So what's new?
The New Xbox Experience replaces the old functional ‘blades' system with something far more attractive and easier to use. Scrolling vertically takes you through the old-style blades categories, while scrolling horizontally browses the content within them, allowing fast access to a wealth of games, downloads and more.
Read on for a whirlwind tour of the many great features in the New Xbox Experience!
Avatars
Creating one of these is the first thing you'll do on the new Xbox Live. They've been called Microsoft's take on Nintendo's Miis, but avatars actually feature far more detail. To begin with, you select a type from a few pre-selected options, then edit them to your hearts content - adding clothes, features, and altering things like hair, skin colour and body shape. You'll be able to buy more clothes in future too - and you can even take a picture of your avatar to use as your gamer pic!
Unlike Miis, avatars are one per profile, but like Miis they can be used compatible games (see Games Marketplace). They're also used on your Friends list, adding a personal touch that brings the Xbox Live community closer together. Awww.
Welcome
Your portal to the new Xbox Live Experience! This tells you what's new about the updated Xbox Live, the hot features you can now access through your Xbox 360 console. If you wish, you can also turn this menu off.
Spotlight
The hottest new premium games, expansions and movies are highlighted here. Click on ‘em and you'll get access to a world of options - including watching the latest trailers, downloading the demo or purchasing the media on offer for download.
My Xbox
This is where you'll play the majority of your games, music and videos from. The default tab shows whatever you've got in the disc tray; the next one is your gamer profile (with your Mii standing next to it) where you can see your card, info and achievements. Then there's your game library, letting you browse and play games and demos on your hard drive. Next are media options - browsing and watching videos and music, connecting to a Windows Media Centre PC, and the obligatory System Settings panel.
You can also install games to your hard drive from My Xbox. Not only will this make your console quieter with no disc spinning in the tray, but also lengthens your Xbox 360's lifespan by preventing the heat buildup which using the disc tray causes - lessening your chances of seeing that ever-dreaded red Ring of Death.
Game Marketplace
The new Xbox Experience's Game Marketplace is, funnily enough, where you'll be able to buy and download the latest Arcade, independent, classic and original Xbox games to store on your HDD, as well as browse the entire Xbox games catalogue alphabetically - which is now simple and speedy to do.
Like Spotlight, the top titles are highlighted, but there's an enormous amount of depth if you drill down into the catalogue. Avatar games are also a big new factor, like avatar launch game A Kingdom of Keflings (a cute-looking top-down four-player strategy title) and planned massively multiplayer online quiz 1vs100. And not to worry if you're overwhelmed by the choice on offer - you can download a trial version of most games in the Marketplace, meaning you can try before you buy.
Friends
Where the old Xbox ‘blades' dashboard had a simple text list of your online friends, the New Xbox Experience represents them in pictorial form. Every player in the list has an avatar, and a packshot of the game they're playing, plus shows multiple players together if they're in the same Xbox Live party - which lets up to eight players cross-communicate across different games and media. Oh, and if they're not online, their avatar will be asleep. Cute. Friends is also the panel which best displays your chosen dashboard Theme - your favoured background image towering across the screen's horizon. We went for a Halo one, what will you go for?
The big drawback of the Friends panel is that it takes longer than before to browse your friends. That said, you can use the triggers to fast-scroll left and right, and if that's still not speedy enough, you can find the old-fashioned text-based list in the Guide Button blade-style menu (See Guide Button Blades).
Inside Xbox
If Spotlight is the place for the hottest premium content and the place where publishers advertise their latest releases, then Inside Xbox is the flip-side. This is where you'll find the FREE added-value content that really makes a difference for excited, enthusiastic gamers. Behind-the-scenes documentaries, interviews, new demos, downloads and important info on all of the latest games and Xbox Live services are all to be found on Inside Xbox. It's your first port of call for keeping up-to-date on everything Xbox related.
Guide Button Blades
Press the guide button and, lo and behold, it's like stepping back into the old Xbox dashboard!
You can do pretty much everything you want to here, albeit with a less attractive loo and feel. Importantly, this is about the only place we could find to access the Redeem Code option without trying to purchase a game directly - while we also find it far easier to browse Friends using the old-style at-a-glance list system. Last but not leats, the Quick Launch option allows you to go straight from playing one game to another - so you can be playing a disc game and launch right into something on your HDD, or vice versa!
In Conclusion
Yes, it may be ‘just a dashboard update', but the new user interface presents a far better way to browse Xbox Live's content offering and use the Xbox 360's impressive features. With premium content downloads and multimedia options all accessible and swiftly explored, the 360 can now claim to compete with the PlayStation 3 as a living room multimedia machine - and with eight-player virtual parties, an ever-expanding downloadable games quota and of course lovable little avatars, it's now a more personal and robust plaything, too.
Xbox 360's new Xbox Live proves that, above all else, content is king. Owning a Xbox 360 Elite console or grabbing a whopping great 120GB HDD has never been a more enticing prospect.
