Review

Special Dance Performance Review

By Jen Katz, Michael Nitti, Aly Storch, and Caroline Sekel In this podcast we review The Special Dance Company's performances from May 15th and 16th, 2015 at Columbia High School. We discuss which dances we liked, which dances we disliked, song choices, individual performances, costumes, and lighting.

Xbox One Review

By Michael Nitti

605/600-800

On November 22nd, 2013, Microsoft released its highly anticipated successor to the Xbox 360; the Xbox One. Around the same time, Sony released its next generation rival console, the Playstation 4 (PS4). The Xbox One had a lot of hype to live up to, especially after the great success of the Xbox 360, and in some ways more than others, they met the expectations.

The Xbox One’s hardware is somewhat overwhelming. The console is bigger than the Xbox 360 and the PS4, and is shaped just like a big black box. Despite that, it still looks sharp, with a glossy black and matte grey design. The wiring is a bit much however, as Microsoft kept the power brick, which, as long as it’s plugged in, will remain on even when the Xbox One is turned off. Along with it’s inconvenience in size, the power brick has caused other problems as well, as if one were to simply unplug the wire connecting the Xbox to the brick, it might stop working, as the Xbox One will not turn on, and Microsoft has given no real way to resolve the problem, except to either buying a new power brick, or getting the console serviced, both of which are rather expensive. 

Some questioned what would change about the Xbox controller, considering that many gamers loved the feel of the 360's controller. The One’s controller is lighter, and introduced new triggers that have a vibrate setting, unlike the 360’s controller. The analog sticks are smaller, allowing better control for the gamer. Overall, the One controller was an improvement over an already stellar 360 controller. The Kinect was also another improvement, as the 360 version had many issues involving sensitivity, responsiveness, and all around functionality. The One’s Kinect has a better response time, and can also obey many more commands, and can even use voice and face recognition to identify who is playing, however that does not always work. The Xbox interface/dashboard has changed significantly, as the One's dashboard is nearly identical to Microsoft's Windows setup. Microsoft offers tons of applications that can be downloaded, like Netflix, Watch ESPN, YouTube, and many more. With all the new applications, it seems like there are an endless amount of things to on the One compared to the 360. Another new feature is the ability to go between game play and the dashboard without the game restarting, which is really convenient for switching between applications and not losing progress in a game.

The Xbox One also added plenty more storage, making it easy to download all sorts of applications. One thing however is that games must now be installed before playing, and that can take anywhere from 20 minutes to even an hour depending on the game. Sometimes the games take a while to start up as well, and it can possibly lead to having to turn off and on the console or restarting the game. The game play itself is incredible, as the graphics are unbelievably realistic. For the most part, the games run smoothly and connection to Xbox Live runs fine, but on occasion the game will start to lag a little bit, which can be annoying.

At release, the Xbox One cost 500 dollars to buy. About a year and a half later, the retail price has fallen to 350 dollars, so at this point, the price better fits the value of the console. The Xbox One requires a lot of patience, but despite the problems that it has, it is still a revolutionary console and provides some of the best graphics and biggest technology advancements the gaming community has ever seen. 

Xbox One Kinect, console, and controller.
Image courtesy of gamespot.com