Meanderings of a Monkey Juggler

Uncle D has an X360 now to go with his slightly swanky new telly.  I was up there visiting him last night and got to play with his new toy. 

What to think?

Well first off it's really bloody noisy.  Apparently he's even got the newer less noisy model but it's still pretty bad.  But what about the games?

He started off showing me Kameo.  It's quite pretty and seems like a good adventure/puzzle wotsit.  Pretty much a one-player affair.  Next was Tomb Raider (the latest one).  It reminded me loads of the new Prince of Persia games but D suggested that it's probably the other way round.  He's probably right on that one.

These were the 2 "proper" X360 games I saw.  He had Ghost Recon too but this didn't float my boat at all.  Not the sort of thing I want to play.

After those we had a look at some he'd downloaded off XBox Live.  Some were ok.  One didn't work saying that he needed to set his output to something other than PAL50.  He wasn't on PAL50 and any tweaking of control settings (as prompted) didn't improve things at all.  But then he showed me "Geometry Wars".  I've heard that this is good and I am pleased to say the reviews aren't wrong.

Remember "Asteroids"?  Well it's like that on major steroids and stimulants.  It takes place in 2D on a space background.  Enemies are coloured shapes that move according to their programming.  Purple squares dash straight for you, green shapes seem to travel in random shapes etc....  Your ship moves with the left joystick and you shoot with the right stick (not a button).  This means you can fly up the screen whilst shooting across or down it for example.  It's very colourful and pretty and very smooth.  Oh and insanely hard. I got about 60000 and that was hard.  I've just had a look on't web and there are videos of people getting a good few million points.  Eek.

This is the sort of gaming I remember from years ago (only prettier).  Easy to get into and pure skill to get good at.  If you think of my all-time fave game (Super Monkey Ball) it's pretty much the same deal - dead easy game mechanics and just skill to get good at.

It seems an awful lot of money to play this game though.  I doubt I'll get me a 360 as this seems to be the only game I'd want to play at the mo. on it.

Now then let's talk graphics.  The whole point of the new 360 and the PS3 (as far as games go) is to swank up the level of graphics.  They've pumped millions and more into trying to get photorealistic piccies on their games.  And it hasn't worked.  They're nice graphics but they're still miles off what they want them to be.  Human figures just don't look right, they don't move correctly and Tomb Raider was noticeably stuttery too.  So what's the point?

On another note I've finished the major part of Pikmin 2 now.  You have to reach a certain target and I've now done so.  I thought that would be end of game. Problem is one of your 2 men gets left on the Pikmin planet so you have to go back and get more cash and try and find him.  So more (and harder) bits to do.  And I thought I was done with it.  Sigh.

Have fun.