Philadelphia goes to war with Tokyo (Xbox 360 delight #003)
In the midst of all of this doom and gloom about Xbox 360 in Japan, there are some positive developments. You know what's cool? I'm in Philadelphia. My buddy CheapyD of CheapAssGamer.com is in Tokyo, but today I played Perfect Dark Zero with him schooled him in Perfect Dark Zero.
It's not that I haven't been playing PC games with Ventrilio or TeamSpeak for years, but this was simple. No IP addresses to enter. No software to install. No fussy push-to-talk settings to toggle. One minute I'm playing on the empty subway map with a dude from London, the next moment the server is filling up with all sorts of people from my buddy list, including the aforementioned nubcake that got his cheap ass handed to him. The multiplayer online experience has never been so seamless.
Granted, there are significant issues with some aspects of the way that Perfect Dark Zero handles online play, but we'll save that for an annoyance post because this evening everything worked flawlessly. We were hurling smacktalk, shrapnel, and lead back and forth between Tokyo and Philadelphia and having a quality online gaming experience.
A quick disclaimer: if you see gamertag Joystiq in your online game and Joystiq is doing really well... that was me. If Joystiq is losing, it's my roommate. Or my brother. Or I've got a broken hand. Or I forgot to turn the monitor on. Are we straight on that? Good.
Other Xbox 360 delights: 001, 002
Xbox 360 annoyances: 001, 002, 003, 004, 005, 006, 007, 008, 009
