Try and Pry it...

away from my cold dead hands, shall be my phrase for my X-Box.

Let me tell you a little campfire story. Gathr around kiddies, for this is the days events for November the 15th, 2001, for one small boy in a small city in East Nebraska.

Let\'s see, the day started at 5am, like normal. Only For some reason (gee, I wonder what that could\'ve been!) I didn\'t feel like attending school today. I told my mom I didn\'t feel like going and went back to bed. I fell asleep about half an hour later. I got up at a nice 10am and checked the net for any launch stories, horror stories, game recs, etc. I made a few posts on my various boards and signed off to take a shower, I had to go to work at 1:15. I showered, threw my work clothing on and ran out the door. It was around 12 at this time. I would end up 45 minutes early at work because I stopped to get some Taco Bell.

When I got there, I went straight for the media info. desk, where my bud Travis was. I asked how the day was and he told me the gist of it: around 35 people lined up. We got 106 in and we had about 20 left when I got there. WE HAD SOME LEFT!!! I hurried back out and cashed my check, paid in full for the system and a few games I will get more into detail with a little later. While I was off-clock I played some THPS3 and NFL Fever.

I clocked in about 5 minutes early and shot to the floor, I wanted to sell those remaining XBox\'s and I am THE games guy at Best Buy (duh!). about 1 person every 10 minutes would come around, and non-chalantly ask if we had any XBoxs left. I told them we did and people were SHOCKED! We keep them behind the customer service desk so people couldnt see them. Some people were so happy! Nebraska Furniture Mart (our biggest competitor) got 250 XBoxs and sold out of systems and accessories before 12pm! We still had many controllers, games, etc! We finally sold out around 4 pm! GODD

We also had a deal for yesterday: buy Metal Gear Solid and the Strategy guide, get ten bucks off. We got 144 copies in...We had 8 left at the end of the day! We had about 60 strategy guides at the beginning, about 15 left at close!

   This guy came in for MGS2 and PS2. He told he was basically buying a PS2 just for MGS2. I said "yeah, I get that from people every now and then" he kind of laughed and said he heard goo things about GTA3 but that was about it. So I told him, IMO[/i], That is about right. He told me he really liked the first and heard the second was better. I will summarize our conversation. Perhaps only an old gamer or a Sega fan can TRULY appreciate our conversation. from now on he will be C, I will be E

C - "So how did XBox do today, it came out today, right?"

E - "Oh yeah, we sold the last one like 2 hours ago"

C - "Nice, people line up outside? how many you guys get in?"

E - "about  30 people lined up before the opening. I cant say just how many consoles we had, but it was a triple digit number."

(I think the guy new where I was coming from.

E - "Yeah, you know MGS2 is coming out for X-Box, I believe enhanced in some way."

C - "Really?!?!!? When is that coming out?"

E - "TBA, as of yet, expect like 8 months or more though. Of course you have waited this long to play MGS2, you might wanna get an X-Box if more games interest you on it."

C - "I have been gone from games for like 2 years, so I really don\'t know what is on X-Box besides Halo."

E - "Yeah, Halo is definitely THE game to buy at launch. It got as good a score as MGS2 did from gamespot"

C - "You guys have any of those?"

E - "Sold out, we had like 60 to 70 and we sold those QUICK!"

C - "Well, what games are coming out for X-Box? Sooner hopefully!"

E - "Well, Sega is defintely choosing X-box as their favorite system. If you like the non-Sonic team games you should be very happy. Let\'s see, some of the games coming out are Panzer Dragoon X (His MOUTH DROPS!! I get an excitement shiver. I knew he shared the same love for games that I did!) You like Panzer Dragoon?!!?!!?"

C - "Beneath NiGHTS and Dark Savior, Panzer Dragoon Saga is my favorite game of all time!!"

E - "Awesome! how much did you pay? I payed like 100 for mine on eBAY! d\'oh!"

C - "hehehe, Toys R Us was clearancing their Saturn games out when it came out and I got the last copy in stock in Omaha! I called from work and had them hold it while I lied to the boss saying I had a family emergency!"

E - "Lucky guy!"

C - "Some of the other games are Phantasy Star Online Ver. 2, Outrun 2, Crazy Taxi Next, House of the Dead 3, Virtua Cop 3, Shenmue II, Streets of Rage 4 and Shinobi 5 are in development, so says the evil hinting of a Sega employee I know."

(The guy is floored!)

we talked for like half an hour more. finally he says he will just wait fro X_Box, since he is a poor college student, he can only afford one system, XBox has Panzer Dragoon, make the connection? We talked about Master System, Netlink, Saturn for $399 (we both got it at that price!), Genny, etc, etc, here I find an equal in my love for games in my own hometown, I am definitely gonna hook up with this some time to play some GAMES, real games where you can appreciate the vision the developer had. I am talking Shenmue, NiGHTS, PDS, Shining Force III, Virtua Fighter 2, Guardian Heroes, etc!

I was supposed to be working for all that time and I just stood around talking to this guy for the longest time!

Anybody who read the entire section above, thank you, for you have allowed me to post my thoughts and experiences on one of my favortie days of the past few years!

NOW TO MY REVIEW OF XBOX, The LAUNCH, THE GAMES, etc

the above header is for the short attention span people out there, who sip through the post looking for stuf.

I got off at close and got home at about 10:30, set my X-Box up. It is heavy I know it sunds kind of dumb saying it, but it is HEAVY!I made room for it, in a spot I had been clearing for a couple days, I strangely enough, consider it to be Sega enough, I put in with my Sega section, setting it next to my Saturn, which is of comparable size alomost

I bought Halo, Dead or Alive 3, and Project Gotham.


Halo - what can I say about this game that hasn\'t been said before? Beautifl? taken! stunning? taken! excellent? no doubt about it taken! This game is everything you want in a launch game and more! It has great graphics, sound, gameplay, storyline,etc! The controls were a little goofy to get used to at first, and not surprisingly enough, not MoH controls! But I got used to them in about an hour of playing (I am set in my ways!), and the game played great!!! I definitely recommend you guys picking this game up, whether you gt X-Box or have a high end PC, GET IT!!!

DOA3 - I am sorry, but this game tries to hard. and succeeds! This may be a poor mans Virtua Fighter, but it is a VERY good one! I have actually given this game some time to get controls down and moves down. I tplays very smoothly and features some of the best real-time cinematics ever! Knocking someone out of a building this time is like watching a CG movie of someone falling! Yes, it is THAT good! Smacking someone up side a wall and float beating them to death is very nice! I can imagine me and some buds playing this game EXTENSIVELY before VF4 rolls around!! People who were saying it doesn\'t look as good as the pics are as dumb as Nigs Reborn. The game looks incredible and the character endings are great to boot, although the game still doesnt feature a drop of sense! Excellent title, very fun to play, and NOT just for it\'s graphics!

Project Gotham - I haven\'t gotten too involved with PG as of yet, because Halo, DOA3, and SF Zero 3 on Saturn have been eating my time! The game features great graphics with great MSR gameplay. If you didn\'t like MSR, you won\'t like this. The graphics are top notch and the kudos system makes me believe I will be playing this one a while!


the controller - rocks! I can\'t believe people ***** about this! It is a great controller that fits in your hand. Sure, it is thick, but I like em thick! (eh, eh?) The black and white buttons are very accessible for Halo, but havent used them for the other games. There is no way I an see me hitting a wrong button, as I am an intelligent, alive person, I can see how a brain dead zombie could mash all 4 buttons at once, but even in a heated DOA3 match, my thumb hit the right buttons.

The system - well, someone got their wish, The jewel glows with two LEDs inside. Pretty cool affect, but some guy on gamefaqs wasn\'t working and he only had half a circle lit up!

I am very happy with X-Box so far, the controller seems fine, although I would appreciate an X-Box to aturn plug so I can use the Nights pad. The upcoming games make me wet myself repeatedly in the course of a dsay! Thank goodness for depends!




I encourage all to get one. Anyone who likes games can realize with real eyes that the real lies being told to you are the ones that say X-Box has no good games or no exclusive games!
PANZER DRAGOON X!!!!

best selling game - Halo
accessory - controller (DVD controller sold out in 10 minutes though)
cables - Monster S-Video

Eric Jacob
 


EDIT - I typed most of this with no monitor ,as after 4 years, mine is going out a slow death. If there is anything ou have any questions on, please ask! GOOD LUCK READING ALL THIS!

A furniture store sells video games?



Panzer Saga was indeed a great game.

I paid $100 for it on eBay too.

Worth every penny.

Nice impressions Eric, I managed to grab an Xbox from my local meijers, I had to ask if they had any left, because they were keeping them in the back. But, IMO, its quite heavy, but I love the controller, and I didn\'t have enough money to get any games, but, its still quite a beast IMO.  To bad people like you don\'t live in my town of ....... Ohio, Because, well, you\'d put alot of the people that claim to know games in thier place. I\'ve tried, and tried to convince this idiot that Xbox doesn\'t have a Geforce2, and he refuses to believe me.

Thanks for the in-depth impressions Eric - great stuff!

Nebraska Furniture Mart is the largest furniture store in the world. About 5 years ago, they opened up a new electronics part fo the store called Mega Mart. Well, Warren Buffet bought NFM when Mrs. B died (the original owner for like 70 years!) and got rid of the Mega Mart name.

you really owe it to get Halo. I am surprised that some of you guys actually read that entire thing. That has to be one of the longest, perhaps the longest hand typed (no cut and pasted) post on this board...perhaps


Eric Jacob

Halo sounds really great, and it was fun from what I played, but there is one huge problem with it that completely destroys the multiplay portion of the game.  There are no bots in multiplayer! :eek:  Some levels are huge (for up to 16 people with networked Xboxes), which makes it very boring to play against each other on one TV.  For those of you who are experienced in FPS games, you know how boring it is playing on a huge map against only a few people.  I don\'t understand why they didn\'t put some of that "amazing enemy AI" found in single player into making some bots.  It would have made the game so much better.

Very good reviews...

Of course, enough praise can\'t be given to Halo.  Words cannot describe how perfect the game really is.

Dead or Alive 3.  Get over the fact that it can\'t be done on PS2 and just enjoy it.

Munch...Ya\'ll need to leave this game alone.  I was reluctant to actually play the game after all the bad reviews and impressions.  But I finally got a chance to pull away from Halo and give it a chance.  I am hooked.  The graphics are unbelievable.  I haven\'t experienced any slow down or choppiness.  The gameplay doesn\'t seem repetitive.  Another very good reason to pick up an Xbox NOW!

Anyway, I highly encourage all to pick one up when possible.  There\'s got to be a game out that you like.  They\'ve got every genre covered with Triple A titles.  


Anyone play Mad Dash yet?  I was thinking about picking it up...

I only have one question.

I can\'t play FPS\'s because they make me nauseous (unfortunate, but it can\'t be helped, much as I\'ve tried to overcome it to play Golden Eye and PD, along with RF). And I\'ve gotten pretty sick of arcade/sports/driving games with my PS2. I\'m looking for something that has actual objectives that are somehow revelant to obtaining a final objective, basically I want either action or plataforming. So, is there any reason for me to pick up an X-Box now?

now? Not really. The line up right now is full of open ended games consisting mainly of sports/driving,etc. Max Payne comes out really soon. Dark Summit is out, too. There is supposed to be over 40 games coming out before the end of the year, so you should have a prety wide range of titles to choose from.


Eric Jacob