One week with the 360

I have now owned (or in a couple of hours will have owned) my Xbox 360 for a full week, and thought I'd give you wonderful people my reflections on it. In general, I really like it. I'm not quite sold on the controller, but it isn't terrible. It just is quite a bit different than the PS2 that I've been playing for quite some time. The system itself is relatively easy to navigate and offers tons of features. Xbox Live (online marketplace and gaming center) is really neat. A bit of a rip how they try to get you buy a bunch or worthless junk, but still cool that it is offered. Playing online is really interesting. It is something my brother and I did occasionally at his place, but only a few games offer online play with split-screen. Now, however, we can both play together, or with other people. I kinda suck at online play, but I'm still a newbie at the system, the games, and online play in general. Ok, now for the games (from worst to first):

Madden '06 - very disappointing. The control scheme is terrible. Some of the bells and whistles are not there. Graphics are ok, but not enough to make up for the deficiencies. I'm tempted to plug in my PS2 and play Madden 05 to get my football fix.

Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter (GRAW) - surprisingly good. I played this one a little bit with my brother prior to moving, but not enough to get a true feel for it. I bought this so he and I would have a game to play online. Online is really good, and the single player is also fun, makes great use of cover.

Call of Duty 2 - WWII first person shooter. I really like WWII fps games. So far, this one has been awesome. The great thing of the CoD series is they don't make you a commander of a squad. You are just a member of the army fighting your way, but your buddies still help and you don't have to tell them what to do. If only this game, used cover like Medal of Honor: European Assault. Still frickin' sweet. Also online enabled that my brother has.

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - unbelieveable! The game is HUGE. I honestly felt that Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64) was the most epic game I've played. Well, that feels very very small by comparison. The map of the country alone is gigantic. Then there are so many side quests/missions, that it gets easy to lose the main game element. You could spend hours running around the countryside...feels like Lord of the Rings. I like the fact that it is a created-character game (unlike my brother I don't get truly immersed in my character) and that uses a first person viewpoint for a hack-n-slash game. It's a game that you can easily play for 3-4 hours and only felt like you played for 1-2. I'm looking forward to continuing to play this game frequently....if only I can get a battleaxe!!

There you have it. My initial thoughts on the thing that will take up most of my freetime. The good news is, the 4 games I have will take up enough time, that I probably won't be spending the $50+ on games very often....Gears of War is a possibility though.

I also realized that I used all kind of gamer slang in this post. It's kind of like when I talk bowling with a bowler...normal people get confused. It could easily happen here too. Anyway, hopefully you understood all of it.