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Damn right they are. Probably the last great console generation before modern monetization practices fully took hold.
“Kinect is going to be the future of gaming!” Except this is the only generation that is going to natively support it. But hey, Apple will shrink it down, put it in a phone, and use it to authenticate you. That’s not nearly as fun as using it for dancing and rafting though.
The last console I ever purchased.
Too late.
Fifa Ultimate Team was already going strong on 360. Started all the way back in 2009, but the insane gambling player packs came a little later.
CS: GO cases technically started during Xbox 360’s life cycle (a little short of 2 years before Xbox One launched), although the game was PC only.
As others have mentioned - Oblivion horse armor DLC was already a thing.
Microsoft first introduced paywalled online functionality with Xbox 360’s Xbox Live subscription.
You could add some more to the list. By this time gaming was already going downhill. What you remember as the ‘last great console generation’ is probably just nostalgia. Although you could make a case that early Xbox 360 days were pretty great.
I didn’t play the full generation. I moved to PC in 2009 so I dodged the worst part of the generation. I also wouldn’t say it was the best generation. The reason I would say it was the last good one is the lack of a required install. You could buy a game, then start playing it right away. If I have to sit through an install, I might as well just play on PC.
I like to think I gave my nephew some perspective. About 10 years ago, I gave him one of those combo consoles that played NES, SNES, and Genesis games, and bought him several classic games from each. So for a couple years, he grew up playing the originals of Super Mario Bros., Mario Kart, Sonic, Mortal Kombat, etc. And every time I visited, I whooped his little butt at Mortal Kombat too. I think it made him appreciate it all the more when he eventually got a PS4 and beyond. Someone who starts with a Xbox 360 has no understanding of just how far games have come and no context for what made some of these classic IPs great from the get go, and what it was like to sit next to your friend, sibling, or cousin and play couch co-op together.
P.S. I didnt let him win in Mortal Kombat because he was a complete shit talker. He’d be on a 12 fight lose streak, and manage one KO by the skin of his teeth, and then look me straight in the face, puff up his chest and grunt out “Uh! Yea! Winners never lose!” He simply had to be punished for that arrogance.
I’m caught between wanting my daughter to play a bunch of my old favorites but I’m also recognizing that some of them I only really like because of nostalgia. Like I bought the sonic collection for GCN and played it recently and didn’t really have fun with it tbh. Like the original one, while a great game for its time, is really about memorizing the levels so you don’t run into spikes or enemies at full speed which just doesn’t seem fun.
Or Super Metroid is another favorite that does stand up to the test of time, but I’m playing Hollow Knight and Super Metroid just feels awkward compares to the newer one, even though Hollow Knight only has a melee weapon as the main attack.
GoldenEye is another one. I spent countless hours playing that back in the day, both single player and multiplayer, but even when Perfect Dark came out, I had trouble going back to it, let alone all the other games that advanced console FPS (Halo where they finally figured out a decent control scheme, or CoD with loadouts instead of the scramble to find guns lying on the ground, though I suspect neither of those games invented those mechanics). While I do treasure the GoldenEye time of my life, I don’t think my daughter would gain anything from having to do that herself.
She’s making her own memories on games like Minecraft, Pokemon (as much as adult gamers complained about the lack of depth, she loves Arcerus or whatever it’s called), or Smash Bros.
I do still plan on introducing her to some amazing games, but I’m not sure that list should be essentially my own video game path. Figuring out that list is kinda tricky.
Not saying your approach was wrong btw, just that I’m not sure how to approach it myself.
My thought process wasn’t really even so much about the games themselves as much as the approachability of someone who has never held a controller before. As much as I prefer a dual joystick, shoulder button, and 4 face button controller now. It is a lot less daunting for a new player to have a simpler input schema. NES had a d-pad, 2 face buttons and the the start button and that was it. For a 5/6 year old who never played a video game before, that seems like a good place to start. The modern controlled is much more complicated and also not sized well for little hands. The few times my wife has tried to play a game with me, just controlling the camera while moving is too much for her. I have a 2 year old daughter who is just starting to figure out what a video game is. I’m wanting to start having her play with me, but I don’t think she will be able to use the controller correctly anytime soon.
Yeah, that also makes sense. My line of thought was more about how returning to old great games might not seem as great after experiencing all the QoL and gameplay improvements that came since, so starting with those ones means they can enjoy them. My daughter is already handling the dual stick controllers well, so I guess is beyond that stage already (though when she was younger I remember her not even understanding that Mario Kart was something she could control and she thought we were picking characters for a movie, especially since the auto-steer and auto-accelerate still give a fighting chance even if you don’t otherwise touch the controller).
Can you recommend any games? I mine are about the same ages and the oldest one as already learned to play Minecraft on a computer, is learning Switch now. I never played those original classics since my parents didn’t get us a console until PS2.
On the NES, the original Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt, Super Mario Bros 3 (skip 2), Legends of Zelda, and Metroid.
On the SNES, Super Mario World, Legends of Zelda: A Link To The Past, Chrono Trigger, Donkey Kong Country, Mario Paint, Super Mario RPG.
On Genesis, Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (basically the same as 1, but has multi-player) and 3/Sonic & Knuckles (you could combine both cartridges and play as Knuckles, it was awesome), Mega Bomberman, Toe Jam and Earl, Earthworm Jim 2, Aladdin, The Lion King.
On PS1, Spyro The Dragon, Tomb Raider, PaRappa the Rapper, Crash Bandicoot (all of them), Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2, Final Fantasy 7, Metal Gear Solid.
On N64, Super Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, Diddy Kong Racing, Legends of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Legends of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, Super Smash Bros, Starfox 64, Pokémon Snap, Pokémon Stadium, Banjo Kazooie, Bomberman 64, 1080° Snowboarding, Goldeneye 007.
I’ve got a collection of games that are either:
- Games I liked but wouldn’t want my kids to play
- Games I liked and my kids will likely like
- Games I liked and my kids likely won’t like
- Games I liked and my kids initially don’t, but dammit they’re going to give it a try anyways despite the dated graphics or sometimes cheesy plot-points
Good on you! It’ll also let them feel what gaming is like without bullshit DLC and microtransactions so they have a baseline for a good experience.
It will be weird in 20 odd years. “Dad has given me his old PS6, it’s a great bookend/paperweight”
Every time I see the name 360 I remember how much of a pussy Microsoft is for calling it’s successor the Xbox One instead of the XXXbox. What a waste
Xbox one, you mean the first one. right?
Thanks to XBMC and Team Xecuter my first Xbox definitely was an XXXbox. 😬
This one hurt me.
I was never an Xbox guy.
Is Xbox360 the same generation as PS3?
Xbox has some silly names. You have the Xbox (PS2 era), the Xbox 360, the Xbox One (which was a big flop), the Xbox One X / S (revised versions that were mostly forgotten about), then the Xbox Series X / S (modern era)
I feel even more vindicated now.
A few years ago someone said something about one of the newer Xboxs. Either Xbox One X or Xbox series X. I forget which. And I asked “Is that the newest Xbox?”
And this guy goes off on me. Claims I’m gaslighting him, and that everyone knows which generation each Xbox is/was.
And I honestly didn’t. I was genuinely asking.
So now I feel vindicated in my prior ignorance, because with Playstation, it’s real simple. 4 is 2 more than 2. So even if you didn’t know playstation, you know numbers. So even my nongaming mom could tell you PS4 came after PS3.
But with Xbox, it was just random jibberish. Even Nintendo console names aren’t easily placed in order by non-gamers, but at least they have personality.
Like I don’t think my mom would know that the N64 came before the Wii. She would have no way to know the order. But she knows what the Wii is. She gave my niece a wii.
But Xbox names just sound like the codes stores internally use to refer to products. Sometimes you see it on the barcode.
So like Hunts BBQ sauce 16oz bottle, might be “HntzBBQ16”. Thats what Xbox names feel like.
Xbox series XS.
I wish I had a good joke for that, but I’m really high and thinking about what would happen if Rowdy Roddy Piper had gotten into politics instead of Jesse Ventura.
Which is completely off topic, but can you imagine???
360 > 3, so it’s better /s
Crackdown? Infamous?! Fable!?! Fusion frenzy!?!!? Hexic!!?!? AEGIS WINGS?!?!!ONE!!
KUNG FU CHAOS!
Crimson Skies, Mech Assault 2, Battlefront II
Was talking to a young adult relative the other day, and he was telling me about one of the new Call of Duty games.
I haven’t played one lately, so I mentioned something I thought was neat in World at War or Black Ops 1. And he’s like, “Wow, that’s an old one. I don’t think I was even born yet.”
💀
I teach at University and half of my students weren’t alive for Halo 3’s release.
Xbox 360 had Call of Duty 2, we are on CoD 36 or something right now, of course Xbox 360 is retro
Vintage gaming in now a thing you need to say about 90s video games.
Until it red rings
That’s a newer one that had that worked out by then.
I waited in line for 12 hours for one on release day. had it for a more than decade without red ring. Probably the only one that survived
I started a new playthrough of Final Fantasy Legend 2 this weekend, a childhood favorite and an original Game Boy game from 1991. I can feel my bones dissolving reading this post.
i play my ps2, ps1, n64, snes, gba, gb, gc, genesis and arcade games on my pc. soon as i can take time to learn the xbox side of things, those will join the party
beyond good and evil is a classic and i have a copy on there somewhere
