My Life With The New Console Cult

Posted on March 16, 2007 by Scott Jennings| 35 Comments

So as you can probably see from the puppy dog to your left I finally joined the inevitable and picked up an XBox 360. Thanks to renting DVDs from a local video store, here’s my impressions of the games I’ve tried so far:

Ninety-Nine Nights: To be fair, I had already seen this at a friends’ house. But Phantagram. Why you got to be that way, baby. We used to be so good together! Daddy doesn’t want to hurt you. Just walk away.

Gears of War: Ooh, pretty. Ouch, hurty. OK, I don’t like shooters on consoles.

GRAW: OK, maybe I do like shooters on consoles, as long as they let me snipe people and call in airstrikes from gunships.

Viva Pinata: Hm, this could grow on me, assuming I figure out some actual gameplay.

Star Trek Legacy: I had tried this on the PC and gave up because it was so obviously a console port. I then tried this on the console and gave up because it was so obviously a really bad game.

Dead Rising: OK, this is why I bought this machine. Thanks. (swings bat, kills 5 zombies) Although the paucity of save points reminds me of console frustrations past.

XBox Arcade: Aaah, Time Pilot, comfort food of my youth, you sing to me so sweetly with your siren calls of random bombings and death. And Lumines isn’t a half bad port either. Does anyone play Hold’em Poker online?

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  • Guildrum

    (Quote)Why would I want to buy a console? I already have a next-generation gaming machine.(/quote)

    Turncoat!

  • http://blog.driftlogic.net Scott

    Dead Rising is the reason that a 360 is now gracing my living room.

    Just like a spanking new 57 inch HDTV arrived today because of the sooner-than-later-arrival of Mass Effect.

    I’m wishy washy about N3 however. Bad reviews, but so many people with it on their gamertag. I need guidance…

  • http://mmoevolution.blogspot.com wearfannypacks

    We’ve lost you.. but that’s okay.

    I don’t think it counts as quelling your PC gaming addiction if you move to another platform… but contratualtions none the less at trying something new.

  • Jarnis

    Welcome to the Dark Side. It’s fun over here…

    Now, PC still has many games that will never appear on consoles. Strategy stuff, MMOs (the good ones), most of the first person shooters, adventure games… consoles are great for console games, PCs are great for PC games. No reason you can’t own both.

  • http://ambernight.org Amber

    But…but…but I thought we were going to exchange Mii’s! *sob*

  • freakachu

    I liked N3, no other game lets you kill 1000+ dudes in a single attack. so satisfying.

  • Random Poster

    “XBox Arcade:”

    You are required to download Castlevania Symphony of the Night when it becomes available. It’s probably the pinnacle of all the Castlevania games, and not like the craparse 3d ones they have been churning out recently.

  • squirrel

    When MMOG’s, QT3 and f13 just aren’t fun enough the 360 delivers. Recommend:

    Fight Night Round 3: I know nothing about boxing. I’ve watched maybe 2 matches in my whole life. I LOVE this game. Playable for 6 hours or 20 minutes.

    Marvel Ultimate Alliance: Yeah it’s out on every platform but the 360/PS3 versions are the best IMO. Great bash em up RPG if you like Marvel comics.

    FIFA 06: Hatred for Road to the World Cup. Love for FIFA 06. If you like footy it’s great.

    Rainbow 6 Las Vegas: Bit redundant with GRAW but still a really decent tactical shooter.

    Shooters on the console are frustrating after years of PC shooter play, but it does get better as you get used to it. GoW particularly is worth suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous controls for.

    Have Fun!

  • Freakazoid

    “It’s probably the pinnacle of all the Castlevania games, and not like the craparse 3d ones they have been churning out recently.”

    I liked lament of innocence and curse of darkness. LoI wasen’t too hard but CoD is like pulling teeth in the latter 1/4th of the game. You have to kinda overlook koji igarashi being a fag with the plot elements and give up any notion that these are really “castlevania” games only art and related plots, but they’re decent games imo.

  • Random Poster

    THey aren’t horrible games no, but they aren’t “Castlevania” games. And everything they do is done better by other games (Devil May Cry first and foremost).

    Symphony of the night was just an awesome game . To me it showed why 2d games should never fade away, I spent many an hour aboard ship playing this game.

    It ranks up near the top of my personal list of all time great games.

  • http://www.zenofdesign.com Damion Schubert

    Ninety-Nine Nights is not a GOOD game. It is, however, an extremely FUN game. Unfortunately, you have to unlock enough of each character’s superglorious attacks to see the fun. This is not so fun.

  • http://ve3d.ign.com/ Apache

    You’ll probably like Rainbow Six Vegas more than GRAW if you prefer the sneaky stuff, Lum.

  • http://toolshed.wtfno.org Jiffy

    And don’t forget that Blue Dragon is coming out in a few months. That’s supposed to be a really kick ass JP RPG.

  • http://www.nerfbat.com/ Ryan Shwayder

    I had a 360 from the day it launched to a week after, then I sold it to someone at work. The reasons were two-fold: 1) It was someone working on a project that would benefit from owning a 360, and they couldn’t get their hands on one. 2) There weren’t enough games that I was excited about coming up soon for me to keep it, and I’d beat the ones I wanted to already.

    There are still not terribly many games that get me excited about the new consoles, but I do own a Wii based in part on the expectation that Smash Bros. was coming out soon (and it doesn’t appear to be). It’s a fun one, but it’s still hard for me to justify the cost of the Wii or any other console since I play PC games so much more.

    I think I’m just skittish because of my Sega Saturn and Dreamcast purchases years ago. Great consoles that never had enough games for them (though both had some great ones).

  • Big Gulp

    Next time I see you on I’ll invite you for some Gears coop. That’s where the game really shines.

  • http://www.cyanbane.com Cyanbane

    What I play on 360 and love:

    Test Drive Unlimited (Think Driving Simulation MMO)
    Lost Planet: Beautiful Game (FPS)
    Gears (Don’t play multiplayer and if you do just go ahead and cut everyone else’s volume off cause no one wants to hear that shit). But if you play the single player campaign it is very well written and I am very impressed with the cutscenes/story progression.

    Xbox Arcade:
    Backgammon: Until Chess hits, this is a great online mathstrategy game. I had never played backgammon before I got 360. I actually buy backgammon strategy books now ;)
    Worms: Good Stuff from awhile back.
    Heavy Weapon: Side Scroll / 1942-ish arcade goodness
    Uno: Not sure why I love so much, but i do.
    ZUMA: 11:00pm – Start Six Pack/Zuma – 3:00 am – Finish Six Pack – No End in Sight for Zuma. Absolutly a BLAST to play though. Pop Cap has got it going on.

    As for the horizon…
    No really good RPGs yet for it. Kinda bummed about that. Guitar hero comes out on April 3rd supposedly, also the screens from Bioshock look pretty good, and if you can get past the fact Shadowrun isn’t an RPG, then it isn’t bad at all either. Not sure how much you might program, but messing with XNA is fun also.

    Feel free to add me to your friends list. But don’t add Shwayder, he never responds (I guess cause from the above comment he sold his) ;)

  • Mox

    Ninety Nine Nights can be an extraordinarily frustrating experience. Samurai Warriors 2 less so. It’s things like Dead Rising and Viva Pinata that give me a bit of a “next gen” feeling though. Gears feels more like it’s on a bridge between last and next gen.

    And Live Arcade? I can’t wait for Jetpac. Can’t wait.

  • Big Gulp

    See, I think Gears fully qualifies as nextgen. The cover system (and actually, I like RSV’s cover system better) for me has made shooters that don’t have a similar setup just seem lesser. And the pacing is absolutely perfect IMO. Add in coop and you’ve got a great experience. While it’s a good game solo, it really, really shines when you’re playing with a buddy covering and assisting each other.

  • http://jpsaunders.co.uk Ghiest

    I’d agree with R6:Vegas > GRAW if you like sneaking around :)

    But if you want a laugh and just to pick up some fun and kill some stuff I’d advise Crackdown (especially if you can rent it somewhere). It’s short and sweet game (hense the rent part) but tis a good crack.

    Gears of War co-op in the same room just rocks.

  • David

    You should have picked up a PS3….

  • Walter Yarbrough

    I’d say poker on console suffers from some serious competition – personally, I’m always going to be online on PC for that.

    -Walt

  • Random Poster

    “You should have picked up a PS3….”

    For what? The only exclusive they have is Resistance: Fall of Man, and he said he doesn’t like shooters on a console, and RFoM would irritate him more thhan Gears because it is a straight up FPS as opposed to Gears at 3rd person. Once it has some games it might be worth it but right now it just doesn’t have the game library to support the price.

  • No.6

    I don’t think “Test Drive” and “simulation” belong in the same paragraph unless separated by a hearty NOT. :)

    Maybe that makes me a simulation snob but hey, maybe that’s why I own a driving wheel (Logi G25) which cost about as much as the base Xbox 360.

    Maybe when GTR hits Xbox 360 console fans can talk about simulations.

    BTW, nice Thrill Kill Kult reference, Scott. They were … interesting … in concert.

  • xzzy

    If grand theft auto style play has ever at all held any kind of interest for you, I’d suggest giving Crackdown a rent.

    It’s GTA.. but with super powers. Not much is better than leaping from rooftop to rooftop sniping bad guys, then dropping down to street level, picking up a car, then crushing more bad guys with it. If you’re the sort, there’s lots of defenseless citizens to throw things at too.

  • Balasarius

    I’ve owned a 360 for about a year now. I played the big ones – Dead Rising, Kameo, GRAW, but none of them truly convinced that my 360 was a good purchase.

    Until I played Saints Row. Yeah, it’s a GTA clone. But it does EVERYTHING better. I’ve never been able to get more than 5-10 hours into a GTA game before it became too frustrating and I lost interest. I put 50 hours into SR, and finished most of the achievements. Awesome, awesome game. Best game on the console, imo.

    Crackdown is also fun.

    R6:Vegas is much, much better than GRAW.

  • http://www.lietcam.com Lietgardis

    For me, the fun in Viva Pinata was filling in all the checkboxes in the pinata list. I wanted Master Romancer for every pinata that ever moved in.

    Hint: focus on a couple of pinata types at a time, fence the little fuckers off from each other, and sell them all when you’re done. Factory farming. It’s a good lesson for the kids! Be careful with the fences, though, because they eat up a lot of your asset limit.

  • con

    My snails were being total dicks, eating all the thistles and picking fights with my tafflys.

    Lesson 2 for the kids: snails are dicks.

  • LanTheWarder

    All I have to say about Viva Pinata is my seven year old loved it and I got so sick of romancing Flutterscotchs.

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