Thursday, December 22, 2005
Yes Ozair, I caved.
I've finished holiday shopping and donations to charity, so I might as well get my own present.
If you're still hoping to buy an XBox 360 as a holiday gift, skip the stores and avoid eBay. I picked one up from one of a dozen sellers on RedFlagDeals.com in the local Toronto area. Even at $600 CND for the premium system, it's only $25 more than the retail price after taxes. Twenty-five dollars is well worth the convenience of not lining up in the freezing cold morning in front of the local Best Buy.
I won't repeat the reviews out on the web. Needless to say, if you have an HDTV, you owe it to yourself to buy this system. Just watching high definition movie trailers makes you appreciate your home theatre setup that much more. I'm still amazed that Microsoft, the same company that makes some of the buggiest software in the world, can pull off such an amazing machine.
Ironically, I'm addicted to a $5 game that I downloaded off XBox Live Arcade: Geometry Wars. The graphics look like an acid trip and it's as addictive as crack. I only managed 100,000 points on my first few tries; this guy got 2.1 million points.
If you're lucky enough to have one, here's a few tips to get you started:
I've finished holiday shopping and donations to charity, so I might as well get my own present.
If you're still hoping to buy an XBox 360 as a holiday gift, skip the stores and avoid eBay. I picked one up from one of a dozen sellers on RedFlagDeals.com in the local Toronto area. Even at $600 CND for the premium system, it's only $25 more than the retail price after taxes. Twenty-five dollars is well worth the convenience of not lining up in the freezing cold morning in front of the local Best Buy.
I won't repeat the reviews out on the web. Needless to say, if you have an HDTV, you owe it to yourself to buy this system. Just watching high definition movie trailers makes you appreciate your home theatre setup that much more. I'm still amazed that Microsoft, the same company that makes some of the buggiest software in the world, can pull off such an amazing machine.
Ironically, I'm addicted to a $5 game that I downloaded off XBox Live Arcade: Geometry Wars. The graphics look like an acid trip and it's as addictive as crack. I only managed 100,000 points on my first few tries; this guy got 2.1 million points.
If you're lucky enough to have one, here's a few tips to get you started:
- Take the protective plastic tape off the DVD drive right away. Otherwise, the drive will not open when you hit Eject.
- For some reason, the system is set to 480p (regular television) by default. Make sure that the resolution is set to either 720p or 1080i for an HDTV.
- Click the Ring of Light (the half dome in the middle on your controller) to activate the XBox Guide. You can send messages and play music saved onto the hard drive.
- In the XBox Guide, the Personal Options option allows you to change the theme as well; this took me hours to figure out.
- Plug in an iPod to copy music over to the 360.
- Plug in a regular USB keyboard instead of typing one letter at a time with your controller.
