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: PC; PS2) (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: Gamecube; PC; PS2)
  • The Blueberry Hill: Vapid. You should have better things to do with your time than playing this.
  • 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.

• 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.

• 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: GP2X, PC, PSP, Wii)
  • 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.

• Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge
  • Tulpa: A nice arcade flight shooter.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• Halo: Combat Evolved (BC) (also on: PC)

• Halo 2 (BC) (also on: PC)

• 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.

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

• Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance (also on: PS2; PC)
  • 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

• Oddworld:Stranger's Wrath (coming to PS3)
  • 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.

• Outrun 2006 Coast 2 Coast
  • 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).

• 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.

• Phantom Crash

• Phantom Dust (BC)
  • 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.

• 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: PC; PS2)
  • mothman spirit: You beat dudes up with psychic superpowers! I am on level two, and it seems to have some pretty brilliant level design!

• 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: PC; PS2)
  • 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: PC; PS2)
  • 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.

• Spartan: Total Warrior (also on: Gamecube; PS2)
  • Takashi: Simply because it's a good game. Has a pretty cool battle system and GOD DAMMIT ARISTOTLE STOP DYING ARRRGHH.

• SSX 3 (also on: Gamecube; PS2)

• Steel Battalion / Tekki (JP)

• The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (BC)
  • 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.

• The Warriors (also on: PS2)
  • 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.

• Any really, really good games for original X-BOX? Xbox (original!) recommendations - Selectbutton forum threads.