Xbox 360
Hello! It’s been a while. I’ve been testing the VTuber thing here and there and talking with artists about my avatar and then I start thinking about “why do I even want to do this? I just want to play video games. This is so much more of a hassle. Yatta yatta.” Every time I turn around there’s something else for me to do or figure out. It’s awfully intimidating when I just plan on streaming once, maybe twice, a week. So yeah, I haven’t had much time to sit and write and there hasn’t been much I wanted to talk about but talking with my friend about older video games today gave me inspiration. I’ve talked in numerous posts about certain games I’ve liked, certain systems I’ve liked and just thought I’d touch on a few of the games I haven’t spoken much of (to my recollection).
So this is going to be primarily during the Xbox 360’s life span. I loved that thing. I’m willing to say it was the best system I’ve used and I’ve talked a little about how much I liked it before but I also feel like most people really latch on to the things in their youth so for me, that’s the 360. It’s crazy to me that I still do not own a Xbox Series (horrible name) or a PS5. I just do not have the need to have one. Xbox things come out on PC and I’ve been waiting for a PS5 slim but at the same time the things I want to play on PS5 will sooner or later come out on PC so it’s like should I even bother? One thing I do miss though is achievement hunting. Most PC launchers have some sort of achievement list that probably has the same things as the Xbox game but it just feels different and the Xbox app on PC is kind of finicky like, figure it out Microsoft. I don’t know, I just don’t like it as much. So anyways, let’s go.
Let’s start with Crackdown. Crackdown was cool. There were five or so different things to upgrade your character with and you upgraded those things just by playing the game and as you leveled up these different areas your character would change. You start off as bare minimum man and then with each level you’d get more muscle, more armor, sometimes tattoos or masks and helmets. It was cool to see your character actually level up, become stronger and as your driving skill got up your cars would change too. Your sports car would get lower to the ground and longer and the SUV would get bigger tires and could jump. Crackdown is the kind of game I enjoy because there’s so much crap to do and they have collectibles everywhere. I love going after agility orbs and stuff like that. I don’t know why and some games just go too far with it or it isn’t as fun but I don’t know where that line is you know? I don’t know how to explain what is “too much.” Like I love doing these things in Crackdown, Mirror’s Edge Catalyst and even Assassin’s Creed 4 but I don’t quite love it in Pokemon Legends Arceus or even the Tomb Raider games. Once I finish the main mission I have little interest to go back and find everything. But the main reason I, and undoubtedly most people got Crackdown, was to play the Halo 3 beta.
Halo 3 was such an event. It was so hyped up and I remember watching The Daily Show with John Stewart and Lewis Black did a bit on it but I can’t for the life of me find it. It was hilarious, I promise, but I played Halo 3 so much. I was out of school at that point so I was online all the time, played with friends all the time and we were still doing LAN parties then. The Forge, match replays, the game modes, it was all amazing. They put so much into that game and with Forge the community could get involved to the point where Grifball became its own playlist for a time. ODST was a nice surprise and the introduction of Firefight was great. I really loved the story of Reach for the most part and the last stand ending was fantastic, that was so good. I didn’t love the multiplayer much, I didn’t like that the maps were all just taken from the campaign or older maps made in forge.
Dead or Alive 4 was a 360 exclusive and they had an unlockable character named Nicole that was a Spartan. Bungie made this character because they didn’t want DoA to have Master Chief because it wasn’t “canon” for him to be there. 343 has no problem whoring out Master Chief now though. Probably an overreaching Microsoft thing but still, it always stands out to me. Anyways, I liked DoA 4; it was relatively simple from what I remember. Like it was easy to do combos because you pretty much just mashed but it was fun! And Halo! Yeah! I also liked Soul Calibur 4, Blazblue (it was because of someone on Roster Teeth that I even found out about Blazblue), Tekken Tag Tournament 2 and Street Fighter x Tekken. I’ve talked about a few of those before so I won’t here but they were fun and for most of these games, my first time with the franchise. As the franchises keep going I get less interested in them because it’s like, “I did that, I played this already.”
Soul Cailbur 4 had a specific Star Wars character on either system (PlayStation and Xbox) along with each having The Apprentice, Starkiller from an upcoming game The Force Unleashed. TFU was really fun. It was amazing when it first came out. It’s like they saw how telekinesis worked in Psi-Ops and was like “we could use that in a Star Wars game.” It was just great to be able to throw people around, manipulate the environment to destroy TIE fighters. It was really great starting off the game as Vader on Kashyyyk and just seeing his interaction with the Empire forces that were already there. But while playing the game and seeing all the stuff Starkiller did and was capable off it was just like “man, Luke sucks, only reason he beat Vader at the end was because Vader was so thrashed and tired from fighting Starkiller.” The DLC was really interesting too. It was like a “what-if” situation where Starkiller actually killed Vader and then the Emperor made him into the new Vader. More games should do DLC/expansions like that.
Assassin’s
Creed 3 was really cool. Like, how do I say this? I’m not the most patriotic
person, like most things I’m highly critical of everything so if we do
something stupid or wrong I will criticize the government for it. I’m not all
gung-ho, America can do no wrong, we’re the best but just seeing Conner in red,
white and blue, being a Native and bringing a game to the North East really hit
me differently. Like, “
The Tom Clancy games were pretty good at this time. I played so much Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Ghost Recon Future Solider (I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE) and Splinter Cell Conviction. They just did so many cool things and had such interesting stories in these games. Conviction wasn’t your typical Splinter Cell game but what I enjoyed the most was once you found your target and had to interrogate them you could use different things in the environment to smack them into. The first one had you bash a dude into urinals, sinks, mirrors, it was fun stuff. Kind of Netflix DareDevil in a way. The co-op story was fun too and had similar interrogation methods and the ending to that was great as well.
Miscellaneous games that were great good fun are Wet, Lollipop Chainsaw, Guitar Hero 3, Army of Two and Fear. I love Fear, they’ve really done that series dirty. I still rock my 360 Fear gamer pic on most things across the internet. Army of Two was so neat at the time and also I think started the trend of “if you see private military in a form of media, more often then not they will be the bad guys.” I just loved the masks and customization of everything.
I just feel like games now-a-days don’t feel the same as they did 15, 20 years ago. There are a few good games sprinkled into the pile of shit we get but I feel like it used to be common rather than the exception that I feel it is in today’s world. I think the PS1 and PS2 days were really good too but I have so much more of a connection to the 360. They had demo discs. Remember demo discs? Those were great. I don’t know how kids now find out about new games. I’m not usually a big fan of remaking or remastering games but Assassin’s Creed 3 could use some modernization. There is a remastered version of it but I don’t know what that entails. Maybe it’s better? If you know, tell me. But I would totally take a completely remade, built from the ground up version of AC3, Black Flag, Splinter Cell Conviction and even FEAR as long as it keeps what makes the games good at their cores. Just updated visuals and in some cases modernize the controls a bit. I’d even take a re-release of Lollipop Chainsaw. Games now are so centered around microtransactions and live services and it’s a real shame. Instead of making a game and moving on developers are now spending years and years on a specific game just to release more content for it. Like I look at my game library or games coming out and there’s just nothing that really excites me for the most. There are a handful of games that have stood out to me in recent years but mostly games just don’t seem to have soul anymore. Maybe it’s just because I have less time to play games so I’m much pickier about what I play.
So that’s my love affair with the 360. What was your favorite console growing up? How do you feel things are going in the current gen market? Let me know and I’ll see you around sometime.
Be content.Infinitely content.
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