Thanks to everybody who has rated my reviews, I have tried to return the favour. Please feel free to...
Thanks to everybody who has rated my reviews, I have tried to return the favour. Please feel free to rate my reviews and I will repay the favour. Thanks :-) - Blue now, thanks to everyone!
Member since:08.04.2007
Reviews:13
Members who trust:14
I have had my xbox 360 since launch day two years ago, and up untill 3 months ago i was not living in accomodation that was suitable to pay for the installation of a broadband line (short term lease). When i had the oppurtunity to use xbox live i was more curious than excited. Opting against paying Microsoft over fifty pounds for a wireless adapter i chose to get a simple network cable (£10 from ebay) and use the xbox via a wired connection. The results have beeen fantastic, i recieve much higher connection speeds than many of my rival sonline even when there are another 4 people sharing the connection, as we live around a hour from manchester, we cannot get a faster connection than 2mb and even with this connection i am able to better the majority of other players connection speeds. This is also testement to the low speed of the wireless adapter and how it could become a bottleneck to an xbox live connection.
The concept of xbox live is simple, once you have bettered the computers AI, you can test how good you really are in the big bad world against some of the worlds best. But the service offers so much more, because it is a microsoft concept, you have all the latest messaging features of MSN Messenger. This allows all of your contacts to see when you are playing on your xbox, and even what game you are playing (this helps them from distracting you in the middle of a game).
I currently own 9 xbox 360 games
and with the exception of one, they have become like brand new games since i connected to xbox live. The online service adds a whole new dimension to tired games that i had already completed and had not played for a while. Whilst many have an online multiplayer feature, almost every game has some kind of downloadable content that will allow you to add new missions, cars, weapons or characters to your games. Fantastic!
The online multiplayer setup has changed since the xbox live for the origional xbox. There are now two main modes of play Ranked Matches and Player Matches. A ranked match keeps a tally on your score and attempts to match you with a player of a similar ability, this is tough at first because the system doesnt know how good you are you can get matched against a few players who are way above your ability, but they get better in time. A player match is much more random with anybody being allowed to join matches (at the hosts discrestion) and players of all abilities able to play each other. The idea being that you can play your friends, regardless of how good or bad you all are. The system works, games like PGR3 are immense fun online and can provide hours of extra fun to a game. Microsoft has also added the voice chat feature, this allows anybody with a communicator headset to chat to one another whilst in the lobby before a game and also whilst actually playing. In games like Gears Of War you can communicate with the other members of your team as though you are really there with a radio! This really does enhance the whole expirience massively, however if you do not have a communicator headset, the voices of the other players come through your television speakers, this is novel at first but soon gets annoying especially if you end up playing a game with an immature person who seems to want to spend more time swearing at other gamers than playing the games. At least if this is coming through the headset you can turn it off, and cut out the offender. On this note, microsoft has also added a complaints system to give the rest of us a means to report abuse of the system to them, the list of unacceptable beahviour includes aggressive behaviour, racism, Unsporting behaviour and foul language. It basically means that you can choose to avoid players who behave poorly, and if enough people do so then microsoft will ban the use of thier console upon the xbox live service.
The initial setup of the service is easy and the xbox does the majority of tests for you. We use a BT Homehub which is listed as one of the most diffucult to setup and i encoutered no problems whatsoever. Once you are in you will be asked to setup your gamertag, once this is done then you are off. The service gives you an unlimited silver subscription, however this will not allow multiplayer untill upgraded to the gold subscription. You can purchase the 12 month subscription on a debit/credit card via the xbox, but this cost £50 and the 12 month cards can be purchased for as little as £33 if you serach around (amazon is a good place to start).
The dashboard is very much the same as the xboxs own menu system and is the same as the user is uesd to, only adding an extra tab for the xbox live marketplace. This also gives you acces to the xbox live arcade where you can download classic games such as double dragon, street fighter 2 and mortal kombat. Microsoft use a points system to charge for these games and other downloadable content and they can be purchased on a card from a store or online via a debit/credit card. I personally have downloaded the 1980's coin op version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that i spent hours playing as a child in the arcade. The majority of games are multiplayer enabled so in you can fight with/against people from around the world.
The overall speed of the system depends on the speed of your connection. I achieve excellent download speeds and connection speeds even when the service is busy, Microsoft has clearly spent a great deal to ensure that the service is in tip top shape, and i would advise anybody who achieves a choppy game expirience or poor connecion speed, to first look at thier own connection before looking at the service. The only exception to this is Electronic Arts games such as Fifa, Fight Night and NHL. The reason for this is that EA retains the servers that the games are played on and because of this some of the older games do not get the attention that the newer games do.
I have had xbox live for over 3 months now and i have never had any kind of problems with it, fearing the worst when i was ready to set it up, i read most of microsofts help documentation regarding setup and operation of xbox live and it was excellent, it showed things in clear simple steps that anybody could follow guides the user through slowly.
Microsoft has had many years of expirience in providing help and support for its huge range of products, and it shows! The way that it set its self out when giving support of the xbox has been exemplory.
Overall i would say that without this service, your xbox is only using a small percentage of its full potential, and once you have tried the service you will be hooked as it is very addictive. I would recommend the service to anybody who has, or is thinking of buying an xbox 360.
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How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Advantages: Online multiplayer, priviledges downloads Disadvantages: Price a little daunting at first, additional hardware required, PS3 online is free
exceptional by (3%):
very helpful by (97%):
