well apparently other stores have had other playable demos already -- wlj tried several - but the local one here CH, NC didn't have any others.

Tuan Jim

Buying the very first shipment of any systems is like playing with fire though.

I've found two X-Box systems in my town so far. One at Kay-Bee was physically there, but they claimed it was missing come vital component to amke the machine run -- from what I've seen, I wonder if it wasn't just crashing. But, I got to test the controller, I personally loved it. Yes, it's big and chucky and doesn't really look good to the eye, and it feels just that big in your hands, but everything is easy to reach and seems to have a really good feel to it. Thumbs up.

At EB, I got to actually "play" with an X-Box, and by that, I mean I got to watch the demos. Didn't get to see as much as I'd like, because the wife was with me, but here's a run down.

Gotham Street Racing : Very nice, I'd consider getting it if the cars handle as well as they look (handling was a problem with MSR). It was also very cool to finally see licensed cars that take damage and look like hell when you've finished your race -- if you were careless with them. Adds a touch of realism I've not seen before. The graphics were, underwhelming... maybe I'm jaded by my PC or GT3 on PS2, but I just wasn't overly impressed. Not bad, just not good -- but seeing as how the graphics look SO much better in print, and so off from the other games I have to wonder if this is simply a demo and the actual game looks better.

Shrek : This was one that even the wife wanted to play. Looks cool and the demo even had a bit of humor in it, though there was no dialog. Looks like Shrek.

DOA3 : At first I was disappointed. It just didn't blow me away like I thought it would or been told it would. Then I started really looking at the game, the backgrounds, the fluidity of movement, the characters -- this one actually looks very good, and the more I looked at it, the more I liked it. I wanted to go back and look at the other games in this fashion, looking for the subtle stuff and not the "oh my God" stuff, but I had to leave.

-

I was a little disappointed by the DOA3 clip on the tv at first because of the resolution difference between tv, and all the clips I've seen on the computer. Than I realized, that if you have the hardware, you can play it in 1920x1080. That makes me feel better. Barely any of my PC games even have that resolution as an option, although my machine couldn't run it at that if I tried.

That makes me feel a little better. I'll probably be using it on a normal tv most of the time, but I'll definitely check it out on my monitor as well -- just wish it was bigger.

Tuan Jim

I'm with you.
Damn! I can't wait for someone to make a component-to-VGA convertor.

I checked out the demo at Target and the problem was the little tv screen they used was absolutely horrible. It was small, incredibly blurry, and seemed to have the edges cut off. I think their choice of display is the main reason the games don't have as much wow-factor.