Which Xbox 360 game(s) will you get?

***NOTE THAT YOU CAN VOTE FOR MORE THAN ONE GAME IN THE POLL!***

Today’s an interesting day…and I’m not talking about the Astros first World Series game EVER (although that’s very interesting). No, today is October 22nd…a month later will be November 22nd…the day the Xbox 360 launches. So, we have less than a month to go before the next-generation of gaming is upon us. In a couple more weeks, a few Clutchfans BBS members will be playing Madden 06 on their Xbox 360 in 720p over Xbox Live, controlling their players with a wireless controller. Or (hopefully) they’ll be traveling through the woods of Cyrodil on horseback, passing by a deer, when suddenly, they are attacked by a demonic creature. Or they’ll be doing countless other things, depending on their preference of games.

And that’s the topic of this thread. With a month to go, the launch lineup is more or less set in stone, or least close enough. Here’s the list:

Madden ’06, NBA 2K6, NBA Live 2006, or other sports game
Sorry about lumping this all together, but there’s so many of them and I could only put so many games in the poll. I pretty much had to include the other non-sports titles in the poll by themselves, so the sports lineup got the shaft. I will mention three of the bigger titles, but won't go through each of them. If you vote for it, specify which game. Some games I'd include here are the Tiger Woods game, FIFA, Top Spin, Amped, the NHL games, Tony Hawk:AW (more alt sports but close enough), and so on.

Madden 06 (IGN Page) (Gamespot Page)
Random Clip ~74 MB


Boy, has EA put us through a rollercoaster with this game. First, they wowed us with some spectacular clips of “Madden Next-gen.” Later on, we found out that those were prerendered, but would “easily be surpassed.” Well, here we are a month until launch, and they’ve yet to be surpassed, IMO. Nevertheless, the game still does look pretty good, just not up to par prerendered clips. The animation may need a little work, and the graphics aren’t perfect, but it does look like a next-gen Madden instead of Madden 06 on a high-end PC. If nothing else, the game has awesome-looking stadiums.

NBA 2K6 (IGN Page) (Gamespot Page)
Unfortunately, 2K is being really strict about any unauthorized clips of the game, which is sad since there are only 2 of those, which I think everyone’s seen. I did get to see like 2 gameplay clips (1 of which had great picture quality), and the game looked great; but I guess since the game had some bugs that were evident in the clips, they forced the sites to remove them. So no links to new gameplay clips for this once since 2K hasn’t really shown any new media.


Another game that had an interesting development. Unlike EA, 2K Games never really showed too much of the game, be they prerendered footage or even early clips. But then the day came when all hell broke loose. Some screens and trailers of a true next-gen basketball game were shown, and it wasn’t made by EA. The sweat, the jersey animations, Amare’s ugly face, all of it was in amazing detail…and part of gameplay as well; NBA 2K6 is undoubtedly one of the best looking next-gen games shown thus far. Unfortunately for VC, EA wouldn’t be one-upped so easily and showed the latest builds for their next-gen basketball game…

NBA Live 2006 (IGN Page) (Gamespot Page)
Check out one of the top two clips 5-7 MB each


OK, so the players still skate on the court, making it seem like EA’s just reusing some old NHL engines from the SNES days; however, the game still does look very good. Personally, I think NBA 2K6 is just a small step ahead, but EA has done a good job as well. If these guys can keep up the competition, at least graphically we won’t have much to complain about for the next 5 years or so.

Kameo (IGN Page) (Gamespot Page)
Random Clip ~24 MB


The game that’s been in development for at least 5-6 years and for 3-4 different consoles. Despite all those issues, the game is looking pretty solid; in fact, that’s probably an understatement since several game journalists have said it may be THE game to get for the Xbox 360. The game’s just gorgeous visually, both from a technical standpoint and an art standpoint. And if the gameplay clips are any indication, the game looks pretty fun, mixing in some aspects of Zelda and other platformer/adventure type games.

Perfect Dark Zero (IGN Page) (Gamespot Page)
Gameplay clip~75 MB


If you’ve followed this game closely, then you know that it has been quite the rollercoaster. First, the graphics sucked…then they were pretty good. We also found out the gameplay was great…and then it sucked. And then the graphics, animations, and AI didn’t look as great anymore…and then they did look great. The game also got very positive hands-on impressions….and then it got some negative impressions. I think the most recent one was good, although there may have been a bad one that followed it. Yeah, I’m kind of exaggerating, but the point is that this may be one of those love it or hate it games. It has the potential to be a great launch game, but it could just as easily bomb. Guess we’ll have to wait and see.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (IGN Page) (Gamespot Page)
Another game associated with 2K Games, so again, very little new video footage. In fact, if any of you remember, a while back I posted a 20-minute gameplay clip of the PC version, which has since been removed.



*cough* *cough*
Yeah, just another stupid RPG….

Just kidding. Unlike some of the other games, this has been one of the games that I've wanted to play ever since the first time I saw it, and that feeling has only gotten stronger and stronger. Granted, I’m a TES fan, so the game is almost guaranteed to win me over, but I’m guessing it will win over some new fans as well. I'll just stop there since I could on and on about how much I like Oblivion.

***POST TO BE CONTINUED DUE TO IMAGE LIMITS***

 

Project Gotham Racing 3 (IGN Page) (Gamespot Page)
Check out pretty much any of these clips 3-8 MB each


Gorgeous game…plain and simple. There have been some questions about the frame rate and the gameplay, but you can’t deny that this is a graphically impressive game. I’m not much of a racing-game fan, but I’d consider checking out this game just to stare at the replays.

Condemned (IGN Page) (Gamespot Page)
A bunch of new clips3-8 MB each


Here’s an interesting title. It isn’t one of the most impressive looking games on the 360; in fact, it may not even be much further ahead that some PC games. That said, it is sounding like this could be a big sleeper hit. From what I could tell, it seems like several other FPS games with a bit of CSI-type gameplay thrown in. After you’re done beating some bums down with a lead pipe, examine the scenes for clues that would aid you in your mission or whatever. I’ve only seen/read bits and pieces of the story, but it sounds like it could be pretty interesting, especially in a psychological-thriller type way. This may be one of those rare gems that creeps in under the radar.

Call of Duty 2 (IGN Page) (Gamespot Page)
New trailer on top-left ~12 MB


Ah yes. You can’t have a next-generation of video games without including a WWII FPS game. From what I can tell, the game appears to be a better-looking version of the PC version, but it seems like they did as much as they could to take advantage of the hardware. IIRC, the game is 60FPS and looks much better than the PC version, so even though it wasn’t designed 100% for the Xbox 360, it still isn’t too bad. Basically, if you still enjoy those WWII shooters, this might be a good choice. If not, you might be better off with some other game.

Dead Or Alive 4 (IGN Page) (Gamespot Page)
One part of a series of gameplay clips 50-385 MB each


Finally, the hardware is there for real-time boob physics. Personally, I haven’t been too impressed with what Itagaki and his team have done with DOA4 given the graphics of their games this generation, but the game does have some graphically impressive areas. The stages are gorgeous and pretty big as well, from what I could tell. It also sounds like they tweaked the gameplay a little bit to fix some of the issues from previous versions. Also, if you haven’t heard, there is a special secret character for the game. I don’t really think it would be a spoiler to post it, but just be on the safe side, here’s a link for those who’d rather not read about it here:
SPOILERS http://www.xboxyde.com/news_2177_en.html SPOILERS

Other
These are the games I just didn't include for some reason or another. I tried to pick some of the games that I thought were more interesting and possibly more appealing to gamers, but I could be wrong. These games would include the games I'm wrong about. Basically, King Kong, Gun, Quake 4, Need For Speed: Most Wanted, or some other game that I may have missed (possibly even forgot about).

So which game(s) will receive your $50-$60?

BTW, I realize that the screens make these posts insanely long and a little difficult to read. I really wanted to post some screens here w/o links, but if you guys would rather have them in the form of links, I'll go ahead and edit the posts and fix that. Just let me know what you'd prefer and I'll try to change them. I'm sure the 56K people out there may prefer I change them.

 

I decided to go the MS way and include "launch period games" and not necessarily "launch day games." I'm guessing that not all of those games will make it, and some may not be out until the first week or two of December. But that's close enough.

As for PDZ, I haven't followed it too much due to all the ups and downs, but I was under the impression that it would make a Nov. 22 release. Here's why:
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6135026.html

 

I just want to add that there have been some interesting reports lately about how many Xbox 360 systems analysts expect MS to ship this year. Basically, several analysts cut down their numbers drastically (relatively speaking) within the past few weeks or so. The "popular" number seems to be about 1.5 million Xbox 360 systems for the world by the end of the year. The US would get 400,000 at launch, with 800,000-1,000,000 at the end of the year. In case you don't know, these are really low numbers. I think the PS2 launched with like 500,000 systems, and that was 5-6 years ago and mostly due to a manufacturing error. I think some were initially expecting 1-1.5M systems for the US launch alone.

This isn't meant to be some major cause for concern since, after all, they’re just analysts. They've said stranger things, which, of course, didn't come true. I just thought it was interesting that these analysts came up with a similar number during a similar period of time. I guess just keep the thought in the back of your head that these things might even be harder to get than we all thought.

FWIW, even if this was true, the Sears thing could still be a good idea. Might need to check it out a little earlier than noon, but with a bit of luck, you may still end up with a system. If nothing else, you could still load up on some games. Unlike other games, you'll be buying games with next-gen graphics in the game manuals and on the back of the cases. Think about all the next-gen details you can read about in the game manuals.