"Powerful hardware and an good gaming library make for a great system."

In November 2001, Microsoft entered the console race with the Xbox, the game Halo, and not much else. Since then the system has gone from a one-trick pony to must-have console with a vast library of amazing games.

Graphically, the Xbox is very impressive; and without a doubt Xbox games have the potential to be better looking than any game on the PlayStation 2 or Gamecube. The best looking Xbox games (such as Ninja Gaiden) look like they aren't even in the same generation as the average game on any of the consoles. However for the most part, Xbox games are on par with the average GC game. While the Xbox only has a slight advantage over the GC, it is much more powerful than the PS2. Typically the in-game graphics of an Xbox game look as good as the FMV clips of a PS2 game. The Xbox has the ability to use composite, S-video, or component video cables. If your TV supports S-Video or component input, then it worth it to buy the HD-video pack since the images are much sharper and have better contrast. Even if your TV isn't HD, component will make any game noticeably better. Many Xbox games support enhanced definition (480p) or high definition (720p or 1080i) as well.

The Xbox supports Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. What more needs to be said about the Xbox's audio abilities? Games sound as great as they look on the Xbox, even on a low-quality mono TV. If you're willing to spend the money on a home theater system, then you will be amazed at how immersive the sound can make well designed games.

There are two types of Xbox controllers; the original controller and the newer, smaller Controller S. The controller seems to be designed after the Sega controllers, especially the Dreamcast controllers. With two analog sticks (one is generally motion and the other is camera control), two triggers, a d-pad, and eight buttons on the face, the controls are designed to function well with any type of game, but are best for action games, especially first person shooters. The original controller is rather bulky and less than comfortable to hold, even for some people with large hands. The Controller S has basically the same layout, however it is significantly smaller and the start and back buttons are on the left side of the controller rather than in the center. The Xbox console comes with one Controller S now; the original controller is no longer produced, but can still be bought used online. There are quite a few 3rd party controllers, most have the same button layout and feel, however the vast majority of them are cheaply made and not worth owning. Logitech makes excellent wireless controllers, but aside from those you're best sticking with the official Microsoft controllers.

We've all heard the jokes about how big and heavy the console is. It's actually not that much larger than the PS2 is, and with two disc drives in it you really can't expect it to be a featherweight. The console is box-shaped, black with a slight greenish tint, and has a large green Xbox logo on the top. There are also several limited edition Xboxes with different color schemes such as a Halo edition, a Mountain Dew edition, and a really cool white edition. On the front of the Xbox are four controller ports, a power switch, and a eject button, but unfortunately no reset button. The console is fairly well built; made of a very sturdy plastic and metal case and a thick tray holding the drives inside the console. The system can take quite a beating and survive, so there is no need to worry about transporting it or leaving it out for children/pets/roommates to mess with.

Aside from the small percentage of consoles that die before their time (which can be expected with any electronics) there has been a number first edition Xboxes which have suffered from DVD-drive failures after a year or two. However, this is a fairly small percentage of systems and Microsoft no longer uses that model of DVD drive, so the chance of it happening is small. Personally, I've owned my Xbox for over a year and have not had a single issue, nor have any of my friends.

The file management system is very simple and easy to use, which is great since there really is no need for anything complex. When you boot the system without a game in the drive you are given the choices of managing music, game data, options, or Live settings. Music files are sorted by album, which can be played, renamed, or deleted. Data files are separated by game title and then by profile/name/whatever. The only nuisance is that you have to eject the game to get to the user interface; there is no way to override the boot order. The Xbox is user-friendly enough that you don't even need the manual to use it.

What really gives the Xbox its advantage in performance over the PS2 and GC is the fact that it comes with a built in hard drive. The hard drive is 8 gigabytes, 2+ gigs of which are used to cache data. By using the caches the Xbox is able to store more data than it could if it was limited to only RAM. This gives Xbox games the potential to have little to no loading times since data can be read directly off the hard drive instead of the DVD.

The most obvious advantage of the hard drive is that you can store game saves on it. PS2 and GC memory cards can cost $20 - $30 a piece, and one may or may not be enough. With the Xbox you get the equivalent of a free 6 gig memory card. Not only do you never have to worry about running out of space, but saves load faster than they would off of a memory card and are not limited in size (for example Star Wars: KotOR saves are 24 megs each; the equivalent of three PS2 cards). Very few game saves are over a megabyte or two in size, so you could probably have a save for ever Xbox game available and not run out of room.

Both hard drives and memory cards will eventually die, which means that if your Xbox drive dies you lose everything. Fortunately the chances of it happening in the next five years are incredibly small, and there are several memory cards available to back up or transfer data between Xboxes. Microsoft makes their own 8 megabyte card and several other companies make large (though less reliable) cards.

Microsoft designed the Xbox to be a multimedia center which could replace most of your other electronics in your living room. Built into to the system is an mp3 player that can play songs stored on the hard drive (if I recall correctly, it actually encodes music as wma files, but that's a trivial difference). It is a very simple process of putting in a CD and having the entire disc ripped to a separate folder on the drive for easier management. However, there are a few issues that keep the Xbox from becoming a great player. First of all, the drive is only 6 gigs, and it is not really hard to build up a collection of music larger than that on a PC. Another major issue is that the Xbox cannot automatically find and add the ID3 tags like most players for PCs can, nor can the system read mp3 files off of a CD; it has to be a rip of an original disc. As a result it is necessary to manually enter the title/artist/album info using the controller since there are no keyboards available for the Xbox. This is a very slow and irritating process, and will get old very quickly

The other option is to buy the Xbox Music Mixer for $40 which will let you add mp3 from a PC to the Xbox. This saves you the trouble of typing in the information in most cases, and when you do you can use a keyboard. While it is $40, if you plan on using your Xbox as a media center, you'll defiantly want to get this.

The other multimedia function of the Xbox is a built-in progressive-scan DVD player. With a HDTV using component connectors, the DVD quality is very good; about as good as you would get on a mid- to high- end player. If you are using regular playback with a composite connection then it will be the equivalent of a mid range player. Unfortunately DVD playback is not free; you will have to buy the $20 DVD kit which includes a remote control. While it is $20, it's much cheaper than a standalone DVD player and noticeably better than the DVD player on the PS2.

With the Xbox console costing around $150 - $180 dollars, you'll end up needing to spend $260 to make the system your multimedia center, which is a very good price considering how much home theater systems cost. Granted, it's nowhere near the quality of a home theater, but what do you expect for this price? I should stress that these features should be thought of as bonuses for Xbox gamers; if you aren't interested in the games then there really is no reason to buy the system.

Like almost all consoles, it took a while for the Xbox game library to grow to the point where the system was worth owning. In the case of the Xbox it took longer than usual, but now there are a ton of excellent games in almost all genres. The main focus is shooters, especially first person shooters, Western/PC style RPGs, fighters, and sports games. The Xbox games tend to be of the same types of genres that PC games are, though many of the best titles are exclusive. Even for games that are ported to/from the PC, the Xbox version may be better since there are no compatibility issues, installation, or hard drive limits. A great example of this is Doom 3, which came out quite a while earlier for the PC. However, the Xbox version played better, had various less-than-interesting sections revised or removed, and included the original Doom games as bonuses. Not to mention the PC version required fairly advanced (in other words expensive) hardware and had tons of installation issues, none of which were issues with the Xbox version.

Many games nowadays are not exclusive to any particular consoles (though each console does have a long list of great exclusives). For games that are multisystem, the game will probably be better on the Xbox than the PS2 or GC. If a game is optimized for each system then it will look much better, load a lot faster, and play significantly smoother on the Xbox than the PS2, and probably still have a slight advantage over the GC. Two major advantages over the GC are than it can have online play and large game saves don't affect then Xbox (some games take over half of a Memory Card 251 on the GC, which is an insignificant amount of the Xbox's hard drive).

Since the Xbox hard drive can be used to store mp3 files it is possible for games to be designed to use Custom Soundtracks, which is when a game can play music off of the hard drive instead of from the DVD. This is not available in the majority of games; generally only sports games use it heavily, but when a game does use the feature it helps the game out quite a bit. This feature is something only the Xbox version of a game can have, since the PS2 and GC don't have a place to store music files.

While it is almost an given that the Xbox will have a better version of a game than the PS2 or GC, the question of whether or not the Xbox version will be better than the PC version of a game is more of a gray area. The Xbox version will defiantly have no installation or compatibility issues, however many games (especially RPGs and FPS games) play better with a keyboard and mouse than a controller, and there are none for the Xbox. Additionally, the PC version will be customizable (just look at all of the mods for Halo and Morrowind), the only way to get mods for the Xbox version is if they are downloadable off of Xbox Live or a new version is released (such as with Morrowind, Ninja Gaiden, or Fable). Generally speaking, if you want to play/make mods, get the PC version, otherwise get the Xbox version.

While many games released nowadays aren't exclusive (or even if they're called exclusive they're really “console exclusive” or “time exclusive”, which is to say “not exclusive”) there are tons of “actually exclusive” games for the Xbox. The most well known one is Halo 2, but also worth getting are Panzer Dragoon Orta, Otogi, Ninja Gaiden, Dead or Alive 3, and Mech Assault. Games like Halo, Fable, Doom 3, Star Wars KotOR 1 and 2, and Morrowind are available on the PC as well, but in many cases are better on the Xbox for various reasons. Other games such as Metal Arms, the Splinter Cell series, Price of Persia, and almost all of the compilations of old games are available on different consoles, but noticeable better on the Xbox due to improved load times, better graphics, and in some cases (such as Splinter Cell) better design.

For some gamers, online gaming is the wave of the future, and the only way to game anymore. If you are one of them, then the Xbox is the system to own. Xbox Live launched a year after the system was released and since then it has grown into a community of over a million online gamers with a huge library of games to choose from. While the number of players playing a certain game depends on its popularity, even the lesser known games still have a few die-hard fans online. While Xbox Live is not free, it is only $70 a year, which is only a little more than the cost of one game. While online gaming with a PC is (usually) free, Live doesn't have the widespread cheating that PC gaming is plagued with. If you're going to play online a lot, then Live is worth every penny. If you're happy with free online PC gaming or don't care about online play at all, then Live isn't worth it.

The vast majority of drawbacks and limitations of the Xbox can be removed by installing a mod-chip. The chip overrides the Xbox's BIOS allowing the system to run programs off of the hard drive much like a PC does. By modding your Xbox you can play games off the hard drive (reducing loading times to almost zero), add a larger hard drive, play imported games, play DVDs from any region, use the Xbox as an FTP server (good for moving files without the Music Mixer), store and play DivX, mpeg, and mp3 files, get internet radio, emulate older consoles, and much more. Never mind how easy modding makes it to pirate games, even the most honest gamer can benefit from installing a chip. The only drawbacks to modding are that you void your warranty, it's a legal grey area (installing the chip isn't illegal, however basically all of the new BIOSes violate some copyright in some way), you have to know what you're doing (or know somebody who does), and you will get banned from Live if your chip is detected.

Even without modding the system, there are a ton of games available now, and many of them are excellent. Fans of FPS, Western RPGs, sports, or online games, as well as people with a broad range of tastes, should defiantly consider an Xbox. Others may enjoy another console or PC gaming ore, but will be able to find a number of exclusive games that they would enjoy immensely, so they would probably do well to get an Xbox as a second or third console.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/14/04, Updated 09/26/05