D2 online, but was clearly paired with a group of MORONS, no team strategy, everyone going their own way, and friendly fire (which really isn’t) was rampant, the other three players were using their weapons as “bullet hoses”, spraying down both friend and foe with hot lead, nonexistent aiming, I was the only one using controlled fire and aimed shots/short bursts

the AI controlled 'bots in the single player game played better than the group of morons I was paired with

Oh, and I think I found my next pair of racing games, Burnout Paradise for the arcade-style racer, and Forza 3 for the race sim, two features in particular sold me on Forza 3… the fact that you can turn on “realistic” damage modeling and actually damage the car so badly that it stops running and you end up with a “DNF”, and the fact that you have two choices for manual transmission, “manual” which is the typical “pushbutton” manual shifting in most racing games, and “Manual with Clutch”, it’s about time someone implemented the clutch pedal into a console racing game, my favorite classic sit-down arcade racing sim “Hard Drivin’” was the only other racing game I had played that had an actual functional clutch pedal, made the race sim that much more realistic

16

Well beyond? You’re vastly overestimating game distances. I’m not sure L4D2 even has a segment in any map where you can even make a 100 yard shot. With your typical HD resolution and 90 degree FOV, a man-sized target at 100 yards is one pixel tall. What most people consider “sniper range” in video games is on the order of 40 yards.

17

I’m tempted to requote the part about the SDMB Gamertag.

Also, for a Left 4 Dead 2 game, here’sa relevant thread.

18

A few random points:

Windows really DID used to be “that bad” but that was in like 1992. The Macintosh has been steadily losing its lead in the “unintuitive crap” vs “god’s gift to operating systems” war ever since. These days, I don’t really think it has a meaningful lead.

If you’re dying to know “what makes it tick” there’s plenty of information out there with pictures etc. 10 seconds with Google gives me this though doubtless there are others. Unless you really need to get touchy-feely with it, there’s no real reason to indulge your destructive urges. :wink:

I see the misconception about what you can and can’t do with a silver membership has already been cleared up.

Oh, also, if the battery in your controller dies when you’re playing something that can be paused, it’ll pause automatically to give you a chance to switch up. Obviously not applicable if playing multiplayer. There are wired controllers and wireless controllers that can be charged by plugging in a cable, so you’ve got a variety of options here, and none of them are any more perilous than a wireless mouse.

19

This is the “Play and Charge Kit.” Don’t bother with this thing. It takes so long to charge you may as well just buy a Quick Charge Kit and a couple of extra battery packs. Well worth the extra cost.

20

I’ve really enjoyed my Xbox360 (as a Mac/Ubuntu/Windows - use whatever you have at hand kinda guy)…what got me was:

  1. You have to sign into Xbox live to play movies (Really? Is Microsoft interested in my tastes in torrents?)
  2. Once you join Xbox Live Gold it is goddamn IMPOSSIBLE so roll back to silver…I mean you can do it, but it’s four levels deep in the website, and a two letter hyperlink with no underline or change in color…I had to find a forum post on Major Nelson to find the solution…if you decide to sign up, buy the gift cards, that way they won’t auto-re-up.
  3. Microsoft is trying to nickle and dime us. Example: Buy their really expensive Hard Disk…or plug your own in…but you can only use 16 Gb of that space, regardless of how big the drive really is. Wow.

I purchased the Wii on opening day, had the original Xbox, and the 360…a couple years in I got the itch and bought a PS3 slim…I hated Sony almost as much as I hated parts of Microsoft…but really, I LIKE the way they handle the PS3…there’s NO impression that they’re trying to grab your cash after the console sale like Microsoft.

(current games: Bioshock 2 on the 360 and Fallout 3 on the PS3)