The Bluffer's Guide to Xbox Cult Classics Comments by Kristan Reed

So it is!

Don't know what it was really called but the game we dubbed 'jump & duck' is about the most hilarious thing you can do while fucked and sitting down with three other blokes while remaining hetro.

I dinna like the Fusion Frenzy. Nope. It was one of my "free" games that MS sent me after being an early-adopter and spending £100 too much.

Oh, and one of these days I must get around to telling you all the story of how MS kept sending me Xbox controllers too (as part of that "we apologise for fleecing you" campaign). Your sides will split! You'll will never hear a funnier story.

Etc.

Deathrow: Underground Team Combat

Have it. It's absolutely brilliant for a 'sports' game.

@Kahnivor - Jump & Duck = Twisted System.

No Chronicles of Riddick?

It's in the other feature!

@stoatyboy Cheers! Couldn't have read the screen if the letters were 20 inches high the state we usually played Fusion Frenzy in :D

Its sad, but I didn't realise just how great a console the Xbox was until its died. And I haven't played alot of these games on the list, always meaning to get round to playing them though. Though even as a huge Xbox fan (still own over 30 odd games for it) I haven't heard of some of these, and will be checking them out.

Not sure if this is on here, but Operation Flashpoint deserves a mention, horrendous graphics, but it was great fun to mess about on. Also Rallisport Challenge 2 has already been mentioned, was one of the best Live games I've ever played and is one of the best racing games I've played. Those were the days, having time trial wars with my uncles see who could get the fastest times. At one point we were in the top 6 for a few tracks.

Come on EG!? Where's MotoGP3? It's the only original XBox game I own. Does anyone care about it? Obviously not.

I guess I'm biased though, since I tested it :D

Once again I've got most of these well before they were on this type of list! :D

(Says something about me but I'm not sure what)

I think I may pick up that Deathrow game now :)

lamadude
15-Nov-06 12:53:02

XIII is a Belgian comic, not a French one, and it's quite popular over here.

Edit - Sorry, of course it is - my mistake, edited
Edited 1 times. Most recently by krudster at 12:58 on 15/11/2006



That one deserves a 'LOL' i guess. I remember correcting Kristan about that after reading the original review as well. ;o)

Have they fixed the BC on XIII now then?

Sorry if that's already been answered, but i haven't got through all the comments yet. Last time i popped the game into my 360 all the FMV's would constantly stutter and freeze up. Although you could get into the actual gameplay by skipping the cinematics (which involved hammering at the button to trigger the skip during one of the brief moments when it wasn't frozen), it really ruined the game given the frequency with which cinematics would pop up. Of course it also meant that you couldn't follow the story, which in XIII's case is a big factor in wanting to continue playing. Or not, as the BC situation would have it...

I really don't think MS should be listing games as BC unless it's possible to play the whole way through without constantly coming across game-breaking or intrusive bugs. As it is i just don't trust that a BC game will be completable, and as such find the current BC pointless. Even with games which seem to work fine (Cthulhu from the games mentioned for example), i just can't get away from some nagging doubt that after hours of play there's a high chance i'll hit something which makes further progress impossible. Nevermind something like Thief 3, with it's floating fires which can be seen through walls.

Don't get me wrong, i understand how difficult the BC is to implement. It's just i feel MS painted themselves into a corner with the decisions they made about BC, and it's done nothing but harm the 360's image from day one. Of course if they decided to drop BC support altogether now, it would only cause even worse damage. I think i'd have rather they released some sort of official patch to enable the progressive output/higher resolutions on the original Xbox, but i suppose they would have probably thought that would undermine one of the selling points for the 360.

Solid list, that.

But still, HULK frickin' SMASH.

Where in BANNERS NAME is HULK:UD?

One of the most enjoyable fuckin smashers of ALL TIME.

Good grief! I think i can now list enough reasons to buy an Xbox. Halos, Halflife 2, Armed and Dangerous, Quantum Redshift, Crimson Skies. Panzer Dragoon. By the time I've finished that little lot I'll be able to get a next gen machine without having to sell my organs. Thanks Eurogamer.

Gladius.

Chronically under-rated Western Japanese RPG. (May have been multi-platform thought.)

Surprisingly, I don't think EG reviewed this. A 50 - 100 hour monster with the one of the best turned based battle systems that I have had the pleasure to play.

Gamespot:
With its epic storylines, hundreds of combat scenarios, and open-ended structure, Gladius is one of the deepest games of the year. If you play strategy/RPGs because you're an anime fan, Gladius will bore you; if you play them because they're fun, Gladius will obsess you.

There is no way in hell that JSRF is only worth 6/10. Only 12 hours of gameplay? Didn't you try and unlock everything or something? It took me closer to 40 to do that. I don't recall encountering any slowdown, either.

I bought Otogi 2 because it looked reasonably similar to Ninja Gaiden.

Loved it.

I just noticed that this is the 70000th article. Congratulations, Eurogamer.

/lights candle

Just added a whole bunch of games that should've been included in the first place. Enjoy!

Bloody hell I have all but 4 of those. Steel Battalion is sadly missing from my list. My friend owned an independent games shop for much of the Xbox's life so obtaining releases was never difficult.
I have fond memories of shouting obscenities at Enclave one minute then going Ooooh look at the pretty water effects the next.

GunValkyrie was much better than 4/10 but I agree it was a love hate thing.

That's 50 odd games in total. Jeepers.

Nice to see some Second Sight lovin'! Seriously under-rated game, that.

Nice additions - glad to see KuF in there now in particular, as well as Republic Commando. Seriously though, still no Phantom Crash? That game was well recieved but certainly wasn't popular - it's gotta be prime fodder for this sort of article!

Blimey, it's pretty comprehesive as it is! If someone can mail me a nice 100 odd word entry for worthy contenders, I'll consider slapping them on as well, but after 10,000 odd words, I'm done with this!

Crimson Skies - another PC hit that didn't hit big - but why?

Because CS and MechAssault are completely dumbed down, arcade shite in comparison to their PC ancestors.

The PC original of Crimson Skies was just at the right level of fun light flight sim, the Xbox wasn't. Plus whoever was voicing Nathan was rubbish in the console version!

Yeah, very comprehensive... just missing Phantom Crash ;) Seriously though, good job on the article. I think it will open a lot of people's eyes to the fact the Xbox [i]did[/i] have some truly excellent games, and not just lazy PC ports or cross platform titles.

Hmm. There doesn't appear to be any mention of Jade Empire - even in the comments. Did it actually sell really well, then? Or am I alone in thinking it was a wonderful if hardly boundary-pushing ghame?

/buys Secret Weapons Over Normandy on the strength of this

Sounds like x-wing/tie fighter without the star wars element, which sound like proper fun to me.

Gun Valkyrie... hard game. Oddly, I somehow managed to get used to the controls, but I got stuck on a later level, even with a guide. There was just nowhere to go. Oh well. Nice article.

Nice article, worked in an electronics shop while at uni and can remember stacking the shelves with many of these games.

How come there's no Brute Force on this list?

A quick check shows it got 8/10 here, considerablyhigher tan a load of the games listed. I always thought it was unfairly bashed, and seemed to disappear without a trace in very short order.

I had a lot of fun playing though Brute Force. I think the trick was just to ignore the squad commands, and treat it as a game where you changed character rather than change weapons when you wanted to do something different tactically (or when your chosen character got themselves killed).

Brute Force sold shedloads in the US and did pretty well here too, thus not really applicable to this list.

I had 5 of these. Do I win something?

Am i missing a joke of some sort, or is it just a typo...

Edit - it was a typo!

Krudster, for finally including Mashed: Fully Loaded, I salute you!

It's up there with Beyond Good and Evil on the 'tragically overlooked' scale.

Yeah, all too many of those on this list...

Sorry, but Call of Cthulhu was a travesty. It started off so well but was marred by the worst trial-and-error "gameplay" since Dragon's Lair and turned into a bad stealth FPS. The plot was transparent to Lovecraft fans and pretty incomprehensible to everyone else.

It had some really inconsistant and/or illogical game design (I ran around in the mansion for ages because you could suddenly jump over a pile of furniture, something that you didn't have to do at any other point. I also remember dying repeatedly because, for some strange reason, you can't crouch and hold on to something at the same time) and possibly the most obtuse boss fight/puzzle ever created.

That said, it was very atmospheric and I loved the graphics. If I was giving out awards, it'd be the Best Worst Game Ever.

JUSTICE FOR BANNER.

I own 18 games in this list!! Is that good? In total I have 58 Xbox games so I have like 1/3 of flops. Oh well... now I might add a couple more to take my flop collection into the 20s :D Anyways great article, so thanks for that, any chance to do something similar for other systems

Thanks for a great read xbox kicks ass that is why i all ways have 2 in case :) all these great games & throw in a evox dash and you have just got your self a better console than ps3 LOL.........