Don't ask me how it happened – but it did. I came home from vacation and found an Xbox 360 on my doorstep (figuratively, not literally). Since I didn't get any games with it, and with the rush of the Thanksgiving holiday, I refrained from setting anything up initially. Plus, I'm still trying to crawl out from underneath a mountain of emails in my inbox. Jake Ludington and Brad Wilson were two of our holiday guests, and I believe that both of them were disappointed that the Xbox 360 was still in its box. Jake suggested that Wal-Mart was open, so we drove down to Renton to pick up a few Xbox 360 necessities… only to discover that the store was closed for the day). Argh! We came home, unpacked Microsoft's shiny new gaming machine, moved the old Xbox out of the way, and fired 'er up. I didn't have a wireless Xbox 360 A/B/G adapter, so we had to string a cable across the house from my router. That allowed me to set up my Xbox Live profile (although it wasn't as easy to do as I thought it would or could be). We explored the system for a little while, noting that we could download high-def trailers of games and upcoming movies (including the one for Narnia). Brad told us about a game that is well on its way to becoming one of my favorite Xbox games of all time – and I'll tell you about it in my next entry, largely because it deserves a “space” of its own.
I'm not running into any weird overheating issues with the Xbox 360 yet. My entertainment area is well ventilated, and I don't typically game for longer than a couple of consecutive hours. I'm what Microsoft now calls a “Recreation” gamer (at least, that's what I've selected for my gamer zone with their Gamer Card profile). I went out today and picked up Ridge Racer 6, based on my wonderful experience with it on the PSP. The Xbox 360 version plays just as well on the big screen as it does on the small one, so I'm looking forward to blasting through the tour and gaining achievements. And speaking of screen, you *MUST* use the Xbox 360 on a HDTV display – no argument. Just played Jake in a quick Call of Duty 2 deathmatch… which was great fun (he found a wireless adapter and extra wireless controller at Fry's for me today). Oh, and Halo 2 – as promised – looks breathtaking on the Xbox 260. Hell, the whole Xbox 360 experience has been breathtaking altogether.