Friday, June 29, 2007

Xbox Live Multiplayer Impressions


Last Weekend, I used the Xbox Live 2-Day Trial Card that came with my copy of Gears of War to play some Multiplayer games over Xbox Live for the first time in my life.

The trial card did not upgrade my Silver Membership to a Gold one, but rather allowed my Silver account two days of unrestricted access for playing Multiplayer games.

Once I used the trial card, the first thing I did was download the free bonus maps and content for some classic Xbox titles, such as Halo 2, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and Doom 3.

The next thing I did was start some gaming, and of course, the first game I had to try was Doom. Since Doom is the forefather of all modern shooters and begin the online gaming phenomenon that we know today over a decade ago, I thought it fitting that this title would be my inaugural experience over Xbox Live.

Doom unto itself was just as fun as I remembered, and I still did well in the few games I played. I did, unfortunately, find it a bit tricky to find a match, either ranked or otherwise, however I expected that less people would be playing it on a Saturday and Sunday afternoon.

The next title I tried was Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, however at the time I was only ever able to get one match going, and my opponent was so above me in skill that the entire game lasted about a minute.

Lastly, I decided to try Gears of War itself, being the premiere Xbox 360 online title right now, and aside from the fact that I sucked at it, Gears of War was fun and something I'd like to play again. One of my jerk teammates was verbally unsupportive of his own team (though he was the most skilled of us), so I left him negative feedback, which gave me a chance to try that option out.

I did use the headset that came with Xbox 360, though I spoke sparingly, and with voice filtering I found the overall verbal quality to be garbled and low, but still intelligible.

Generally speaking, my experience with Xbox Live was good, though I'm undecided yet if it was good enough to pay a yearly fee that equals the cost of a regular new game. In a day or so I'll be using the free 1-Month card that Xbox Support gave me for all my trouble, and one thing I'll be doing is going through Gears of War Co-Op with the Staff. I'd also like to give Perfect Dark Zero a go.

Since I'm still playing through The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and with BioShock less than 2 months away, I figure I will hold off on a Gold Subscription since I'll mainly be re-focusing on Single Player after the trial card runs out, but it should be fun while it lasts.

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