I checked out the Xbox One want to know what I thought?

So I just got back from the "event" and got hands on with everything thankfully so I will try my best to answer the questions already asked while writing this: I have tried my best to properly edit this but I know it won't be 100% correct. There are no pictures to show as they would not let us take any, I am still not sure why.

So I was pretty impressed with the controller as it was pretty comfortable but it was not much different from the 360 controller: the sticks felt better as the little grips are gone and instead are around the edge stick, they did not feel much different to the 360 while in use which is fine for me.

I was impressed with the bumpers and the triggers, I tend to only use one finger for both and I found that moving between them much easier and felt more natural, mainly because the triggers and bumpers are wider then the 360 ones and there is no space in-between them so you can slide you're finger across.

The biggest problem is still the D-pad, I did not find it enjoyable for the 10 games of Killer Instinct I played, I found that the two controllers used on the demo station had different feeling D-pads, one felt much better but its hard to explain why: I had no problems dashing and fireball/shoryuken motions on both but it felt a lot "smoother" on the controller on P1 side: I got some of guys I was playing with to check it out and they said the same, I tried the other D-pads in use on the other stations (which had different games) and I did not have this problem with any of the other ones.

I found the rest of the controller to be much of the same, the buttons felt fine and thanks to the battery pack being in the controller I found a better resting place for my fingers as on the wireless 360 controller I tend to push my fingers against the side of the battery pack, which of course is no problem with the wired one I have. The only other thing I can think of is the cable, the one thing I don't like about the 360 cable (on wired one at least) is because the cable coming out of the controller is flexible it tends to pull to one side so I have to move it out the way of my fingers: in this one (and all of the cables at the back of the console) have the square style connector.

I tried to use the guide button and what happens is the game minimizes to a square about maybe 1/3 or 1/4 of the screen (while still playing) on these dev units the only thing you can see is a "Welcome to the Xbox One Demo SDK " I am guessing you would get other customization options but nothing was select able, I tried both buttons but in the middle of the controller: the one on the left did nothing ( and the other one paused the game. I asked about buying the controllers and stuff before launch and the Microsoft man said they would go out before launch and it would be up to the companies to decide if they sell early: the same thing happened with Pokémon last week with shops, one company sold early and everyone followed.

The consoles ran very silently and I put my hand on the vents and it was not warm at all, the Forza console crashed once: I never saw it happened but they said some sort of error message came up and it crashed. From what the Microsoft guy said it can take up to an hour to change from one game to another on the SDK, or to set it up (as they are moving from town to town every day until launch so all the demos and consoles get reset and have to be set up again)

I am going to write a little about each game, don't take much of this stuff as fact and what not, I only got about 20 minutes with each game, I only went back to KI after the first go:

Killer Instinct: I liked it a lot, I don't have any previous experience with the franchise but I am a big fighting game fan, SF4 is my game of choice which was great as I found it very easy to jump into, I only played Jago so I can't comment on the other characters (4 in this version) I liked the art style and the explosions from the fireballs (unblocked) look awesome, as well as the fur on Sabertooth looked nice. I never checked the move list until my last match but I was still able to bust out 40+ hit combos with ease before then using the simple this is a ryu clone tactic: some of it was mashing of course and it seems like after you do x amount of hits it just lets you keep hitting them for a while but in return it seems like unless you do a super move or special move the damage taken can be restored (similar to the first hit in a Focus Attack in SF4) I don't think there is much else I can say, if I pick up a Xbox One it will be my main game, apart from the D-pad issues (even without the broken one I would really like a fight pad from Madcatz!)

Dead Rising: I only played this for a little while as the demo had no missions what so ever, just the open world but what I can report is the frame rate in the demo was perfect the whole time, the demo was not the same as the conference one: it was an outside area and had a big shopping mall, I mowed dawn a ton of Zombies with some sort of construction vehicle with a scooper on the front and like a digger on the back which you could move from side to side like a brush just throwing everyone out of the way and before I ended my time with the demo I tried to get some vehicles and set them on fire, I never saw any dips there either but as for the load times I could not find any buildings that loaded when I went into them but when the DR3 demo ends it took a good 2 minuets to load out to the main menu then another 2 to load back into the world. I asked the Microsoft man about the Lawn Mowers but he did not have an answer (my guess if its not in the demo they don't know)

Ryse: So the demo was a co-op only demo that was based in an arena but it was mission based as you progress from one end to the other so for example kill these barbarians, set fire to this village or enter this fortified base and kill these generals all while trying to gain favour of the audience (basically not getting hit else they get bored or getting stylish kills on enemies to excite them) at the end of the demo you get a score and you can start again, that's it.

The combat was pretty generic, its a one button attack system with A being used as a Batman style teleporting/flying instant block (which I did not like as for some reason you can't use the shield any other way) you can also get people into a killing blow state simply by hitting them a few times (indicated by a skull on their head) and you can press B and kind of QT event in which you can choose how to kill them: if you are near you're co-op partner you can do a co-op finisher (the one I saw was the other guy holding him like a meat shield, I did a few stabs to the gut then it looks like he snaps his neck but the camera goes back to normal.) You also somehow summon lightening to push everyone back and stun them quickly? I honestly did not understand what happened/how is this possible, even after a few times of trying it.

After playing it I got the feeling this mode is the same as the multiplayer in God of War Ascension: another reason to keep the game in the drive but not especially worth while.

Finally is Forza, which was the most popular game was pretty enjoyable and everyone who I spoke to said they enjoyed the Impulse Triggers, the are pretty subtle and I enjoyed using them in corners: when accelerating on Laguna Seca track (the only track) I found the vibrations to be subtle and gradually increasing as I accelerating but as soon as I applied the brakes hard I could feel the Triggers going at full vibration, as well as the shock from the rest of the controller: I know in the promo videos they have talked about how it will make newer players better, I can't really agree and I am sure people will get tired of it after a while. Triggers aside I can't really comment on how well it played, it looked nice but I did not feel the AI was any different.

So all in all I was not swayed either way by the Xbox One, I was not blown away by any of the games, on either a game play or technical level and honestly could not point to a sole reason for buying the console or if it has any true or worthwhile improvements worth the investment: I currently have a PC very capable of playing the new games as well as a 360 but I did not walk away with a bad feeling out the system either.

Cool. I would very much like to be in your shoes tomorrow, even if the Xbox One isn't out where I live until next year.

Awesome dude! As a longtime Xbox fan, I'd like to know how the XONE controller holds up the 360 version! I'm already sold on the games so I'm good!

I'd like to know if the gameplay in Ryse is as mediocre as it looked during Microsoft's E3 press conference. The developers have been talking it up as being more in-depth than what was shown at the conference, but I've yet to see any proof. I'd really like the game to not be shitty, because I'm a big fan of the setting.

Granted, it's hard to know if a brief demo of the game is going to show anything more than what was in the press conference anyway. They seem to be concentrating on pitching that game on its graphics alone, which is doing a disservice to anyone who actually wants to know what the game is going to be in its final form.

Also, if you're a fan of the Forza series, I wouldn't mind hearing your impressions. I'm interested to know if anything meaningful about the game has changed aside from prettier graphics and the new AI stuff.

Some general thoughts on the controller compared to the 360 pad would be cool, too. Have a good time, by the way! Wish I could get my hands on some of this stuff.

I guess my main question is - does this feel like 500 bucks worth of improvement on the experiences you can have with current systems? You can include or exclude PC as suits your own perspective.

So, things to think about when you're there:

• Squishiness in the bumpers?
• Poppiness in the face buttons
• Dead Zone of sticks, height
• Amount of throw in the triggers, and if it feels odd
• Quarter-circle responsiveness and such of the d-pad.

Have fun playing! :D

Wow! In all of the hundred of pages of debate over these consoles or all of the endless, "should I buy X or Y" threads, this is a perspective on the whole Next Gen thing that I wish I'd had to think about. It is an odd situation that many of these folks are talking about buying a version of a thing they already have. And especially because the launch lineup on both consoles is less that stellar, and there are still amazing games coming out on current hardware your "is this 400/500 bucks better than what I have" argument is a really strong one.

It gets lost in this time of pre-orders, hype, and day one achievements, that hey, you don't really need these boxes right away.

Anyway, not trying to derail the thread, but that was an awesome comment. Thanks!

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OP: I'd love to know your general impression of the smoothness of the interface and games. One of the things that I'm looking forward to with the new tech is hopefully never having stuttering and frame rate issues. Of course, that's all really the work of the programmers, and not inherently the console's fault if it's not flawless, but let us know if you notice a difference in the overall smoothness of the experience. Have fun!

Get some footage of Dead Rising 3. It's fun to watch people play that. I haven't seen many "good" players actually fight off the hordes (in the way that makes it look easy).

edit: Ask if they have ride on lawn mowers in the game. It would be entertaining if you could craft a boosted lawn mower and just completely clear hordes.

@killercombo: Take some pictures of the controller and let us know how it feels. Use the d-pad a lot and see if it finally works in a reliable manner.

I'm far more interested in the controller than the console itself. I would particularly love to know if the controller will be available for sale before the console's release date.

Does a "dev unit" that can't go onto dashboard mean that it's a PC hidden behind the counter using xbox one controller? Or just a regular xbox one/dev unit that doesn't have a dashboard?

@icemo: I asked the manager of the store and he was told that they they where dev consoles and that we would be locking into playing the games, so it could just be a case of it has a dashboard but they want you to play the games and the guide is disabled/the power button is not reachable

Hopefully I will get a lot of time with KI so I can try about the dpad as I am a 360/PC user who is 90% controller based (Even the BF4 beta works great with it) but I used a Madcatz pad for fighters.

It means its the same as most display unit and they do not want ya messing with it.

@the_laughing_man: @icemo: So a picture came out of the same event in another town and its an Xbox One with the Kinect on top and some sort of plastic casing around the front to stop the power button being pressed. Xbox One

That fully rules out any computer.

So I just got back from the "event" and got hands on with everything thankfully so I will try my best to answer the questions already asked while writing this: I have tried my best to properly edit this but I know it won't be 100% correct. There are no pictures to show as they would not let us take any, I am still not sure why.

So I was pretty impressed with the controller as it was pretty comfortable but it was not much different from the 360 controller: the sticks felt better as the little grips are gone and instead are around the edge stick, they did not feel much different to the 360 while in use which is fine for me.

I was impressed with the bumpers and the triggers, I tend to only use one finger for both and I found that moving between them much easier and felt more natural, mainly because the triggers and bumpers are wider then the 360 ones and there is no space in-between them so you can slide you're finger across.

The biggest problem is still the D-pad, I did not find it enjoyable for the 10 games of Killer Instinct I played, I found that the two controllers used on the demo station had different feeling D-pads, one felt much better but its hard to explain why: I had no problems dashing and fireball/shoryuken motions on both but it felt a lot "smoother" on the controller on P1 side: I got some of guys I was playing with to check it out and they said the same, I tried the other D-pads in use on the other stations (which had different games) and I did not have this problem with any of the other ones.

I found the rest of the controller to be much of the same, the buttons felt fine and thanks to the battery pack being in the controller I found a better resting place for my fingers as on the wireless 360 controller I tend to push my fingers against the side of the battery pack, which of course is no problem with the wired one I have. The only other thing I can think of is the cable, the one thing I don't like about the 360 cable (on wired one at least) is because the cable coming out of the controller is flexible it tends to pull to one side so I have to move it out the way of my fingers: in this one (and all of the cables at the back of the console) have the square style connector.

I tried to use the guide button and what happens is the game minimizes to a square about maybe 1/3 or 1/4 of the screen (while still playing) on these dev units the only thing you can see is a "Welcome to the Xbox One Demo SDK " I am guessing you would get other customization options but nothing was select able, I tried both buttons but in the middle of the controller: the one on the left did nothing ( and the other one paused the game. I asked about buying the controllers and stuff before launch and the Microsoft man said they would go out before launch and it would be up to the companies to decide if they sell early: the same thing happened with Pokémon last week with shops, one company sold early and everyone followed.

The consoles ran very silently and I put my hand on the vents and it was not warm at all, the Forza console crashed once: I never saw it happened but they said some sort of error message came up and it crashed. From what the Microsoft guy said it can take up to an hour to change from one game to another on the SDK, or to set it up (as they are moving from town to town every day until launch so all the demos and consoles get reset and have to be set up again)

I am going to write a little about each game, don't take much of this stuff as fact and what not, I only got about 20 minutes with each game, I only went back to KI after the first go:

Killer Instinct: I liked it a lot, I don't have any previous experience with the franchise but I am a big fighting game fan, SF4 is my game of choice which was great as I found it very easy to jump into, I only played Jago so I can't comment on the other characters (4 in this version) I liked the art style and the explosions from the fireballs (unblocked) look awesome, as well as the fur on Sabertooth looked nice. I never checked the move list until my last match but I was still able to bust out 40+ hit combos with ease before then using the simple this is a ryu clone tactic: some of it was mashing of course and it seems like after you do x amount of hits it just lets you keep hitting them for a while but in return it seems like unless you do a super move or special move the damage taken can be restored (similar to the first hit in a Focus Attack in SF4) I don't think there is much else I can say, if I pick up a Xbox One it will be my main game, apart from the D-pad issues (even without the broken one I would really like a fight pad from Madcatz!)

Dead Rising: I only played this for a little while as the demo had no missions what so ever, just the open world but what I can report is the frame rate in the demo was perfect the whole time, the demo was not the same as the conference one: it was an outside area and had a big shopping mall, I mowed dawn a ton of Zombies with some sort of construction vehicle with a scooper on the front and like a digger on the back which you could move from side to side like a brush just throwing everyone out of the way and before I ended my time with the demo I tried to get some vehicles and set them on fire, I never saw any dips there either but as for the load times I could not find any buildings that loaded when I went into them but when the DR3 demo ends it took a good 2 minuets to load out to the main menu then another 2 to load back into the world. I asked the Microsoft man about the Lawn Mowers but he did not have an answer (my guess if its not in the demo they don't know)

Ryse: So the demo was a co-op only demo that was based in an arena but it was mission based as you progress from one end to the other so for example kill these barbarians, set fire to this village or enter this fortified base and kill these generals all while trying to gain favour of the audience (basically not getting hit else they get bored or getting stylish kills on enemies to excite them) at the end of the demo you get a score and you can start again, that's it.

The combat was pretty generic, its a one button attack system with A being used as a Batman style teleporting/flying instant block (which I did not like as for some reason you can't use the shield any other way) you can also get people into a killing blow state simply by hitting them a few times (indicated by a skull on their head) and you can press B and kind of QT event in which you can choose how to kill them: if you are near you're co-op partner you can do a co-op finisher (the one I saw was the other guy holding him like a meat shield, I did a few stabs to the gut then it looks like he snaps his neck but the camera goes back to normal.) You also somehow summon lightening to push everyone back and stun them quickly? I honestly did not understand what happened/how is this possible, even after a few times of trying it.

After playing it I got the feeling this mode is the same as the multiplayer in God of War Ascension: another reason to keep the game in the drive but not especially worth while.

Finally is Forza, which was the most popular game was pretty enjoyable and everyone who I spoke to said they enjoyed the Impulse Triggers, the are pretty subtle and I enjoyed using them in corners: when accelerating on Laguna Seca track (the only track) I found the vibrations to be subtle and gradually increasing as I accelerating but as soon as I applied the brakes hard I could feel the Triggers going at full vibration, as well as the shock from the rest of the controller: I know in the promo videos they have talked about how it will make newer players better, I can't really agree and I am sure people will get tired of it after a while. Triggers aside I can't really comment on how well it played, it looked nice but I did not feel the AI was any different.

So all in all I was not swayed either way by the Xbox One, I was not blown away by any of the games, on either a game play or technical level and honestly could not point to a sole reason for buying the console or if it has any true or worthwhile improvements worth the investment: I currently have a PC very capable of playing the new games as well as a 360 but I did not walk away with a bad feeling out the system either.

It sounds to me like one controller might have had more use and been more worn in than the other. Perhaps the one that felt good was "broken in" so to speak. I don't know.

I'm glad that I will be waiting until next year to pick one up. While I do think it has the best lineup of games, all consoles are very limited in their first year or so because of the game selection.

@xyzygy: Sorry for the late reply, I don't get any sort of notifications anymore at the top of the page for some reason?

Any way I think that might be the case but I am not 100% sure, the ones I have for my system feel pretty similar to each other which is why it felt more jarring on these controllers.

@killercombo: Thanks for the info! All-in-all sounds pretty exciting. Dead Rising seems like it has a lot of impressive potential if there's a good amount of mowing down zombie hordes at 60fps like you said. I think it could be a really fun game that they've just shown all of the worst parts of.

(sort of like everything MS has done with marketing this console) ;)

Also, your notifications might be off. A "fix" a few weeks ago unchecked a lot of folks preferences, so go to your profile, click the "Notifications" tab, and check dem boxes.

yeah not really blow away from the launch titles, seems you were playing the multiplayer build of RYSE which is being outsourced, the single player looks way more appealing. Also DR3 at 60? I think they are struggling to keep at 30. (they are locking it at 30 for launch).

@joshwent: thanks I sorted the notifications thing. @bigjeffrey: It might not be 60, that's what the Microsoft guy said when I brought up the E3 build, regardless if its 60 or 30 I am just glad its smooth because like I said I had no problems.

How's the new Kinect?

@insouciant: it was not usable in any of the games sorry.

No thanks.

Have you gotten any calls from the NSA yet?

@bigjeffrey: Ryse has multiplayer? Ho boy. How is that going to work if it's all QTE/ Minimal/ Non-direct control based? Pitting your army against another doing turtle manoeuvres?

@razielcuts: The Multiplayer was what I played, I wrote what I thought above but its basically an area filled with small missions and you get a score at the end, if you really want to check it out they showed it on the twitch stream at Pax right here: its the same as what I played.

nice read

@killercombo: thanks for the thorough report duder!

@valeyard: Thanks, I plan on doing the same on November 14th when the PS4 roles around, they had a shell of the PS4 in the store today, I am still not sure why but I think I like the look.

I've used the controller, it feels smaller, tighter, it is hard to say from only a couple uses for sure but it definitely felt higher quality than the 360 controller. I wish it was larger personally but I have big hands so.