First Day Verdict

[Ajay1986]

First off its an awesome looking machine.

The dashboard is fantastic, being able to access it whenever wherever is a great feature. Also loving the abillity to play music whenever you want.

PGR3 simply the greatest looking game ive ever played its stunning in every way, esspecially the in car viewpoint.

There loads of stuff to talk about and its all really good so far, id try write some more but im off to play PGR instead.

[robrymond]

The dashboard is amazing. I didn't even realise you could talk to others while doing or playing totally different things, even in the load screens for stuff!

Like Boris said, the dashboard has a wealth of options and I've spent most of the day checking those out.

PGR3 is amazing from what I've played and I'm really impressed with the console itself. My only moan is the headset and the quietness and echo that ensues.

[El Leone]

Brilliant, will be happy to keep it for the next few years.

[StanBush]

Well chuffed really feels like a next gen bit of kit , Dashboard is superb wireless pad works like a dream and still feels comfy after 3 hrs of pgr3. Pgr3 blew me away first driving game i have played all in car feels like a crime not to , just need a wireless steering wheel now
Only downside for me is that it doesnt recognise my creative zen so cant stream mp3s until i get a wireless adaptor.

[Jebus]

Despite not getting a premium pack I've VERY impressed with the slickness of it all. Since I never owned an XBOX this is all new to me and I'm overwhelmed.

PDZ is pretty good but of the 3 its my least favourite, but I still loved it.

Fifa is NOT as bad as people are saying, its like 06 (which I LOVED) but with unbelievable graphics, hard to believe its just a 1st-gen next-gen game!

Condemned looks awesome too, can't wait to get more into it. Didn't have time to play Kameo tonight but I'm looking forward to it!

All that with the composite cable/scart too! HD cable and Hard drive on order, probably won't get em til February but that just makes me realise just how much life this thing has.

All in all, after the headache of actually getting one, very very happy!

[Riskbreaker]

Absolutely brilliant, the dash is so slick, looks fantastic and access is really fast, I really am impressed. The wireless pad I picked up is lovely and feels really comfortable, the d-pad is a bit naff but I think thats parr the course with pads now.

Can't believe the size of that power pack though, jesus, looks like the x-brick jokes will be here to stay for a while. That said, the xbox has been on for about six hours now and the power pack is only warm.

I've only got two gripes so far:

1. How come I'm spending so much time on my next gen console on Geometry Wars?

2. Ripping CD's. Foo Fighters - all details there .... check, Boom Boom Satellites - all details there .... check, the latest Prodigy album - nada. Quite frankly I'm disgusted by this turn of events

that said, I'm asuming the console is pulling down the track details which may not be the case.

[Bru]

It's the AV aspect of this machine that has really blown me away and provided proof of the 'next generation'. For the first two hours we played around with Jeff Minter's Neon light-synth (on our 55 inch rear projection in the dark) and didn't even touch the surface. Streaming snippets of a fifty gig music catalogue from our XP PC in the other room was a breeze to set-up and worked like a charm. Absolutely FANTASTIC! The Yak has scored a belter.

With the PC connectivity and superb Live / blade / marketplace implementation I really can't see how Sony are going to beat Microsoft on the multimedia front.

But a twenty gig hard drive? At first I thought it was ample.
Hmmm... now however, in the words of Mr Brody, "I think we're going to need a bigger boat".

[PeteJ]

As others have said, the dashboard is a superb piece of a design, but even that pales next to how far Xbox Live has come with the 360. Everything is pretty much perfect in that regard.

Loving the pads, and loving the look and feel of the console. The power button is slightly naff to press, but being able to turn the console on with the pad is ace beyond ace.

The achievements is a work of genius - currently on 155! 9 Game achievements too

The games are a slight disappointment, apart from Retro Evolved which is just eye-meltingly lovely. It puts up a scoreboard against all of those on your friends list, earlier when I checked the top three were only a few points in it (though, to be fair, there were only three of us who had it!). Kameo is a big surprise, really having fun with that. Condemned is alright but it bugs me how linear it is and how I can use my nifty gear when I want to...PDZ is pretty solid, as I expected. PGR3 is awesome but I'm finding it extremely tough going. I think I chose a duff car.

So far so good.

[El Leone]

I was playing COD2, and even though its on the PC (and even though people bitch about it, just cuz its been on a pc for a month doesn't mean the quailty has gone!), The game is ****ing amazing. Seriously, the russian campaign was bloody marvlous.

[Silvergun X]

I adore the 360.

The console and the way Xbox Live is integrated has made that almost a game in itself.

"I must raise my gamerscore! Must aim for those achievements!"

Games within games, hmm.

The controller is perfect, the games are fun, and I feel like an excited little kid on christmas. Difference being i've been playing the console solid since 10am and i'm still just as excited as the moment I first turned it on.

I love it to pieces.

[Riskbreaker]

OK absolute highlight of my day so far. Being really geeky I ripped some tunes from the original Perfect Dark and put them on the box. Now playing round the second level of PDZ I've got the Carrington Institute playing and it fits in so seemlessly. I thought maybe it would play over everyting, but the characters still say their little bits and all the sound effects are there.

I'm in heaven

[Soi]

I'm very impressed so far.

My first experience was turning it on, setting my stuff up and then getting a chat invite from EvilBoris. We chatted, and decided to paly PD0. We both put the game in and kept chatting while it loaded. I set up my controls, still chatting away and then we played a game. Voice chat while a game loads would have sounded science fiction yesterday.

As for the games, well considering that they were probably rushed and what have you, I'm very impressed. Only tried PD0 and PGR3, but I've enjoyed both. Tomorrow is when I really get my teeth into them though.

[Kieran76]

I need to add to more impressions, it's ****ing ace! Got two mates spending an age over their paint jobs on PGR 3 and they both use the front bumper view anyway. I am desperate to go live but will have to wait till monday before I can sort that out. The machine rules.

[MartyG]

24 hours with Xbox360 - delivered at 9am, and was playing on it until about 5am this morning. I am very impressed with the whole package, the hardware, the software and the live integration.

Of all the games that I've played Call of Duty 2 was the most impressive. The game is so immersive, the use of 5.1 sound really puts you right in the middle of the action.

PGR3 is next up - it's more than just an update of PGR2, the cars have a different feel to the way the handle - seems very solid. The attention to detail is fantastic, the lighting really is something special, and the live integration is seemless.

PD0 I've only played the first mission on, plan to play that some more today, but it seemed like a decent enough FPS. The intro is very Bond-esque, and the music is fab. The bonus disc that comes with the special edition is somewhat limited though, I expection a bit more from it that a few photos and Xbox360 theme.

Kameo is the game I've been least impressed with. It didn't draw me into the game in the first 15 mins, and seems like quite an average action oriented RPG to me. I shall give this one more time when I've finished with the others.

Something that surprised me a lot was the strength of the Live Arcade games. After downloading a few of the demos I did pay for some market place credits and stump up for Geometry Wars and Bejeweled 2. I've spent more time playing Hexic HD and Bejeweled than I have the games above. The other live arcade games seem reasonable too. Shame the Billiard game is time limited to 2 mins, I can't actually decided whether it's worth the points atm. Zuma I might end up getting, very Puzzle Bobble-ish, and that must be one of my favourite retro games ever.

The blades thing is quite swish, makes things really easy to get, bit of a shame the media-player aspect of it is so limited. Support for DivX and Xvid would have been welcomed from me, and a normal Windows network support rather than Media Connect. I didn't really think much of the DVD playback either, seem to be quite a bit of tearing on it when things were panning about a lot.

The pad is really nice, really comfortable and a good weighty feel, the only game thatmade my fingers ache was Zuma, because of how you rotate the frog thing with the left stick, and have hold the thumb stick in that position it made my hand ache after 20 mins or so.

Overall though, 9/10 from me. If Sony and Nintendo can come anywhere close to this with the PS3 and Revolution, then next gen console gaming is going to be fantastic. I can't wait find out what gaming brilliance the Xbox360 has up its sizable sleeves over the next six months.

[ItsThere]

PGR3 has got me, got me so hard. Totally got me. Some good live games yesterday too