A real X-Box review of what you'll buy in the stores

Author's Rating:

Pros: Best graphics on a console; Built in harddrive and broadband; Best value for price;

Cons: Microsoft is the newbie; Potential for failure; No killer app yet;

The Bottom Line: 
X-Box has tons of potential and is fun to play. However, only time will tell if Microsoft will be a contender.

Author's Review
Before I start this review, let me say that I own a Dreamcast, Playstation 2, and now an X-Box. I also plan on purchasing a GameCube sometime in the future if games are released that I want. My philosophy on games is that I want to play great games, and I don't want to let the hardware get in the way. I will try to keep my review more fact filled about my own personal experience and dispel some of the misnomers and rumors with the X-Box.

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When I first heard the rumors that Microsoft would be making a video game console I laughed. I said "Microsoft make a video game console? They wouldn't even know where to start!". Well fast forward to today and it looks like Microsoft has been doing their homework.

The X-Box is the culmination of Microsoft's research on video game consoles. It features a 733Mhz Intel processor, a custom made Nvidia graphics processor, 64MB of DDR SDRAM, Dolby Digital 5.1 Interactive, an 8 gig hard drive, and an ethernet network port for broadband connections and local networks.

From what I've seen, a lot of people seem to think that the X-Box is a slow moving machine. After all, with Intel's fastest processor moving at 2 Ghz, 733Mhz pales in comparison. Why doesn't the X-Box need a 2 Ghz processor? There are a few reasons why it doesn't. First, the X-Box is a video game console. It doesn't do anything other than play games. A PC on the other hand is designed to do multiple things, and all at the same time. Since X-Box doesn't have the overhead that a computer does, it can better utilize its 733Mhz processor. Secondly, since the X-Box is made to play games, much of the calculations it needs to do are for transformation and lighting. Nvidia's XGPU (aka NV2A) processor does all of that work instead of the Intel CPU. Also, the X-Box when used on a standard TV or at 480p only needs to render at 640x480. Since that is a low resolution, the CPU and XGPU do not need to work as hard to draw a picture on the TV. Finally, for comparison's sake, the Playstation 2's CPU runs at a 300
Mhz, and the GameCube's CPU runs at 485Mhz, so as you can see the X-Box's processor is the fastest of the 3 in terms of Mhz (as we all know, Mhz do not equal Mhz when you compare two different CPUs).

Now that that's aside, lets consider just how much value the X-Box has for $299. Included with the X-Box is Dolby Digital 5.1 Interactive, an 8 gig hard drive, a built in broadband adapter, and 4 controller ports. With Playstation 2 you get none of these features, and with GameCube you only get 4 controller ports. So for the price, X-Box really gives you a good value at least hardware wise. But hardware won't make a great video game system... The only thing that can do that are games.

There are a lot of myths floating around about the X-Box. One such myth is that the X-Box, because it is made by Microsoft, crashes all the time just like Windows 95 or Windows 98 does. Now while I can't speak for every single X-Box unit on the market, I can speak for my own and my X-Box has never crashed on me, even when playing for many hours non-stop. The X-Box does run very warm however, so to test the theory that X-Boxes will crash because they run so warm I locked my X-Box in my entertainment center's cabinet. The cabinet has only 1 hole to let wires in and out at the back. I left the X-Box running the Dead or Alive 3 intro screen (which plays through real-time rendered scenes) for 6 hours straight. Ambient temperature in the room was roughly 70-75 degrees fahrenheit. The X-box did not crash once but was very warm to the touch (it was not however unbearably warm to the touch). If that isn't an indicator of the stability of the X-Box then please let me know what would be a better test!

Some other problems people seem to have with the console is that it is way too large. While the X-Box is larger than the Playstation 2 it is not too much bigger. The X-Box is also smaller than my VCR which is an average sized VCR. Unless you're living somewhere where every little bit of space is important to you the size of the X-Box shouldn't be a big deal.

On the same lines, another complaint is that the X-Box controller is too large. This is one complaint that may be true for many people with smaller hands. My hands are not by any means large, they are more likely average sized and I have had no problems holding the X-Box controller for hours with no discomfort. I do admit at first that the buttons were difficult to use because they were so close together, but a small bit of adjusting fixed that after playing for awhile. Of the 3 consoles, I like the X-Box controller the most because of features (2 analog triggers (like the Dreamcast ones), 6 buttons on the front, built in rumble, and 2 analog pads). But I dislike the controller most in terms of shape and finding buttons. This isn't to say that I hate the controller and its impossible to use. I just feel more comfortable using something like the Dreamcast controller. Why Microsoft didn't take their existing Sidewinder Gamepad and simply improve upon it is beyond me.

The X-Box's build quality has also come in question since Microsoft is an American company and due to the fact that it is being manufactured in Mexico instead of being manufactured in Asian countries. I am not sure why this would make a difference, but personally I have not had any problems with the build quality of the X-Box, it feels like the machine is built solid, and I have no questions as to whether or not the system will continue to work. The DVD-ROM drive is one of the best drives I have seen, and is much less flimsy than the Playstation 2's tray.

One special feature of the X-Box that isn't discussed very often is that it also doubles as an audio jukebox. As many of you have probably heard, the X-Box can copy music from regular audio CDs onto its hard drive and play them back during games that support the feature. But what you may not know is that the X-Box can also play these files back when it is at the dashboard (ie. The screen that comes up when there is no disc present in the system). This means that you can copy a large portion of your audio cds onto the hard drive and play them all back together as if you had a hard drive based MP3 player! There is also a neat little visualization thing that dances with the music as you listen to it! (Hint: pressing Y then X during playback will make the visualization full screen!) While 8 gigs is not quite as much as some of the HD based MP3 players are offering today, it is a nice feature that is included. The biggest problem with the feature is that I could not get any of my audio CD-Rs to read on the X-Box meaning that you will need to have the original audio CDs. Also since you are copying them from CD, it takes roughly 15 minutes to encode an entire CD to the hard drive. Guess you can't expect everything for $299.

Another nice feature is that the X-Box supports HDTV. HDTV is the TV of the future, and with the FCC mandating that broadcasting companies move to HDTV, it is only a matter of time before HDTVs are cost effective and the majority of us have them in our homes. X-Box support for HDTV means that the X-Box will not only look just as good on your HDTV, it means it will look even better!

Onto the games. I bought my X-Box with 3 games: Halo; Oddworld: Munch's Odyssey; and Dead or Alive 3. Now without getting into too much detail on each game (those are better left to their own epinion!) let me just say that graphically, the X-Box delivers. Dead or Alive 3 is to date the most impressive looking console game out there. The environments are beautiful and the characters are highly detailed. Considering that when Playstation 2 was first released the games looked marginally better and sometimes worse than Dreamcast games, I was pleasantly surprised to see the X-Box raise the bar on graphics. Halo looks equally beautiful, the textures on environments are very detailed. I found myself quite a few times staring at scenery because it was so good looking (the last time I did that was with the original Unreal). Character models in Halo are not the best out there, but they definitely are good. Of the 3 games, Oddworld is probably the worst looking. That isn't to say the game looks bad, it just isn't on par with DOA3 and Halo. However, the water in Oddworld is some of the best I have ever seen, and the lighting effects are some of the best out there.

One of the most interesting features of the X-Box is its ability to create a 3D sound environment using Dolby Digital 5.1 on the fly. Unlike movies which are pre-encoded and already know when to play a sound behind you or in front of you, games have to figure this out based on where you are standing (or flying etc..) at the time, and as you move the sound has to move appropriately. What's impressive is that Dolby Digital was not designed with the idea that it could be rendered in real time. Its meant to be encoded in some lab and then pressed onto a DVD for you to listen to. The specially designed Nvidia MCP chip is what allows the Dolby Digital to be rendered on the fly. It is very impressive. In Halo if you stand by a waterfall and start spinning around in circles, the sound pans around you. Listen to a cut-scene in Halo and when a ship flies overhead, it moves from the back to the front. The only strange thing that I have noticed is that voices do not actually come from the center channel. It seems like the center channel is not utilized at all, which suggests that technically Dolby Digital "4.1" is being used and not 5.1.. I don't know if this is a limitation of the Nvidia MCP or if it is just a problem with the launch games or my actual X-Box.

Unfortunately, Gameplay is where the 3 games I purchased lack. Its not that the games aren't fun, its just that there isn't anything that's already been done before. Of the 3, Halo is definitely the most fun. It immerses you in a great storyline, and you get the feeling that you're a solider fighting a war along-side other soldiers instead of being the "lone hero" like you are in so many other FPS's. The problem is that the game really is just another shoot 'em up FPS with a few neat features like driving vehicles. Dead Or Alive 3 is fun to play with friends, but the game is nothing more than Dead Or Alive 2 with better graphics and 2 new characters. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but there isn't anything new here. (It worked for Street Fighter, so I guess it could work for Dead Or Alive) :) ... Oddworld is a fun game that keeps you tied to the storyline well, but some of the tasks you must perform to reach your goal are repetitive and boring. Some missions go like this: Enter a room, rescue your friends, kill the badguy, run back to the first room to "save" your friends, enter the next room, repeat the same tasks until you get to the last room and then the level is over. This isn't to say that I'm not having fun playing the 3 games I purchased, the games just aren't revolutionary rather they seem more evolutionary.

Of the 3 major console makers, Microsoft is the only one right now with a clear online strategy. Set to launch in March of 2002, the X-Box is poised to take the front seat in online console gaming away from Sega. Because the X-Box comes with broadband built in (meaning every X-Box owner has the capability of hooking up to the Internet), developers are more likely to make games compatible with the online service. Details have not yet been announced but I would imagine Microsoft would not charge for the service similar to how they do not charge for the MSN Gaming Zone for the PC. The network port also makes for very easy system to system linkups. Unlike Playstation 2 which needs an expensive i.Link cable and an i.Link hub to hook up more than 2 systems the X-Box uses regular Ethernet cables. If you want to hook 2 systems up directly, simply get a cross-over ethernet cable. If you want to hook 4 systems up, simply purchase a cheap network hub or switch and 4 regular Ethernet cables and you're good to go! (Generally speaking, 10 foot ethernet cables will cost you less than $5.00 and crossover cables will cost about $1.00 more if you purchase from an online store).

Microsoft has an uphill battle to fight to make the X-Box successful. They started off on the right foot with a great feature set for the box, and they're heading in the right direction with online games. The problem is that not even Microsoft has a crystal ball to predict if the system will succeed. If any system has the potential to succeed however, its the X-Box. All Microsoft needs to do is get a few killer games in their library and the rest should follow suit. Will the X-Box succeed? It seems poised to do so, but only time will tell.