Product Reviews

The original Xbox was little more than a PC dressed up as a games console, but the new Xbox 360 is a games console through and through. It uses a brand new IBM Xenon processor with three cores, each running at 3.2GHz. PCs are currently lagging behind with a maximum of two processor cores, as seen in Intel's Pentium 8xxD series and AMD's Athlon 64 X2s. It also has a custom ATI graphics chipset that's running at 500MHz.

We got our hands on an Xbox 360 Premium, a top-of-the-range model with a 20GB hard disk, wireless control pad, component video cable and remote control. There's also a Core version available for £210 including VAT, which doesn't have a hard disk or remote control and has only a wired game pad.

You can upgrade from the Core edition to the Premium by buying the extra bits, but we don't think it's worth it. If you're going to buy an Xbox 360, you should go for the Premium edition. The hard disk alone is worth it for saving games, and you can download arcade classics via your Xbox Live account. Ideally, though, you'll need a High Definition (HD) LCD TV, so you can play games at HD resolutions. On a normal TV, you're not going to get the same quality of images. Believe us, they look stunning.

EASY RIDER

Project Gotham Racing 3 is the latest driving game in the series and it looks unbelievably good. London, Tokyo, New York and a host of other cities are recreated in amazing detail, and look really impressive as

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you zip round them at speed. There's no slow down even if you spin the camera around your car while driving at 200 miles per hour. Without a doubt, this is the best-looking game we've seen, outstripping even the latest PC titles.

We were also provided with a copy of Perfect Dark Zero, a first-person shooter. The game has a cartoon-style look, a bit like Manga, and is absolutely stunning. The textures look great up close and the scale of the levels is breathtaking. While most first-person shooters save on processing power with small enclosed spaces, Perfect Dark Zero puts you in massive warehouses with rooms that must be hundreds of feet long. This game was smooth to play, though strangely the cut scenes were jerky. Both these games are great fun to play, and should help attract new gamers to the platform.

All the games are designed with Xbox Live in mind. Depending on the titles, you can play online against other humans, upload and compare statistics, or even download other people's best performances to help you improve your own. The wireless control pad works exactly as wireless kit should. Press the button on the front of it, and it connects to the Xbox automatically. You can connect up to four control pads. There are dual analogue sticks and a range of other buttons. It's comfortable in the hand and responsive to use.

OUTSIDE THE BOX

While the Xbox 360 is great for games, it can also be used as a Media Center Extender. Once you've installed the free update on your PC, you can use Media Center's interface on the Xbox to access all your media, including images, video, recorded TV and even live TV over the Xbox's built-in Ethernet connection. It works really well, although you'll want a wired network or fast wireless if you're going to use video.

The Xbox 360 is an amazing console. The games look stunning, the Media Center Extender software works just as it should, and there are some great games around now. It's pricy, though, and we wish there was just the one version with a hard disk available.