SB Recommends Xbox Games

Microsoft's first game console that was host to Halo LAN parties, SEGA exclusives, and the world's largest first party controller. Japan ended up getting a smaller controller, which eventually replaced the grizzly bear original in the west. If you have an original Xbox, it's highly recommended you mod it, either by a softmod or a modchip. This gives you access to an excellent media center, and many excellent and full speed emulators.

Many Xbox games are capable of being played on an Xbox 360. When a game is compatible, it will be noted with a (BC).

• APEX (NA) / Racing Evoluzione (PAL) (BC)
  • Teflon: It's like Sega GT's Carrozzzzeria mode turned into an entire game. Handling kind of sucks but it's all kinds of fun building ridiculous cars.

• Battle Engine Aquila (also on: PS2, Windows) (BC)
  • Teflon: You first-person a transforming (jet>walker>tank or someshit) mech, with the interesting slant that you're part of a greater offensive and it is imperative to keep your advancing troops alive by taking out artillery batteries and such. They're allowed to die, it's not a constant escort mission, but they're quite useful and you're generally screwed if you're all alone.

• Beyond Good and Evil (also on: PS2, Xbox, Windows. HD Re-release available on XBL, PSN)
  • Wourme: A very memorable game. I find it hard to criticize even the aspects that may deserve criticism.
  • Rudie: I find it a nice little game.
  • Felix: this is what the plebs call an underappreciated classic. A good game that can be easily mistaken for great; feels like Zelda + (the first) Jak & Daxter.

• Blinx: The Timesweeper
  • Kiken: So I get to be the first, and most likely only person, to recommend Blinx The Timesweeper. The poor guy gets no love. Also, go listen to the OST. It's more Sonicy than anything Sonic Team have delivered in the past decade.

• Breakdown (BC)
  • boojiboy7: A Japanese developed first-person shooter that focuses on melee combat and locks the player in the first person perspective, similar to Valve games. It turns out to not be a 'great' game, but one with a few really interesting moments that make the generally cheap price worth it.
  • Rudie: Oh man is this game awesome. I love it. It is Half-Life 1 done by the Japanese. It is pretty brutally unfair at points, but I can't help but love everything it does for first person perspective, and that Xen in this game is Halo.
  • tacotaskforce: Breakdown is a japanese Half-Life. It has a lot of flaws, some set-pieces that don't quite work out, and other set-pieces that are fucking fantastic.
  • Swarm: This game owns. It's a bit of an Xbox sacred cow for those SB folks in da know. I mean, it's basically a Japanese Half-Life and Halo clone, but with an absolutely insane Japanese sci-fi story and totally ludicrous first-person fighting system. Interestingly enough, it actually does a few things that Half-Life 2 would also do, but a year earlier. Things such as driving in large outdoor areas, an AI companion named Alex who accompanies you through most of the game and a bunch of cutscenes that play out within the environment. I recommend playing on Easy if you're just checking out this game to see its insanity. The combat in the game is enjoyable when frustration is at a minimum. There's this move in the game that they never tell you about when you press both triggers to slide into an enemy which stuns them, then immediately pressing the right trigger again sending them flying half way across the room with an uppercut. On Easy this is enough to one-shot kill most enemies and it feels awesome every time you do it.

• Burnout 3: Takedown (also on: PS2)
  • boojiboy7: A racing/car-crashing game with an addictive “puzzle-ish” mode. The Xbox version gets the nod due to custom soundtrack support allowing you to replace the hideous pop-emo schlock on the disc.
  • Rudie: Hey! I like 3 or 4 of that pop-emo schlock!

• Cave Story (homebrew port) (Also on: DSiWare, 3DSWare, GP2X, PSP, WiiWare, Windows; remade for 3DS)
  • robotdell: It's free. It's fantastic. It's Cave Story: a “metroidvania” with true purpose!
  • TORUMASUTA: The [Xbox port] I played starts getting severe slowdown as soon as you get to the Mimiga Village; the first cave is okay, but I think that's because there's not much going on. Cave Story is such an important game that I wouldn't advertise the existence of the Xbox port out of the fear that the slowdown is still there.
  • Ymer: Never noticed any of that. One flaw of the port though is that with the default control scheme both switching weapons and the “throttle” button (a pretty broken feature which may crash things) are both mapped to the right trigger which took me a while to figure out.

• Crazy Taxi 3
  • firenze: the nighttime Vegas setting is really great. It also includes one of the two maps from each of the first two Crazy Taxi games, and a just fucking ridiculous mission mode (Crazy X). If you like hard, video-gamey video games it's great. It also works wonderfully as a pick up and play diversion for 10 minutes.

• Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge (also on: XB1)
  • Tulpa: A nice arcade flight shooter.
  • Swarm: It's like Disney's Talespin if instead of a bear it starred Nathan Drake from Uncharted. The game gives you a bunch of big maps and lets you do a bunch of missions in them until you move on. Has some nice early levels that have you flying through island caves that it drops way too early. Simplistic but solid gameplay, if you know how to lead targets you'll win every time.

• Deathrow (BC)
  • Teflon: A satisfyingly violent mutant league football type thing.
  • Tulpa: A good never talked about Xbox game

• Double S.T.E.A.L. The Second Clash (BC?)
  • tacotaskforce: Wreckless only without the sadistic time limits and with bonus missions that are actually kind of fun.
  • Swarm: As much as I kinda like this game, I have to admit there are only about 5 levels that are great, the rest are kind of a slog. Your crime fighting duo are pretty cute though (ACAB).

• The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (BC) (also on: Windows)
  • Teflon: Shit don't tell anyone but Morrowind is actually better than the PC version. It runs mods on a modified Xbox, the interface somehow works better on a controller (dropping shit from your inventory is a single button press!!(!)) and it's a game that lends itself quite well to being all fuzzy, analog and low-res.

• Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly (NA) / Project Zero II: Crimson Butterfly (PAL) / Zero: Akai Cho (JP) (also on: PS2)
  • Rudie: A really sort of clever, well built survival horror game that just didn't have enough. I love the way the game wraps you around the game world. Has to be played in the Xbox exclusive First Person Mode.

• Galleon
  • Rudie: The game by the Tomb Raider guy. It was supposed to set the world on fire on the Dreamcast. Then it got delayed to hell and ended up on the Xbox. It's amazing and heartbreaking in the way a constantly delayed game ultimately is.
  • tacotaskforce: Ghalleon was made by the guy that originally made Tomb Raider, which makes sense, because it is everything Tomb Raider should have been and, at the same time, everything it could never have been.
  • Swarm: It's like Tomb Raider in that it's way, way too god damned long. Has movement and platforming that feels like nothing before or since, though. The levels are huge, and the game will, at any time, let you jump off the highest point of the map and into the ocean below, with pretty much nothing to do except to reload the game. Pointless, but awesome. You can stop playing after about 3 levels.

• Genma Onimusha
  • mothmanspirit: It's Onimusha (good game) but now there's a creepy doll that follows you from screen to screen and you have to tug of war enemies over powerups.

• Grand Theft Auto III (also on: iOS, PS2, PSN, Windows)

• Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (also on: iOS, PS2, PSN, Windows)

• GunValkyrie
  • Rudie: Fuck. The. Controls.
  • 108: Gun Valkyrie is actually a pretty fucking great game with pretty fucking great controls and pretty heartbreakingly terrible level design.
  • Cacophanus: [GunValkyrie]is actually genius, once you get past the learning curve for the controls.
  • tacotaskforce: Some people like Gun Valkyrie. I can't get over how it was designed to be played on a DC pad and never reworked to utilize the Xbox's two thumbsticks.
  • Chris B: Gunvalkyrie sounds and looks like a cave-flyer or a maze game like Kururin or Cameltry in principle, where you're not so much trying to reach the platforms and avoid the pitfalls, but to stay aloft and fly through the levels without touching the ground.
  • tacotaskforce: Some people like Gun Valkyrie. I can't get over how it was designed to be played on a DC pad and never reworked to utilize the Xbox's two thumbsticks.
  • 108: gun valkyrie is actually a pretty fucking great game with pretty fucking great controls and pretty heartbreakingly terrible level design.
  • firenze: I hate GUNVALKYRIE. The game uses like three buttons, and one of them is the R3 (right analog stick clicking in). While moving the stick. In mid-air. Gyaaaaah. I can't stand that control scheme, and the level design is pretty bland too.
  • Cacophanus: […] is actually genius, once you get past the learning curve for the controls
  • NeoEsZ: I caught on right away to the controls and I think this game plays like a dream. A little challenging, but good.

• Halo: Combat Evolved (BC) (also on: 360, Windows, XB1)
  • Reed: The first one, and for my money still the best one. I've replayed this game more times than anything else I own. If you get the Anniversary remake for 360, turn off the HD graphics - they're mostly copy-pasted assets from later games, and the original graphics had a ton of care put into them. (Don't get Anniversary.) Works great on 360.
  • Ni Go Zero Ichi: Campaign has aged astonishingly well. It feels like the missing link between classic and modern shooters, in the sense that it combines the best aspects of both and comes out ahead for it: you've got regenerating and limited health, levels that have well-paced linear progression but are also huge and (somewhat) open-ended, weapons that feel hefty and strategic but also aren't rendered boring and samey by pointless devotion to realism. Every single enemy, weapon and vehicle type looks and feels immediately distinct and fills a vital strategic niche in the combat system. The game engine is so delicately tweaked and balanced it's no wonder the campaign and multiplayer are equally beloved. The Anniversary/Master Chief Collection edition fucks up the game's art direction to such a spectacular degree that I can't believe someone allowed it, but also you can toggle back to the original visuals in up-res'd widescreen with the press of a button so who cares really.

• Halo 2 (BC) (also on: Windows, XB1)
  • Reed: Very playable on 360 (apart from a “screen burn” effect in some places). There's a lot of interesting level design in the later stages. Sword flying is the best glitch ever. Shooting feels all-around more crisp than CE, with the addition of more precision weapons and increased auto-aim. A pretty underrated game IMO.
  • Ni Go Zero Ichi: Not really as good as the first game, and ironically feels like it's aged a little worse due to having early iterations of things that have since become smoothed out genre staples (e.g. dual wielding, true regenerating health, etc.). The campaign sort of tries to introduce too much new stuff at once - mechanically and narratively - and quickly loses focus. There are also a few more segments which are kinda slogs. It's still very good though, faster paced and more streamlined (for better or worse) and capable of holding its own against most contemporary shooter campaigns. The Anniversary edition actually looks good this time.

• The House of the Dead 3 (also on: Arcade, PS3, Wii, Windows)
  • firenze: if you have a gun (maybe something like the multiplatform thing I own for PS2/Xbox), it's fun times. Not as good as HotD1 and 2, but a solid lightgun shooter.

• Hulk: Ultimate Destruction
  • Maztorre: Japanese brawler gameplay in 2 nicely designed sandboxes (city and canyon flavours). The movelist is utterly massive and extremely intuitive. Capcom's 2D Hulk in 3 dimensions, pretty much. That statement should be enough for a lot of you.

• Jade Empire
  • Leau: Is Jade Empire not well liked around these parts? I'm surprised it's not been mentioned. It felt like a more robust version of KOTOR to me, although not much different from it.
  • Frequent Pilgrim: It takes everything clever and fun and nice about KOTOR and kills the soul.

• Jet Set Radio Future
  • Sniper Honeyviper: Massive open-world stages with very little to do in them. Not as crunchy as Tony Hawk, but the aesthetic is a whole lot better.
  • Rudie: My problem with it is the game never moves fast enough.
  • NeoEsZ: I think taking away the curvy lines you have to make while spray painting and giving you the ability to do tricks, hit cops, spray paint on people and make the game faster pace made what I thought was a beautiful game even better. My only complaint is that the levels aren't as genius as the first game, but all the ideas are there. I wish for a third one.
  • Maztorre: probably Sega's best 3D platforming wrapped around mostly-bearable level design. Tends to wear itself out with silly and annoying challenges later on, but for a long time I was entranced with finding better trick routes whilst listening to the excellent soundtrack. Feels very rushed, since the mechanics are mostly perfect save for a few glaring flaws and general wearing out of the concept towards the end. In that regard its a lot of fun for sandbox-style dipping in and out of.
  • Wall of Beef: They did replace the “motion control dat joystick” with a button press, but if they left it in and tried to keep the rest of it the same it would have been a train wreck. The game is a million times fast, with gigantic environments and lots to do. Its hard to stop and motion control that joystick while shooting down a drain pipe at 70 mph over a toxic ocean, while dudes are shooting guns at you.
  • elvis.shrugged: JSFR…I find hard to recommend. I loved the original JSR, a lot. It's one of my favorite games ever, and JSFR just reeks of “missed opportunity.” They took the urgency of the original—the time limits, the arcade-styled scoring system, the cops always chasing you—and replaced it with an exploration game. Hence, there is no urgency. The cops have been boxed in, and can't chase you (!!!). You no longer hurriedly twist the analog stick to create graffiti. In addition to that, the graphics have this very washed out and blurred look compared to the crisp, clean lines of JSR. Even the soundtrack pales compared to JSR's!
  • Swarm: Way more interesting strictly as an exploration game you can chill out in. Every time I think I'm going to start up a new game and play through the game again, I just end up loading an old save and skating through my favorite levels, admiring the cel-shaded not-Tokyo environments, hanging out in record stores and under glass-roofed shopping strips.

• Kingdom Under Fire
  • Leau: The two Kingdom Under Fire games are great if you like strategy and/or Dynasty Warriors and also totally cheap. It's one of those games that I'd easily reccomend if only because there isn't much else like it on the xbox.

• Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (also on: GC, Mac, PS2, Windows)
  • Rudie: I love this awkward meaty co-op action game.

• Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure
  • extrabastardforumla: Mark Ecko's Getting Up still has waggly joystick for graffiti. And it is HILARIOUSLY bad, tripply so if you've ever done any graffiti of your own. But it's a good Double Dragon style brawler.

• Maximum Chase
  • Swarm: Absolute insanity. You're RICK SUMMER, TRAFFIC COP and you've gotten caught up in some bad shit with some terrorists who are trying to mess up your car! Hilariously cheesy yet charming, this is the real FMV people crave. The game almost doesn't work, but the arcade gameplay is okay enough and the game short enough, for you to laugh your way through 60 minutes of pure bewilderment. They sold this game for $60! In 2003!
  • Decinoge: Cheesy doesn’t even begin to describe this game. It’s ridiculous turned all the way up to 15. Loved every little bit of terrible voice and real live acting (found on the credits they were actually 2 completely different things). I have to admit this was one of the funniest one and half hours I’ve had in the last month or so. I can’t really say I’ll play the game again. Might do so to get better scores. But that one time was amazing. I’ll probably consider one of the best “one offs” I’ve ever played.

• Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance (also on: 360, PS2, PS3, Vita, Windows)
  • boojiboy7: The point where Kojima finally told us what he thinks of us all.
  • Rudie: No, really. People loved MGS1, but some of them took it seriously. This game tries to be ridiculous as possible, and I still find most of it incredibly entertaining (unlike MGS4.) If you pick up the Substance version you get a bunch of VR Missions and some extra no cutscene missions with Snake.
  • Ymer: The Xbox version suffers from pretty severe slow-downs during some cut-scenes.

• Metal Wolf Chaos (JP only)
  • Cacophanus: For the batshit crazy narrative and dialogue, yes. If you want to buy it for actual gameplay then no. On the whole, the From Software games on Xbox that were helmed by Takeuchi should be dutifully avoided (this includes the mindlessly shallow Otogi games).
  • Swarm: Otogi but with mechs! It's as insane as you've heard, and quite funny and enjoyable in spite of the average gameplay and “MOST PATRIOTIC GAME EVER” bobo pasted all over the net. It's worth playing just for the fact that the only way you can play this game today is with a softmodded or NTSC-J Xbox, which makes you feel like a true vidcon spelunker.

• Murakumo
  • NeoEsZ: Simplistic. You fly through a city fast dodging buildings and fire at a mech. Good in short spurts at best. Cool concept.
  • Swarm: Flying really fast is fun for about two minutes, then just becomes frustrating. BUT! It's got Heather Morris in it! You know, the girl who played Heather in Silent Hill 3?! That's the only interesting part of this game.

• MX Unleashed (also on: PS2)
  • dmauro: It won't be readily apparent that this is a good game, but if you stick with it for a little bit (my Dad got me playing this one and kept making me playing it with him) you'll realize it's really got something going on. The one thing that I haven't been quite able to enjoy is that you kind of need to memorize the courses and they are decently long, but they give you enough laps that you might be able to memorize it before you get to the end of the final lap.
    It's far from the best game, but it runs in widescreen and hi-def, and you'll feel really awesome when you firgure out just the right amount of air to get on a series of jumps so that you clear them with the least amount of up and down as possible.

• Ninja Gaiden Black (also on: XB1; remade for PS3, Vita)
  • NeoEsZ: I'm a devil may cry fan who has beaten the DMC games too many times. This is something different and fresh, and I like it. Especially for the campy, cheesy parts.
  • Ni Go Zero Ichi: Still the best game in its genre imo. Compared to DMC there's less emphasis on racking up style points and combos and more about just straight-up surviving every encounter. Years before Souls came along, control and movement is so fine-tuned and precise (almost nothing is automated and there's no mechanic even remotely resembling a QTE) and the level design is so nice and playground-y (with mild Metroidvania elements, even) you feel like you have an incredible amount of control in how you tackle the game's imposing challenges. The character models are gorgeously animated and the art direction is good, so it looks better than most games of its era too. The only thing that hasn't aged gracefully is the camera.

• Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath (also on: PSN, Vita, Windows)
  • Rudie: A linear Zelda game that takes place in the oddworld universe that is also sometimes a first person shooter. Pretty great all around. Could really have used subtitles though.
  • Reed: Really solid third person FPS thing. Deceptively difficult. Awesome voice acting. HD version has really good graphics for its style. It makes me sad that nobody bought this.

• Otogi 1+2
  • Maztorre: One of the best of the post-DMC 3rd person action games (remember when these were 10 a penny for a couple of years?). Lots of personality absent from its peers, and one of the only titles to really push the hardware.
  • Swarm: From Software on that Japanese acid-mythology tip, with airborne combo-based combat like out of some god darned Dragon Ball manga. Has a great atmosphere with oddly sinister art and music. Wailing on an enemy and sending them flipping across the map crashing through a bunch of destructible buildings is some good shit. Otogi 2 is the better game. It has more mission variety and more generals to play as, plus a whole bunch of unlockables. I played through the entire game again just to unlock a cool outfit for Seimei, your shinto priest lookin' princess badass. Otogi 2 is also one of (if not THE!?) prettiest games on the Xbox.

• Outrun 2
  • mothmanspirit: I think it's worth it even if you have 2k6 because they added slipstreaming to the original tracks in that one. Which kind of breaks the difficulty curve I think.

• Outrun 2006 Coast 2 Coast (also on: PS2, Windows)
  • Teflon: Isn't b/c and it's the goddamn definitive Outrun 2 (there are PS2 and PC versions but they're inferior, and require you to sit at a desk, respectively).
  • Kappuru: Great euro mixes of the classic tracks, retro versions as well, lots of different modes to race in, and great, smooth, buttery powerslides for miles and miles.
  • Maztorre: My favourite racing game ever. There is so much home-specific content here and full credit to Sumo Digital for designing missions and challenges on par with AM2's work. This was an amazing online experience until Microsoft killed it. Sumo left several requests about how to achieve clean Xbox emulation on 360 with MS which were left unanswered, and thus the possible community for this game was doomed. I really, really wish this was 360 compatible. I can't recommend this enough.
  • firenze: The original Outrun2 release is also top notch, and is a worthy substitute. I consistently see it in bargain bins for under $10. It doesn't have the Outrun2 SP arcade tracks, but it is still a fantastic game. Essentially, Coast2Coast/2006 is Outrun2.1. Same thing with the added “map pack” of the SP tracks.
    Also, the original Outrun2 has unlockable original arcade Outrun (with adequate but not perfect emulation) and a great bonus of being able to unlock the Daytona 2 and Scud Race%/%Super GT tracks. That's awesome stuff right there.
  • Maztorre: OR2006 lacks the Scud Race/Daytona 2 tracks, yeah. The entire SP section more than makes up for that, though. That and the massive selection of cars and their OR edition variants (Sumo Digital added official Ferrari parts to the old car models as well as new paint jobs/decals), and completely new singleplayer modes/missions. The additions to the soundtrack are pretty great, too.

• Panzer Dragoon Orta
  • Tulpa: Bad music, clumsy attempts to overcomplicate the gameplay of earlier PDs, one of the few games guaranteed to put me to sleep
  • Texican Rude: Bosses take way too long to kill and am more likely to die from physical exhaustion than lack of skill.
  • ghostribbon: Whoa there, chief. Panzer Dragoon Orta had some pretty decent music. Anu Orta Veniya is like, one of the the best video game vocal songs.
  • Another Coma: I thought the form changing was unneccesary, stupid, and not fun. Then I hit the second and third episodes, where it totally began to make sense. You must always be conscious of what form you're in to do well (to survive, even!) Is it heavy handed to assume the player should know what form to be in? Maybe, but this is a Rail Shooter for crying out loud. Even then, form-changing is not always a formula, really. You have to be clever if you want to upgrade the not oft-used but very useful Glide Wing, for instance.
    I actually loved the approach to boss encounters, coming (rather recently) off of Zwei. Every boss battle seems to be constructed from the assumption that the player has A) Finished Zwei and B) thought the final encounter in Zwei was the bee's knees. Because just about every serious fight in Orta has that much effort evident in its design. I'll concede that this approach was probably unneccesary for the first couple of episodes, but that never really bothered me. Although the bosses are heavily armored, I realized at around the midpoint of the game that nearly all of them can be defeated before they begin to loop their attack pattern, provided you have become intimate with the capabilities of each form my then. If you haven't, well, you probably spent most of the time in Base Wing.
    The music, though. It started out good, and then they rewrote the same piece over and over and over until it faded into the background. Oh well!
  • Swarm: If you can softmod your Xbox to get progressive scan working, this game is beautiful. Flying through the insides of an airship one moment then out into the blue sky, through the clouds and towards the sun is breathtaking. The levels are maybe a bit too long for their own good, though.

• Phantom Crash
  • BotageL: That game is very special to me. It came along at just the right time, and created just the right mood, to carve out a very particular place in my heart. It's a game about playing games, and it does it wearing a warm smile. Battles flow so well; you build a rhythm, ambushing opponents who you've yet to defeat in this arena, blasting any of a number of odd and energetic songs purchased at the local record shop from your robot's stereo. By the time you're ready to start challenging the reigning champions of each area, you feel like you've trained yourself to be the baddest non-lethal robot fighter around. The localization is the sort of spotty, but good-natured translation which has largely been done away with, and gives the game a bit of whimsy.
    It also has really cool robot and world design. I love how this game looks.
  • tacotaskforce: Phantom Crash has really, really good music. Best on the system. Better than Jet Set Radi oFuture#JSRF. The gameplay is sort of a KoF Maximum Impact 2 to Armored Core's Virtual Fighter.
  • NeoEsZ: […] the graphics, presentation, and controls are all really good. It actually beats out its sequel that I had played previous to this game, SLAI.

• Phantom Dust (also on: XB1)
  • boojiboy7: A game created with a decent collectible card game as its backbone, but instead of playing cards, the players act out the battle in largely destructible environments that change a fight. Technically backwards compatible on the 360, but there are some framerate issues and occasional lockups. Still worth playing it that way if that's the only way you can.
  • Rudie: Magic The Gathering: The Movie: The Game.
  • SplashBeats: Phantom Dust is a strange action RPG. Think of it as a really pretty card battle game, but in real time, and your cards are very destructive psychic powers. The game is strategic, while still requiring action game reflexes, and throwing a fireball into a bridge and dropping it onto someone's head is really satisfying.
  • NeoEsZ: the most underrated game I've ever played in my life. This game should have gotten a sick amount of attention. Some of the best style implemented in any video game ever. If you're a fan of the setting of Midgar in final fantasy 7, you'll love this one. The game play is essentially a card game in disguise, but you won't know it until someone points it out. Really challenging at parts and overall engaging. The enviroment, story, and graphics work so well with eachother that the end result is something euphoric.

• Project Gotham Racing (BC)
  • Teflon: The most brutally challenging racing game this side of Stuntman (thankfully it doesn't derive half its difficulty from sheer soul-crushing wonkiness like Stuntman does). I'd like to say it'll make a man out of you but all that stress is probably more likely to flood your shit with estrogen and give you manboobs instead.

• Psi-Ops (also on: PS2, Windows)
  • mothman spirit: You beat dudes up with psychic superpowers! I am on level two, and it seems to have some pretty brilliant level design!

• Psychonauts (also on: PS2, PS4, XB1, Windows)
  • Leau: Psychonauts is a must play. Yeah there's a port for it on the PS2, but it's a really shoddy one, and the game just feels much better on the xbox (I've beaten both versions to 100% completion).
  • Intentionally Wrong: People bag on Psychonauts for being “just another platformer” but they were too caught up being offended by the routine to notice what an odd fusion Psychonauts really is. It's got the hub design of Mario Sunshine but the levels are all over the map: several are traditional platforming action, others are more about adventure game sensibilities. Every level has some unifying characteristic that makes it unique, though: one level has you combining scripts and scenery with mood-lighting on a stage to create different platform configurations; another involves personally recruiting and deploying units in a strategy board game against Napoleon Bonaparte. Taken together with the brilliant writing, Psychonauts becomes one of my top three games of all time.

• Rallisport Challenge 2
  • Victor: Rallisport Challenge 2 is a pretty sweet game. One of the best 'in-cockpit' experiences available. Visceral. Night driving is of special note. Huge front-mounted lighting rigs beaming spotlights a couple feet in front…trying to make sense of all the boulders and twigs and dirt zipping by. Visuals kind of suffer from the kind of n64-ish pallette-blandness (that seems to be prevalent on the Box) at times, but they get the job done at the very least. Often they are quite nice. It forgoes hardnosed simulation: they went with something rooted somewhere much closer to reality than say NFS, Burnout, Outrun etc. but still slip-slidey and loosey goosey and fun and shit. The interface, soundtrack…the non-gameplay ambiance is decidedly American-Developed Xbox Game, so that may or may not be a little superficially offputting; but the core of this game is rock solid and a good time. Makes you wish it was on a system with, I don't know, say, support for Logitech's Driving Force Pro (PC Port? I think so. But still)

• Rent-A-Hero
  • An unreleased english version was leaked in 2008.

• Shenmue 2 (BC) (also on: Dreamcast)
  • Rudie: Warning, the dub is really really bad.

• Silent Hill 2 (also on: 360, PS2, PS3, Windows)
  • Rudie: A very draining and rewarding experience. One of the only games I actually hold as advancing the medium, and explaining any of why that is ruins it. There is a genuinely stupid puzzle near the beginning.
  • boojiboy7: There are a few genuinely stupid puzzles throughout the game, but they somehow fit in the game itself. The game is a commentary on the sexual issues of videogames in the way that MGS2 is a comment on the power fantasy of videogames. Jesus, avoid SH fan communities at all cost though.
  • Ymer: Supports 5.1 surround on Xbox

• Silent Hill 4: The Room (also on: PS2, PSN, Windows)
  • Rudie: While the other Silent Hill games lend themselves to multiple playthroughs, a lot of this game hinges on surprise and not knowing what to expect. You explore the titular room in first-person, and totally hit the shit out of dogs with a charge meter and typical third-person.

• SoulCalibur II (also on: 360, Gamecube, PS2, PS3)

• Spartan: Total Warrior (also on: Gamecube, PS2) - Action Button review
  • Takashi: Simply because it's a good game. Has a pretty cool battle system and GOD DAMMIT ARISTOTLE STOP DYING ARRRGHH.
  • Maztorre: One of the most overlooked and clever beat em ups ever made. Level design far beyond the brown mess the Musou series frequently drops players into, and an amazing sense of pace between attack and defence. Outrageously fun when you get the hang of it. This game would shine so very brightly with multiplayer, but alas!

• SpikeOut: Battlestreet
  • firenze: it's sort of a 3D Streets of Rage type game. It's not as good as the SOR games, Final Fight, or Dynamite Deka. That being said, it's still quite fun if you're a Sega or beat-em-up fan.
  • NeoEsZ: Cheesy characters and aptmosphere. Like a sega arcade beat 'em, because it is one. Lovin' it.

• Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (also on: Gamecube, PS2, PS3, Windows)
  • Intentionally Wrong: I also enjoyed Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory for its multiplayer. Yes, we all know how Metal Gear is sooo much better. Whatever. I found multiplayer Splinter Cell pretty fucking awesome, although I am a notorious sucker for asymmetrical units. I haven't played single-player past the first mission; I kind of hate stealth games. (I also love them. I do both.)

• SSX 3 (also on: Gamecube, PS2)

• Star Wars: Battlefront II (also on: PS2, Windows)
  • Ni Go Zero Ichi: Very possibly the best ever Star Wars game.

• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (also on: XB1, Windows)
  • tacotaskforce: Knights of the Old Republic was designed to be played on the Xbox, on an Xbox game pad.

• Star Wars: Republic Commando (also on: Windows)
  • Ni Go Zero Ichi: I recall this being a pretty decent squad-based FPS with a well-realized gritty (by Star Wars standards) aesthetic.

• Steel Battalion / Tekki (JP)
  • Swarm: VT Party tonight! VT Party tonight! VT Party tonight! VT Party tonight!!!

• Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse (also on: Windows)
  • SplashBeats: Stubbs the Zombie is perhaps one of the funniest games I've ever played. You play as a zombie intent on destroying a futuristic town in 1950's America. You eat the brains of innocents, they turn into your zombie army, you break things. It's pretty wickedly funny in parts, and runs on the Halo 1 engine, so it's very stable and easy to play.
  • Swarm: A bunch of Bungie people left after Halo and made this neat microgame you can finish in about 3 hours. You eat the brains of enemies to build up a zombie posse who then also swarm onto other enemies. You have a bunch of zombie powers including detaching your arm to strategically possess enemies, such as snipers and rocket infantry. Has a neat retro-50s artstyle with remixed 50s tunes. Feels like one of the last games before the 7th gen dark age where you could make a smallish AA game and sell it for $60. A nightmare to get working on PC nowadays, your best bet is the Xbox version.

• The Warriors (also on: PS2)
  • Tlon: A game every beat em up/gaming fan should own. nothing beats slamming a guy headfirst into a brick wall and then wearing his hat.
  • Rudie: One of the best movie-tie-ins ever. It shows the lead up to the actual movie, and the final act is the movie in it's entirety. Great combat where it's possible your team will beat the other dudes without your help. If Godhand is one evolution of the belt-scroll, The Warriors is the other.
  • Winona Ghost Ryder: The Warriors is one of the few good (if not the best) 3D beat-em-up's, and weirdly some of the voice performances in the game come off stronger than in the Walter Hill film.
  • parker: This was the best co-op game I ever played, I hope it gets an HD re-release someday.
  • ChairTax: I seriously spent two whole winter months taking turns in 5v5 and 9v9 brawls with two of my friends. We all had our own custom gangs (mine was “The Grift”), with our own favorite characters, and that customization really elevated the shit-talking and faux stakes. Hell, we'd mythologize our gang members (Vince was my gang leader, but Preston (one of the flash dealers, I think?) was also pretty mean) and build up character-on-character rivalries.
    Really satisfying baseball bat in that game. Can still hear the knock it makes when you're running full speed, coldcocking people.
  • Swarm: The epitomy of mid 2000s Rockstar Games, when addition to making murder simulators they were into financing movies and making games based on 70s cult films. The Warriors feels like a game only they could of made. It's awesome to just dive (literally) into a group of enemies and start wailing on them. At points of the game there can be like 25 CPU's going at it, just hitting each other with whatever they can get their hands on. Nails the post apocalyptic setting of the film and brings back the cast and soundtrack, and features a pretty good secret Double Dragon clone. Play it on the OG Xbox for 720p widescreen support!

• A first xbox - October 2017 forum thread.
• Any really, really good games for original X-BOX?- March 2007 forum thread.
• Xbox (original!) recommendations - August 2008 forum thread.