Decided to get myself another console for the bedroom, mainly to take advantage of the HD tv in there, and got myself a 360.

First impressions are that I will certainly get my money's worth, but the console itself is a right pain to do anything with.

It feels cheap in its construction, very built down to a price. But the blade interface is lovely, far better than the PS3's... Er, scratch that, as I just updated to the new system and that is TERRIBLE!!!!!!

The controller is great, and I can see why people rate them better than the PS3 controller... BUT... What if you're left-handed? Not quite so comfortable or natural then, I would imagine.

The major disappointment is how bleedin' awkward it was to get it playing anything other than WMV format movies. You would have assumed it would have been included in the updates, but no... you have to download an optional media pack.

And as for putting music or movies on the console.... What a right royal pain in the a$$ that is. Why can't I simply copy my mp3 files from my hard drive?

Noooo, say M$, you must burn onto a disk because otherwise they could be downloaded files...

Same with movies... AAAARGH!!!

And don't even get me started on going wireless!!!!

Ah well, at least the games are good.

On that front, what decent RPGs would you recommend for the 360... Preferably ones with turn based combat as I prefer that style.
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What about the noise you didn't mention that.

I use Twonky Media Server to stream movies and music, basically for the PS3, but I also tested it with the 360 and it works fine as well.

Good RPGs would be Lost Odyssey or perhaps Blue Dragon. Star Ocean: The Last Hope would also be one to try, but the combat isn't turn based, as it isn't for Eternal Sonata either.
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When you live next door to a busy train station, having a Harrier Jump Jet parked in your bedroom is nothing...

Actually, I quickly blanked out the drive noise.

I don't want to go through the hassle of streaming, as my PC that I would be streaming from uses the very same TV as the 360... and that would be daft!

I was more hoping of using it to store music and videos so I didn't need to turn on the TV and the PC and the external drives and all the other gubbins attached just so I could watch an avi file in the bedroom...

Oh well, guess I will just make do, until M$ see the error of their ways or the world ends... whichever happens sooner!
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I never tried it, but doesn't it really work to copy avi's and mp3's to the 360 HDD? You can play them from an external HDD, that works, but as you don't want to do that, I don't know what else you could do?
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I have no problems doing that, but I do like to set up playlists for different music groups that seem to fit in with certain games, and you can't save the playlist if you are using an external drive... Which means I have to go in and set it all up each time, which is a pain when you are selecting a couple of hundred tunes.
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I just read this somewhere:

Here's the link, don't know if it's helpful as I cannot access the site due to Websense.
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Yep, that's exactly the thing that irritates me.
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The 360 is not a particularly good media player. I have it set up for streaming from my vista PC and annoingly it will play some formats through the regular shell, but not through the actual 'media centre' programme on the 360, and vice versa.

Crackdown is an ace game, worth checking out. Also get on with some community based gaming for fun and lulz. A good crowd are the (former WoS forumers) bezzies at www.beexcellenttoeachother.com
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I have Crackdown and that is a laugh. Also playing Mass Effect at the moment, and that is quite enjoyable (shame about all the graphical glitches, though)

I also have Magic: The Gathering on there (as well as a version on my PSP), but as I don't currently have internet and I am resolutely opposed to paying to play online, I only have intermittent access to xbox live.
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Mass Effect is a great game. Are there a lot of graphical glitches on the 360 version? I've got the PC version and it runs perfectly. There was an expansion and an upgrade patch for the PC version that fixed some graphical bugs so maybe the 360 version had a similar patch update? Although being without internet that could be a problem updating the game.

It seems console and PC game designers take for granted that everyone is automatically connected to the internet and can download large files to update and patch their software. But they are a lot of people without internet at all, and many still on dialup. I know of a few I work with still on 56k (and I can't convince them to upgrade to broadband for a similar price!).
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