Xbox Live
Playing games on Live on the 360 is mostly the same experience as on the Xbox as far as gameplay goes. What is different is that now you can chat with your friends anywhere and everywhere even if you are playing different games and the social aspect as a whole has been kicked up about a hundred notches for the 360. Also, the gamer profile and gamerscore that you build up as you earn achievements in games is something that you are going to want to show off to people. This will in turn increase the replay value of all of the Xbox 360 games because you’ll want to earn as many gamerscore points as possible. Whether in single player or multiplayer, you are always connected with your friends as well as with the entire community through the gamer profile. It all is very slick and works very well.
Live Marketplace
When I first heard of the Xbox Live Marketplace, I was skeptical. Paying money to download new pictures for your gamer profile or a new shirt for your character in the game seemed like a waste of time. Well, that stuff still does seem like a waste of time. Where the Xbox Live Marketplace is going to really be something special is that you can download demos and trailers and other videos and most of these things are going to be free. This is the absolute smartest and best thing Microsoft and all of the game publishers could possibly do. We can download a demo from the comfort of our own home and see if a game is worth buying. PC gamers have been doing it since the dawn of time, I know, but for consoles this is a brand new feature and I love it. Checking the Xbox Live Marketplace for new content is going to become a new part of gamers’ daily routine. You are excited when you jump onto Xbox Live because you want to see if a new demo or video is available. I’m very impressed with it all so far.
Xbox Live Arcade
The Xbox Live Arcade wasn’t terribly well implemented for the Xbox, but it has become an important part of the overall Xbox 360 experience. The games are quite a bit cheaper than they were for the Xbox and the best part of playing them on 360 is that you can now download demos for free. The demos don’t keep track of score and you can only play them for a limited period of time (you can just start it back up again once the time runs out), but being able to get a demo and see if a full version of a game is worth playing before you get it is a great idea. Games like Smash TV and Robotron 2084 are great ways to kill time and Geometry Wars Evolved is amazing and absolutely addictive (and worth the 400 Marketplace points for the full version).
Bottom Line
Basically, Microsoft knows what they are doing. Between the amazingly well put together Xbox 360 dashboard to all of the new features on Xbox Live, the Xbox 360 experience is really something special. It changes the way you will play games and after spending several days with everything it makes other consoles just seem … old.
