Post by GhostRiderTGAC on Jan 19, 2006 9:36:15 GMT -5
As of earlier this week all of us lucky subscribers to the Official XBOX Magazine have received our ticket to play in the first MMORPG for the XBOX 360; Final Fantasy XI. I was thrilled at the opportunity to finally be able to play this type of game with my XBOX. I couldn't wait to pop the disc into my system and get online.
Let me first warn you that if you haven't yet started to play this game please set aside a couple of hours just to get setup. The disc doesn't actually contain the game but rather it is the installer which downloads the game. You need to have at least 5GB (yes that's 5 gigabytes) available on your hard drive. I actually had to delete some demos just to make space. Then you will download the initial install which takes about an hour and once that is done you will have about 50 minutes worth of content updates that need to be downloaded. This is all on top of the thirty minutes of entering various license keys (which you have to obtain by browsing to a site via your PC) and accepting legal agreements. All-in-all the installation just takes forever!
Once I finally got everything installed and user accounts created in PlayOnline (the service that hosts the game) and was ready to play it was well after 9PM (I started this at around 7PM). By the way if you don't have a USB keyboard, make sure you get one. A little time trying to enter information with you controller will definitely get old. I bought a keyboard yesterday from CompUSA that works great. It is an 84-key flexible keyboard. It can be rolled up and thrown in your bag for LAN gaming goodness and it is suprisingly responsive. I'm sure I will have it at the February LAN event so you can check it out.
Ok once I finally logged into the game I was impressed. The game has a minimalist look with regard to interface (which I like). You aren't distracted by all kinds of little user interface items. That doesn't mean they aren't available when you need them. Whether you are playing via the keyboard or controller a button click will bring the various menus up. Most of the functions contained in the menus are fairly expected for this type of game.
The graphics are pretty good with nice visuals, mind you I haven't gotten much past the main city market district. Metastat and I have created a party and killed a few creatures however we aren't very powerful and are just getting our feet wet. I liked the traditional WASD controls from my keyboard and didn't have any problem getting around. Meta complained that he had a very difficult time reading the text on his HD 27" television however on my 17" SVGA monitor I had absolutely no problem.
There were tons of other players online and it reminded me of when I participated in the beta test of Guild Wars on the PC. It's so nice to see all these other players in the game and I am certain that I will have no problem joining up with folks in and outside of XBTR on some awesome adventures.
If you were thinking about a 360 but don't yet have one, this game might just be another reason to go in that direction. I can't wait to get home tonight to jump back in and start exploring and going on some missions and quests. Send me a message if you want to hook up and we'll see where we go!
Let me first warn you that if you haven't yet started to play this game please set aside a couple of hours just to get setup. The disc doesn't actually contain the game but rather it is the installer which downloads the game. You need to have at least 5GB (yes that's 5 gigabytes) available on your hard drive. I actually had to delete some demos just to make space. Then you will download the initial install which takes about an hour and once that is done you will have about 50 minutes worth of content updates that need to be downloaded. This is all on top of the thirty minutes of entering various license keys (which you have to obtain by browsing to a site via your PC) and accepting legal agreements. All-in-all the installation just takes forever!
Once I finally got everything installed and user accounts created in PlayOnline (the service that hosts the game) and was ready to play it was well after 9PM (I started this at around 7PM). By the way if you don't have a USB keyboard, make sure you get one. A little time trying to enter information with you controller will definitely get old. I bought a keyboard yesterday from CompUSA that works great. It is an 84-key flexible keyboard. It can be rolled up and thrown in your bag for LAN gaming goodness and it is suprisingly responsive. I'm sure I will have it at the February LAN event so you can check it out.
Ok once I finally logged into the game I was impressed. The game has a minimalist look with regard to interface (which I like). You aren't distracted by all kinds of little user interface items. That doesn't mean they aren't available when you need them. Whether you are playing via the keyboard or controller a button click will bring the various menus up. Most of the functions contained in the menus are fairly expected for this type of game.
The graphics are pretty good with nice visuals, mind you I haven't gotten much past the main city market district. Metastat and I have created a party and killed a few creatures however we aren't very powerful and are just getting our feet wet. I liked the traditional WASD controls from my keyboard and didn't have any problem getting around. Meta complained that he had a very difficult time reading the text on his HD 27" television however on my 17" SVGA monitor I had absolutely no problem.
There were tons of other players online and it reminded me of when I participated in the beta test of Guild Wars on the PC. It's so nice to see all these other players in the game and I am certain that I will have no problem joining up with folks in and outside of XBTR on some awesome adventures.
If you were thinking about a 360 but don't yet have one, this game might just be another reason to go in that direction. I can't wait to get home tonight to jump back in and start exploring and going on some missions and quests. Send me a message if you want to hook up and we'll see where we go!
