As you've gathered if you've stopped by in the past week from my new Gamer Card module on the right, we have a new member in our console family. It came in the form of an early Christmas gift from Shawn's uncle. Grue, who was ecstatic at the news, has another early Christmas gift on the way: copy of Halo 3. 

I am doing my best to not go out and buy one of the games I've been wanting for the 360. It is Christmas after all, and I'll never know what I'll get from friends and family. The package we got came with two games, Forza 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance. As I'm not into racing games, I cracked open MUA last night for my absolute FIRST Xbox 360 experience.

I'm not going to discuss the game. You can find hundreds of online reviews dissing the game, and they're all correct. The game is nothing more than a glorified super Marvel version of X-Men Legends. For the 360 having superior HD graphics... this game obviously didn't implement them. It looks practically the same as X-Men Legends on my PS2. But hey, it was free, and I was restraining myself from running out to Gamestop. It had to do.

Moving on...

The 360 controller is the second most comfortable controller I've ever held. (The PS2 still reigns supreme.) I was surprised, as I was expecting something similar to the original Xbox controller. I hated it. It was so big and uncomfortable, it hurt my hands. I told Grue how I was impressed with the vast improvements to the controller. She responded that a kick in the pants would have been an improvement. The controller has a lot of similarities to the familiar PlayStation controllers, but I'm still getting used to exactly where the buttons are. Whenever the game would tell me "Press LB to do this," I would have to turn over the controller to see which button was LB. The left and right buttons are really my only complaint. The buttons are labeled LB, LT, RB, and RT. I believe that the T and B stand for trigger and button, but my brain believes they should stand for top and bottom. Which doesn't make any sense, as the LT button is on the bottom. It confuses my brain. That's one reason why I kept turning over the controller to look at it.

The Achievements scores are genius on Microsoft's part. I was so excited to see that I made some achievements while playing MUA last night. My gamer card now has a real number instead of an absolute zero. For those who don't know anything about Achievements, Microsoft has set Achievements for every Xbox game. Basically, if you do certain things in the game (beat a certain boss, do a certain move so many times, find a rare object, etc.) you gain Achievement points. Achievement scores are perfect for getting gamers to replay games and gain Achievements, as this comic demonstrates. I can see how they would be addictive. I got more excited gaining an Achievement than I did leveling up my characters last night.

All in all, pleased with the console thus far. If I could have done it over again, I definitely would have bought the 360 before the PS3. I played some more Heavenly Sword yesterday, and well, it's a good thing that the graphics are so beautiful. Not much else about the game is. I now understand why Penny Arcade said it took them five hours to beat the game. I played for 45 minutes yesterday (I started completely over) and discovered that I'm about half way through the game. If you decide to pick up the game, here's a tip for beating the puzzles: if you see a gong, look for something to throw at it. That's solved all the puzzles I've found thus far. And don't get me started on the SIXAXIS controls. That's an entire diatribe for a future journal entry.