Early Friday afternoon I got home from work and sat down to play some Force Unleashed. I boot up my 360, connect to live, and it says theres been an update to the dash. Curious as to why they would update this dash with the new one coming so soon, I went ahead with the update.
Turns out that update was the NXE itself, and I suddenly remembered that I had opted in to get it early. I guess you could consider this blog an early review/rant about what it brings to the table.
When you first start up the NXE you have to make your Mi....avatar. Unlike the Wii's Miis it is actually much easier to make something that looks like you. It doesn't have creation specifics that games like The Elder Scrolls IV and Saints Row 2 have, but it has enough options to create something pretty accurate. Clothing is limited at the moment, but I'm sure more options will become available as time passes.
After creating your avatar you can take a picture of it to use as your gamerpicture, a headshot or a full body-shot. If you don't want to show your digital face on your gamercard you can still use a standard gamerpicture.
After you save your avatar the new dash itself comes into full view. The first menu item you'll see is the "Spotlight" section of the dash. This area is basically Microsoft's promotion area, with different windows advertising and promoting new games, videos in the marketplace, and contests.
The next option (going down the list) is the "Events" section. This is where they give information on the many game nights the Xbox community holds. Most people probably aren't going to look at this option very much.
Next is "Inside Xbox", which has videos basically doing more promoting. It has developer interviews, strategy videos, and more contests.
The "Friends" area has recieved a major overhaul, and its looks can change depending on the theme your currently using. Instead of being a vertical, scrolling list its a horizontal display, with those that are currently online being in the front (alphebetical order). It shows their avatars and a picture of the gamebox of the game that they are playing (if they're on the dashboard it just shows the "X" logo).
I mentioned that the "Friends" area may change depending on the theme your using. Newer themes optimized for the NXE will show special backgrounds behind your friends avatars. As I am currently using a Gears of War 2 theme optimized for the NXE various things like destroyed cars and demolished buildings show up behind the avatars.
Up next is the "Video Marketplace", which has more promotional windows and the window for accessing Netflix. When you enter the marketplace itself the layout is largely the same, it just uses the whole window-scheme that the rest of the dash uses.
Netflix works great, as long as you have a decent broadband connection. After typing in a simple code that allows you to use your 360 as a Netflix device (providing you have a Netflix account), you just add movies to your Instant Queue on the Netflix website, go to the Netflix window on the dash, and pick a movie that you want to watch. It even allows for HD videos if your connection is good enough, and the HD quality is amazing for something that is streaming. This is probably one of the best features of the NXE.
After the Video Marketplace there is the Game Marketplace. This is also largely the same as before, but with one other huge addition; the Community Games section. These are the games put out by indie developers, and there is already quite a few to choose from. The best part? They're only 200 Microsoft Points a piece.
Last but not least is "My Xbox", which shows the current game you have in your disc drive, a window to view and change your profile, as well as the game, music, picture, and video libraries. If you have the HD-DVD addon there is an option for that as well, the Windows Media Center tab, and the system settings tab.
Pressing the guide button brings up a "mini-blade" dash that is basically a simplified (and small) version of the current dash. You can access everything from here if you so desire, as I imagine quite a few people are going to do.
Now while the NXE looks good and is perfectly functional there are going to be quite a few gripes with it, most of them probably stemming from the avatars. I'm not trying to get politically incorrect or anything here but theres just something about the way they stand that looks...funny. If it wasn't for the facial hair and the ballcap on my avatar it would look like a girl. Lets just leave it at that.
The other problem is that current themes look kind of funny when used on the NXE. If you use a standard theme the main picture your going to see most of the time is the one that is on the Xbox Live blade, and its going to be squashed down into a widescreen image. The other images are used when you access the game, musis, and video libraries, but they too will be squashed down.
The friends list is also slightly annoying. Since its not a simple list anymore you have to scroll down a line of avatars to see who's online, which is somewhat of a bother. Luckily there is a workaround: if you bring up the "mini-blade" and access your friends list through there it shows the standard list.
One of the other issues with the NXE stems from one of its major additions: the Community Games. Lets just say that most of these are only 200 Microsoft Points for a reason. They also lack achievements.
I have yet to try out the party system, as noone else on my friends list has this dash yet. Besides Netflix this probably the only other major addition, and hopefully it turns out well.
I also havn't been able to try out game installing, since I only have a 20GB hard drive and not much space on it. Based on what I've heard from previews coverage, shaving a few seconds on load times just doesn;t sound worth it to me.
So thats my impressions of the New Xbox Experience. Those that havn't already gotten it yet will be able to see what all the fuss is about in a few days. Unfortunately there is no going around it: its a mandatory update and there is no going back to the blade system. I'm sure with time we will all get use to it.
If we don't, we can always take over Microsoft's headquarters.