New to the Xbox 360, what do I need to know?

patchboston

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I have lived under a rock (or in an arcade) for the last several years and I'm just now coming to terms with modern gaming. A co-worker gave me a nicotine-ridden Xbox 360 over the summer, and this morning I decided to finally take it apart and give it a thorough cleaning. Turns out, there was so much grime caked on the lens that it wouldn't even read game discs. After about 2 hours of cleaning, I have a great system and a free wireless controller!

Now where do I start? There seems to be a lot of cool things happening with the system, people are installing mod chips, using the system as a media server, and even playing others over the net! It all seems so cool, but I haven't the faintest clue on what to start doing.

I guess the first step would be to purchase a hard drive. As far as size goes, do you think I should go for a beefy 120gb drive? Also, would it be okay to purchase a drive off ebay? I would hate to buy something and find out that the hard drive is unlicensed and ends with me being kicked off of xbox live.

I'm not super big into FPS games, but I'll give them a try. I'd like to try the whole 'live' thing, but I think I'm more interested in any type of RPG or artsy games the system might offer. What else could you guys reccomend for the most bang out of my buck? Again, I'd be inclined to mod the system, but is that possible without becoming banned from the live portion?

thanks!
 
I would be careful about modding your Xbox. I have heard that sometimes after modding them, people get kicked off Xbox live. As long as it is a Microsoft hard drive you should be good to go. They make a 250 gb hard drive and I believe even a 300 and some GB drive. If you get Xbox live gold, try to get the 1 year subscription as it is a better deal. $50 per year. I wouldn't recommend using your credit card to purchase the subscription as they auto renew it and you will have to call them to turn off the auto renewal. Sorry I don't know much about modding though but I can help you with basic questions about it like streaming and such.
 
If you don't want to lose the ability to connect to Live, then don't mod your 360.

As for games, maybe start with Assassin's Creed? I can't get enough of that series. Blow through the first one bypassing all the optional stuff. Then spend some time with the next two as they are much better gameplay-wise. The first one is still a great game, though.

I haven't really played many RPGs for 360, so I unfortunately can't speak for them myself. I'm sure someone here can. I'm sure people will recommend Fallout, if nothing else :rolleyes:
 
Ah, I totally forgot about Fallout! I'm going to have to give it a shot! I messed around with the xbox tonight and I came to the conclusion it's completely useless without a hard drive, so I'm ordering one from Ebay! I pretty much threw out the modding ideas once I started reading about the consequences :)

I also figured that this is an early xbox 360, hence I can't connect via wifi. Luckily, I have an extra router and I'm reading about how to use that in place of Microsoft's wifi adapter.

I love gaming on the cheap!
 
You can buy a 250gb notebook drive (there's a list of proven working models on the net) and then download an image to format it for the 360, will save you some dough if you're a diy'er (all of this info can be obtained by googling for more details), should also be a 320gb image out there soon if not already

Personally I wouldn't mod it (assuming it's virginal as is) cuz M$ is pretty good about throwing out all the modders once or twice a year, you won't be able to play online and there's where all the fun's at imo

You can get some pretty good stuff cheaply now anyway, like Modern Warfare, Dead Rising 1, Grand Theft Auto 4, etc.. you could also entertain yourself for a while just on demos, the Crackdown 1 demo was pretty entertaining for instance, also the demos for a lot of arcade classics - i'm normally bored with them by the time the demo is over anyway.

As far as watching Movies - I haven't had much luck outside of the Xvid/avi format. I'll normally search for xvid downloads, and use Vuze on the laptop to stream them to the 360. Netflix is also a must
 
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you should be able to buy any external hard drive and format it for the xbox, thats what one of the last big updates was for. My friend has a 1TB external with about 300mb used for the xbox.

I wouldnt mod it, every game update has something trying to catch them.
 
Yes, Modding is a No No. And go pick up the first Batman game. You can get it pretty cheap now and the game was awesome.
 
How could you guys forget Mass Effect 1 and 2? RPG at its best. Fallout, Fallout Vegas and Oblivion are all good games.

Red Dead Redemption is a must-play. For Xbox Live games, I recommend Braid, Limbo and Bastion.

JRPG games are thin on the ground on the 360. There's Tales of Vesperia (hard to find), Star Ocean, Lost Odyssey and Final Fantasy XIII. But the overall JRPG quality on 360 is pretty lacking.

If you like driving sims, Forza 4 just came out. It's incredible. Find the limited edition if you can.

- James
 
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If you like JRPG's Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon can be gotten for pretty cheap, and will keep you occupied for a while...

And I concur, don't mod the thing... there are a lot of quality games out there for the 360 that can be gotten cheap, no need to risk getting booted from Live.
 
you should be able to buy any external hard drive and format it for the xbox, thats what one of the last big updates was for. My friend has a 1TB external with about 300mb used for the xbox.

I wouldnt mod it, every game update has something trying to catch them.

They had an update last year that allows you to store up to like 32 gb on external devices (I personally use two 16 gb flash sticks).. beyond that you could still use an external for things like storing movies, but not game related saves or downloads, unless they've updated it more recently?
 
If you haven't played console games in a while you might want to get started with games that are not huge explorable worlds like Fallout, Dead Island; etc. It's real easy to get overwhelmed. I never completed either of these games (Dead Island has only been out a month or two, though).

Call of Duty: Black Ops is a good game. It's a FPS. I have been playing through the single player campaign and it's pretty impressive. I also liked Left 4 Dead 2 and managed to complete the game.

The sports games are also worth looking at. Madden; etc. I'd try some rentals first to see if they hold any interest.

And of course, playing games on Xbox Live is probably the main selling point of this system.
 
+1 to Mass Effect and Red Dead.

N+ (an Xbox Live Arcade download game) is a blast.
 
thanks for all the good advise, guys! I'm going to order a hard drive tonight and go ahead with the diy route!

I will eventually give those JRPG's a try, but I'll stick to the FPS games for awhile :)

This thread has saved me a ton of headache :)
 
If the DIY hard drive dosent work the 20 gig hard drives are a dime a dozen. Check flea bay or craigslist. At least it would get you started.

If you can go for a bigger hard drive. I have the 60 gig in mine, and want more.

A bigger hard drive lets you install more games onto it. The 360 can get loud. It sounds like a jet when you play games. Installing the games to the hard drive cuts out the noise of the dvd drive.

As for the xbox live subscription keep an eye on slickdeals.net you can usually get a 1 year card for 40-50 bucks every now and then. You just gotta find the right deal.
 
If you havent paid attention to the console scene recently, don't worry, you aint missin a thing.

Most popular games out there are either too overwhelming or uninspiring to me. No creativity no more, you can look at jus the cover of most games today and know exactly what the game is.

Unique, creative games today are so far and in between as the biggest publishers now focus on popular military and scifi themed shooters and action games. Every once in a while there'll be a gem like Catherine, or Assassin's Creed or something that breaks away from the countless Call of War: Special Forces Counter-Terrorist Modern Battle Ops in Space Field 3, but the industry today is dominated by the same looking games.

I can never finish any of these games nowadays but I think online gaming offers quick, fun experiences that I can enjoy. I think Halo and Call of Duty for example are boring offline, but is great fun online!

Now on the other hand, consoles today have online platforms like Xbox Live Arcade where you can find loads of very original, creative arcade style games. Both original independent games and updated arcade/console classics (optimized for HD, most with online play!) are available. And they add games VERY often. For example, jus the other week or so Radiant Silvergun was released for Xbox Live Arcade. They're usually very inexpensive and you can purchase games directly from the system online.

So don't mod your system. Modders and hackers can get permanently banned from the online network if caught.

I'm not too down with the whole console shooter craze today, but the library of games on Xbox Live Arcade are worth buying the system alone. You'll love what it offers.
 
If you like pinball, definitely grab William's Pinball Hall of Fame. You can also download Pinball FX2 which is fun. Both are cheap.

You can download a lot of demos to try out a wide variety of games.

I use mine mostly for streaming xvid videos (as mentioned, not much luck with other formats), and Netflix.
 
Eternal Sonata isn't bad. It's an action RPG though. I'd probably try Tales of Vesperia first if you're not sure if you like that genre.
 
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