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New 360 owner: which games are must-plays?
XenoScholar
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I just won a free Xbox 360 from the Calgary Stampede Rock Band contest. Maybe someone is here that actually saw that! I'm looking for games to play on it.
I know which games have gotten all the hype for the 360. But which are actually worth playing?
I like RPGs, and I'm looking forward to checking out Infinite Undiscovery and Last Remnant when they come out later this year. I'm also looking forward to the new Banjo game and, of course, FF13.
I figured I would start with either Mass Effect or Lost Odyssey. I heard LO had a great storyline and is worth playing through for that reason alone. What are your experiences with Lost Odyssey? Worth the 35-40 hour time investment?
(For the record, I'm not sure I would get into a ton of the crazy shooter stuff like Gears. I could probably borrow Gears or Halo 3 from a friend if I decided I wanted to give it a shot.)
Also, I know there are threads on some of these specific games, but I don't want to encounter needless spoilers.
I know which games have gotten all the hype for the 360. But which are actually worth playing?
I like RPGs, and I'm looking forward to checking out Infinite Undiscovery and Last Remnant when they come out later this year. I'm also looking forward to the new Banjo game and, of course, FF13.
I figured I would start with either Mass Effect or Lost Odyssey. I heard LO had a great storyline and is worth playing through for that reason alone. What are your experiences with Lost Odyssey? Worth the 35-40 hour time investment?
(For the record, I'm not sure I would get into a ton of the crazy shooter stuff like Gears. I could probably borrow Gears or Halo 3 from a friend if I decided I wanted to give it a shot.)
Also, I know there are threads on some of these specific games, but I don't want to encounter needless spoilers.
Check out my demonstration of the Street Fighter 4 hard trial combos, showing hands on the joystick, on my Youtube channel!
Current characters done: Ryu, Dan, C. Viper
Xbox Live: Infilament
Current characters done: Ryu, Dan, C. Viper
Xbox Live: Infilament
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Take that as you will.
If you like Tactics games at all I can't recommend Band of Bugs or Commanders: Attack of the Genos enough.
I also must recommend Bioshock, it is a shooter as well but has a great story and atmosphere. If you like any Strategy at all I also suggest Civilization Revolutions. Great and easy to get into.
For Arcade Titles I don't have much experience but Puzzle Quest, Rez and the Penny Arcade Game Episode One are all great ones that you should at least get the trial for.
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LO was pretty good too, though I never finished,
Try looking at some of the Live Arcade games too. Castlevania: SotN, Rez, Ikaruga, and of course the PA game are all great.
Also, Mass Effect and Bioshock are both wonderful. (And for the record, I'm not big into shooters, and I STILL loved Bioshock.)
I would definitely check out Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon; I haven't played them personally but I've heard mostly good things about them. Depending on your preference, LO is much more FF-like and BD is much more DQ-like. Mass Effect is a Western RPG and I loved it, a great blend of real-time combat with RPG tweaking and dialogue.
As far as shooters, Gears and CoD4 are worth renting or borrowing to see if they're your thing. Also be sure to download the demo for BioShock even if you don't like shooters; I adored it and the ambience, setting and overall atmosphere of the game were stunning. Also, Orange Box if you haven't played any of the games yet.
If you like platformers and haven't played them on other consoles, Tomb Raider Legend and Anniversary are both excellent, and you'll want to keep your eye on the new TR and Prince of Persia coming this fall.
Most of my 360 games are Live Arcade titles: Hits include Ikaruga, Rez HD, Geometry Wars, Pac-Man CE, Bomberman Live and Heavy Weapon.
EDIT: A tip for newcoming 360 owners: There's a setting to automatically download all new XBLA demos, though I forget where right now. If you have patience, it might be worth it to set that up, download every single demo, and then check out the games and see what strikes your fancy.
Geometry Wars - brutally hard, but you'll keep coming back for more. And it's only $5 to boot.
Commanders: Attack of the Genos - awesome turn-based strategy game, and the 50s era sci-fi visuals are great.
Ticket to Ride - easy to learn, difficult to master, considered by many to be the best board game ever.
Puzzle Quest - It's like Bejeweled, only fun.
Catan - if you like the board game you'll like the XBLA version.
Penny Arcade Ep. 1 - great writing and a fun battle system. Actually encourages item use.
Castlevania - everybody should play and love this game. Great value for $10.
Heavy Weapon - you're a tank that eventually shoots lightning.
Pac-Man C.E. - It's Pac-Man, only more fun than Pac-Man has any right to be.
EXIT - awesome puzzle platformer
Band of Bugs - Lots of replay value, great tactics-style game, and there are 2 cheap expansion packs.
Aegis Wing - you can't beat the price, and it's a lot of fun in co-op.
Street of Rage II - It's SoR2. You should get it because it is awesome.
Cloning Clyde - fun, imaginative puzzle platformer
Look at the XBL Marketplace. Not only the arcade,but the "game store" and the "game demos".
Last time I checked there were about 100 demos on there. Or at least 80.
That is pretty amazing and you can check all of them out for free and delete them if you didn't like them/don't need them anymore. It's much better than only asking for advice.
I'd say as a new 360 owner,you can get many many hours just from playing demos of retail/arcade games, without the need for having a retail game.
I'm having a lot more fun playing Final Fantasy 6 on my ds.
As for recommendations, I'd have to say Ninja Gaiden 2, Dead Rising and the Orange Box have to be my favorite games for the system, and are in my eyes essentials for anyone who owns a 360 (and hasn't had a chance to play the orange box on the pc).
Believe it or not Lunker, I've only played Rock Band a handful of times. I just happen to be awesome at music games, and Rock Band (on non-drums) is a fairly easy one.
Part of me is hesitant to try Mass Effect because the KOTOR games looked fairly boring (I'm not a Star Wars buff, so I get no kicks out of that). They seemed tedious, full of dialogue, and fairly glitchy. Is Mass Effect just KOTOR set in a different universe?
The reason I was so interested in LO is because tons of people said they cried or had big emotional responses to the game's plot. I just can't help but be curious about that.
Additionally, I have Puzzle Quest on DS. I'm horrible at (and don't enjoy) RTS or Tactics-style games.
Current characters done: Ryu, Dan, C. Viper
Xbox Live: Infilament
Bioshock took me around 10 hours, I believe... but it's worth it. The atmosphere will suck you in and the little tape recorders you find give you glimpses into a very compelling plot.
Mass Effect is KOTOR done much, much better. The combat is more hands-on and the world is very, very deep (and not really Star Wars at all). There is a lot of dialogue, but it's damn good dialogue. You really get to care about the characters and get forced into making some very, very tough choices.
For that matter, how long for a completion of Lost Odyssey? Can anyone verify my statements about the plot being really emotional, or is it a fairly typical story?
Current characters done: Ryu, Dan, C. Viper
Xbox Live: Infilament
Hey I heard that Blue Dragon is 20 bucks right now at Canadian Toys R Us's. I'm not into RPG's but some people enjoyed this one (heard it's a very traditional JRPG)
The plot is emotional or tries to be emotional. Whether you immerse yourself in the game and take the emotions it wants to convey to heart or just laugh at the screen saying "haha what a childish attempt!" is up to you.
It took me about 45 hours to complete Lost Odyssey. Note that I didn't complete it 100%,but I'd say about 90% of everything was done.
Also so far I loved every RPG on the 360. Enchanted Arms was my first next-gen RPG and I liked it. Then came Blue Dragon which I fell in love with and then Lost Odyssey which for me was better than Final Fantasy 10 and 12.
Same with BioShock; you can finish that up in about 12 hours, maybe? I'm also a "short but sweet over long and padded" gamer, and both of these games are mid-length and also have save-anywhere features, which greatly increased the likelihood of me actually seeing them through.
It is, as mentioned, very atmospheric and does fairly interesting things with how it tells the story. It's also not too twitchy and hectic, so you should be able to keep up even if you're not a seasoned fps player.
You can finish the main plot of the game in 30-35 hours if you avoid side-quests. I think I had ~83 hours when I finished it, mainly because I wanted to do a lot of the optional stuff. There are parts of the plot (and the Thousand-Year memories) that are tear-jerking and very well written, but some of it tapers off near the end of the game. If you like traditional JRPGs, you'll like LO. As many have said, it's a great game, but it doesn't break any new ground.
He can just download the demo and try the game without spending money on it.
Then it decides fuck that, I'm going to let you down in every way I can.
Stay away, it's just so much of a dissapointment.
Edit: In reply to Klyka's excellent idea
RE: Lost Odyssey, I should mention I have a pretty good RPG background (traditional and otherwise). I quite enjoyed FF12, for instance.
Current characters done: Ryu, Dan, C. Viper
Xbox Live: Infilament
Lunker pretty much said what I was going to on there. As far as finishing it twice... really doing that will just give you a bunch of different dialogue, open up a few new quests and take other quests in different directions. You're always playing as a good guy, though things change depending on whether you decide to be an empathetic savior or a bastard who doesn't care how much damage he does on his way to his goal.
Edit: The consensus on GTA4 seems to be that it's pretty much the same GTA, with both high points and flaws.
The Halo series bores me to tears, then again I don't play online (the series' strength, I believe).
Halo 3 is fun and all, but I'd only consider it a "must" anything if you're already a FPS fan. GTA4 is fantastic and you should buy it.
It's also really pretty easy on the easy setting, and has "vita-chambers" which basically serve as respawning points, so death isn't a big problem either. If you're not a big shooter fan, I'd also suggest staying away from gears and trying Halo 3 or CoD4 first, I feel like they're both easier to get into
It's definitely worth a try. This board isn't particularly a fan of the halo franchise, I don't think (not getting at anyone, up to you guys). It's a shooter, but in my opinion it has a different feel to a lot of other shooters, a lot more fluid and dynamic. Definitely have a look see if you have access to it, but if you're not really a shooter type I'm not sure it'll convince you.
GTAIV in my opinion was a bit of a mixed bag. Euphoria and the driving engine are awesome, and the plot is generally interesting and well told. but in some ways there's too much game, and a lot of the time enemy placement seems so god-damned random in missions, and feels like noone actually thought to play the mission to see if those placements were fun. add to that the fact that many of the missions are overly scripted for a sandbox game, and it was a little dissapointing, yes.
But only really because people had such oddly high expectations of it. Many of these are the problems that plagued some of the rest of the series, it's not like anything that ambitious is likely to be perfect, so it's worth a look in.
I've played Portal on PC. Awesome game. If I wanted Orange Box, I'd probably get it on PC.
Also, I'm a fairly new HDTV owner. I want a game that will make it sing. Which is another reason I was leaning towards Lost Odyssey. It looks so pretty and colorful in the screenshots!
Current characters done: Ryu, Dan, C. Viper
Xbox Live: Infilament
Halo 3 is pretty much Halo. I mean if you like Halo, it's the third one.
Dead Rising is a must play, as far as I'm concerned.
If you only want pretty and colourful: Eternal Sonata.
I second this. It does an amazing job of shaking off a lot of things that have plagued the series and has an incredible amount of replay value and oh yes, DRESSING UP LIKE A GIANT FRIGGING BIRD.
For more proof of its greatness: I got stuck trying to pull off Silent Assassin on one of the levels in one particularly bastardly section. When I went to check GameFAQs, four different walkthroughs had four different ways to get SA. It's just that good. My favorite thing about it is that you can sit down and knock out one of the simpler assassinations in 15 minutes or so, which is awesome for killing free time.
But if you like beating on hundreds of zombies at once with every single item you can possibly imagine, you'd dig it.
Nay, there's a couple of impressive areas, but that ain't a game that regularly made me think, wow, this is what HD's for.
To be honest, mass effect is probably one game that makes it sing... Gears isn't bad for that, though it's a fairly muted colour set.
Assassin's creed is fairly pretty, but again, muted colour set.
There are a lot of games, and generally different games tend to look better in different areas. I thought Halo 3 was gorgeous, but there were obvious pointy edges and such faults, just the scale, combined with lighting, makes it gorgeous.
GTA4 - so epicly awesome to douche around in; increased grittiness and realism over the previous iterations make me go "OH SNAP" constantly.
Mass Effect - loved KotOR, like shooting things, instant must-buy.
The Darkness - really liked Escape from Butcher Bay, plus it is dirt cheap by now.
EDF - best same-screen co-op on the system - period / full-stop apostrophe.
Games that I'll rent first or see if I can get cheap:
COD4 - I like shooters, but honestly I have no intention of playing online so who knows if this is worth the trouble.
Condemned 1/2 - heard they are great but I'm a pussy sometimes with these sorts of games.
Devil May Cry 4 - DMC3 is my favorite of the series, but I think I may have played myself out. Inspires little interest in me, I just feel as if I owe it to myself to give it a try.
Assassin's Creed - looks cool, but opinions are all over the place
Hitman: Blood Money - why the hell is this game still so expensive? Otherwise I'm all over it.
Oblivion - awesome game, but I've already played the hell out of it. Realistically, I may not have the time to do another runthrough.