Gaming Through the Eyes of a Convert

With the recent article from Dominik Erbsland, I have made the decision to explain why Microsoft has been able to pry me from being one of the biggest Playstation fan boys ever. Ever since the release of the Xbox I always regretted purchasing the PS2. Yes it is a fun system and as much as I loved games from Capcom, SquareEnix, and Electronic Arts, I always felt like something was missing. The graphics for the Playstation were fine. Other than the fact that it couldn’t process textures worth crap, the animations were always fluid and the colors were vibrant. However, even the most beautiful games had smears and imperfections. If you want to look at video games at an artistic stand point, then you must give that to the Xbox. It’s been able to pull off graphics that have rivaled any computer on the market, (save for the custom computers that people with waaaaaay too much time make.) The Xbox amazed me for the first time when I saw how it could pull of textures that just made games “pop” out of the screen. While yes, there have been shoddy games that have been made for the system; the companies that really put their hearts into it make absolute gems. The Xbox was the complete package and I envied it.

I’m not saying that the Playstation was a bad system, but the Xbox has been clearly superior in every way. The Xbox is the complete package for all people that are gamers and are proud of it. Microsoft has taken the system seriously and they take their gamers seriously. They know that gamers are smart and they’re not going to allow lackluster service. Microsoft hit the bulls-eye perfectly with Xbox Live. It’s the perfect online gaming service and every game runs on the same service. The Playstation 2 relied on the individual companies to set up their own servers and there was no gaming community to speak of. The Playstation 2 was a system for those who just wanted to play by themselves, or for those who only played with other people locally. When I had my PS2 I never played on-line. Now that I’ve attained an Xbox 360 (and a 12-month XBOX LIVE subscription) you couldn’t even pay me to go offline. At first I thought XBOX LIVE was just a scam and I did my share of scoffing, but now that I’ve seen how it works, I’m completely sold. I’m sure that if anyone is given an hour with an Xbox and it’s repertoire of out-standing games, they would be sold as well. It’s a system that flat-out works, because you can create a buddy list that shows who’s online and offline. Not only that, but it shows you what game they are playing in real-time. If one would want to play, they would insert that game and be on their way.

With the coming of XBOX LIVE 360, that concept has been expanded on and improved in every way. The XBOX LIVE Market place is actually very intuitive. With game demos, gamer pictures, themes and videos it’s a great feature that works. Yes, you have to buy Microsoft points for some features; most of the very useful ones are completely free. One example is game demos. This is by far the most useful aspect of the XBOX LIVE Marketplace. Want to form your own opinion on a game that got screwed by IGN? Then download it, play around two or three levels and form your own opinion. You’re your own person, you never know a games worth until you try it. XBOX LIVE Arcade is another great feature. Got twenty minutes before you have to attend a meeting, but you must satisfy that “gamer’s itch?” Go to the arcade and play trial versions of very addicting games On-Demand or spend a couple hundred Microsoft Points for the full version. You can create a friends list, send messages or engage in voice chats. It’s all about being in a community, and true gamers belong on XBOX LIVE. It’s perfection in a box, plain and simple.

The one aspect that the Playstation wins over the Xbox is the design of the controller and the playability of all the games. The Playstation’s controller, while small for American’s hands, was designed perfectly so that every finger had a button to push. You didn’t have to rely on your thumbs for everything. With four trigger buttons, it took a lot of the anxiety of remembering where buttons were. The Xbox controller was a monstrosity when it first came out. It’s obscenely large size and the addition of the “black” and “white” buttons, made playing with it cumbersome at best. However, third party companies fixed this problem by releasing smaller versions, but the black and white buttons still irked gamers.

The Playstation 2 was a revolutionary console for its time, but perhaps it was released too soon. The Xbox and the Game Cube learned from what the PS2 was doing and they improved upon it. The Xbox was just the complete gaming experience because any game could easily be played on it. The graphics were very solid and truly “Next Gen” for the time. For people who didn’t have hundreds of dollars to spend on a custom PC, the Xbox was easily a great alternative. It delivered in every possible way. The world should thank Microsoft for creating such an experience.