OG Xbox Appreciation: Life is Short, Play More (Across Three Generations of Xbox)

And in the case of Morrowind on the PC, the mod scene is pretty fantastic.

Morrowind is a really special game. Itā€™s a shame that the Xbox version doesnā€™t quite do it the justice that it deserves. You can tell it was not the lead platform by a long shot.

That being said, OG Xbox is where I played Morrowind. I picked it up the day I bought my Xbox, and played through the campaign and all the expansions. The load times were horrendous, but the game was too addictive, I just couldnā€™t put it down.

I won a crystal Xbox from Futureshop and it came with Republic Commando. I played the shit out of that while I waited for my modchip to come in the mail. About a week after I got the Xbox I destroyed it trying to install said modchip with my dads big ass soldering gun. Iā€™ll never forget touching it to a pin and watching the traces disintegrate. I sold the Xbox to a modder for $60 and didnā€™t get another one untill a few years ago.

Morrowind is up there as my favorite RPG of all time. I borrowed the base Xbox version from a friend when I was like 11 and had no idea what I was doing. I remember a feature that blew my mind was that you could fire an arrow into a tree then walk up and get it back. I played it for about 40-50 hours before I realized there was a main quest.

Iā€™ll never forget it. I was robbing some random house in Balmora that belonged to a guy named Casius Cossades (sp). I was there on a personal quest to collect all candles in the game in one room where I killed this smart-talking Khajitt that I kind of liked. So I go to pickpocket the guy but I accidentally talk to him and he starts spouting off about Blades and the Neverine and all this heavy shit. I was like what, I just wanted your candles dude.

Iā€™m gonna have to check into more mods. Iā€™m mostly interested in bugfixes and graphics instead of new content. I even made a Steam controller setup for it that works pretty well but after a while all the mouse-driven menus made me want to switch over to KBM.

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Really got an itching to pick up Rockstar games on the original Xbox since they are best console ports.

It was at this point I knew that you put a lot of time into this gameā€¦ haha

Are they? Been looking around for the best way to replay San Andreas.

For the earlier games like SA and Vice City, youā€™d be in a great spot playing on Xbox or PC, as they are both very good versions of the games. If you want mod support and higher resolutions, then obviously PC is the way to go.

For GTA IV you want to stay away from the PC port and go with PS3 or Xbox360. The PC port is horrendous and well worth staying away from. Iā€™ve got a pretty decent system with a GTX 970, and I wasnā€™t able to get a steady frame rate above 30 fps.

If you install to a fixed drive, especially with an 80 pin IDE cable and especially with an SD card, the load times arenā€™t so bad. Plus itā€™s nice to play Morrowind with a controller

@SupaNintendoChalmers
Really got an itching to pick up Rockstar games on the original Xbox since they are best console ports.

In some ways the PS2 games actually look better than the Xbox versions of GTA 3/VC/SAā€¦ some effect are missing and donā€™t look right. There were some enhancements made for GTA3 but they clash with the original visuals. Plus I personally ran into more than a few bugs in the Vice City port on Xboxā€¦

I was supremely disappointed by the lack of movable candles in the later ES games. Made Skyrim 0/10 unplayable.

/s sorta

Put a bid in on D&D Heroes, I have it on a demo disc and it seems like a pretty good Dark Alliance / Gauntlet style game on Xbox. Itā€™s worth checking out if youā€™re into top-down ARPGs.

What are some of the best racing games on Xbox? I have Burnout 3, and Revenge, Nitro Kart, Outrun 2, andā€¦ thatā€™s about it. Iā€™m more into arcade racing than simulators.

I wasnā€™t aware of bugs/glitches. All I remembered back in the day the Xbox version visually looked slightly better than their PS2 counterparts and given that the Xbox releases were much later than the PS2 versions (except for San Andreas) then they got updated to fix any original bugs. PC version of GTA trilogy is still better than Xbox/PS2 though and I believe they have controller support? Canā€™t remember. So yeah, PC all way. Wasnā€™t aware of GTA IV being bad on PC. Just rescued a physical copy of it that came with the flap slip cover and maps/manual. It was dirt cheap and I have the other games on PC so I got it for the sake of completion but lol, guess I wonā€™t need to install it any time soon and just stick to the X360 version.

This is one of those games I wish would get the Xbox BC 4K treatment. I absolutely adore this game. It could have been a product of its time but i loved that it took star wars and rainbox 6 and made it actually a fun game to play.

PGR2 and Rallisport 2. If you donā€™t have Burnout 2 on ps2 then thatā€™s worth getting also, I think itā€™s the best game in the series in terms of gameplay. So basically all the 2s then!

Thatā€™s interesting about GTA4 being bad on PC, I have it on Steam but never bothered to install it. I think the 360 version is rumored to be getting enhanced (there was some update) so might pick up a copy.

On an unrelated note, I saw this over on Reset, thereā€™s a lot of nice touches in 4 that are missing in 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWVtZJo-HqI

This is what Iā€™ve heard and why I asked. Like there has been so many rereleases but they all have downsides. Seems the ā€œbestā€ way to play SA is still the downgraded pc release with a couple of mods to get some of the original effects back. Itā€™s funny that all the patches for the PC version do is make it worse/remove things.

Honestly thereā€™s nothing at all wrong with the PS2 versions. They are the original releases by the original team, they have a totally cohesive visual style, and while there is minor slowdown when stuff gets crazy it isnā€™t really a big deal. The visuals were also designed around 480 so going higher doesnā€™t really benefit the games at all, mostly just helps expose where corners were cut.

Lol, i robbed Casius too!

Project Gotham Racing 2 is the best racing game on the Xbox and strikes a nice balance between arcade and sim. Personally, itā€™s my favorite racing game of all time.

Crazy Taxi 3 is cool and is like a Crazy Taxi greatest hits. It has an expanded California map from Crazy Taxi, the Small Apple map from Crazy Taxi 2 and the new Glitter Oasis Crazy Taxi 3 map. Tons of fun.

Midtown Madness 3 (mission based racing)
Wreckless: The Yakuza Missions (mission based racing)
Quantum Redshift (futuristic racer)
Midway Arcade Treasures 3 (SF Rush Alcatraz, Hydro Thunder, Super Off Road, Badlands, Race Drivinā€™, STUN Runner, SF Rush 2049, Off Road Thunder)

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Other than what has been mentioned already, Rallisport Challenge is pretty great.

There is a PC version of Republic Commando. I imagine you can make that look really nice on a modern PC.