Will not disappoint

This review is for the premium version of the Xbox 360 and viewed on a Toshiba 65" rear projection HD television with a Technics 5.1 digital decoder.

It's a bit hard to know where to start with this review since the 360 does more then just play video games. But I will start with the games.

Games that take advantage of the 360's power look wonderful. Kameo, Call of Duty 2, Project Gothem Racing 3, and so on look and sound stunning on the 360.
Also you would think that some scenes in Kameo (like the constant war going on in an area known as the badlands)were pre-rendered video clips but they are being done in real time with no slowdown at all. Load times on games seem about the same or in some cases a little bit quicker then the original Xbox.

The premium system also comes with wires controllers which work great with the system. They have great response and I've not experienced any lag with the controller. The battery life for the controllers can be checked on-screen. As for battery life... I've been playing for anywhere from 8 to 12 hours a day (yes I have a real job, I'm just on vacation this week) for the last 5 days and the batteries are still being shown as full.
Setup for the controller that comes with the console didn't exist for me. It was already setup. The second wireless controller needs to be setup which consist of 3 steps:
1)turn on the controller by pressing the guide button.
2)press the sync button on the console
3)press the sync button on the controller
And your done setting up your second controller.

The 360 centers itself around the gamer guide. This is an area like the dashboard on the original Xbox. However from here you decide what you want to do or where you want to go. Everything is setup in sections. Such as the media page, where you view videos or pictures that are on your hard drive or computer or listen to music on the hard drive or on your computer.

The live section:
The live section is where you interact with your friends on-line, go to the marketplace, read and create messages, read announcements from the live service, and look at your stats. The message section is pretty straight forward. You can type out messages to be delivered to friends (though you can leave messages for people not in your friends list as well). Because of the USB ports on the console you have a choice of using the on-screen keyboard or use a USB keyboard. If you don't feel like typing, or text just won't get your point across. You can leave a voice message for someone as well.

Also in the live section is the marketplace. This is where you will find game demos, videos, new skins for your guide, avatars for your gamer card, retro and independant games to buy and download. While ultimately your using your cash to buy items. Microsoft has decided to have you buy points first and turn in the points for things that you want to buy. You can add points in several different ways:

1) Use (or add) a credit card(s) to your live account
2) Enter in codes from pre-paid cards that you can buy from retailers
3) Codes from promotions

You will have a choice of how you want to add points to your account when you choose to add them. So if you have a credit card on file with Microsoft the marketplace won't automatically assume that you want to pay for them with that method. Also using the family profiles you can lock out the purchase of additional points as well.

One complaint about the marketplace. When you choose to download a game, video, or whatever, you cannot move from the download area or the download will stop. However, if you are already streaming music, the music will continue to stream while your download runs.Also any aborted downloads will resume where it left off at if you need to leave the download section for any reason.

The next section is the Games section.
This is where your in-game achievements are listed, downloaded games are listed and one of several places to find videos and demos that you downloaded from live. When you buy the hard drive or buy a premium system Hexic is pre-installed for you to play.

Then there is the Media section.
A one stop location for all your pictures, videos, music, and Media Center. You can play these from your console or from a network location. However, to play video (not downloaded from Live) you need to have a PC running Media Center. I've played around with this section a lot and I have to say that I'm impressed. Paired up with Media Center and I was actually chuckling to myself. Though there are a couple of things here that I can complain about.

Setting up the Media Center extender was one of the first things I did when I took the console out of the box. Setup was completely painless. Instructions are displayed on both the console and the Media Center PC. There is one file that needs to be downloaded from Microsoft to make it communicate with the 360. If the 360 and the PC isn't in the same room then you will need to make about 2 trips back and forth between the two. But everything was pretty quick, hardly had any reading involved, and was so seamless that I had to wonder if it was setup correctly. Once the initial connection is made you decide what shares you want the 360 to look in and your done.

Now for the complaint.
This may be completely my fault and is not recommended by Microsoft. I'm using wireless G to connect to my media center PC. I've had no problems streaming video to the console. There have been no lag in the frame rate when streaming but sometimes navigating through the different video folders can sometimes be sluggish. Again, I don't know if it's because I'm using a wireless connection or if this is a problem with the Media Center extender.

I currently don't have a TV tuner for my Media Center PC so I could not test out the DVR or live TV portions of the extender and they don't show up as options on the 360 although the 360 should be able to stream live TV from Media Center PC's.

The last area is the system area.
This area lets you tweak network and console settings, view some copyright information about the console,and setup family profiles. I've not played with the family settings much since I don't have any children. However, in a nutshell using a pass code you can decide when and how long others in the house can play the console. Also there are allowed ratings for DVD's and video games.

Bottom line:
I'm very impressed with the console. I've found the games to be very fun and very hard to just jump from one game to another. I've found myself spending the entire day with a game (even the pack-in game Hexic). The Media Center features are great and I'm taking another look at Media Center as a solution to time shifting TV shows that I want to watch. If the Open cable projects can get their act together and I can get a HD cable card into my PC I may just say goodbye to my current PVR.

I feel that this console was very well thought out and I think there will be many exciting things in store for the Xbox 360 in the future.