Another thing you may not have heard about is the new power brick. Yeah, I said brick. This thing (photo #6) is over eight inches long and has a pretty good heft. It also uses a three-pronged outlet, so this time the power is grounded. This separate power-brick arrangement is not quite as convenient as the original Xbox, but it does keep a major heat source away from the console. The cords are long enough to put the brick on the floor and put the console pretty much anywhere on a TV stand.

Okay, after getting it all set up, it was time to play. I bought four games this morning: Call of Duty 2 from Activision; Perfect Dark Zero from Microsoft; Condemned: Criminal Origins from Sega; and Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie from Ubisoft (and one of my favorite designers, Michel Ansel). You’ll be seeing reviews by me of the latter three in the near future, so I went ahead and played a little of Call of Duty 2 to get a feel for the system. The gameplay may not be absolutely revolutionary, but it is the best thing you are going to find in console gaming for at least the next six months (and more likely 12) and the experience is quite stunning. I have an understanding wife and she did not object when I started scraping together my extra pennies to purchase an LCD flat-panel HDTV to get the most of the next generation of gaming. The 720p resolution of the HDTV married to a home theatre 5.1 channel audio system is a gaming experience beyond compare. It is indeed gaming nirvana.

Of course as a hardcore gamer who always has to have the latest and greatest, just having this system in my house is a big rush, but the improvement in the gaming experience is enough to make the Xbox 360 worth the green it takes to get it. There is no gaming revolution to be found in it, but the evolutionary step forward is significant.

To the guys I spent the wait with through the cold November night: it was great to share it with you, but not one that I wish to repeat too soon. Hope you’re having as much fun with your new toys as I am.

Editor's note: See some pretty pictures of Mr. Hill's Xbox 360 in a higher resolution!

Questions? Comments? Contact the author at willhill2600@charter.net .