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Comparing Identical King Kongs on the Xbox and Xbox 360
feature
game: King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie
posted by: Aaron Stanton
publisher: Ubisoft
platform:
date posted: 10:30 AM Thu Dec 1st, 2005
last revision: 09:28 PM Mon Dec 12th, 2005



Click to read.Editor\'s Note: There\'s a more recent update of this article that compares videos from King Kong on the two systems in much the same way. You can find the video comparison here.


[color=\"yellow\"]Comparing Kongs:[/color]

The original Xbox console costs a little more than a fourth of what you\'ll drop on the Xbox 360, and it comes with many of the same features. Hard drive, Xbox Live support, and excellent games.

What you\'re putting your money down for is the extra power, the graphical boost the next generation offers over the previous generation. But how much better do games really look on the 360?

There were several 360 launch titles that were not exclusive; King Kong, NBA 2K6, and Call of Duty 2 are all available on either the PS2, Xbox, or GameCube. Most of them are nearly identical to the 360 version in content, just not optimized to take advantage of more powerful hardware.

Let\'s compare King Kong on the Xbox and Xbox 360 - side by side, scene for scene - to see exactly how much one improves on the other.

[color=\"yellow\"]Two notes before we begin:[/color]


[color=\"yellow\"]The comparison:[/color]


[color=\"yellow\"]The Beasts of Kong:[/color]

The FPS elements of King Kong aside, how do the creatures look?

It was more difficult getting identical images from both the Xbox and Xbox 360 versions of the title when playing as King Kong. Primarily, this is because you\'re not controlling the camera; the third person Kong segments remove the power of manipulating the angle of perception.

However, while the detail goes up in terms of surrounding environments, you can see that the creatures themselves are not nearly as effective at demonstrating the 360\'s power. Lighting and individual fur is far more evident on the Xbox 360, but generally the differences are not as night and day as you would expect.


Looking at the screenshots, you have to decide for yourself if you think the improvement is significant enough to drop the $400 you\'ll throw at an Xbox 360, assuming you manage to find one to buy. At least at launch, the 360 and Xbox seem to be capable of providing similar experiences, at least in terms of King Kong.

For games that come out 6 months from now, this probably won\'t be the case. Games that come out one year from now will almost certainly be beyond even an Xbox adaptation; instead of just graphical changes and high resolution textures, the fundamental building blocks upon which the game is based will be the biggest change. Instead of walls built out of 3 blocks that tip over when smashed, they\'ll be built out of 100 elements that crumble differently each time they\'re hit. Or 1000. As better game engines are developed to take advantage of the new hardware, the separation between the Xbox 360 and the Xbox will become glaringly evident.

Comparing late generation Xbox titles to early generation Xbox 360 titles is hardly fair.

However, additional media and online features aside, it\'s possible that the Xbox 360 is a worthy present to wait on, at least if you\'re having trouble finding one any place but eBay.

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