The Semi-Official 360 Thread - Page 2

I posted this in the "WTF are you currently playing" thread, figured I'd copy it to this one too.
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Well, it's all 360, all the time at Casa de Singer. I picked up a total of 7 games for the system (5 in the bundle, and 2 more after trading in a bunch of crap). It's gonna be hard to go back to 480p now (just imagining what Shadow of the Collossus could look and play like on a next-gen system is semi-depressing).

So anyways, here's some quick thoughts on what I'm currently playing. I'm playing all these on a 57" hi-def Toshiba with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround (it's nice being divorced).

King Kong: More fun than the demo let on, and it's flat-out gorgeous on the 360. And I haven't even gotten to the 'play as Kong' part yet. I'd say an 8 out of 10 so far. We'll see.

Call of Duty 2: It's the one must-own for the 360 right now. Stunning. But one of my Thanksgiving guests finished the Russian and English campaigns and was halfway through the American, all on the Friday after turkey day... Still, 10/10.

Project Gotham Racing 3: I'm no racing gamer, so my opinion here is probably worthless, but it's fun, beautiful, and easy to get into. Still, it's my second-least-played launch title. 8/10.

Madden '06: Only bought it because I traded in all my other football games. I've played exactly two quarters of a game, and I can say it was definitely pushed out the door too early. There's potential with the new engine, but this game ain't it. 6/10.

Perfect Dark Zero: Fun, quirky fps that doesn't seem to take itself too seriously. Has some frame-rate issues and 'screen-tearing' problems, but I'm really enjoying it so far. It needs a better, more thorough training mission, though, one that actually explains some of the many stealth options. I had to go to the manual to find out how to turn on my flashlight. But it's set up so that you can re-play missions with ease to try different approaches. 9/10.

Condemned: Criminal Origins: Probably my favorite launch title. Repetitive? Perhaps, but I love every second of it. I wish the investigative portions weren't so scripted, but that's a minor complaint. Another game, like Kong and Call of Cthulhu on the Xbox, that you need to play in the dark. 9.5/10

GUN: I'm kind of saving this one to play later, so no score, but I like what I've seen so far.

"Screen-tearing" is when the vertical synch of a game doesn't match the refresh rate of the monitor or television it's being displayed on. Usually the game is drawing frames at a rate faster than the refresh rate of the display, so instead of dropping frames (which would cause a game to 'stutter') the synch is dropped so that there's no slowdown. This results in horizontal screen "tearing", where there will be a moving line across the screen in which the upper and lower portions of the image don't quite match up right.

Some people would rather have the tearing than the slowdown, and don't seem to mind so much. To me it depends on how often it happens. It's not really bad in PD0, but it is noticeable.

This is also being reported as being pretty common in the Madden game for the 360.

Quick question: When you click on your Gamertag, there are blank spaces for four achievements there, but I can't figure out how to put any of mine in there. Anyone know what that's about? It's the four little squares with the grayish icon of an award cup with a little lock over it.

Love the porn joke, and yes, I'd be up for some co-op. I should probably play more of the single player first, though.