Xbox – Obsolete Gamer

Psychonauts

The wonderful Psychonauts, on the other hand, has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to originality and story. In fact, it almost goes too far in the opposite direction – basic things, like the controls (which are ridiculously floaty), seem to have been added in almost as an afterthought, such is the focus on telling the sublimely ridiculous story. I won’t go into the details of the plot here (you can read the Wikipedia entry for that), suffice to say that at one point you get trapped inside the mind of a giant mutated lungfish and lay waste to an imaginary city – populated by tiny little mutated lungfish.

Xbox

Adam R.

Halo 2

Halo 2 was a big jump up in graphics from the first game, and they did add a lot of new stuff like dual wielding and energy swords now. The single player was enjoyable but kinda left you half empty. I liked playing as Master Chief, I thought Arbiter’s bad guy turned good story-line was uninteresting and stupid. If I’m going to play as a alien you killed a ton of in the last game, then I want to kill humans not other aliens.

Xbox

Adam R.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

The combat was probably the weakest thing about KOTOR, which isn’t probably a bad thing when the quest was so long, the characters so memorable, and a story that dragged on you for the ride. Republic solider Carth, Jedi Bastila, alien teenager Mission, her wookie Zaalbar, weird cat lady Juhani, and the evil droid HK-47 all have their deep but interesting backstories, and provide memorable parts to the main plot. The Sith Lord Dark Malak made the first really great Star Wars villian since Darth Vader.

Xbox

Adam R.

Ninja Gaiden

I think my main deal with GoW or DMC is really just the combat. I think they are a bit too slow and sluggish and the enemies seem to take too much of a punch for no reason. With Ninja Gaiden, enemies take long to defeat only when you’re not skilled enough to take them out effienctly. The bosses were excellent, the combat smooth, and their was a little RPG-ish shop system that made the game a little easier after the game gets much harder.

Xbox

Adam R.

Jade Empire

The combat is much different than KOTOR giving it more an action kind of feel. It’s good, but it had it’s flaws, though if they did make a sequel I think they could of fixed and tweaked all their mistakes. The quest is also quite a bit shorter than the KOTOR games, but nevertheless, this is one of Bioware’s finest games and if you’re a fan you need to play this.

Xbox

Adam R.

Fable

Despite falling from the near-perfect tier of first party games, Fable is still one of my favorite games on the Xbox. Not too overly complicated, and the choice system was impressive for the time. I was kinda good from what I remember but didn’t look like gandalf or satan by the end. The combat had a few problems, but this was probably the closest thing the Xbox had to the Zelda series, which had almost no puzzles, but more action and lots of little side-quests.

Xbox

Adam R.

Half-Life 2

Half-life 2 is a fun and impressive game, with such variety and diversity in the enemies and levels. I think my favorite level was Ravenholm since it had that perfect Halloween spooky feel to it, and was really the only spot I really thought the gravity gun got it’s full use. I do wish I kinda waited until I bought the Orange Box though since the port on that one is much much better than this version. However even a crappy port of great game, can sometimes be a great game if you can tolerate imperfections.

Xbox

Adam R.

Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath

I think the game’s only big fault is that the difficulty is a bit bi-polar. It doesn’t gradually goes up, one moment its okay, and then bam you get hit with an almost impossible challenge. I would probably rank OSW higher, but I got stuck on a boss that you couldn’t hurt unless you knocked him off a platform, and you had a whole bunch of shit thrown at you before you could capture him or kill him. A bit of a fuck up I think on their part. Heard it’s coming to PSN though, which gives PS3 owners a chance to play one of the best Xbox games ever crafted.

Xbox

Adam R.

Star Wars: Battlefront II

The multi-player had it’s problems, but it was a blast. Being a Jedi, or Sith made you feel over-powered, but you had to earn it, and it was a real challenge to beat one of the juggernauts. The connection speeds could’ve been a bit faster, and even after the game was super-old you still had to pay for a map pack that would kick you out of certain matchmaking’s. I’m sad to see that they haven’t made a real sequel yet I don’t believe, it could defiantly use some HD returning, tweaks, and improvements.

Xbox

Adam R.

Call of Duty: Finest Hour

I think my favorite catch to this game, is that it goes to all major sides to the Eastern front. You take control of Soviet, American, and British troops. All them have their memorable moments, weapons, and areas such as Germany, Stalingrad, and North Africa. I think my favorite mission is the one with the Russian sniper lady with all the Nazis coming to attack the building she was in.

Xbox

Adam R.

Panzer Dragoon Orta

With little question or doubt either. It was easily the best looking PD so far, and it expanded the gameplay with 3 wing forms which could make you faster, or stronger, better shots, etc. The bosses were rather lamely designed visually, but were unique in a Japanese version of Tim Burton on crack kind of way. Despite my criticism, the boss fights were pretty fun, and the levels were like going on a visual roller coaster ride that used your mind and reflexes.

Xbox

Matt McKee

Fable

Beautiful-looking, slow load times, wonky combat, good main quest story, unnecessary side quests, Sims stuff that doesn’t interest me, and easy bosses. If I rate the game so just the main story, I recommend it. On the whole package…not so much. But, I know there are plenty of you out there that want to get that great hours to price ratio…and this game will do it for you.