[gekko]

After the launch of the retail version, I must give you my impressions again.

During the beta I was spoiled by the insanely well-developed game of MotoGP. I naturally assumed this was how Xbox Live would be, because it was how Xbox Live was said to be. But some things are too good to be true. Welcome to the wonderful world of Microsoft (did I mention I hate MS?).

Remember how MS promised lag-free gaming through the amazing servers that Microsoft will have. It'll just be so sweet. Well, it's a bunch of BS (surprised? Xbox? BS? Me neither). Microsoft's servers do no more than act as a middle man, and keep track of stats and friend's status. It's the incredible lag-free gaming thing that doesn't happen.

See, when you host games, you need to have a good upload speed, otherwise there will be lag. Now if we were playing on Microsoft's servers, that wouldn't be a problem, too bad we're not. As the host, you are hosting the game, not just creating a new game on MS' servers like you would think. So naturally, when you get games like Ghost Recon and Unreal Championship, there is lag, and there are disconnects, and there are games you can't join. In fact, Ghost Recon actually tells you the recommended max number of people. For me it was 2. 2 out of a possible 16. What BS.

There are also measures used to try to prevent lag. Such as having to press a button down to talk in Ghost Recon. Annoying, I must say. So lag is an issue. Disconnects are an issue. Connection problems are an issue. Why? Because it's really a ****ing P2P network, not where we all play games on MS' servers. See, this was MS doesn't have to spend money.

Now I said I was spoiled with MotoGP, you might ask why. Lag is a very small issue with MotoGP, though sometimes you can't join some games. It's nothing worth complaining about. But where it really shines is the work that was put into the online presentation.

The friends list is setup in MotoGP in a way where you would think XBL is the greatest thing in the world. And indeed it is that way, assuming the developers are as good as Climax and put the effort into it. But you quickly learn that they don't. Take MS' flagship title, MechAssault. The friends list left me puking and finding my MotoGP disc. It was all alphabetical (scrolling through a list of 50+ people for me), and you had to scroll until you found someone online. Then it didn't have anything other than required, whether they were on or offline, and whether they had voice on. Only way to know if you could join them was to click on them and have another menu pop up. You don't even know what game you're joining them in. Ghost Recon wasn't too much better, though it did put all the online people at the top of the list.

MotoGP spoiled me. Put all the MotoGP players at the top, followed by all those offline and in other games. It listed what game they were playing, whether or not they had voice, and if they could be joined all in a nice little box on the side. If they were in MotoGP, it would even say whether they were in a game, or the lobby. Nice, huh? Too bad other developers didn't do this.

The scoreboards in MechAssault sucked, too. You could scroll through the top 100, and also see your score. Anyway to compare you to friends? Nope. Ghost Recon didn't have a scoreboard (though one would be useless, MechAssault still has a useless one).

Now I'm not ripping on the games, just the online presentation of the games. Xbox Live has so much promise, but only when used in the right way. And Unreal Championship is pretty much the extent of what Xbox Live can handle. Then again, if MS gave us those servers they promised, we wouldn't have a problem.

If all the games were hosted on MS' servers, I could easily see paying $10+ a month for Xbox Live after the first year. But with all the games being P2P, I'd never pay MS to keep my stats and friends list.

Conclusion

Best option you have for online console gaming at the moment. Deal with the problems, and keep playing hoping they will be fixed. With the exception of PSO, you won't find a better gaming experience. Hopefully MS will deliver on their promise to actually host the games, but I doubt it. We'll see. I'm sure MS will change on November 14th, 2003 when their phone lines are flooded with people calling to cancel their accounts before it auto-renews.

Also, those in it for sports games will likely never notice these problems. It's mostly the games where you start adding large numbers of people into one game. But then again, those are the most fun.