NXE pulled apart in words and video

I really wasn’t sold on this when they first announced it, but I am now. I think it looks great. It’s so slick it almost slides off the page.

It is slick. You can stick the avatars up your arse though. Crappy bloody things. Thankfully you have the option to switch those off (I think) but the rest of it is sumptuous in comparison to the dreadful dash we get now.

No, you can’t switch them off. They already debunked that particular urban myth.

I don’t really have a problem with them. If you watch the videos here, you’ll hardly even notice them most of the time. Give it a month and I think all the shouting and screaming will have died down and everyone will be asking when they can buy the Halo shirts.

Gah. That’s a shame.

I definitely won’t be playing dress up with mine. I’ll just do what I did with my Mii, choose “generic angry looking bald avatar #12991″ and leave that on.

“No, you can’t switch them off. They already debunked that particular urban myth.”

Link?

I can’t remember where I read it now, there’s been so much of it. Probably on Gamasutra or it might’ve been in the Kotaku “tour” video the other week.

Basically you have to have an avatar and you can’t turn them off. The only ‘optional’ thing is you can choose whether to have a thumbnail of your avatar’s face for your gamerpic or you can use a different image. The avatars themselves are an integral part of the new dash and can’t be switched off.

I’ll be bloody annoyed if you can’t retain your gamerpic thumbnail.

One can’t switch off the avatars?

But those things repulse me, the Miis are why I so quickly became alienated by the Wii. Why is it in vogue these days to put the Average Joe everywhere, regardless of how unusual the scenario?

/whimper

Can we ignore the upgrade to NXE? Gods damn it, Microsoft, I was just beginning to think the XBox wasn’t all that bad.

I’m already looking forward to a hacked NXE where avatars are stripped out. Someone’s bound to do it, right? At least, I hope so. And anyone who reads these comments has probably already read how I feel about avatars and why. …why can’t we turn them off, why?! Gaw, when it comes to bad design decisions…

You can keep your gamerpic and your themes, peej. Watch the vids.

Esha, don’t be an emo, man.

Pff, I’ll be as emo as I like!

I can’t help it though, I think they’re creepy. :p I don’t want one of those marching around my beautiful HD screen, I’ll be beating back the urge to swat at my screen with a newspaper, to be rid of the thing.

The only way I could even tolerate this on my XBox is if they also provided a “Beat it senseless, rend the abomination limb from limb!” minigame. I’d much prefer to have the corpse of one of those things sitting around on my screen, than running around doing all Mii-like things.

Bleh!

Edit: Honestly, is it just me? Doesn’t anyone else find the Invasion of the Smiley Plastic-Men a little creepy? The whole Video Toys for Grown-ups thing a little odd? They seem more at home in a Doctor Who episode.

You’ve completely sold them to me with that Doctor Who comment.

Win!

There’s another lengthy review on Gizmodo. Some nice snippets about the install-to-HDD option in that one, too.

I Can’t Wait Till The New Xbox Experince Drops November 19.

There’s a sudden influx of NXE plants!

Just noticed that Joystiq have another six videos up as well as the three you linked above. The lads done good.

Themes look terrible now. Lots of money wasted there.

I take it theres a nice list option to see everyone that online on your friends list instead of having to scroll through them all and seeing all their horrible Miis prancing about.

Having watched them it just looks like Ill be doing everything though the guide button.

Yes, in the ‘guide’ thing.

…

…

Now I’m starting to sound like a Microsoft plant!

/collects wages

one way or another, you will get use to the NXE once its out. why complain when this update changes everything you see, and also uptades/totally re-writes what goes on in your xbox, this is suposed to smoothen things out like crazy.