d+pad

Well what do you know, it’s Wednesday. I do believe I promised to share some juicy details about my latest acquisition today. Although, they aren’t so much juicy as they are simply details. But I’m a man of my word so here goes. This past weekend I decided it was high time that I joined the next generation of gaming, and finally put my money where my mouth is. Or was. Or is and has been. You know what I mean. So I headed on out to FutureShop with my buddy RawEffect and picked me up an Xbox bundle. Why did Raw come along? Because his car has much more comfortable seats than the friggin’ subway. Oh, and what was in the bundle? Well, one large, very heavy and very sexy Xbox unit w/controller, a copy of Halo and a copy of Amped. I also added a second controller and a copy of Dead or Alive 3. Yeah, maybe I got a little excited and went overboard a bit, but can you blame me? This was the first time I’d ever purchased a console at (or near) its launch, so I overcompensated a bit. Now, I’d like nothing more than to give you in-depth reviews of all those games, but the truth is I haven’t had a lot of play time with my box yet. I know, I know. Hopefully this weekend will rectify that. So far I’ve spent a little time playing multiplayer Halo with my roommate, and maybe half an hour getting a career started in Amped. Right off the bat, let me say that Halo is nothing short of spectacular. The Xbox is definitely a powerful machine, and I am counting the hours until I’ll be able to sit down and put some real time in with that game. Amped is simply beautiful, with some tight controls and an obscene amount of kickin’ music. The level of detail is unprecedented, and I don’t even like snow. As for DOA3, it hasn’t even been taken out of its plastic wrap yet. Like I said, my playtime has been limited so far, but I’ve already gotten a glimpse of this system’s potential. Oh, and a word about the controller; it’s not the size of a toilet seat and it handles really well. It’s roughly the same size as a Dreamcast controller, but more contoured and more comfortable in the hand. yes, it’s bigger than the DualShock controller, as well it should be. I could never comfortably use the Playstation or PS2’s first-party controller. I’ll be passing along more Xbox impressions as they come, but so far, so sweet.

In non-X news, you might have noticed a new link at the top of the page on your way in today. If you’ve already clicked it then you know I’ve set up a d+pad cam portal. If you haven’t already clicked it, well, I’ve set up a d+pad cam portal. The idea for our own cam portal was first raised in the forums by Forsythia, but I didn’t think anyone would want to join, and since I didn’t have a webcam at the time the idea sort of stalled. But now I do have a webcam, and I even found a few people who wanted to show off their goods to the world. There’s room for more though, so if you’d like to literally stick your face out for the d+pad community, email me and we’ll set you up right away. In the mean time, check out some of the faces behind the magic. If you can stomach it, you might even be able to watch us as we update our strips and perform other dastardly deeds.

Until Friday,

-JBE