Official Xbox 360 Discussion Thread

[Nz17]

Twentieth anniversary of the XB360 this year. "20 Years of the Microsoft Xbox 360." Does that make it retro now? A classic? What are your Xbox 360 memories? Some of my favorite games for 360 include Pac-Man Championship Edition and King's Quest IX / 2015. What are yours?

DISCUSS!

[YoshiM]

Oh sweet spirits, it's been 20 years of 360? Just...wow....

I have to say my most memorable moments are (in no particular order):

1. Exposure to new music: After reading great reviews, I picked up the "collector's" edition of "Alan Wake". The included book was good but the game was even better. I really enjoyed the rock soundtrack in the game by the fictional band "Old Gods of Asgard". After a little web searching, I found out that it wasn't some rando studio group put together but the band Poets of the Fall. Listening to what I could find of their music dropped me into their carnival and made me a frequent flyer for a while. I got some of my family turned on to the band and later, in my new marriage, my oldest step kids into it.

2. Experience the evolution of "Minecraft": for decades at that point, games you bought were pretty much done. Save for the few games that actually had expansion packs (which were more in PC land than in the Console plains), you had to wait for a sequel in order to get more of what you liked of a title. Broadband being standard with consoles introduced the masses to DLC that PC users were already experiencing (*cough* horse armor *kaff*), which I knew about but when I first played "Minecraft", I never experienced a game that was ever changing. I heard about it from somewhere and was curious, so I downloaded the demo on my Xbox 360. At the time, you just had hearts and no fatigue/hunger bar. I thought it was goofy punching trees to break them but the silly mechanics were fun. It was Lego without stepping on the pieces and I could do it at my leisure. Then came updates. Then came the stamina/"feed me" bar. Then more mobs. The game was changing before my eyes, involuntarily (as updates were automatic and I was nagged if I didn't, so I caved in especially if I wanted to play online) but changing none the less. It became a game my daughter and I would play early mornings when I'd go over the to ex-wife's to babysit my girl and then take her to school (the ex started work early-before school started). I built a model of half of the local mall that had gone dead, which I wonder if it still exists on the 360's drive. I have to ask my daughter if they ever drag that system out.

3. Soul Calibur meets Street Fighter: I was big into Soul Calibur back then and had fun with #3. I created a version of a D&D character I had and played her online with others. I got some good feedback but she got beat pretty bad. My competitor and I sat back after the match to watch the next one in the queue. We did not see any of the regular SC characters but something much more: M. Bison vs Chun Li. The characters were sooooo close to the originals using the costumes of the game, it was incredible. My headset erupted with laughter from everyone who was watching the match. We cheered the players on, continuously laughing at just how great those models looked. I don't remember who one, but I'll always remember the chatter of we the spectators.

4. I thought the end of the world was coming: Now, I cannot remember for the life of me what game I was playing. I'm pretty sure it was the 360 and maybe if I'm lucky, I posted it here at some point. If I find it, I'll update. Anyway, in the game, which was an FPS, there was a section of the game where I was in a missile base and I had to stop the launch. As I neared that objective and right before I had to do any sort of interaction, I heard the tornado sirens go off. It wasn't the usual loud and drawn out wailing but rather a loud, forlorn tune like it was having a bad day. I had no idea what that tone meant. The fact that it sounded right as I was about to interact with some panel or whatever in the game made me jump and then burst out laughing. The bonus came when my then brother and sister in law came banging on the locked screen door, begging to come in. My ex-sis in law had (and maybe still has) a huge fear of tornadoes and tornado sirens. They were out for a walk (they lived like 8 blocks from me at the time) and took off in a sprint to my house when the sirens blared (or blooped, depending on your perception).

5. The cheap indie games were dang cool: Microsoft opened up, what was it, XNA development for the 360 that allowed practically anyone to create games for the 360 platform. And, with free tools come crap games and never finished demos BUT a few gems cropped up that became regular players: "White Noise" (based on the Slenderman games), "DLC Quest" (what happens when DLC gets pushed too far-a platformer where you had to unlock in-game DLC in order to do....anything), some Rogue-like before there were roguelikes where you selected a character type (warrior, mage, a tinker) and you had different abilities you could trigger with the face buttons. It was a fun game and what was neat was that you could go back levels to go to shops, which is something the more recent rogue-type games I played DON'T let you do as the way back creates new levels. It didn't in this game. If I can remember it, I'll post it.

6. The Internet made me a conscious shopper of X360's-my first 360 I believe I bought from these very boards. It was professionally painted black and came in a big collectable metal carry case with a bunch of media extras. I bought it after much himming and hawing, though I forget what the deciding factor was that made me pull the trigger. Of course, as fate would have it, it got the Red Ring of Death. Unfortunately, the person who did the paint job removed the serial number sticker from a spot on the case, which voided the warranty. I wanted to play more 360, so I combed the web for more info on the system to find which ones were NOT affected. I picked up an Xbox 360 Arcade unit from Wal-Mart, which held the then coveted Jasper model. Something with the model number ID'd the model, which would tell you if it would be prone to the Ring or not. I installed the hard drive from my dead machine and the rest was history. I have no clue if the machine is still going but I think the ex still has it (she kept it as our daughter loved to play Double Fine's Kinect Party).

7. Having way too much fun in "Kinect Party": It's a distraction "game" that I would call a bone fide "experience" but it made a young girl so happy when Daddy came over to play it. Didn't really have the same effect when she became 13, though. Fun nostalgia trip, but in essence she said, "Gimme Roblox".

8. Being the team bullet magnet: I was huge into "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare" on the 360. I would hang with some folks on here and also folks from "Retrogaming Radio"/"Dual Screen Radio", getting teams together and battling it out. For Team Monroeworld, however, I seemed to be THE one that would die. A lot. It got to the point where I just decided to just run into clearings to get mowed down so my team mates could find the opponents and smoke 'em. On the Monroeworld forums, I changed my profile avatar to be one of the soldiers in the game with camo fatigues, though I changed the coloring to be shades of hot pink along with red crosshairs over my avatar.

Those are the moments that come to mind. I have not touched the 'box in years until I stumbled across a decent machine for cheap at a thrift store. I got it all set up, got signed in with my Microsoft account (my ex hadn't used it in years and never changed the password) and pulled my games. I tried playing the games but honestly, they didn't do much for me anymore. "Afterburner Climax" just seemed boring. "White Noise" lost its appeal. I tried playing "Halo 3" but I couldn't run it-the updates wouldn't come down. "Minecraft" didn't have cloud saving years back, so my mall wasn't available for me to tinker with. And most of my friends were gone or moved on to Xbox consoles I won't get.

My step kids really didn't get into the system and frankly, I didn't want to play it. It was a bittersweet reunion.

[Nz17]

How about the unique, gradual deployment of software-based Xbox backwards compatibility?

[Spartacus]

My most distinct memory of the Xbox 360 was when Amazon discontinued the console and sold them for $99. They weren't pretty to look at, but these latter revision consoles were reliable and I stocked up on them. It was those (red ring) reliability issues that had kept me away from the Xbox 360.



Not that there weren't attractive Limited Edition Xbox 360 consoles. In fact I would argue that the Xbox 360 had far better looking Limited Edition consoles than did Sony's PlayStation 3.



If you were to make a list of Xbox 360 exclusive games, as collectors are want to do, would it suprise anyone that the vast bulk of games on that list would be Kinect games? Would it suprise anyone the the highest selling Xbox 360 game is not Halo, Gears of War or even Grand Theft Auto V, but rather Kinect Adventures! Would most people even know that Microsoft sold 8 million Kinects, earning it the Guinness World Record of "fastest-selling consumer device." I doubt it, but it would explain why Microsoft's next generation console, Xbox One, originaly included a Kinect device whether you wanted one or not. The kinect was soon dropped after public complaint as was always-online DRM and used game restrictions.



Another thing I will always remember about the Xbox 360 was the large number of Japanese shooters. I got into video game collecting due to shooters and to see titles like DoDonPachi, Espgaluda, Mushihime-sama and many
many more on a modern powerful console was very appealing to me. The Xbox 360 was region locked sadly, so I commited myself to purchasing a Japanese 360 so I could play the games. Don't recall why I bought Japanese
Kinect though?



Some of the Japanese shooters were region free and while I was identifying all region free games I misidentified Alien Breed Trilogy as a region free PAL game. I had never heard of Alien Breed before, but it was an interesting looking top down shooter that gave me an Alien Syndrom vibe. Once I discovered my mistake I tried to find enough PAL 360 games to justify purchasing a PAL 360 console on eBay. One region free Xbox 360 game I can highly recommend is the PAL version of the Ubisoft Triple Pack containing Outland, From Dust and Beyond Good and Evil HD. Outland by Housemarque, who also did Returnal, is a hack and slash platform game that uses the power of light and dark that I would recommend to anyone.



During the pandemic I collected for another American computer company that also got in the console video game business, Amiga. It was on this console that I found the original Alien Breed games by Team 17.

[Greg2600]

Ehh, I felt MS were discarding the OG Xbox far too soon. Wasn't happy about that. I've only really used one in the last 10 years to game online with the smattering of ppl still doing so. Mainly using stealth servers.

[fpbrush]

Whoops, double post! Sry mods

[fpbrush]

My most distinct memory of the Xbox 360 was when Amazon discontinued the console and sold them for $99. They weren't pretty to look at, but these latter revision consoles were reliable and I stocked up on them. It was those (red ring) reliability issues that had kept me away from the Xbox 360.



Not that there weren't attractive Limited Edition Xbox 360 consoles. In fact I would argue that the Xbox 360 had far better looking Limited Edition consoles than did Sony's PlayStation 3.



If you were to make a list of Xbox 360 exclusive games, as collectors are want to do, would it suprise anyone that the vast bulk of games on that list would be Kinect games? Would it suprise anyone the the highest selling Xbox 360 game is not Halo, Gears of War or even Grand Theft Auto V, but rather Kinect Adventures! Would most people even know that Microsoft sold 8 million Kinects, earning it the Guinness World Record of "fastest-selling consumer device." I doubt it, but it would explain why Microsoft's next generation console, Xbox One, originaly included a Kinect device whether you wanted one or not. The kinect was soon dropped after public complaint as was always-online DRM and used game restrictions.



Another thing I will always remember about the Xbox 360 was the large number of Japanese shooters. I got into video game collecting due to shooters and to see titles like DoDonPachi, Espgaluda, Mushihime-sama and many
many more on a modern powerful console was very appealing to me. The Xbox 360 was region locked sadly, so I commited myself to purchasing a Japanese 360 so I could play the games. Don't recall why I bought Japanese
Kinect though?



Some of the Japanese shooters were region free and while I was identifying all region free games I misidentified Alien Breed Trilogy as a region free PAL game. I had never heard of Alien Breed before, but it was an interesting looking top down shooter that gave me an Alien Syndrom vibe. Once I discovered my mistake I tried to find enough PAL 360 games to justify purchasing a PAL 360 console on eBay. One region free Xbox 360 game I can highly recommend is the PAL version of the Ubisoft Triple Pack containing Outland, From Dust and Beyond Good and Evil HD. Outland by Housemarque, who also did Returnal, is a hack and slash platform game that uses the power of light and dark that I would recommend to anyone.



During the pandemic I collected for another American computer company that also got in the console video game business, Amiga. It was on this console that I found the original Alien Breed games by Team 17.

HUGE, peak Xbox 360 lore specialist. Bravo!

Thank you.