I went this morning, and stayed for about 20 minutes, during which time I...
- ... played Kameo. It's a pretty obvious platformer with not very pretty art direction. Disappointing in the first two minutes, so I put it down and scratched it off my list. Harsh, eh?
- Looked at Project Gotham Racing. Nothing new here, although very, very shiny. Gotham TV looks like it could be interesting - watching what your friends are doing. Good. We like voyeurism.
- Poked at Dead or Alive, but the demo only allowed 2-player versus, and I was on my own. Damnit, I LOVE kicking games.
- Played Quake 4. I hate playing FPSes with sticks. It's like controlling a particularly stupid and slow-moving robot with no peripheral vision. Lumbered about bumping into walls for a while. It's not a patch on mouse and keyboard: and this is where the Revolution could really change the system - please Nintendo, please be developing something in the FPS genre!
- Crashed Condemned: Criminal Origins. Heh heh, woops. This game looks like it has potential (if you like films like Se7en), but there's the sticks thing again. Hmm, and the crashing.

- Played Perfect Dark Zero. See above about sticks. Looks a bit like Quake 2, but blueish. It's nice having a girl as the hero though - good catsuit. Might get this one.
- Watched a bunch of people playing a football game. Almost fell asleep standing up. It was the most popular game in the room though. Fifa 2006, I think. I couldn't get past the "There's No I In Team But There Is An EA" tagline.

- Got told off for taking pictures.
- Waited for the 12-year-old and his mum to get off the only stand that I could see with King Kong on it. Gave up and left, to find this parked outside:
Wahaha! Everyone knows that a Hummer is a penis replacement. The security guys kept stroking it. I couldn't stop laughing.
Overall - the XBox 360 is a pretty machine. It's bigger than you think, but smaller than the black box, and still twice the size of the Ps2. Slightly less macho than the original XBox, but the old tendencies are still hovering around the edges with the Hummer and the number of FPSes. The games have truly beautiful backgrounds, but facial animations are no better yet, nor is most of the voice acting (this will change over time, of course - the stuff coming out on the PS2 these days is streets ahead of what came out at its own launch back in 2000).
The titles lineup is a bit thin and samey, except for the stuff that's very Live'd up. But there wasn't someone on hand doing Live demos, which was a pity because it's by far the most interesting bit about the XBox 360, and also the bit I haven't seen enough of. As a launch event, it was clearly geared towards the hardcore - there was no handholding, no greeting, and very, very low (and green) lighting. Casual gamers in the second wave, I expect.
It's an interesting beast, this box: expect many firmware upgrades as functions are added (or removed, as seems to be the tendency) and flaws are ironed out. And yes - possibly lots of crashing. Dear old Microsoft.
Tonight I shall dream in green.
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