REVIEW: The Xbox offers the best games experience of any machine, and marks the transition from gaming console to entertainment system, writes Jamie Smyth

The Xbox is a bulky console with a jet-black exterior, green logo and futuristic controllers that is designed to fit under the television set and become a permanent feature in your living room. At a weight of four kilograms it is probably just as well, or gamers across the globe would be be putting their backs out trying to drag Microsoft's console upstairs after several hours spent game-playing.

But the bulky size and weight of the Xbox, which may turn off some gamers who like to take their console to friends' houses or switch between different television sets, means more computing power and fantastically realistic three-dimensional graphics.

The specifications of the console, which include a built-in eight gigabyte hard disk, a central processing unit specially designed by Intel, and 64 megabytes of memory, gives the Xbox an edge over its closest competitor, Sony's extremely popular Playstation 2.

The Xbox's main processor runs at 733 megahertz and is accompanied by a graphics chip made by nVidia, which produces images that look more like video than computer-generated graphics.

Project Gotham, a flagship racing game developed for the Xbox, uses this processing power to perfection, creating hundreds of impressive cityscape backdrops and reflections on the bodywork of the racing cars. I spent hours speeding my way around racing circuits in famous cities such as New York, London and Tokyo during my week of trialing the Xbox. The large selection of high-performance cars and an emphasis on picking up kudos points for performing slick driving manoeuvres kept me coming back for more.

Microsoft will start with just 20 titles here, putting it at a considerable disadvantage to Sony. But the detail in Microsoft's games is impressive and will help it tap into a target audience that goes beyond the teenage market and into the lucrative 20s and 30s age groups.

Although, its freestyle snowboarding game Amped, where gamers pick up points for performing snowboarding tricks, brings this to extremes by enabling competitors to choose the clothing worn by each competitor!

Of course, no console would survive without the traditional "shoot-em up" style game and Microsoft's most-hyped release, Halo, certainly lives up to its reputation. The game, which was developed by games company Bungie, is based around a familiar plot of alien domination, with gamers given the quest of saving the earth by destroying a nasty race of creatures known as the Covenant.

But there is nothing ordinary about the bloody killings in Halo or the eerie screeches of the Covenant on an Xbox compatible Dolby Digital surround sound. Up to four players can play Halo at a time using split-screen function and the Xbox's built-in broadband adaptor promises to boost interactive gaming over the internet when European broadband networks become available.

The Xbox undoubtedly offers the best games experience of any machine I've played before and should provoke further improvements from its rivals Sony and Nintendo, which will soon introduce its Gamecube in Europe.

It also marks the transition from a pure gaming console to an entertainment system that can be used by all the family. It offers the consumer flashy extras, such as a DVD drive that will enable users to watch movies and store music tracks onto their console, and a broadband connection.

Readers should note that a DVD controller must be purchased separately to enable users to watch movies using the console, pushing up the price of the Xbox entertainment package. The high-speed internet connection could also prove useless in the Republic, where broadband connectivity has yet to be introduced.

But the high price of the console, at €479, and the €69 cost for each game, will prove the biggest obstacle to Microsoft's ambitions to gain a foothold in living rooms across the globe. A third of homes here already have a Sony gaming console and, with the next generation of the Playstation console not far off, gamers may stick with what they know and can afford.