X-Boxing it up

Angelic

Angelic

Active Member
Howdy, ladies and gents :)
So I'm seriously considering getting a 2nd hand Xbox. I don't have any console yet, and Xbox seems like the best choice when entering the market. I know it's dated, but no plans for 720 have been announced yet a there are tons of games available and still coming out for it. The other contestant, of course, was PS3, but I wouldn't use its blue-ray player capability at all and it's significantly more expensive than an Xbox, with - I think? - less titles to offer.

I'm getting this purely for social/family gaming and titles that do not come out on PC, not thinking of playing any major AAA titles on it - that's what I have my gaming desktop PC for. I would, however, like to play stuff like Spelunky, Awesomenauts and similar, and that's where this comes in.

Now, I would like to invite you all to give me advice on whether this is a good idea and also, how important is the hard drive size. I figure, that especially since I will mainly be playing stuff downloaded off the XBLA and not boxed copies, I need more than the 4GB, right?

Thanks for all your insight!

P.S.: If anyone wanted to sell me his/her 360, please speak up :)
 
Panda with issues...

Panda with issues...

Well-Known Member
For social gaming, wouldn't you be a lot better off with a Wii? It's the only thing it does significantly better than the 360 and PS3.
 
BiG D

BiG D

Administrator
Staff member
Absolutely don't buy a 4gb. Even with light usage you'd likely fill a 120gb easy enough.

Panda with issues... said:
For social gaming, wouldn't you be a lot better off with a Wii? It's the only thing it does significantly better than the 360 and PS3.
Click to expand...
It's not significantly better at social, and it's already a dead platform.
 
thatbloke

thatbloke

Junior Administrator
BiG D said:
Absolutely don't buy a 4gb. Even with light usage you'd likely fill a 120gb easy enough.
Click to expand...

^This

I know you say you didn't want to play AAA titles on it, but for example, it has been recently announced that Halo 4 will require 8GB of HDD/storage space if you want to be able to play it multiplayer.

that, and games are getting bigger all the time...
 
Angelic

Angelic

Active Member
Panda with issues... said:
For social gaming, wouldn't you be a lot better off with a Wii? It's the only thing it does significantly better than the 360 and PS3.
Click to expand...
I don't know of any games on the Wii that would interest me, to be honest. As far as movement/kinetic games go, the only ones I've encountered so far that I enjoy are karaoke (if you can call it a movement/kinetic game) and DDR (for which I use my PC + pad + Stepmania).

Big D said:
Absolutely don't buy a 4gb. Even with light usage you'd likely fill a 120gb easy enough.
Click to expand...
Okay!

How about the Xbox vs PS3 then?´

And any sale-crazed Xbox owners around here? ;)
 
Ronin Storm

Ronin Storm

Administrator
Staff member
I'd agree that the X360 is a good choice for your intention and also agree with others that even the 120GB drive will feel constrained pretty quickly (but is sufficient). I'd also agree that the PS3 is a poor choice if you've no interest in bluray; many games it does are also on other platforms, and the handful of platform exclusives that I feel are worth my time are single player AAA affairs, so again a poor fit.

When it comes to a strong games library, reasonable online service and decent accessibility, the X360 comes in strong. However, old models have their fair share of technical glitches so try to get a warranty of some sort when buying so a RROD or similar failure doesn't leave you glum.

If you've no TV, it's easy enough to connect an X360 to a monitor as long as you also have separate speakers (either phono stereo jacks, possibly a 3.5mm audio jack or, depending on the cables, optical). Or a TV is easy enough, but remember that earlier model X360's have no HDMI so be sure to check that.

Finally, while your intention isn't AAA games, there's fair reason to pick up a number of titles on the X360 as they were designed for console and simply play better or more naturally there. Worth considering.
 
Ki!ler-Mk1

Ki!ler-Mk1

Active Member
Do you have an xbox 360 controller for PC? Certainly a good way to get a taste for it, and iirc you can use them on the xbox too.
 
Angelic

Angelic

Active Member
Ki!ler-Mk1 said:
Do you have an xbox 360 controller for PC? Certainly a good way to get a taste for it, and iirc you can use them on the xbox too.
Click to expand...
I don't, although I considered getting it. The reason for getting an X-box, however, would not be the controller, but rather platform-exclusive titles. I'm not aware of there being a possibility of emulating an X-box on PC, even including the XBLA or some way of obtaining the games?

Ronin, thanks for the reply! I would love to play Uncharted, which - I think? - is PS3 exclusive, but getting an entire console due to one game is beyond my financial means. I will make sure to keep an eye out for warranty and technical glitches, good of you to remind me.

At the moment I do not have a TV, nor do I intend to get one. I plan on plugging the console into one of my monitors - either the current 22" or maybe get a 24" and plug it into that.
 
Ronin Storm

Ronin Storm

Administrator
Staff member
Angelic said:
I'm not aware of there being a possibility of emulating an X-box on PC, even including the XBLA or some way of obtaining the games?
Click to expand...

I'm not aware of any way of emulating the X360 on the PC.

Angelic said:
I would love to play Uncharted, which - I think? - is PS3 exclusive, but getting an entire console due to one game is beyond my financial means.
Click to expand...

There's a few more than that (Heavy Rain, Journey) and some more coming up (Beyond: Two Souls, The Last Of Us) but it's pretty light batting.
 
Angelic

Angelic

Active Member
Yes, Journey, of course :)

By the way, is there a difference between "an" Xbox 360 and the "Black Elite" version thereof?
 
B

Belfa

New Member
I have 2 Xbox 360's and I have one connected to a monitor although I think it's better to a HDTV

I have the 250gb Xbox and a 15gb hard drive one also
I really recommend one
 
Gribley

Gribley

Member
I have a old xbox elite works fine i've not had an RROD issue BUT i did have an RROD with the original xbox so try and get the newest model possible.

On where to buy it CEX offer a 12 Months warranty on all pe owns

As for party games

Halo 3 (FPS) offers 4 spit screen with support for Lan up to 8-16

Spelunky on xbox allows 4 player co op

blur spit screen is on xbox

The projector games lan game FALLDOWN is also on the xbox inde store.

If you plan on installing the games on the xbox which will reduce the load times and the disk spin 4gb will fill up fast don't do it. for the love of god no.
 
Angelic

Angelic

Active Member
Thanks, everyone!

In the end I settled for 120GB Elite. It's not the newest version of the console, but it has the hard-drive and was fairly affordable (at some 117pounds).

Now, the next part is a larger monitor... :D
 
Angelic

Angelic

Active Member
I'll sort it out according to what arrives in the box & what my monitors turn out to have/not have :)

Now, the games!

I'm definitely getting Awesomenauts and Spelunky. The console will also come, if I'm not mistaken, with Gears of Wars (of some sort) and Forza (I think). I will probably also get Dungeon Defenders, I have them on PC and they were great fun :)


What I'm after next, then, is an arcadey hotseat racing game, a brawler, and...whatever your favorites are :) I'm looking for cheaper games, below the 10-15$ mark.

Gogo!

Thanks ;)
 
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