The New Xbox Experience: Newer Isn’t Always Better (Part I of II)

Welcome to my review and thoughts on the New Xbox Experience, a complete redesign of the Xbox 360 user interface, which focused mainly on the dashboard. So, let me begin with a little background.

Announced at E3 2008, the New Xbox Experience (or NXE) was shown as a completely new dashboard design for the Xbox 360, for which all Xbox Live users, both gold and silver, would be receiving. Some major new features include the ability to stream Netflix movies to the 360, the addition of parties (you will learn more later), new visual account representation with Avatars (over the previous Gamer Picture system (which still exists)), as well as the ability to copy a game disk to the hard drive for decreased loading times when booting and playing the game.

So, now that all of the background information is done, let’s jump right into it. Oh yea, there is a cool video that shows when you first install the NXE, but I’m not going to write about it.

The New Dashboard – Clean, Yet Not Concise

I often use the phrase ‘clean and concise’ for designs, either on the internet or with other software and applications. While the new Dashboard is clean, and extremely appealing, the design is far from concise and minimalist. To begin with, as soon as you start up the 360 (if your system is set to go to the Dashboard and not boot into the disk, as well as not to automatically log in, like mine) you end up on the main channel for Xbox 360 use, the My Xbox channel. Of note is the fact that as of now, you cannot set a default channel (say, if you wanted to have Friends be default), which I hope gets added in a future update. Once you choose your account and log in, you end up on the Spotlight channel, which is in essence is a billboard of random game and product advertisements. This is not acceptable, not at all. The original Dashboard had some small advertisements, but to dedicate an entire channel to listing some of the most recently released games, movies, products and the like, and then to make it the default channel with no choice in changing it is total crap, Microsoft. Really. So, once you go back up to the My Xbox channel (yes, they stole the name from the Wii, I know), you are greeted with 8 selections, represented horizontally like, well, Cover Flow, ironically. The first selection is the ability to play the current game in the drive (and I assume the movie or whatnot if you have one of those in the drive), and it will display a picture of the game (for Gears of War 2, the current game in my drive, it is a picture of Marcus holding COG tags) if you recognize things visually. The second option is your profile and profile settings, which I will get to next. The third item is your game library, which shows a picture of your three most recently played games. Selecting this will show a list of your recent games, as well as a list of your entire game collection, sorted by various categories including All Games, Demos, and Arcade games. There is also a third panel which displays the top four downloads on the marketplace, as well as a link to the store to view all of the content. The rest of the My Xbox channel contains links to various libraries of Music, Videos, Pictures, as well as Windows Media Center and System Settings. I will be covering Media in a separate topic. So, now we travel on to the world of Avatars and profiles.

Avatars and Profiles – Do I Look Feminine to You?

By selecting your profile from the My Xbox channel, you travel to a new ‘mini dashboard’ of sorts, with various panels once again laid out in a Cover Flow-esque view. The first panel allows you to control and edit all aspects of your profile, as well as displaying a link to messages (and the number of unread items you have in your mailbox). From this panel you can edit your profile, including your Bio and Location, Gamer Picture, Motto, and various other settings and features. The third item allows you to customize and edit your Avatar (which, yes, is coming up!). The rest of the list contains the ability to change your theme, manage your account, and switch signed in profiles. Now, while all of this stares you in the face, your avatar just stands there, looking around and all, essentially wasting RAM and graphical rendering ability. Oh well. There are also other panels, which can number anywhere from zero to however many games you have played on your Xbox 360. Yes, apparently every one of them (as far as I can tell. The game at the back of the list, Gears of War (1) was last played on December 28th, 2007). This is somewhat pointless, since finding the exact game you want is impossible without searching through manually. These panels display your achievement data for the specific game, as well as some stats regarding its portion of your overall gamer score (which is pretty neat, in my opinion). But yes, now on to avatars.

Avatars are, in essence, a 3D representation of you on Xbox, which will allow everyone to see what you look like. Well, that is if everyone makes themselves look like how they actually look, which may or may not happen. But, none the less, I designed mine to look like me (as close as I could get).



As you can see, I have a green t-shirt, long hair, shorts, and some white sneakers. I am also wearing a green ring on my (from your perspective) left hand, but it really isn’t visible. Anyway, my question to you is: ‘Do I look feminine to you?’. Yes, this avatar definitely does. You see, if you don’t want to look like a woman, make yourself fatter. If you, like me, are somewhat skinny, then you’re going to end up looking like a woman. Look at the face. I look like an anime girl. Jesus help me. Besides the fact that I look like a girl, Avatar customization is great. Below is a list of all possible customizations:

Body:

Hair - 90
Eyes - 45
Eyebrows - 27
Ears - 9
Nose - 18
Facial Hair - 18
Facial Features - 27
Chin - 9
Mouth - 27
Skin Color - 18 shades


Clothing:

Tops (Shirts) - 31
Headwear - 8
Eye Shadow - 27 shades
Lip Color - 27 shades
Bottoms (Pants/Shorts) - 12
Glasses - 13 pairs
Earrings - 13
Dress Up Clothes - 2
Shoes - 11
Body Accessories - 22

I assume that the list will just keep growing and growing, and I hope it does.

Tomorrow: Part II: Media, Disk Copying and Final Thoughts 09:17 PM

NXE: Hands On - Coming Soon

I have had quite a week, and have yet to get around to writing a review of the New Xbox Exeperience, which I have been testing. It comes out on Wednesday the 19th (of November) for all Xbox 360 owners, so I hope to post the article tonight, tomorrow afternoon at the latest. In the meantime, feel free to play some Gears of War 2. 01:53 PM

Everlong

You know that song by the Foo Fighters, called Everlong? Yea, it rocks. Not only do I rock out to it on Guitar Hero 4, but it is also somewhat non-extreme to play on the guitar. That being said, I have no intention of learning how to play it. I have abandoned all hope of picking up the guitar again, and my rock music escapades are pretty much limited to video games that make me feel like a rock star. Well, at least we won't miss the rock star glasses. Well, unless if they turn you on. 10:31 PM

That Fag Over at Computerworld Is At It Again

Jesus Christ, when will Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols over at Computerworld blogs learn to shut the hell up? He knows nothing about what he talks about, and needs to stop being so god damn biased. His latest article, entitled "The big Windows 7 lie", is pretty much chicken scratch shit on my computer monitor. First off, he quotes various tests and benchmarks from a build of Windows 7, that, today, is over two months old. The benchmarks he links to are from Milestone 3, aka build 6780, while we have build 6801 released to developers now and build 6933 having been demonstrated two weeks ago to the public, with a beta release coming soon. So, if you want to discuss benchmarks, use the latest available build, not one that is over two months old. Honestly, the build has been out for two weeks. It doesn't take that long for new benchmarks and tests to be performed, so either get new results from someone else or get off your lazy ass and do it yourself.

Secondly, he goes on to talk about how Windows 7 is nothing more than a tweaked version of Vista. Once again, a pile of shit. Windows 7 brings several new improvements across the user interface and end user features. You know that 7 has several key user interface changes, including the recoloring (thank the Lord) of the toolbars, as well as a whole new notification tray area, which, in my opinion, is an amazing feature. Oh, and you know libraries? They are great. Want all of your movies in one spot? Libraries does it. Photos? Done. Music, documents, and more? Yes, done. Of course, you know, this is just a tweaked Vista...

Please, Mr. Vaughan-Nichols, for the love of God, please stop being such a biased, shit spitting journalist. You should be ashamed at the lies you are talking. Oh, and please stop the whole 'Ubuntu Linux Desktop Revolution' bull shit (that title, the ULDR, is my own personal creation), because it is not going to happen. Please, shut up. 06:06 PM

Gears of War 2: Epic.

So I bought Gears of War 2 yesterday (from here on out, I'm just calling it Gears 2), after going back and forth about doing it. Now I know pretty much every active gamer loves Gears of War, but I am sorry, I did not care for the first one. But, as of now, that is not the case with Gears 2. The first thing is single player: brilliant. I am no fan of the whole 'cover' system (mainly because it is non-existent in first person shooters, my main genre), but for a third person game like Gears it is useful. In Gears 2, I find myself jumping to walls less often than before, which isn't a bad thing. In the first game, I found myself hugging the wall when I didn't want to, which really turned me off of the entire cover system. As I said, Gears 2 fixed this issue very well. As for online, I have not played long enough to be able to give you a major push to get the game, but so far, it has been fun, not Call of Duty 2 amazing, but fun. I want to play a few more rounds of Horde before I go ahead and say buy it, but get your money ready ;).
I also purchased Guitar Hero (4): World Tour a couple of weeks ago. I decided against buying the entire kit (guitar, drums, and microphone) because I really only like to rock it out on the guitar, but I may get around to purchasing the drums and mic when I get some extra cash. I haven't "beaten" the game yet, as in completing the single player campaign, but I am about 3/4 of the way through that. I don't find myself playing single player very often, I just prefer to pick some songs (you can select up to six to play in a single gig) in Quickplay, which is where the fun is really at.

Wow, that is the most I have written about gaming in a very long time :P. Well, I'll try and post when I can. If I go back to school tomorrow, Indoor Track starts up, so I won't have as much free time as I have the past few weeks. See ya. 03:17 PM