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

Generally speaking, most of these games sold less than 30,000 units in the UK, and many less than 10,000. European sales data is hard to come by.

Where's Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy? Xbox control was infinitely better than PS2 thanks to the triggers. It should have been much bigger - best Jedi powers in any game ever. Sequel pleeeease....

Patience...

I thought 'Beyond Good & Evil' was a very boring button-masher when it wasn't trying to cram whimsy down your throat.

I guess I just didn't "get" the "genius" of a game with talking pigs. :p

What happened to adding Sniper Elite and Toejam?

for shame I never bought fahrenheight or psychonaughts, but I'm suprised how many of my collection is in the list. good article now I'm off to ebay methinks

New entries added!

Sphinx and the Cursed mummy!

Awesome game, untill I got stuck on 1 messed up jump I tried to take on 3 consecutive nights before I threw the disc into a corner not to be looked at again.
http://www.thq.com/gamesites/Sphinx/

I own a number of games on that list, six or seven if I'm not mistaken. None are compatible with the 360. Congrats, Microsoft! That's one Xbox 360 you won't sell.

Quite a few of the games listed there are only BC if you're not running on VGA btw...

I hate acronyms for everything, they PMO

Peej

JSRF only a six - are you standing by that?

Quantem Redshift better than F-Zero GX? No no no, I don't think so.... you are mistaken.

F-Zero X and GX were superb!...

Although I admit I haven't played quantum redshift...but it's hard for me to imagine it being better...

Now this is the Eurogamer we love. Fantastic article!

P.S.: Outrun2 is indeed better than Outrun 2006 C2C. Somehow C2C looked worse on the Xbox than its predecessor.

No Mashed: Fully Loaded? Surely the best multiplayer game ever created.

"We've added Breakdown and OutRun 2."

Nicely done :)

Psi-Ops probably does deserve to be in there actually - wasn't an astounding game but for after spending £3 on it, I consider it to be one of the best game bargains I've ever had. Was multi-platform though wasn't it? Most of the games in this list were Xbox exclusives, at least when it comes to consoles.

More deserving however is Phantom Crash. Sure, it only had 3 proper levels, and those levels did just play as arena battles against bots, but the mech customisation, quirky style, soundtrack, gameplay, and visuals put it well in my top 10 Xbox games. Sad that they decided the PS2 was a more deserving place for the sequel, though you can't really fault them for that when it is a far more welcoming platform for Japanese mech games.

Mashed Fully Loaded and Psi Ops are indeed worthy of a mention. Steel Battalion...hmm, less so, only to bang on about the ludicrous controller!

I thought of one - Full Spectrum Warrior. Great little game, didn't get nearly enough love.

Less said about Ten Hammers the better.

Also Second Sight, though that is a multiplatform game admittedly.

I'm contemplating getting an old xbox from somewhere just to play Crimson Skies. The setting and premise are simply ludicrously wonderful.

Kung Fu Chaos could be huge on XBLA, f they figured out how to squeeze it in 50 MB. I love it to bits and every single person who's seen it has been enamored. Multiplayer is an absolute laugh.

Where's Thief: Deadly Shadows, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey and Star Wars Republic Commando!!! The new Xbox version of Splinter Cell: Double Agent is also a late gem that's sure to be overlooked.

Edit: Oh s***, lol, how did I miss that (Panzer Dragoon Orta), well you've still missed these.

Good call on Arx Fatalis. Brilliant RPG.
Oh, and Battle Engine Aquila. PC gamers can find that one on Ebay too.

On the first page, doofus!

Psi-Ops should be on the list for 'doing' the HL2 physics/ gravity gun thingy before HL2 did (and they're both using the same Havok physics engine too). Great game that got a little silly (and really quite tricky towards the end)



No Riddick either (or was it actually popular?). Lovely graphics and it's still one of the best movie tie-in's ever - easily the only tie-in that was better that the actual sequel to the film.

Nice to see that you included Deathrow this time around. Now when can we expect a review.:P

Freedom Fighters was indeed a great game, played it to completion and loved it.

Faranheit is also a good story :)

I had both QR and F-Zero so I'm eminently qualified to pass judgement on both. QR is good. F-Zero is better.

I eventually traded in QR, but FZ still has a prize place in my collection.

\spins on heel, exits forum

"Faranheit is also a good story :)"

Fahrenheit, a good story? Did you even play it?

It's dreadful, and has an utterly stupid story.

Nice to see Racing Evoluzione got a mention as that's an old favourite of mine and I still own it too. Mind you, I bought World Racing at the same time as well and I... erm... loved that too even though no-one else did - it had huuuuuuuuuuuuge tracks and very pretty visuals.

What about Powerdrome? Not sure Id personally class it as a cult classic...but if you are going to have Quantum Redshift in there, Id say it deserves a mention.

Kristian, thouroughly enjoyed this article.

Maybe you also could do similar articles for the PS2/Cube/GBA/DS/PSP (or even the PS1/DC and Saturn if possible) as a leadup to christmas. I've got some corkers for the PS2 & Cube which would raise some eyebrows. :-D

I'll throw a couple more of my Xbox ones in (no need to add them to the article):
Crazy Taxi 3: High Roller - Great arcade conversion, just like the previous DC versions you just get caught by its craziness and can lose hours playing it (didn't sell well as fair a I could tell).

Furious Karting - It's basically the old PC game SuperKarts/ManicKarts meets Mario Kart, nice kart selection/wild circuits and just a crazy racing game all round.

Serious Sam - For some reason I enjoyed this more than the PC version, mouse conversion to Xbox controller worked a charm (another poor seller). (Actually this may be muti platform or was that SS2?)

and as mentioned by others...

Outrun 2 - The original and the best which wasn't dumbed down, but I still love Coast 2 Coast and unfortunately neither sold well. :(

May just dig out the light gun for some more HOTD3 goodness.

Edit: Tried to fix spelling & grammar at 2 in the morning (not a good idea). Stupid joke GONE! o_O

"Quantem Redshift better than F-Zero GX? No no no, I don't think so.... you are mistaken."

I never really got on with F-Zero GX - races ending every time you fell off the track was not a good design decision - so I can easily see why someone might prefer a Wipeout clone to it.

Fahrenheit's plot was good at the start, became somewhat wacky once the ghost monsters appeared and finally spiralled into pure ridiculousness at the end.

Fun game, but the story should have been fixed. Quite odd that they didn't improve it since they had such a long development cycle. Or maybe it's because they cut so many sections out, who knows.

Hey Darren, I bummed World Racing and Racing Evoluzione also!

Feck only knows where the second WR got to over here though...

And to the guy asking about SWON, you just have to own it, it's as simple as that really!

Furious Karting purely because when you flip the initial consonants it becomes Curious Farting. It helped pass the time when we were testing it.

"races ending every time you fell off the track was not a good design decision"

Yes it was, it helped to create a very tense atmosphere...
One particular track (don't remember the name, the one with the pipes going through the road) had a nasty turn at the very end...
Playing it on the hardest difficulty blowing all your boost at the final stretch could very easily catapult you off the track...
True gem...

"We've added Breakdown"

Excellent.
Despite its many, many flaws, and that white room at the end that had me stuck for over an hour, its probably my favourite Xbox game of all time.
One of the few first-person games that actually made you feel like a -person- rather than just a floating gun.

Yes, these poor casual gamers "if you fell off the track" etc etc.

YOU DON'T FALL OFF THE TRACK.

If you do, you deserve.... to DIE.

Mhwahha haaaaa haa!

Ooo, I'd also like to say that I agree that this should be extended for all platforms, although I feel with the poor GC, you may end up listing most titles unless you change your sales criteria.

\ponders then thinks that Mario Sunshine probably ended up selling a few thou'.

Did Rogue Trooper sell much?

Operation Flashpoint Elite?

Really want to try out Deathrow and Enclave. I don't have an Xbox though. Too bad Enclave can't be played on a 360. I will get Psychonauts for the PC i think.

Enclave came out on PC too.

Great article and so many of my favourite Xbox games were in there, BGE, Psychonauts, and Otogi to name a few.

However, despite the slightly flawed camera control, Deathrow tops the lot for me having played it system-linked and I hope one day a sequel will be made.

Yeah, Powerdrome is much better than Quantum Redshift!! :)

It's dreadful how many Sega titles I missed out on. Is anyone here willing to trade in their XBox for a PS2? =P

The 360's BC is still rubbish, and the machine consumes too much power. I hope all that will change eventually.

"Generally speaking, most of these games sold less than 30,000 units in the UK, and many less than 10,000. European sales data is hard to come by."

Tell me about it - I just recently had to give up on a study because of the market researchers' prices. I've got to ask where you've got the American numbers from, though. Stockholder report research, or does EG.net buy NPD's reports?

NPD reports are your best bet.

Voodoo Vince was a fantastic game, one for kids and adults alike. The music was flipping fantastic, all that jazz and voodoo shit mixed up with some wonderfully inspired visuals and some great action sequences, (going down the clothes line avoiding all the frying pans!). The fairground level was absolutely genius!

But where’s Fusion Frenzy? Was that actually a hit? Certainly was round at our place after the club :D

Have a closer look...it's there!