JUDGE & JURY: To help evaluate the gaming experience, the author (back left) bribed some friends (Lesley, Sacha and Ryan, front left to right) with free pizza and Budweiser.

Please note:  If you read this article and buy an Xbox, you are going to want to change the settings in Xbox’s setup screen before inserting a game. It took us a bit of time to figure out that there are three video resolution options and a widescreen option. Just a bit.

Several games take advantage of Xbox’s 720p and 1080i support. World Series Baseball 2K3, NBA 2K3, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4, Street Hoops and Soul Calibur II were some of the first games to take advantage of the system’s 720p support. Two games broke the 1080i barrier: Dragon’s Lair and Enter the Matrix. Syberia supposedly supports 1080i, but we sure couldn’t get it to work. More are scheduled for release.

Sacha ices a bruised ego with a can of Bud while Lesley strikes out the next victim.

World Series Baseball 2K3
This game is one of our favorites, but not because we like baseball. In fact, I don’t understand the sport at all: There’s no incentive to hit the ball because once you do you have to run. Rather, we like the game because it is easy to play.

Sacha and Lesley started in regular video mode. Immediately, Lesley began to steal bases, which Sacha couldn’t figure out how to stop, provoking Sacha to hit Lesley in the shoulder … hard. A few innings and a few beers later, we anxiously switched over to 720p mode. Right away we noticed a difference. The menu screens and logos were all clearer, exceptionally so. It’s not that the game had poor graphics to start with, but rather that in 720p mode it came alive! The crowd, the players’ facial features and shadows were all more distinct. As my brother always says, life is about pixels, and in 720p, they started to disappear. The colors were also richer. (Sure, our blood-alcohol levels were increasing, but I felt we were still able to make a fair assessment.)

Dragon’s Lair 3D
Next we plopped in Dragon’s Lair 3D, which is based on the old arcade game  starring Dirk the Daring that sucked an estimated $4,000 in quarters from my father’s pocket. In regular play mode, the game is uninteresting, nearly pathetic in all three categories: graphics, sound and gameplay. (Perhaps the game developer took two days off a week to run a high-stakes football pool.) So we quickly switched to 1080i mode. This was the first time any of us had seen a game in 1080i. We paused for a moment to appreciate the transcendence that was taking place and to take another drink. The pink sky had become a colorful and detailed nebula. The rock walls, which we hadn’t noticed were pixelated in the first instance, had become sharp. Although the gameplay remained uninspiring, it was enhanced by the increased detail—detail that helped pull you in.

Overall, we wouldn’t recommend the game. And after reading more detailed reviews by TechTV and GameSpot, it doesn’t appear that anyone else suggests picking this puppy up either. The developer, Dragonstone, deserves an honorable mention, though, for breaking the 1080i barrier. Thanks, Don Bluth. We drink to you.

If you’re not tired of being a lawyer on business trips, you can play one in the game Syberia. Really. That’s what it’s about.

Syberia
Collectively approaching a state of harmonious belligerence, we popped in our second 1080i experience, Syberia, a graphically intense game with prerendered backgrounds. In the game, you play Kate Walker, an American lawyer who is sent to a tiny village in the French Alps to finalize the buyout of an old automaton factory by a multinational toy company. I’m not kidding. You play a lawyer on a business trip.

After watching the game’s opening movie, a creepy funeral procession of some kind, we changed gears and revved our Xbox up to 1080i mode. I wish I could say “Suddenly Kate came to life and started to take on a physical form. Sure, she was still an uptight hard-liner, rather staunch, but now she had a new appeal.” But alas, it didn’t happen. Further research revealed that, in fact, the game doesn’t support 1080i mode after all. It does support 720p mode, where the game’s images make an impression. If Myst-type games intrigue you, definitely consider purchasing Syberia.

We printed this nice review and Atari still wouldn’t send us any decent images.

Enter the Matrix
I don’t know if it was the blue pill or the red pill or if I took both, but the room had started to spin and I was beginning to wish that none of it was real. We had just begun to experience Atari’s Enter the Matrix, the second game to take advantage of Xbox’s 1080i resolution. Once we chose to play the gun-happy, lovelorn Ghost or the hard-as-nails Captain Niobe, the game immediately immersed us in the Architect’s world. Walking down a hallway, a night watchman told us, “We’re closed.”  We hit a button and BAM! With a spin-kick move, the punk was down! That’s right!

Now, I know I’m supposed to talk about the video, but this game is fun. Other publications have panned it for uninteresting story lines and general simplicity, but the game is supposed to follow the blockbuster movie, so what do you expect? Personally, we think the game is a kick in the pants.

In regular video mode, the view was not spectacular. In 1080i mode, though, the outlook was much improved in terms of brightness, colors and, where you’d expect it most, smoothness. The characters, once pixelated with lots of jagged edges, became consistent and all the more realistic. Backgrounds acquired depth, giving a much more 3-D feel. It’s not video—God knows it’s not video—but it’s damn close.

Enter the Matrix has another little feature of interest—great sound. The game incorporates many sounds from the Matrix films, and the various punch, kick and hit sounds lend the gameplay more weight. The films also provide or inspire much of the music. Some high-quality licensed electronica tracks make for an overall Matrixesque experience. Also compelling is the game’s hack mode. This mini puzzle game lets you hack into your saved game files to enter cheat codes or unlock new features. You can hack your way to messages from the characters, concept art and a multiplayer mode.

Fast-paced gameplay can often make up for mediocre story lines, and it does here. Despite the game’s failure to take advantage of what the story line could offer, and because it’s quick and action-packed, we recommend that gamers at least rent the title from their local video store.

If the magazine were paid for product placement, Budweiser would owe us big.

Soul Calibur II
In this game there is an evil, powerful sword called Soul Edge. The previous wielder of Soul Edge was a mysterious black-armored knight named Nightmare. He was once a bandit, leader of a group called Der Schwarzwind (The Black Wind). He found Soul Edge, but gradually it took over his body. In the original Soul Calibur, Soul Edge was shattered by its nemesis, the spirit sword Soul Calibur. In this game, some seek to destroy the pieces to prevent the sword from regaining its evil power. Others…blah, blah, blah…it’s a frickin’ fighting game! Apparently someone went to too many Renaissance fairs.

My associates Sacha and Ryan chose characters and fought. And fought. And fought. Round after round, beer after beer, the paddles went around. There was taunting, yelling and absolutely no commenting on the graphics or the overall gaming experience. I can’t remember even asking them to switch it over to 720p. What happened is anyone’s guess, though I vaguely remember an unfamiliar blonde showing up. That could have been good or bad.