Top critical review
1.0 out of 5 starsIs That A Captcha?
Reviewed in the United States on June 10, 2020
The box arrives... and upon opening it you’re delighted to see an elegant two page foldout that indicates it’s as easy as plugging, turning on, and playing.
Hold on to that feeling, it’s the happiest you’ll ever feel while owning an Xbox.
Upon plugging it in you get to play your first game immediately. It’s called figure out how to turn me on. The earlier fold out is surprisingly unclear on this, I’m assuming in an attempt to ensure you are worthy of playing the Xbox by locating the aesthetically sexy and functionally invisible power button.
Don’t worry I won’t spoil it for you.
Once you beat level one, most of you who own a TV made in the last 10 years will expect it to turn on and display the newly connected state of the art ultra HD gaming console. Jokes on you... Microsoft decided HDMI CEC isn’t worth the extra $0.000001 per unit. Welcome to level two, where you need to find your long discarded TV remote and click through input sources like a Neanderthal with a wooden club.
The Xbox logo appears, throbs, throbs, throbs again. Is it loading something? Should I wait? Will there be any instructions? The answer to all three, obvious only to Microsoft designers, is... no. Before sacrificing a small woodland creature to appease the Xbox gods, I consulted Google. The multitude of post n this very topic, told me I should press the Xbox button on the controller... which I did... repeatedly. Other than my blood pressure going up, nothing happened.
Alrighty then... back to Google... turns out the controller takes AA batteries. You have to pay extra for the rechargeable one, because the Xboxes are actually shipped from 1982 to the present through a one way wormhole, and rechargeable batteries didn’t exist back then.
Easy right? Pop it open slip the batteries in, move on. I dare you to get the batteries right on the first try. By the fifth attempt, my hands trembling with murderous intent and my eyes blinded by throbbing rage, I figured out the batteries are parallel even though the springs are on opposite sides, and the side that looks like the positive is actually marked negative in a plastic stamp on the lid I’m holding in the other clenched fist.
I’m 30 minutes in at this point. I realize this dates off to a bad start, splash some cold water on my face in the bathroom, and head back in.
I press the Xbox button... a gray screen appears... I squint to realize there is slightly darker gray text. I read it 3 words at a time between eye massages and gulps of water as every neuron in my brain strains to decipher the near impossible to read update notice.
Then I notice the progress bar... a dark green line camouflaged against a slightly darker green line... moving imperceptibly slow.
At this point I know the fold out lied to me, but it’s too late, I’m invested. I press on, angry, miserable, and wishing for a swift death.
The update screen clears a few minutes after my tears dry on my face. I’m faced with a captcha.
Yep... a captcha... on a gaming console. One of those wobbly text ones where the letters blend together so it could be a “ol” or just a “d” ruining your life. I fail twice... my wife joins... we fail two more times... now the whole family is being mocked by Microsoft. My daughter starts crying... vein in my temple feels like it’s ruptured. The captcha lets us pass only after extracting our life force.
With thoughts of packing it back up, I’m faced with the username and password screen. Where just to be funny, Microsoft provided an in screen keyboard where only some of the characters are valid and there is no submit button. I start mashing the controller randomly simply to keep my hands from hurtling it through the tv. I’ve never rage quit a signup before, I press on.
I’m given an option to choose my color... this makes me very angry. After completely bombing the entire experience up to this point, Microsoft decided they would redeem themselves by letting me choose an accent color? If in that moment I knew who made that decision, I’d be in jail for homicide right now.
Finally... I’m in... surely it was all worth it... the setup was a horrible journey through all of Dante’s levels of hell because all of Microsoft’s effort went into the console design.
Imagine leaving hell... only to land in a funhouse of mirrors, clowns, and spinning rooms. Better is debatable.
I ended up playing Sea Of Thieves with my friends three times. My daughter tried Minecraft, which she’s played on iPad and Mac successfully, only to end up in tears on the Xbox. The in game chat was cool, but dwarfed by the complexity and blatant disregard for the gamers experience at every turn of every interaction.
The Xbox did redeem itself, when I boxed it up and sent it back. That unboxing feeling I had... only surpassed by the return it feeling.