Joel Szerlip emerges from the chaos of Zero Hour and puts the brand-spanking new Xbox 360 to the test. He shares with us on what works, what doesn't and why it will change the face of video games in the future.

Introduction

Well the next generation of consoles is now officially here, marking the beginning of a new era in terms of hardware technology and gaming ideas. The first console out of the gate in this next generation is one from Microsoft in the Xbox 360, which tries to take its first mover advantage by offering gamers a more immersive online experience and improving the overall design of there new console. So can Microsoft manage to create a console that you should be looking all over to go out and purchase? Or is this really what Sony called the Xbox 1.5? Read our hands on look of the Microsoft Xbox 360 to find out!

Design

One of the big drawbacks to the original Xbox was its design, which was one of the core reasons for its lack of success in countries outside of the United States. The Xbox is of course the big black ugly box that quite possibly could be one of the worst looking consoles ever. To this day people are still making fun of how bad the console looked. Well now Microsoft has decided to go along with the new glossy white fad that was made popular with the Apple iPod, and I take it by the design of the new 360, that Microsoft had no shame with going what has proven to work.

The design of the 360 itself is a considerable amount smaller in size and weight compared to the previous Xbox. The front panel is equipped with a removable faceplate that you can customize to your heart's content with plenty to choose from. This was a very smart choice by Microsoft as this really allows making a much more custom look to your console, rather then having everyone's look the same.

The front of the box has the ring of light, which is your Power button, and also shows what controllers are in use. Therefore you can see what wireless controllers are connected to your Xbox 360. And let me just regress a bit by just stating that it is truly an extremely nice feeling to be able to have all wireless controllers and not to have to worry about the cords snaking on the floor.

Moving on the rest of the 360's design, I must say that the front hidden USB ports are a very nice touch, while everything else gets relocated at the back. I must say that the design of the 360 is such a leap ahead of where the Xbox was when it was released, that there is literally no comparison. The design is curvy; it's sleek, it's sexy, it's really every positive word you could think of. I have to say that Microsoft got the thumbs up with the design of the 360.

Testing

Now of course that's all well and great, the design is only half the battle, but the big question is, how did Microsoft do with the hardware and the launch titles? So let's start by just booting the 360 up with the new menu system. The new menu system is sleek, and is extremely easy to use. You have different tabs for different tasks, so you will be able to put your own music (if you purchase the full system with the HD), pictures, movies, and all sorts of goodies. The 360 has some parental settings on the box and some other nice little features that help as well. I think what I was most impressed with right away was the ease of using the new system. Everything throughout works seamlessly and the menus are truly beautifully put together.

I think the big question on everyone's mind was is the Xbox 360 next gen? My answer is actually a little mixed. When I look at the 360, I see a console that is truly a step in the right direction ahead of where we are with the current three (PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube), but the step is of course nowhere near as big of a leap as we saw from the Playstation and the Nintendo 64 to the current set of consoles. I have had the chance to play games like Call of Duty 2, NBA Live 06, Kameo, Gun, and what I have found is to be pretty mixed results.

Launch titles for the most part, barring few exceptions of course, are not usually the best way to measure whether the console is as good as people say it is. But being that is all we have to judge at this point here are some things I will bring to the table. First off, all the games I played thus far have not proven to be all that big of changes, gameplay-wise. Mainly what I have seen is the same sort of experiences that we saw on the current generation of consoles, only with much higher quality graphics and more premium prices.

The 360 has done a nice job however of making it very easy to allow you to jump right out of your game and to see what your friends are doing on Live, and just sit back and listen to some music. I am just very impressed with how well the 360 allows you to go from playing to checking Live, and then going straight into your game again. After putting the 360 through some nice grueling tests, I must say that the console held up well. The design was beautiful, and the features are strong and offer up plenty of room to grow in the future.

A Look to the Future

Like I mentioned, it is hard to judge from the launch titles where the direction of the Xbox 360 will end up. But as of November 22, 2005, I will take sometime to look into how I foresee the future of the console to go. As it stands right now, it seems as though the Xbox 360 has some work ahead of it. There is no killer games like Halo for the 360 (that I have seen thus far) that will keep this console afloat, so there is still a need for a consistent amount of good games. Microsoft will need to consistently meet demands of consumers for plenty of demos on Xbox Live Marketplace and plenty of new games to choose from for Xbox Live Arcade.

What separated the Xbox from its competition were really two things, the Halo franchise and Xbox Live. Without either of those, we might not be talking about a 360 right now from Microsoft. Microsoft will need to succeed with both Halo 3 and the further development of Xbox Live with more tournament ideas, more co-op, and just a very consistent flow of online gameplay. If developers can start giving us more and more, and begin using more and more of the power behind the Xbox 360, I think that there should be a very bright future for the Microsoft Xbox 360.