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10 REASONS YOU NEED TO GIVE THE XBOX ANOTHER CHANCE

29/1/2019

26 Comments

 
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I never loved the Xbox. Everything about it was too bulky, too noisy, and it never really - to me anyway - justified its need to exist. Microsoft already had Windows and Solitaire and Minesweeper. Leave the consoles to people who know what they're doing.

Still, it gave the world the grossly overrated Halo franchise, but it wasn't until the 360 was released that I finally understood why Microsoft was even bothering. Fact is, the Xbox 360 is now probably my second favourite console after the Super NES.

Regardless, the original Xbox did well enough - over 24 million were sold - to make the 360 and One possible, and there must be a reason for that. And that reason is this reason: there were some genuinely good games available for it.

Here are ten of they. 
PANZER DRAGOON ORTA
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With no hardware to call its own, poor old Sega had to begin releasing its games on other people's consoles. You know: a bit like a recent divorcee turning up at random people's homes asking to cook them dinner. 

This is why Panzer Dragoon Orta - the fourth game in Sega's on-rails shoot 'em up-and-sometimes-RPG series - ended up on the Xbox. It lost a little of the prog rock album cover-esque aesthetic, but retained everything else that made Panzer Dragoon great. To wit: the same frantic, lock-on shoot 'em up mechanics, and vast, fantastical, locations.

Memorably, one boss appeared to resemble a giant, floating, lotus flower, with prominent, dangling, testicles (see above).
JET SET RADIO FUTURE
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Yes, Jet Set Radio Future was more of the same, cel-shaded skating and wall-tagging as had been seen on the Dreamcast, and yes it failed to be the hit that Sega (and the Xbox) desperately needed it to be, and yes it killed the series... but it deserved so much better.

Perhaps too self-consciously "cool" for its own good, it's nonetheless a crying shame that Sega never built further upon these foundations - which still hold up today. Definitely one of Sega's many great lost franchises. 

​Seriously; never trust Sega with your house keys.
HALO 2
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I'm putting this in here somewhat begrudgingly, because there are things about Halo 2 which I don't like at all - but they're mostly tropes of the entire Halo franchise. Also, a curtailed development of Halo 2 meant that they never got to finish the game, and the woefully brief campaign had to end it on an abrupt cliffhanger. 

Nonetheless, Halo 2 was, at least, a step up from its predecessor in gameplay terms - notably, there was far less of the repeating of areas which had made Halo such a bore at times - and the multiplayer was solid. Also, you got to play as a Covenant alien, which helped further with the variety.

Didn't do much for the lack of heft to the weapons, mind, which still felt like you were limply flinging marshmallows at a duvet. 
BEYOND GOOD & EVIL
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A weird game which wasn't the smash Ubisoft had hoped for (but has had enough of a long life that we're finally getting a follow-up), Beyond Good And Evil was a third-person action game in the Lara Croft vein, with vehicle sections, stealth areas, and puzzle solving.

The intergalactic scale of the story was properly epic, more RPG than action game, and was so idiosyncratic that, of course, the game flopped.

​When will you learn? People don't want stuff that's not like other stuff! 
MERCENARIES
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Published by LucasArts, of all people, Mercenaries might be the most influential game on this list. Its huge, sandbox world and destructible buildings are still being evoked today in series such as Crackdown, Just Cause and Far Cry. Likewise, the option to accept missions from rival warring factions, and being able to borrow almost any vehicle. Oddly, at the time it was dismissed as being a Grand Theft Auto rip-off - which it sort of was, I suppose - but the combat and vehicle handling is far superior. 

Indeed, so little has the formula evolved since that it's weird to think that Mercenaries is 14 years old.

Also, it's worth noting that two of the three playable characters were a woman and a black man. That's the sort of thing that certain sections of the gaming community would be up in arms about today. Oh, how far we've devolved...
BURNOUT 3: TAKEDOWN
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It says much about me that I get frustrated by most racing games. When driving around gorgeous-looking tracks, I just want to get out and explore the scenery. One of the few exceptions to this has been the Burnout series - now, sadly, driven into a brick wall, it seems.

The solid driving, coupled to the sheer speed, and the heavy focus on smashing into rival vehicles, was a pure adrenaline blast. For me, the high point of the Burnout series, and the safest way to scratch my road rage itch.

Another way in which I do this is to drive up alongside other drivers on the motorway and "belm" at them. They hate that, and sometimes they follow me into a motorway services carpark and try to crash into me.

​Well, one time..
FABLE
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Fable's legend may have dimmed in recent years, as poor Peter Molyneux developed something of a reputation for over-promising, but this doesn't diminish the fact that the original was a genuinely great and innovative RPG.

Being able to choose whether your character became bad or nice - and the knock-on effect of that choice - remains genuinely ground-breaking. However, it's the lush, rich world, and shamelessly British sense of humour, which really succeed. 

Hey - remember a couple of years ago where loads of people piled into Molyneux and made him cry in interviews and drove him away from the public eye? Yeah, that was really funny!

WASN'T IT...!?
NINJA GAIDEN
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A game with a weird history - a reboot of Tecmo's series of the same name, but set in the Dead or Alive universe - it was a third-person hack 'em up, in the vein of God of War and Devil May Cry. What really set it apart was the level of violence, earning it a glut of 18+ ratings, and regional censorship in Germany and East Asia. Decapitations, disembowlings, and defenestrations were all part of the fun.
STAR WARS: KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC
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Sigh. I've put this in here just to shut you up, but I didn't like Knights of the Old Republic. I mean, I could write an entire article on why I didn't like it, and it would be the nerdiest article ever. 

Forget the big plot twist, what annoyed me is that it was set thousands of years - thousands! - before the original Star Wars Trilogy, but technology seemed exactly as advanced as it was four millenniums later.  I mean, you don't get films about The Battle of Hastings where everyone's got their phones out, Googling "King Harold".

Also, I don't want enemies who look a bit like Stormtroopers. I want STORMTROOPERS!!!

Plus, even when you take the Star Wars out of the equation, I still really find the Bioware formula incredibly dull. 

So it's here - yay! Knights of the Old Republic is in a list of Best Xbox Games. HAPPY NOW?!

And FYI: the reason I've not included that Chronicles of Riddick game - which everyone also seemed to love - is because I hated it.
SPLINTER CELL CHAOS THEORY
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Arguably one of the best games of all time, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is as empowering as a stealth game gets, managing to out-play Metal Gear at its own game. It felt more grown-up than Konami's franchise, less silly, with a plot that felt frighteningly plausible. The sheer number of ways you could approach a mission is where the game really rewarded the player. It was a gadget-lovers dream.

You know what annoys me? When people call gadgets "tech". Even more annoying when they call it "gadge", which evokes nothing less than a slang term for a lady's parts.

Goodbye now!
26 Comments
Craig Grannell link
29/1/2019 10:29:37 am

For me, the Xbox in some ways felt like the spiritual successor to the Dreamcast, and I liked it for that. I also had someone do clever things to my box, so it'd run a bunch of emulators, thereby getting C64 games on to my telly, rather than having them stuck inside of my Mac.

Mostly, though, Xbox shone for me because of the wonderful OutRun 2 (and subsequent CTC sort-of sequel). Another WarioWare in the press at the time, who thoughtlessly dismissed it as an arcade fest lacking in depth and realism, it for me brought back the sheer joy of racing games. And this is coming from someone who always thought the original OutRun was – *whisper* – actually a bit shit.

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Philip Bain
29/1/2019 10:34:46 am

The Microsoft Xbox was my 2nd bite of the 6th console generation cake, the first being the ever so sweet Sega Dreamcast, pitty it didn't last longer. For a Dreamcast owner the Xbox was a logical progression as the lineage of the Dreamcast was continued on the Xbox with titles such as Jet Set Radio Future, Sega GT 2002, Panzer Dragoon Orta & Crazy Taxi 3 all being Xbox exclusives and were graphically enhanced over their Dreamcast forebares oweing to what a powerhouse the Xbox was for it's era. It has to be said though that the Xbox's true potential was onky unleashed by modding it, with homebrew software ultilising it's hardware fully in applications as diverse as a network linked media centre and retro gaming emulator as well as letting users install games fully for hard disk, as if that was ever going to catch on.....

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Jim Leighton (Future World Darts Champion) x
29/1/2019 11:14:23 am

I didn't much like the Xbox either, but I used to play on my brother in law's when he was in work, and loved playing Jet Set Radio. Remember thinking it was cool.

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Studas
29/1/2019 11:18:40 am

I loved the original Xbox (with the S pad, that is). Playing the original Operation Flashpoint (well, Gold Edition) on it was one of the high points for me. Also, I always found the graphics on most games to be significantly better than the PS2, though I respect the PS2 came out much earlier. I had that too :D

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RichardM
29/1/2019 11:31:54 am

Article about KOTOR: yes please. It’s like a fanfic written by farting into a dictaphone, after eating a Dorling Kindersley guide to Star Wars.

Anyway. I don’t buy the Fable being funny thing: most of the jokes were just ‘oh, cripes, guvnor’ stuff. In fact, I don’t think any videogame ever has been genuinely laugh-out-loud funny (at least for me: for I am Professor Funny, arbiter of what everyone thinks is funny).

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Chris Bell link
29/1/2019 12:22:01 pm

Largely agree about games generally not being funny, but have to cite Day of the Tentacle as something that had me in fits of giggles numerous times during its story.

Also; me and my sister used to become literally hysterical playing the original Mario Kart battle mode for some reason. That’s not intentional on the game’s part, I know, but the fact that we used to be totally incapacitated with laughter made me want to mention it all the same.

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RichardM
29/1/2019 12:45:20 pm

Yeah: my cousin (Kevin) used to crouch his character in multiplayer GoldenEye, and move them around the level backwards while making bin lorry reversing noises. Very amusing when viewed in the 3rd person. I get those sort of funnies.

I agree that a lot of those Lucasarts games were amusing (although Monkey Island has always left me a bit cold, Melee IslandTM and all that - ‘6th form guff’ as I recall Mr Biffo damning Discworld once, he’s always had it in for them Pratchetts) - but never quite pushed me into guffawing.

There was a thing on the BBC lately about laughter being 30 times more likely in a group than when alone. Interesting that multiplayer antics made us both laugh!

Phil
29/1/2019 12:54:18 pm

Funnily enough I started a play through of Orta last week, how i love that game, I would kill for another Panzer dragoon.

The original xbox was a fantastic console, for a while it really did feel like a spiritual successor the the dreamcast didn't it. The inclusion of the hard drive was fantastic, the great hardware.The homebrew scene on it was just amazing, so many decent emulators, applications and the birth place of the much maligned but amazing Kodi (XBMC).

I had all of the systems that gen and I think retrospectively I think for me the top spot is a close call between the Xbox and the Cube, I feel like the PS2 was partially to blame for the death of the Dreamcast so that's just not a contender for me ;)

Definitely worth picking one up to this day, they still look decent on a HD tv, watch out for that clock capacitor though.

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Mr Sponge
29/1/2019 12:55:48 pm

Peter Molyneux just kept over promising, he didn't seem to learn, and plenty of people bought his games based on those false promises, and wasted their money.

It was a harsh situation when he was slammed by the media, but at least it made him finally stop doing interviews and (I believe accidentally) ripping people off.

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RichardM
29/1/2019 04:50:31 pm

I was sort of sucked in by the 22cans thing and followed along for a bit. I felt sorry for big Peter when his protege - who’s job seemed to be mostly having ideas and posting on Twitter - cleared off and started his own games company. Maybe Mr Molyneux will give me a job having ideas now?

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Meatballs-me-branch-me-do
29/1/2019 01:04:36 pm

Fable’s “British” humour was awful. It was like listening to a bunch of braying university students in a pub thinking they’d totally sussed our what made Blackadder and Monty Python great by making up sketches on their own.

The best Xbox game was Phantom Crash, anyway.

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RichardM
29/1/2019 04:44:22 pm

Hear, hear. It was like Americans doing British people, but done by British people. A parody of a parody. GUVNOR.

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Craig from the 80s link
29/1/2019 01:30:35 pm

The Xbox is the reason I first got a credit card. You needed one to join Xbox Live, so I applied for one solely for this purpose.

Midtown Madness 3 was the best game on there, by far. Online multiplayer with games like Tag and Capture the Flag, but in a car, was ace!

Loved playing 16 player Tag where EVERY player was a mobility scooter.

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Neptunium
29/1/2019 03:28:39 pm

I was hoping someone would rave about Midtown Madness 3 - definitely the best experience on XBL in those early days, IMO.

Who else winced watching the XBL video you had to watch when signing up, being told about "trash talking".

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Raybies
29/1/2019 01:57:43 pm

I played Beyond Good and Evil a few years ago on Xbox 360 and got it for a fiver.

I can see why people liked it, I did too, but there didn't seem to be much to it. I tore through it, in about a week, playing a bit here and there, I completed and got all the achievements.

If I paid 50 quid for it when it was new, I would have been PISSED.

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KoinosKosmos
29/1/2019 02:09:40 pm

I had a kind of strained relationship with the Xbox for a long time. Initially, I resisted buying it at launch as to echo Shinji Mikami’s Resi 4 walkout, I just didn’t quite get Microsoft’s core philosophy or style. Granted, they had oodles of cash to throw at the system and everything looked early Noughties-premium running on it, but I just couldn’t pin down what exactly they were trying to do ultimately. Yes, big, loud, and American were probably the key factors and the marketing possessed a bit of that Kalinske-era bolshiness that Sega put about but still, no arcade pedigree. No stable of mascots. No Japanese esotericism in terms of overall approach. It left me cold, frankly. Eventually, I caved that summer of 2002 and blew my summer savings on it alongside Halo and a spare controller. Halo was fine and my friend enjoyed multiplayer sessions on it with me. I bought Blinx the following Christmas, desperate for something that would sparkle with inspiration but still, scant joy. So there it would sit, frustratingly, for months at a time without play. I got stuff like PDO and NG in the meantime but it wasn’t igniting any great grá in me. I even purchased the full Steel Battalion set, including Line of Contact, on impulse one afternoon as if I were Barney Gumble tossing Fabergé Eggs at a wall in an alley. Still to no avail. I wanted to love the thing but could not muster the passion. Then in October 2004, I picked up the SF Anniversary Collection from GAME with the ports of Hyper and Third Strike. Yes, that’s what finally made me love the Xbox. The one title I go back to the most. And OutRun 2.

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Neil Wilkinson link
29/1/2019 02:34:22 pm

I want more games where belming is an option. Then everything would be far more realistic. I mean, I always get people belming at me.

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Floop
29/1/2019 02:37:01 pm

I mainly loved mine for the nudey mods of dead or alive 3 and volleybal

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Raybies
29/1/2019 03:10:09 pm

I worked in Electronics Boutique when the Xbox launched for 500 euro. It barely moved until the first price drop.

I didn't help the matter though, when people asked if it was any good, I'd say "It's good, but not 500 quid good "

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Hugo D link
29/1/2019 05:01:19 pm

Ah. The Xbox. The start of my financial avalanche of doom. "Hello HSBC? Can I have a thousand pound overdraft?" because I could not wait 2 months for the UK launch and bought an import from Croydon along with Halo (had no idea what that was at the time) and PGR 1.

Agree with all the games listed 100%. I bloody loved JSRF and am saddened that Smilebit got split up following it. Beyond Good & Evil was a surprise monkey for me... I admit I was sceptical as I was expecting some bloody photography game and not much else as it was only a couple of hundred meg (don't ask how I know...) That quickly escalated as did my love for it. Everybody should play this at least once.

The salesman was pretty on-point with Halo. Suitably impressed - "look at the grass! It's REAL!" I recall Digi's review being 4 out of 5 because Mr. Biffo wasn't buying the bullshit - it was flawed.

Fable was not much like what PM promised, but still, it was a fucking brilliant game. I need to try the sequels.

I also recall Mr. Biffo's whimsy feature slagging off all the consoles in jest, and I was the only one who got the wrong end of the stick so I wrote in, angrily, only to see my letter on the telly and being told... I was the only one who got the wrong end of the stick. Clang.

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Orless
29/1/2019 08:40:37 pm

The Xbox was great because it hat Project Gotham Racing 2 which allowed you to drive a Ferrari past a branch of Boots. No other game before or since has gotten close to an experience like that.

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Meatballs-me-branch-me-do
1/2/2019 05:30:50 pm

Actually, The Getaway beats it, by allowing you to respond to an Essex slag receptionist asking “Hiya, can I help?” by shooting her concealer-cakes face off with a shotgun.

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Voldo
29/1/2019 08:47:31 pm

I did enjoy my Xbox until the DVD drive died after 18 months, the advice from Microsoft was a sacharin cheery "just buy another Xbox!", needless to say, I didn't!

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James Walker link
29/1/2019 11:45:31 pm

I had the Xbox crystal back in my early 20s.
I was so rock n roll back then, I threw up over the controller after caning it pretty bad one night! Haha, it was ruined but I’m still cooler than all you NERDS!!!!!!11!

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Grimlock
2/2/2019 09:12:32 am

I loved The Warriors on the Xbox. It genuinely added background to the film and was fun to play. Probably my most favourite Rockstar game.

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Random Reviewer
8/2/2019 07:44:13 pm

We put the clamps to Molly a bit hard, but she did have a habit of spewing bullshit about titles, making unverifiable promises, launching studios on a whim and treating competition winners like dogshit. The level of theresponse was disproportionate, but the basis was sound.

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