Xbox One Tour- Dublin

rolexeagle1

mark_m360 wrote: »

We got to the door yesterday morning and were asked twice about having ID. My +1 forgot his. He is 24. But after looking like there could be problems, they let him in and he signed in.

I saw a few 17 year old looking guys turned away with their parent. 18+ is excessive. Their excuse was the games were 18+ but I counted at least 6 games that were not so.

If anything onsite was 18+ they cant let them in in fairness. event was good, was suitably impressed with the amount of consoles didnt have to queue too long to play games. Forza was visually very impressive, COD didnt see much difference between it and the 360 version. Dead rising, wow the amount of zombies on screen was awesome. Battlefield looked really nice.

JoePie

Did anyone think to ask about headsets and when the Turtle Beach stuff will be available? I believe Astro A40's were used at the event, but from reading the internet, there's no add-on available yet for Astro gear to hook into an Xbox One. At least not at a consumer level anyway.

LegoG321

No sorry never even thought about asking. I wouldnt be 100% sure so someone can correct me if im wrong but i dont think they were astro a40's. I think we just have to keep an eye for when they release a date:/

JoePie wrote: »

Did anyone think to ask about headsets and when the Turtle Beach stuff will be available? I believe Astro A40's were used at the event, but from reading the internet, there's no add-on available yet for Astro gear to hook into an Xbox One. At least not at a consumer level anyway.

rolexeagle1

LegoG321 wrote: »

No sorry never even thought about asking. I wouldnt be 100% sure so someone can correct me if im wrong but i dont think they were astro a40's. I think we just have to keep an eye for when they release a date:/

I used 2 different sets one were astro's alright cant remeber the other

FAILSAFE 00

srumball wrote: »

I used 2 different sets one were astro's alright cant remeber the other

The Astro a40 and the Turtle beach Seven was the other.

Kevvv

As a work around for the time being I think Turtle Beach said that you can still use the headset for sound and until the mic adaptor comes out, you can use the Kinect for voice chat

shuffles03

Here's my two cents from the event:

Ryse
Graphically impressive. Game handles really well. No lag, framerate drops etc. It's a complete button masher however and got old very quick. It was my first taste of the Xbox One and I came away pleased with the results.

Dead Rising 3
Once again, the number of zombies on screen at any one time was seriously impressive. The only problem with this was that graphics and polish seriously took a hit in order to achieve those high numbers. I had quick a bit of fun smashing zombies with a mallet/hammer, cutting zombies in two with a chainsaw, punching faces into raspberry pulp.

Forza
Wasn't impressed. The level of detail on the car is amazing but the backgrounds were horrendous. Flat, jagged and completely lifeless, I couldn't take my eyes off them. I'm not one to notice graphical flaws and as reviews have come out over the last few weeks about Resolutiongate etc etc, for the most part I just shrugged them off as I didn't believe I would be able to notice the differences being pointed out. However, my girlfriend was with me (doesn't really game, plays Tekken the odd time) and she noticed the problems with Forza immediately. The wow factor of playing on a new console was obliterated in a second. I was actually quite annoyed with what was happening on screen.

Kinect Sports
I don't own Kinect and I've never used it either. I was quite sceptical when I stood up to have a go. I needn't have been. This was by far the most impressive aspect of the day for me. I was standing about 5 feet away from the screen and there was no lag or delay whatsoever. I raced a few laps in a jet ski race and was blown away by how accurate the experience was. To drive the jet ski, I had to raise my arms out in front of me. Once the race started, all I had to do was clench my right fist to accelerate. As soon as I did, my ski took off immediately! Amazing! I only had to perform slight movements with my arms in order to turn effectively. Kinect was able to pick up my minutest reactions and replicate the movement on screen instantly. It genuinely felt like Minority Report and I'm not saying that lightly at all.

Battlefield 4
I really enjoyed playing online (getting my ass kicked if my being completely honest) and I'm not sure if the problems I experienced were down to a poor server, bad wifi or just the fact that multiplayer doesn't handle as well as single player would (maybe someone can shed some light on this). As I ran around the map, trees and bushes kept magically appearing out of thin air. It sucked the fun out of the whole experience. When I put down the controller, I could have easily believed that I had just been playing the 360 version.

Killer Instinct
Graphically impressive (nothing jaw dropping though) but the Killer feature of this game (excuse the pun) was the response. It was lightening fast - no lag, extremely fast paced and really enjoyable to play.

The Controller
I loved it. It feels like a more focused, trim version of it's older brother. It's lighter, thinner, nicer to hold (in my opinion, I had no problems with triggers etc. I really liked the vibration feedback in the triggers, this was implemented really well in Forza.

The Console
It's nowhere near as big as it's been made out to be. The design is clean, sleek and unobtrusive. I really like the glowing white Xbox logo.

Summary
Overall, I came away pretty unimpressed. It just didn't feel like the start of a new generation. There was no wow factor, no experiences I hadn't already felt with current gen. I'm not putting the blame solely on Microsoft. For all I know, the PS4 could be the exact same. The major leap just wasn't there for me. I've grown up with video games and obsess over them on a daily basis but I didn't obsess over my experience when I exited the building on Saturday.

I know it's only the start of the next gen and that launch games are no indication of what's to come but if someone had hidden the console out of sight and told me I was playing on the 360, I may have believed them. That's not to say the graphics weren't impressive. In a lot of cases they were. They just didn't feel generationally superior. Maybe we've reached a plateau in terms of realism and immersion and that's fair enough if that's the case but I just don't know if I want to throw down €500 before buying any games Thursday night/Friday. I may end up ditching my preorder completely.

This was not meant to be a rant - just my honest opinion. I own all current gen platforms and always focus on the games instead of the corporations. To be honest, I'd love to hear people's feedback based on what I've said above.

The JMC

I also managed to get into the event on Monday with a bit of bull****ting my way in. I wasn't there for very long unfortunately as I was in a bit of a hurry and would of loved to stay longer.

Let me preface this with the fact that it has been about a year and a half since I've done any console gaming as I am predominantly a pc gamer. I only got a chance to play 3 games before I had to leave but I'll give my 2 cents anyway from a PC perspective.

Forza 5: I honestly didn't pay attention to the background issues that Shuffles had but it is possible they exist. The cars themselves are beautiful and I had a blast playing Laguna Seca in the McLaren and Ferrari. It's typical Forza to me, handles very well and I imagine has a fun career mode like the previous installments. The rumble in the triggers is a truly bizarre feeling to me and I'd love to know how long it would take to get used to it.

Call of Duty: As someone who hasn't played CoD in a while, the game looked much better than I imagined. I heard a lot of grumbling about how bad CoD looks and it wasn't that bad. It played fine and the LAN setup was pretty fun. I'm sure if you enjoy CoD, you will enjoy this one.

Killer Instinct: Me and my dad had an absolute blast playing this. Neither of us can play fighting games but the game looked pretty good to me and the sounds were amazing. The commentator was great and we were grinning the whole time we were playing which is a good sign. We didn't get to try the fight stick for this.

I wasn't expecting much going to the event and actually left pleasantly surprised after all the bad mouthing that the Xbox gets. I didn't expect the graphics of any of the games to blow me away and that was probably the case. I've definitely seen better graphics on PC but I guess that is to be expected and not a legitimate gripe. I saw people play Dead Rising and Ryse and those games looked great with no noticeable issues that I've heard people talk about.

The best thing for me has to be the controller though. I'm definitely in the Xbox camp when it comes to controllers and this one is a noticeable improvement over the 360's. The thumbsticks are a massive upgrade and are considerably smaller than the 360's, my thumb fit perfectly inside the stick and I didn't experience any issues with the dead zone and it definitely had the perfect resistance, extremely impressed. The face buttons felt good and don't pop out like the ones on the 360, so felt a little bit better. The D-Pad was definitely a noticeable improvement over the 360 but will probably only be serviceable for going through menus, I had issues with it sometimes during Killer Instinct. The trigger rumble was really cool and the triggers felt fine themselves. The only thing I was keen on was the bumpers, they felt very bulky and quite hard to press down, not sure if it was the controller I used or it takes a bit getting used to.

The console was much smaller than I expected and the Kinect 2 is tiny! Overall I walked away pretty impressed and I knew not to expect some revolution since I still remember the Xbox -> 360 transition well (just look at Perfect Dark Zero and Crysis 3 for example). It's a shame I didn't get to experience any of the UI or the other little nuances of the console. But people definitely shouldn't feel like they flushed away €500.

Also I wasn't aware they were playing Battlefield online, I thought it was just over LAN like CoD?

shuffles03

The JMC wrote: »

Also I wasn't aware they were playing Battlefield online, I thought it was just over LAN like CoD?

I think you're right on that one - it was LAN. Would this affect framerate, pop in etc?

Since I posted my reaction yesterday morning, I've read a lot of game reviews and compared a lot of the chatter online. From my understanding (I stand to be corrected if wrong), both consoles are getting the same responses. 7 out of 10s here, 7 out of 10s there. I think the embargo for the Xbox console is lifted tomorrow. I'm going to hold off until then and make my final judgement once I read the overall reviews.

Damn Microsoft and limited editions. I'm an absolute sucker for them and I've a Day One Edition preordered.

maximoose

Just on the Turtle Beach Seven - maybe it was distortion coming from the Kinect picking up voices, but I thought the quality of the sound was terrible! Was only when I was flicking through an Argos gift guide later that night and saw them priced at €320 did I realize they were supposed to be high end, not impressed with them at all.

FAILSAFE 00

maximoose wrote: »

Just on the Turtle Beach Seven - maybe it was distortion coming from the Kinect picking up voices, but I thought the quality of the sound was terrible! Was only when I was flicking through an Argos gift guide later that night and saw them priced at €320 did I realize they were supposed to be high end, not impressed with them at all.

I was great to finally have a chance to try them vs the astro A40's and I have the say the Astros were fantastic. I'll definitely be buying a set in the new year.

ferrigan101

FAILSAFE 00 wrote: »

I was great to finally have a chance to try them vs the astro A40's and I have the say the Astros were fantastic. I'll definitely be buying a set in the new year.

Strange, myself and my mate both preferred the Turtle Beach 'phones. In fairness, we only the one go on BF so probably used the TB' s more.