New Xbox (360) owner - help with basic stuff

Marty81

I never owned the original Xbox, and now here I am with a 360.

-How complete and accurate is this as a backwards compatibility guide? Also, feel free to recommend Xbox games. I'm looking forward to getting some great and cheap used games.
-My 360 came with a wireless controller. How can I use this as a PC game controller? I'm guessing I need a USB wireless receiver or something.
-I bought the version with a 20GB hard drive, but it's only showing up as about 10.1 GB. Is that normal?
-How does Xbox live work? I created an offline gamer profile, and that's all I have so far. Can I eventually enable that for Xbox live gold, or will I need to create a new profile? And if my gold subscription lapses, can I still use the same profile for my local gaming?

Cruix

- That is the most accurate guide available, but it IS updated with new patches once in a while, so it's not "complete" yet.
- I'm not sure about this one.
- It's only showing up as 10GB because the 360 came loaded with demos. Check under the tab where it lets you view Videos, Demos, Arcade Games and the like -- check under Demos and you can either keep or delete them as you see fit.
- You can enable for Gold once you want to by going to your Gamer Profile (Top left) and selecting to activate it as a gold account. It'll just ask you to put in the number on the Gold card you buy. You can use the same profile no matter your status with gold.

Little helpful hint: If you're going to buy used XBox games at EB/Gamestop and you don't have the compatibility list on you, look at the price tag on the used game. If it's backwards compatible, the tag will say "Title of the game<BC>"

Antibodies

I just got a 360 as well, how does one change their background theme?- I DLed some Halo3 ones apparently but didnt click to enable them now I cant find them.

LewieP

Xbox games I really like that are still worth playing today (and haven't been superceeded by a 360 game ie Forza/Forza 2)

BLACK - Pretty FPS, production values out the wazoo, interesting story + presentation.
Breakdown - JFPS, Japanese FPS, very interesting in that it brings alot new to the FPS genre, but also lacks alot of the refinements that other games have made post-doom. It's bargain bin price and worth it for the interesteding design perspective.
I-Ninja - Mario 65, nuff said.
The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction - Hulk Smash! Nothing beats jumping in the air, smashing a helicopter, landing and then throwing a tank at a hulkbuster, and wallrunning away.
Indigo Prophecy aka Farenheit - Great story and presentation, everyone should play it through once (and only once)
JSRF: Jet Set Radio Future - Visually stunning neo-tokyo skating game, more of a platformer than a Tony Hawks clone. Fantastic soundtrack.
Marvel vs. Capcom 2 - Superb 2D fighter. "Hyper Beam!"
Mega Man Anniversary Collection - Classic 2D platformer compilation, if you like megaman at all, get this.
Mercenaries - My favourite sandbox game in a while, set in Korea, really nails the feeling of being in the middle of a war.
Metal Arms: Glitch in the System - So good that Blizzard bought out the dev based just on this game.
OutRun 2006: Coast to Coast - Happy arcade racing game, lots of blue sky.
Panzer Dragoon ORTA - Like the first two saturn games with extra pretties.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time - Brilliant platformer.
Psychonauts - Tim schaefer is fucking insane.
Shenmue II - If you have played the first one and not this, do so now. If you havent played the first, track down a copy + a dreamcast now.
Sonic Mega Collection Plus - Sonic before the 3rd dimension ruined him.
Super Monkey Ball Deluxe - Lots of ball rolling puzzles, great fun (esp multiplayer)
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell® Chaos Theory - My favourite Splinter Cell game, aged really well and pushed the Xbox hardware further than any other game I have played too. Great Amon Tobin soundtrack too.
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell® Double Agent - More of the same really, and from what I have heard the 360 version is alot worse.

Some of these you may have played elsewhere, but they are all great. hope that can be of some help (it will be missing some titles, either because I haven't played them or because I dislike Halo)

Photon

-How complete and accurate is this as a backwards compatibility guide? Also, feel free to recommend Xbox games. I'm looking forward to getting some great and cheap used games.

As far as i'm aware that is THE list ... nothing that isnt on there will work ... but all games on there should work decently (there are some bugs/glitches in some games though) ... the way the backwards compatability works has a specific emulator for each game, so if a game isnt on that list there is no way for it to "sort of work" or something.

Cant really reccomend much for xbox games, but my collection consists of halo, halo 2 and ninja gaiden ... all of which are great

-My 360 came with a wireless controller. How can I use this as a PC game controller? I'm guessing I need a USB wireless receiver or something.

You will need a one of *these*
It does make a fantastic pc gamepad.

-I bought the version with a 20GB hard drive, but it's only showing up as about 10.1 GB. Is that normal?
I thought there is supposed to be about 13gigs free ... not 100% sure though .. maybe it came with some demos preloaded or something?

-How does Xbox live work? I created an offline gamer profile, and that's all I have so far. Can I eventually enable that for Xbox live gold, or will I need to create a new profile? And if my gold subscription lapses, can I still use the same profile for my local gaming?

You will tie the profile you created to your passport account, which will make it an xbox live silver account for free. If you then pay for gold it will be upgraded so you can play online, and will revert to silver when your subscription runs out, you use your one profile for everything


[edit] wow ... beat'd by 5 mins? i didnt know i typed so slowly

ToyD

Go to the system tab to change the theme. I do not remember which exact option, console maybe under that to change the theme.

And the best part of xbox live (imo) is the marketplace tab. Be sure you rove around that during your trial to see all the demos and downloadables for various games. There is a TON of stuff there, but can be quite daunting to figure out at first.

Gdiguy

ToyD wrote: »

Go to the system tab to change the theme. I do not remember which exact option, console maybe under that to change the theme.

And the best part of xbox live (imo) is the marketplace tab. Be sure you rove around that during your trial to see all the demos and downloadables for various games. There is a TON of stuff there, but can be quite daunting to figure out at first.

I'm pretty sure it's just system tab -> console -> themes

And like others have said, they come with a bunch of demos and also a lot of videos, so on the same system tab you can go to one of the options ("hard drive? storage?" I forget, mine's back at my apt) and it'll give you a more detailed view (demos: 5 gb, videos: 2.3 gb, etc etc) that you can then select individual files to delete... but you won't ever get to 20 gb, besides the usual 20gb!=20gb hard drive stupidity, there's also some portion of the hd that's reserved for system-type stuff that you won't be able to use as storage

bombardier

If you get the battery + charger thing for the wireless controller, it comes with a USB cable to charge with/use if you are low on power. Will this work on a PC rather than using the wireless receiver?

Snowbeat

protip: Buy Mass Effect now.

also BioShock.

capnrico

bombardier wrote: »

If you get the battery + charger thing for the wireless controller, it comes with a USB cable to charge with/use if you are low on power. Will this work on a PC rather than using the wireless receiver?

Nope, it is purely a power cable, unfortunately.