4 Original Xbox Games That Should Have Been Made Compatible

[Arnoxthe1]

I think it's safe to say that a lot of us now have a 360. I think it's also safe to say that some of us also have some original Xbox game floating around that we can't play on the 360 due to no backwards compatibility for them. Here's my (short) list of original Xbox games that should have been cleared for compatibility before they stopped work on it. Buckle up and prepare for some serious complaining. I'm going to start with some obscure games first and work up to the more popular ones.

4. PsiOps: The Mindgate Conspiracy
This one I'm sure most of you haven't played. And that's very understandable because there was next to no marketing done for it. I didn't even know it existed till I played the PS2 version over at my bro-in-law's house. Loved it. Basically, the game's main draw are its psychic powers that you can take advantage of any time as you unlock them.

Do everything from telekinesis (the star of the show), pyrokinesis, mind control, energy drain, all the way to ESP. All of them were awesomely balanced and fun to use. The story was half-way decent too. Unfortunately, the devs have long split up and moved on to other projects and the rights are now buried somewhere in some corporate file cabinet so we'll probably never see a sequel to it ever.

3. Painkiller: Hell Wars
Even on the main platform that Painkiller was developed for (PC), it's still pretty obscure. And this game was even worse for that. NEVERTHELESS, it was a pretty nice port. Hell Wars takes the best levels of both Painkiller and its expansion, Battle Out of Hell, and puts them all onto one disc for the Xbox.

This was the version of Painkiller I played and once again, loved every minute of it. The awesomely built levels in particular kept drawing me back. Unfortunately though, the 360 won't have any of it either. To be fair, there is an HD remake of Painkiller that you can by in the Live Marketplace but it isn't that great and it's missing some of the memorable levels that Hell Wars had.

2. Mercenaries
We're getting into 'Scandalous it wasn't made compatible.' territory here. Now, I know that the XBC list says that this game is compatible, but believe me when I say that that is a terrible lie. It is true that you can pop the game in and the 360 will go on its merry way emulating it just fine, or so it seems. There are some large areas in Mercs, however, that will flat out CRASH the 360 if you go into them. The most notable being the whole Pyongyang Airport or the Chinese territory in the Northern map. Take a little sojourn over there and sooner or later, the game will freeze completely with no way to even get to the dashboard without restarting the console. And make no mistake, this happens with terrible regularity.

So no, Microsoft, this popular game is NOT compatible and you should be ashamed for shutting down work on compatibility before this game's emulation profile could be fixed. And with Mercs 2 being an unplayable mess with the closest substitutes being Just Cause 2 and Red Faction: Guerilla, the game to this day remains unique.

1. Timesplitters: Future Perfect
But hey, think that Mercenaries had it bad? At least Microsoft actually worked on that for a little bit. Timesplitters didn't even get the TIME OF DAY from them. And considering that this game STILL has an awesome user-friendly yet powerful mapmaker that has yet to be beaten plus a great story, plus co-op action, plus a great base of multiplayer maps, plus a slew of multiplayer modes, plus a massive amount of fun mini-games, PLUS great custom games options, PLUS an insane amount of some of the best weapons in an FPS, PLUS adaptable offline bots, PLUS a fully featured online scene, PLUS great graphics for its time, PLUS amazing sound and music, it is a FUCKING SHITTY ASS SIN that this game was completely ignored for compatibility in favor of such winners as fucking Aquaman: Battle of Atlantis and Thrillville [http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-on-other-devices/original-console/play-original-games].

So you can go to hell there, Microsoft. Painkiller's waiting for you.

 

[Roxas1359]

Personally there are a few original Xbox games that I wish had their frame rates fixed before Microsoft stopped supporting the backwards compatibility. Main one that springs to mind is Crash Twinsanity, which has absolutely terrible frame rate issues when being played on the 360. If it could have possibly been fixed then that would've been my go to version of the game, but sadly it was never fixed. Wrath of Cortex had some frame rate issues as well, but not as bad as Twinsanity did.

 

[josemlopes]

Xbox had plenty of good gems and since it will probably never be emulated they will be gone for the average consumer.

Mercenaries should have had at least a PC release but only the shitty sequel managed that. Timesplitters 2 can still be managed to be played on a PS2 emulator, Future Perfect on the other hand has some weird glitches. It really pains me to see games that will probably never be playable again because of their exlusivity. Even the PC can have problems with really old games (or poorly ported ones) but if the publisher comes to his senses there is still some hope for them to fix the game or make it easier to get it going (things like GOG).

Even with the 360 Im sad that I sold my copy of Saints Row 1, cant find it anywhere and since its 360 exclusive it will just be harder from now on.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Xbox had plenty of good gems and since it will probably never be emulated they will be gone for the average consumer.

Mercenaries should have had at least a PC release but only the shitty sequel managed that. Timesplitters 2 can still be managed to be played on a PS2 emulator, Future Perfect on the other hand has some weird glitches. It really pains me to see games that will probably never be playable again because of their exlusivity. Even the PC can have problems with really old games (or poorly ported ones) but if the publisher comes to his senses there is still some hope for them to fix the game or make it easier to get it going (things like GOG).

Even with the 360 Im sad that I sold my copy of Saints Row 1, cant find it anywhere and since its 360 exclusive it will just be harder from now on.

Funny you mentioned SR1 since its sequel was MUCH more favored.

But yeah. That's what ticks me off about these as well. Only a couple systems you can play them on and you can forget about emulating one of them. Which is a shame too because IMAO, the Xbox version of these games are the better versions.

 

[verdant monkai]

I think it's safe to say that a lot of us now have a 360. I think it's also safe to say that some of us also have some original Xbox game floating around that we can't play on the 360 due to no backwards compatibility for them. Here's my (short) list of original Xbox games that should have been cleared for compatibility before they stopped work on it. Buckle up and prepare for some serious complaining. I'm going to start with some obscure games first and work up to the more popular ones.

4. PsiOps: The Mindgate Conspiracy
This one I'm sure most of you haven't played. And that's very understandable because there was next to no marketing done for it. I didn't even know it existed till I played the PS2 version over at my bro-in-law's house. Loved it. Basically, the game's main draw are its psychic powers that you can take advantage of any time as you unlock them.

Do everything from telekinesis (the star of the show), pyrokinesis, mind control, energy drain, all the way to ESP. All of them were awesomely balanced and fun to use. The story was half-way decent too. Unfortunately, the devs have long split up and moved on to other projects and the rights are now buried somewhere in some corporate file cabinet so we'll probably never see a sequel to it ever.

3. Painkiller: Hell Wars
Even on the main platform that Painkiller was developed for (PC), it's still pretty obscure. And this game was even worse for that. NEVERTHELESS, it was a pretty nice port. Hell Wars takes the best levels of both Painkiller and its expansion, Battle Out of Hell, and puts them all onto one disc for the Xbox.






This was the version of Painkiller I played and once again, loved every minute of it. The awesomely built levels in particular kept drawing me back. Unfortunately though, the 360 won't have any of it either. To be fair, there is an HD remake of Painkiller that you can by in the Live Marketplace but it isn't that great and it's missing some of the memorable levels that Hell Wars had.

2. Mercenaries
We're getting into 'Scandalous it wasn't made compatible.' territory here. Now, I know that the XBC list says that this game is compatible, but believe me when I say that that is a terrible lie. It is true that you can pop the game in and the 360 will go on its merry way emulating it just fine, or so it seems. There are some large areas in Mercs, however, that will flat out CRASH the 360 if you go into them. The most notable being the whole Pyongyang Airport or the Chinese territory in the Northern map. Take a little sojourn over there and sooner or later, the game will freeze completely with no way to even get to the dashboard without restarting the console. And make no mistake, this happens with terrible regularity.

So no, Microsoft, this popular game is NOT compatible and you should be ashamed for shutting down work on compatibility before this game's emulation profile could be fixed. And with Mercs 2 being an unplayable mess with the closest substitutes being Just Cause 2 and Red Faction: Guerilla, the game to this day remains unique.

1. Timesplitters: Future Perfect
But hey, think that Mercenaries had it bad? At least Microsoft actually worked on that for a little bit. Timesplitters didn't even get the TIME OF DAY from them. And considering that this game STILL has an awesome user-friendly yet powerful mapmaker that has yet to be beaten plus a great story, plus co-op action, plus a great base of multiplayer maps, plus a slew of multiplayer modes, plus a massive amount of fun mini-games, PLUS great custom games options, PLUS an insane amount of some of the best weapons in an FPS, PLUS adaptable offline bots, PLUS a fully featured online scene, PLUS great graphics for its time, PLUS amazing sound and music, it is a FUCKING SHITTY ASS SIN that this game was completely ignored for compatibility in favor of such winners as fucking Aquaman: Battle of Atlantis and Thrillville [http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-on-other-devices/original-console/play-original-games].

So you can go to hell there, Microsoft. Painkiller's waiting for you.

I think at least two of these were on the PS2! And they cost next to nothing these days.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

I think at least two of these were on the PS2! And they cost next to nothing these days.

All of these are indeed available for the PS2 except Hell Wars. But again, if I'm gonna buy another system to play these games I might as well get an Xbox which again, for me is definitely the preferred version of these games. For example, the PS2 version of TS:FP has limits on how much you can save with the mapmaker, not to mention noticeable graphics differences. Since the Xbox had an incredibly handy built-in HDD, space for saving games on it is hardly a factor at all.

 

[Chester Rabbit]

HowHow about Otogi? Those were great games and were sadly left in the dust of the past that collects on the Xbox.
God damn it did they ever pull the plug far to soon on the backwards compatibility with the 360 and look what they wasted half their efforts on *sigh* you would have thought the exclusives would have been top priority.

 

[Pickles]

There was a game named Deathrow for original xbox that I've sadly lost my copy of.

It was a brilliant game that combined sports and combat. Basically you could try to win by scoring more goals OR by knocking the opposing team out. Kind of sad that it never went further than a release on one console.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

I think it's more upsetting that Psi-Ops never got a sequel, because the ending basically left the game wide open for one. Damn that game was awesome.

I'd also add "Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction" to that list. That was my favorite superhero game of all time until Arkham Asylum came out.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

While backwards compatibility with the 360 is a no-no, the XBOne can natively run original XBox games, in hardware, without any need for emulation. I don't know if this is already a feature or one which they might roll out one day, but it would be good to be able to run them at least. It would be one good reason to buy a 'bone.

 

[EHKOS]

Speaking of Psi-Ops, has anyone found the lead writer and asked him what they had planned? Even a tweet or something?

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

ahh mercenaries, what a fantastic game, too bad the sequel managed to eb both shitty and contribute to my retarded government to ban "bellic" games in my country, good news is most devs dont actually care about the ban, bad is is most of Take Two's catalogue is not avaliable on steam precisely because of that ridiculous law nobody actually cares about

 

[Arnoxthe1]

I'd also add "Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction" to that list. That was my favorite superhero game of all time until Arkham Asylum came out.

Oh man, TIH:UD is also a great game as well that I keep forgetting about. However, the list says that game is compatible and the Wikipedia page isn't listing any problems for it.

Speaking of Psi-Ops, has anyone found the lead writer and asked him what they had planned? Even a tweet or something?

No, I don't think so. The dev team itself consisted of names that, to this day, are still pretty unknown. I DID, however, find one promising thing; the lead writer's gamertag. (Yes, he posted it publicly.) I could send him a message, asking him about it.

 

[Koji Arala]

I greatly mourn the loss of Breakdown to the onward march of technology. Yes, it had some parts that were like a bad anime, but overall I thought it was a goddamn gem. Closest thing I've seen since is Mirror's Edge, which I admit I haven't yet played, but neat as it appears, it doesn't seem to capture quite the same experience.

 

[Quiet Stranger]

Gauntlet Dark Legacy on the Xbox isn't compatible on the 360 is it? That would be my choice, I LOVED the PS2 version and played it to death but then I played the Xbox version years later and it is SO much better.

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

I think it's more upsetting that Psi-Ops never got a sequel, because the ending basically left the game wide open for one. Damn that game was awesome.

I'd also add "Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction" to that list. That was my favorite superhero game of all time until Arkham Asylum came out.

I'm pretty certain I recall Psi-Ops ending with a literal "To be continued..." screen, so yeah, wide open. I really loved that game, and still have it for my PS2. Same with Timesplitters 2&Future Perfect. Those are some gems that need a sequel or update, for certain.

Personally, I don't have a 360 or Xbone, so I can't speak to the backwards compatibility on those. PS3s (aside from the initial monster sized ones) can't do backwards compatible and it would've been awesome to just enjoy the HUUUUUGE library of games on the newer system. Ah well.

 

[Batou667]

I have no idea if these games are actually backwards-compatible or not, but here are the four Xbox 1 games I'd play right now if my 360 supported them:

1) Shenmue 2. WHY has this series had neither a sequel, nor a HD re-release yet?
2) Max Payne 1 and 2.
3) Rallisport Challenge 1 and 2.
4) Capcom vs SNK 2. My favourite 2D fighter ever.

OK, so that was actually 6 games, but you get my point!