Cost: $69.99
Receive: Vision Cam, Headset, XBLA Game, 12-Month Xbox Live
I sit in my chair, with my controller in one hand and apple juice in the other. As I place my juice aside, the timer runs down, ticking away. My heart beats faster and faster… almost equivalent to the rotation of wheels and as loud as the roar of the engine. I’m dazed by the acceleration, by the speed, by the power! … and then it stops, everything stops… they’re watching me… <_<
Haha, don’t be too let down if you have no idea about what I was ranting about. I was only trying to put more excitement into this review. The story above is about the feature on a game called burnout paradise, where when you crash your vision camera takes a picture of you at that very monument for the opposing racer to view later on. Creepy I know, but ultimately and extremely cool! (unless they’re naked)
Hardware:
The vision camera is a corded device that reaches roughly a meter, the device itself is fairly compact and the cord is pretty thick, which is great for when you have children with scissors running around, you get an extra 2 seconds to stop the madness. You would want to stop the madness with the 70 dollar price tag, though it also comes with a headset and a year of Xbox Live, so its not too bad of a deal.
Software:
The camera’s quality is clear. With only a few turns of the lens, so the camera is great for close range and medium range (stereotypical room size). The vision cam can be used to take pictures that you can send to your friends or you could even have live streaming video chats. You can not play games in these chats, only voice and video are available. When in video chat you can choose to change some of the settings, mostly only stuff to do with the lighting. If you decide to take a picture, you can then use some cool effects, there are around 15 different effects from which you can choose, from just plain black and white to changing to an emulated fish-eye lens. You can also use the camera to take a picture and use it as your gamer picture.
Some games such as Burnout Paradise have the features to use the cam and they do a great job of it too. Hopefully more companies will decide to go this way and start to make functions and features for the vision cam, but until that happens I am going to have to give this hardware a
5.5/10
I do not recommend this device YET, if you’re in need of a headset and you have some extra cash, then why not?
Second Opinion!
6.5/10
The Xbox Live Vision Camera may not be used extremely well on the Xbox 360, especially in incredibly difficult games like Totemball. Also, it fails majorly when fat guys decide to play Uno in the nude. BUT, I have discovered many practical uses for this camera. You can use the USB attachment to scratch those hard to reach places…
Just kidding. It’s actually quite usable as a regular USB webcam. It even works with the PS3! I hooked my XBL-Vision camera into my PS3 when I was trying the Burnout Paradise demo, and it quite willingly worked to make my “ID picture” for my “driver’s license “. Not bad. You can also pick this camera up by itself for about $30-$40 CDN, so I’d say that it isn’t too bad of a purchase if you have plans for it in the near future.