The Saga of getting an Xbox One came to a close on Friday last week.
With the release of Titanfall and the bundle that includes the game I thought this was the right time to pick up the new console. Even though my attempt to get it with the Disney deal last year turned out to be a bust I did end up with two games, and with this bundle now I have three. So over all I’ve made out pretty good.
On Friday I was able to set it up, update it, and then watch some Netflix before we headed to bed. I knew that I would end up with a long set of downloads before I would be able to play anything; all the games I have with it are digital so it wasn’t possible to jump right into one. I was still a little shocked at the size of those downloads though, and for some reason they all stopped in the middle of the night. I can only assume my WiFi had a hiccup and dropped the Xbox.
The next afternoon I tossed together a truly ugly cat5 cable spaghetti mess to the Xbox One just to get it off the WiFi, I really can’t wait until we get into the house and have it wired up properly. And yes, I know I said I liked how clean WiFi was, but after a few months I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s unreliable as a permanent connection. After setting up the cat5 it was able to download the games without issue.
All I’ve played so far is Forza 5 (shocking!) and damn is it pretty. I could ramble on about car physics, handling characteristics, and vehicle choices, but I’ve found with games that most people just politely smile and nod when I talk about it.
The Kinect voice commands were, at first, less than impressive, but after a few days use I swear it has learned how Iris and I speak. It is much more accurate and having the ability to do almost everything just by saying it and having it actually work is nice.
The ability to multitask and use the Snap feature is just amazing as well. I was playing Forza, tuning a car, when I wanted to check if a new version of the Android/Iphone tuning app was out. I snapped Internet Explorer up, searched it, and then grabbed my phone to download it, all without having to drop out of the game. I can see us using this while watching Netflix as well, just to answer the “Hey, its that guy who was in that thing that time, who is he?” question.
So far it’s been completely worth it and I expect it will only get better with updates. And maybe I’ll actually play something other than Forza.