Xbox 360 Official Launch List

The link below will send you straight to the Official Microsoft Xbox 360 Day One Launch List. Exciting stuff, they claim it to be "the broadest and deepest retail launch lineup in console history." Dont get me wrong, I like the 360, and I will own one, but the launch titles leave a lot to be desired. As far as I can tell, from the list there are only 3 games that are exclusive;

1. Kameo: Elements of Power (Which has been cancelled and re-announced twice, that is not a good sign, plus I have played it and although pretty, the gameplay is unintuitive and the fun factor is negledgable. Lets see how it fares. It is already available for purchase, but does very little good without a 360 to play it on.)

2. Condemned: Criminal Origins (This game looks beautiful, gritty, filthy and rife with violence. I would now ask you to think of a single FPS in this genre that doesnt fit all of the previous descriptors. Now think of a FPS that you have played recently (Except Halo) that played better on a console than a PC. I will get this game, but I will hope for a very nice plot to wrap the beauty around.)

3. Perfect Dark Zero (As the only exclusive launch title that doesnt have two parts of a name sewn together with a colon, this is most likely going to be the "must have" title for the 360, as I have played both the PC version of call of duty 2 and the 360 port, the PC game is just better. I have very fond memories of the potential that perfect dark had as the failed Goldeneye killer on the N64. This looks like a wonderful game with "Console Multiplayer" written all over it, which is a distinctly different experience from the "PC Multiplayer" experience of waiting in lines and just hoping for a game. This is another title I am excited for and will be picking up.)

There are two other aspects of the 360 that I feel as though I must address.

First, The (liscensed) sports games look ATROCIOUS, the animations are wretched and the player models vaguely resemble humans, seriously look at the elbows of players in the NBA game.

Lastly, the most impressive visuals that I have seen on the system are all from the racing games, but honestly they should be beautiful. I truly hope that gamers and game producers dont begin to settle for the "just good enough" approach to this system, with the power it has, things should look good and there should really be no excuse for poor graphics, It will be all about the gameplay for me. (Oh, and I am also looking forward to playing Gun, and although not exclusive, it feels like it belongs on the 360.)


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