Customer Reviews
No competition for the PS2 - By: Frederick Graham, 08 Sep 2008 
I own an Xbox. I love my Xbox. I specifically like the fact that it can handle otherwise PC exclusive game like Half life 2 (5/5), star wars knights of the old republic (5/5) & dreamfall (5/5) right up to 2006.
The Xbox has 3 advantages over the PS2;
1) Superior hardware (can play higher-spec games) which most gamers never notice because most games are available on either platform. It also means you have slightly more options with the graphics upsacaling - again this goes unnoticed.
2) The ability to Rip CD's (VERY slowly) & use the soundtracksin SOME games. Very similar to any PC for the last 2 decades.
3) The hard drive allows for faster loading & saving than the PS2 memory cards.
From here on the PS2 OWNS the Xbox;
XBOX FAULTS:
- Frequent overheating
- Size
- Price
- No USB ports
- Easily damaged
- Noise
- Inadequate memory card compatibility (none)
- Very short life (Xbox 360 comes outin 2005)
- Ability to play DVD's (Flawed)
- Less advanced controllers.
The PS2 is older, but better made. Just like the PS3 is newer, & better made.
This isn't just a console. It can be so much more. - By: Gary Diamond, 24 Aug 2008 
Why is the now-aging XBOX such a great piece of hardware? Read on.
FRESH OUT OF THE BOX:
I'm a very casual gamer these days so I tend to be nearly one generation behind. I simply don't see the pointin paying £50 for a brand new title that'll be worth £10in only a year so I let most of the console generations pass me by thse days, then I pick 'em up when the newest shiniest one comes out & the old ones are dropped like broken toys.
It was by chance my flatmate decided to give me his old XBOX. He threwin some good games; THUG2, Deus Ex Invisible War, Project Gotham Racing 2, Thief Deadly Shadows & some others. That was fine, but I soon got bored with playing games & was tempted to start letting it gather dust, sitting there under my TV set which at the time I didn't use much anyway, not being a big fan of most of the shows currently airing then.
THINKING OUTSIDE OF THE BOX:
I remembered an article I'd seenin a home cinema magazine that stated the XBOX was capable of being used as a budget media centre with very little expenditure & effort. After a little research on teh internetz I discovered that no hardware modification was necessary as it could all be done via software. Scripted software no less, simplifying the entire process. Needless to say, I got ahold of the free utilities - which incidentally are incredibly well made & worthy of donations to the authors - & sat down over the course of a few evenings, figuring out what I was going to reconfigure the XBOX, which is basically a scaled down PCin a small black box, to do.
After modification with use of XBOXHDM & Ndure 3 coupled with applications like UnleashX & the mighty XBMC, the XBOX becomes a powerful tool. You can swap out the tiny internal harddrive for the biggest currently available with a simple ROM patch & the EEPROM code to lock the drive to the XBOX; a simple process with XBOXHDM. (I currently have a 160GB unitin there & have found the console so useful I'm considering moving up to 1TB.) That's where the fun starts.
ADVANTAGES:
Software modified & sporting a bigger harddrive, the XBOX comes alive. You can:
(*) Play all region DVDs without buying the extra kit - although it's worth considering as XBMC allows you to reprogram the remote if you have it.
(*) FTP your music/film/TV show collection to the box & use XBMC to play them all, complete with decent quality visualisations for the music. Or have your PCin another room & stream from that, negating the need to copy anything.
(*) Rip CDs/DVDs to harddrive. Yep, on the XBOX itself.
(*) Copy all your XBOX games to the harddrive to speed up load times & manage them all from the new dashboards. This allows you to store your originals somewhere they won't be scratched or damagedin some other way.
(*) Install emulators: PSX, SNES, Genesis, Nintendo 64, Amiga, Dreamcast & several others. Most of which run at full speed &in some cases actually improve the visuals over the original system! Makes 'Virtual Console' services look like the ripoff they really are.
(*) Run one of several adapted Linux builds & use the console to browse the net; choosing a build like XDSL allows you to do such things as watching YouTube videos through Firefox, too!
(*) Add a keyboard & mouse can be added with an inexpensive adapter that connects to the controller ports. Ever wanted to play Halo with mouse aiming without shelling out for the software again? Done.
(*) Still run Live when using an original game from power on (read up before doing this so you don't get banned).
(*) Boot back to MS Dash, should you want to.
(*) Run stripped down versions of Windows 98, 2000 & XP!
(*) Soft reset any time - LTRIG, RTRIG, BACK & BLACK buttons.
Impressed? You should be. There are many other great things you can do but it won't all fitin this review!
CONCLUSION:
To me, the XBOX symbolises the start of the integration age, where one inexpensive unit can provide all your home entertainment needs, with just a minimal amount of technical knowledge required to maximise the unit's potential. The console is a basic PC, games unit & media player capable of runningin HD and/or with Dolby Surround 5.1. Of course not everything can be output at maximum quality, but given only 64mb of RAM & a 733mhz processor it does a lot. All it has cost me is £3 for some TORX screwdrivers & time setting it up. If you have an old XBOX & some time, I recommend it. You can never have enough media players these days, it seems.
LINKS:
xbox-linux.org/wiki/17_Mistakes_Microsoft_Made_in_the_Xbox_Security_System
forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=496263
xbmc.org
I like it! - By: strany, 21 Jan 2008 i have owned & xbox for 4 years now & it has finally given up the ghost but it has been v. reliable & i have had no problems. only problem is that htere r no good platform games but drving, shooting & evrything else r great . got xbox 360 now
its not that much bigger than a ps2 & its ghot the same amount of buttons!
Excellent multi media centre (but not in the way Micro$oft intended it) - By: Masood Syed, 14 Nov 2007 I bought my main xbox over a year & a half ago & now own two of them! - And I still use both of them quite extensively! Why would you want to buy an xbox these days when there are so many alternatives like the psx 2, or xbox 360? - well I bought mine with the intention of using it as a multi-media centre (no, not the default rubbish that micro$oft gives you!) - I had a lot of divx & dvd backup movies of dvd's that I owned on the pc & mac that I wanted to watchin the living room.
Back a year ago the only options was to add a `mod chip' to the system that would allow you to run other software (other than micro$oft approved), nowadays you can `soft mod' the xbox which means you don't even have to buy a mod chip or open up the xbox!
I chipped mines with the X3 mod chip, nowadays you can buy a solderless version which means you just push the legs into the right places & away you go! I use XBMC (xbox media centre) homebrew software, which is a totally FREE media playing software that runs on xbox & you can use it to view pictures, play music (wma, mp3, mp4 etc) & play many video formats as well such as divx, xvid, vobs, bins, dvd etc.
Since the xbox is plugged into the tv & hi fi, now all our photo albums , music & films are viewable on our living room tv & through the hi fi! It was so easy to set up, that some months later I bought another second hand xbox & a solderless x3 chip for our bedroom.
The other big plus, is you can fit a bigger normal pc hard drive - I put a 320gb drivein one of the xboxes, & backed up all my games that I own on it - no more scratched disks - I play them straight off the hard drive! Also you are now, not limited to just European games, you can play US games on it too (there are a lot of titles that were just not releasedin Europe).
On a side note, for those geeks out there, I also installed Gentoo Linux & DSL Linux, both run quite happily on the chipped xbox - both offer virtual keyboards, but browsing the web is a bit clunky due to the resolution (on a normal tv connection you can only get a really low res like 600x800 or so - I think you get better res on hdtv connections (780/1080i), but movies play just perfectly (through XBMC).
So if you have a lot of content on your mac, linux or windows pc that you would like to listen/view on your hi fi/tvin another room then an xbox would be an ideal candidate!
NB. Some of the older xboxes can have a noisy fan that is audible when your film/music is on low volume, if you are buying a second hand xbox try & get xbox model v1.3 or above. (Also any form of modding or chipping will obviously invalidate any warranties you may have)
a great console but only 4 stars - By: J. R. Skinner, 17 May 2007 it rely is a great game console but there is one problem the xbox it over heats & wen it does it stops playin games well mine does an there is a massive variety of games on the xbox startin from rely crap ones to awesome games like halo, hitman, call of duty, project gotham racing, etc etc it goes on & on & to be fair not all ppl like action games so u might want games that i call crap but if u love em then gd for u but if u want a wide variety of games & dont mind that your xbox overheatin then get one but jus make sure u get a new one or one that has been refurbished by a compant that specialisesin it & jus dont buy a second hand one for very little money cos you will be disappointed
