Xbox History: The Best Games by Month

[anon98342452]

January 2007

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition

Lost Planet. I like this one a bit, despite it being janky in a lot of areas. I have no idea what the story is, something about insects and snow planets and staying warm by killing them? Idk, but this story feels like similar levels of zaniness to other Capcom games. I’m not here for the story in this one. I’m here to kill giant bugs while trudging through the snow, watch them explode with orange guts, and grapple around fairly large but linear environments.

It all works fairly well. Your character feels slow and clunky, I’m not sure if this is design or what, but it works. It’s like an early take on Dragon’s Dogma to me in a lot of ways, where the combat has weight and you’re tackling large and small monsters. The campaign is decent length for a SP game like this, it’s like watching a long action movie in every way. I always liked how it looked, very pretty in a weird way. The way the explosions juxtapose the white snow is neat. And apparently, enough of you liked it enough for it to net two sequels!

Shoutouts go to Heavy Weapon: Atomic Tank. This is a simple arcade game, but it’s a lot of fun. Check it out, not sure if it’s BC but it is fun.

[Cerysnetics]

Curses! need to catch up again

November 2006: NOTHING!

Well I have nothing, nothing this month I enjoyed, and I would include Gears of War in that statement. I hated almost everything about Gears, except maybe the “Mad World” advert

I got as far as oh I dunno leading some large monster through a hallway and you had to roll out of the way and it broke down a wall or door or something, I kept dying and I turned it off. Horrible lumbering muscle of a game.

Looking at the list I can’t genuinely remember playing anything else that was released in Nov.

December 2006: Viva Piñata

The greatest games (including TiP) that Rare has ever made, a perfect “E” game, its not some rote bland platformer (which seems to be what makes an “E” game these days). A truly gorgeous looking game and a highlight of the 360 era when every other game was happy to dial the saturation down or slap a yellow filter on everything. Wonderful humour, punny names, and a deep and involving sim.

The Perfect game.

January 2007: Lost Planet

I’m with you @anon98342452 This game was great, looked nice, had fun battles with bugs and I enjoyed the ticking clock survival aspect too. Given the popularity survival got in recent times its a shame this couldn’t come back with perhaps a hub from where the snow pirates go out and hunt for thermal energy. It was a nice “different” kind of game.

[Zip]

@Cerysnetics

Well I have nothing, nothing this month I enjoyed, and I would include Gears of War in that statement. I hated almost everything about Gears, except maybe the “Mad World” advert

Gotta admit, I’ve never really cared for Gears of War either. My friends had me play through the game with them when it came out, but I don’t remember much past the first couple of levels. I kept wanting to go back to the goofing astound we had been doing in Halo multiplayer instead. Stuff like trying to joust with Warthogs, full fast overshields, and passengers with rocket launchers on the ice level

Tried playing Gears 1 again before 5 came out, and still hated it. I do like that ad and song though.

[anon98342452]

I can appreciate it, Gears isn’t for everyone. But let’s all agree: viva piñata rocks and we need a new one

[anon98342452]

After a lackluster few months, 360 owners were treated to a truly fun gamer’s game. In fact, all the games in the running I’d consider gamer games, but you know which one is taking the crown.

February 2007

Halo 3 Beta Access…err, I mean Crackdown!

Crackdown was quite the game, and not only because of that sweet, sweet Halo 3 beta access key it came with. An exclusive, next gen only game built around a new IP, open world, RPG-lite progression, superpowers, explosions, narrator…all the buzzwords amirite?!?! In all seriousness, Crackdown was a heck of a fun time.

You take the roll of an Agent who’s tasked with taking down mutilple gangs within a sprawling city. How you went about it, from the order to the actually method, was really up to you the player. I know that I did some of the tasks in ways that my friends didn’t, sometimes making me facepalm when they told me the clever way they tackled that same thing. The pure action gameplay remains fun to this day, the graphics hold up ok due to the stylistic cartoony look, and those orbs…good night. Collecting orbs was life. It’s pure gamer crack, it’s black magic. You see an orb? You’re not stopping until you get it…and then just one more after that until you realize it’s 3AM and you work in 3 hours. Oh well, there’s just another rooftop to climb for that next agility orb! Didn’t like the narrator much though. Also, I like Crackdown 3 quite a bit, one of the most fun games I played last gen.

Shoutouts go to Alien Hominid HD (an upgraded Newgrounds era flash game) and NBA Street Homecourt. I love arcade sports games…NBA Jam, Mario Strikers/Golf, NFL Blitz…All have a special place in my heart.

[CallMeCraig]

Crackdown brings back memories, the crazy physics, explosions. Imagine searching dozens of barrels, piling and blowing them and some cars up. And all of this online with your friend. No other game came even close.

[Zip]

I didn’t get a chance to play Crackdown until it came to games with gold, but I love this game. I have this and 3 installed right now, they’re an absolute blast.

[anon98342452]

I was torn on this month. And by torn, I mean I thought about it for around five seconds and made my choice. But I did think about it! This one’s a true personal pick, as many would argue it’s not the best game of the month. So if it’s not, what is? Also, trying to catch up on some lost time with these posts so here’s a bonus for the day!

March 2007

TMNT 1989 Classic Arcade

I have a TMNT avatar. I have TMNT on my body. I have the “action figures” in my house. I love TMNT and always have. Btw - Donatello is the best turtle so get over it! Anyhow, TMNT 1989 Arcade is a rerelease of a 1989 arcade game. Right. So this one I grew up playing at the bowling alley, skate rinks, and crazy enough, arcades. I spent so much lunch money, I probably funded the game’s development with my quarters alone. And then I had my parents but it and I played it on NES, complete with flicker! This game is a legit, huge part of my childhood and makes me smile thinking about gaming back then, when arcades were a thing. I actually recently played this at a mall “arcade” a few months before moving from the states, and you know what? I still love it.

Ok, reminiscing aside, what is this game? It’s a beat-em-up featuring the totally tubular, pizza loving, fearsome foursome. You run through levels beating up foot clan, mousers, tigers (?!?!), etc. before encountering and taking down the end level classic turtles bosses. Like Rocksteady, Bebop, Baxter Stockman, and that one random dude that everyone knows and loves…ok his name is General Traag. Then you get to fight Shredder and Krang and yay! rescue April O’Neal. Random…I’ve always loved redheads, my wife is a redhead…I wonder if this is where it started…

This one is delisted so you might need to find other means to play it. But you should. And if you don’t like it, well, I probably don’t like you but that’s ok. Shoutouts go to Castlevania Symphony of the Night, Virtua Tennis 3, Def Jam Icon, and the amazing expansion to Oblivion, Shivering Isles.

[Cerysnetics]

I bought Crackdown for Crackdown.

I NEVER EVEN TRIED THE HALO STUFF!!

Cerys is the truest gamer!

[anon98342452]

@Cerysnetics

I bought Crackdown for Crackdown.

I NEVER EVEN TRIED THE HALO STUFF!!

Cerys is the truest gamer!

Now, now, look at you! Real gam3r 4 lyfe!! Did I do it right?

[Cerysnetics]

@anon98342452

Now, now, look at you! Real gam3r 4 lyfe!! Did I do it right?

Word! strange hand gesture

[anon98342452]

Big sigh…another April, another slow month of Xbox gaming. What gifts did I get this year? Well, not a whole lot to be frank.

April 2007

Luxor II

I like Luxor, Zuma, pretty much any arcade game where I’m firing brightly colored balls at other brightly colored balls. It’s fun, it’s mind clearing, it’s zen. The gradual ramp up of difficulty, chasing the high score, the tactile feel of firing the balls, these elements all hit those gamer “pleasure centers” for me. So what is this game? What you have here is a game where balls continuously roll down a track towards your temple or whatever, and your goal is to fire out colored balls, match colors, and remove/prevent the balls from getting to you. Think match-3 with movement and you have a good idea. It sounds simplistic and it is, but that’s the joy of it. It’s pure gaming fun, very similar to Peggle. And that’s about all there is to it. Lots of levels, a fun theme, clean graphics…this is my jam, or peanut butter I guess.

Shoutouts to Eets Chowdown and Guitar Hero II, both nice games in their own right and games I enjoyed. I probably would’ve picked GH, but it’s not my favorite in the series and there’s a lot of them. Luxor needs the attention more.

[anon74828371]

Great thread that I forget about (), I need to catch up the previous posts.

[anon98342452]

This was a slight month as well. Chalk it up to that typical spring/summer pre-e3 drought as publishers and developers saved up the megaton announcements for the show and the releases for the shopping season. FWIW, Microsoft’s internal studios actually put out a fantastic game and it’s the best game of the month.

May 2007

Forza Motorsport 2

Forza Motorsport 2 can basically be boiled down to “Forza 1 but prettier”. This probably sounds reductive, and it is to some degree, but it’s also fairly accurate. And that’s not a bad thing, as the original Forza Motorsport was quite the game for the original Xbox. The sequel is the first in the franchise for the Xbox 360, and the step up in graphics and performance is impressive. There’s the trappings you’d expect in a Forza game - loads of cars, tracks, lengthy career mode, great damage models - and for the second entry in the series, Turn 10 showed it knew what it was doing, and that the original wasn’t a fluke. The gameplay feels silky smooth, the game skirts that fine line between sim/arcade racing with enough ways to modify your experience to be as difficult or accessible as you’d like. This is still a car lover’s game, the attention to detail is awesome for an early gen game. Not much more for me to say, I played the mess out of this one. Strangely, I didn’t touch the online racing much if at all, but I kind of suck at racing games so…

Shoutouts go to Shadowrun, Catan, and Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars. Shadowrun is an interesting one in particular, taking a niche, cult classic RPG and turning it into a competitive FPS. It was actually fairly fun, but the light amount of content and lack of campaign really hurt it upon release.

[TheUnsungHero26]

Strange to go back to a time where Forza wasn’t the premier racing IP for Microsoft yet.

Excited to get to the latter half of 2007. Microsoft’s first party (internal and external) were on a whole other level.

[anon98342452]

I was looking at that and fretting making choices each month lol!

[Cerysnetics]

Here we go, the good stuff

February 2007: Crackdown

As I say, I bought Crackdown for Crackdown, not for Halo. I dont even think we ever used the Halo beta. We played the absolute bottom off of this game. We spend hours just perched above the motorway picking off car tyres to see how they would flip and spin off the road, slowly making a pile of wrecks to make the largest explosion. Driving round and round to level up the driving skill and completing ever and all achievement we could. It was just a perfect game and just had such an addicting “just a bit longer” aspect to it.

A key 360 game, and never bettered by either sequel.

March 2007: Virtua tennis 3

Virtua Tennis was a constant in the crew room on the Dreamcast, especially during Wimbledon. For one reason or another we missed 2, but I recall grabbing 3 on 360 and massively enjoying it all over again.

Was just another great game to play locally with friends, the minigames were great fun and like all Virtua Tennis games, just a joy to pick up and play and master.

April 2007: Eets

My first Klei game, and I only played for a little but I recall having some fun with it. TBH I couldnt think of anything else. And a decade later I would sink a massive amount of time into Don’t Starve.

May 2007: Oh I dunno

Nothing really for me (Forza was June), I guess had I tried C&C 3 I could say that since I enjoyed it on PC. Who knows how it played on a controller though, makes me shiver

[CallMeCraig]

Forza Motorsport 2 was great. I remember my sweat in trying to beat the Nurburgring time trial with a Porsche 962 in under 7 minutes. That was super stressful.

The sad part is i lost find my collectors edition It came with a real cool and helpful book describing racing lines and stuff.

[anon98342452]

@CallMeCraig

Forza Motorsport 2 was great. I remember my sweat in trying to beat the Nurburgring time trial with a Porsche 962 in under 7 minutes. That was super stressful.

The sad part is i lost find my collectors edition It came with a real cool and helpful book describing racing lines and stuff.

Sounds intense! My wife and I actually went to Nurburgring a few weekends ago. Pretty neat.

[anon98342452]

The summer was heating up for the 360 with a number of great games that aren’t often mentioned when discussions of the gen come up. But it’s titles like these that fill out a library, fill in gaps, and fill up my HDD!

June 2007

Pac-Man: Championship Edition

Ok, so this one won’t fill many HDDs, but goodness is Pac-Man: CE legit. Yes, technically DX is a better game that releases 3 years later, but at the time CE was a revelation for me. I’ve always enjoyed all forms of Pac-Man, in particular Ms.Pac-Man, but hadn’t thought about the franchise much in a long time. When CE released in June 2007, I was skeptical that they could’ve done much to modernize the game and make it something I’d be interested in playing, let alone buying.

Once I saw the crazy psychedelic colors, the incredibly fast pacing, and heard those familiar sounds, I was back baby! My friends and I played this sooo much, some of the best $10 (?) I spent on gaming. We’d constantly see the wee hours of the morning, passing the controller, trash talking, and trying to beat the high score previously set. This is another one I’d call a “gamers game”, a term you’ve probably seen me write before. I don’t know what else to call it, it’s the pure essence of video games, it’s what makes gaming fun. Pac-Man: CE captures this feeling in every way. It requires focus, skill, feels great to play, drives a competitive spirit, and most importantly is a heck of a lot of fun. I love this game, it’s an all time great in my estimation.

Shoutouts go to The Darkness, Call of Juarez, Overlord, Carcassonne, Prince of Persia Classic, and DiRT. That’s a lot of really good games!