Let’s talk about Billy G’s big black brick. You may know it as the Dreamcast 2.0. Or That Halo Machine. (XBox 360 discussion also but that’s the X-tent of this thread’s scope!)
I bought one back in September specifically for the SEGA/Smilebit/FROM action games, some of my all-time favourites. I have:
Gunvalkyrie
Panzer Dragoon Orta
Otogi
Jet Set Radio Future
ᴳʳᵃᵇᵇᵉᵈ ᵇʸ ᵗʰᵉ ᴳʰᵒᵘˡᶦᵉˢ
Outrun 2 is in the post and I’ll probably snag Ninja Gaiden Black before year’s end (and maybe Blinx: The Time Sweeper which I’m guessing is not in the same league as the ones I’ve mentioned but I sure have been curious about it ever since 2002). I’ll be honest, in building up this small new collection, I’m taking a kind of elitist view of what I’m willing to pay for but if something iffy-but-promising is cheap, I’ll bite.
Games of interest:
Otogi 2: Immortal Warriors (This one is a shoe-in as I’ll most likely need more Otogi in my life after the first one. Interested to hear how people think it compares)
Spikeout: Battle Street (I’d never heard of this but when it came up in the Let’s Get Physical thread I started salivating at the prospect of a step-son of Streets of Rage/proto-Yakuza beat 'em up. Unfortunately it seems to be far too expensive these days T_T)
Crimson Skies (Is this at all close to being even a shadow of Sky Odyssey meets Star Fox 64? Cuz that’s something I’d be into.)
Breakdown (Is this game as cool as I’ve slowly been building it up to be over the years? I want to punch guys and drink Coke juice in first-person: https://youtu.be/O0cngZCH6ig?t=1342)
Brute Force (I was following this game closely up to its release when it kinda ate shit. Is it secretly good/interesting?)
Arx Fatalis (My vague impression that it’s something like Ultima Underworld with a Morrowindian grimness has my interest piqued! Would also be a nice change of pace from my pure arcade action binging.)
Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracies (I’ve heard enough people talk positively about this that I’m close to picking it up for $13. Also, the Watergate Conspiracy turned out to be pretty significant so the MINDgate Conspiracy? Sign me up)
Conker: Live & Reloaded (jk. Eat farts, Conker)
I will definitely be getting Shenmue 2 for nostalgic cosy times with my CRT.
It’s nice to have this kind of focus on one console with its cheaper games when emulation and Steam libraries can make things overwhelming at times.
Have any special recollections, recommendations or repudiations to share? (Like, is Azurik: Rise of Perathia one of the most criminally overlooked gems and you just need to shout about it?)
as someone who has been doing research for a book on looking glass this year, it’s funnier and funnier to me that Arkane’s entire m o as a studio is just to constantly make weird, overdesigned tributes to the three successful looking glass franchises. a lot of their stuff is good but they’ve been doing this for basically twice as long as looking glass was around in the first place and deathloop is like the first time they’ve seriously deviated that looks like it’s even going to ship
Maybe they’ve just moved to making weird, overdesigned tributes to Monolith games, Death Loop being their overdone love letter to No One Lives Forever.
it’s just such a strange canon! it’s one of those canons that really shouldn’t have been a canon in the first place – system shock was basically ultima underworld 3 and then you have the 0451 lineage which became its own thing – and here you have these people who are like “nah, we make uu, system shock, and thief, that’s it!”
i think it’s one of those things that to have a successful Western AAA studio at the scale Arkane has been, you basically have to pick A Thing and then make the AAA version of that as much as you can. so much design ideology in the mainstream (and much of “indie” tbh) has been basically small iterations on things that were made in the 90’s and early 2000’s, so it’s a matter of which you pick. in a space with so little innovation or like… deviation from the usual formulas/norms it looks more forward-thinking by comparison to pick something that is at least… slightly more esoteric. so i guess it’s better that they picked Looking Glass to emulate than something else if you’re going to be in that space.
As someone who is working through the PS2 library, I’m quite jealous of those Sega and From exclusives. Every once in awhile, a game exclusive to or optimized for the XB will grab my curiosity. I’m not thinking of surefire hits, rather certain oddities.
For instance, Kakuto Chojin is a fighter designed by Seiichi Ishii.
I’ve dabbled with Phantom Dust and I love how it feels like From and Sega had a baby.
Transworld Surf is one of those games that’s optimized for the Xbox and it just seems interesting as a potentially great example of what could be done within the surfing genre.
Phantom Crash is a Genki mech game. That’s all I need to know.
Those two Kingdom Under Fire games are certainly interesting and I love seeing games from outside the Japan/America/UK trifecta.
Anywho, I’ve really enjoyed hearing your thoughts on the Box. Here’s to many more!
I had a similar experience as your post about Otogi 1. Otogi 2 felt a lot more videogamey if that makes sense. the whole experience is like more streamlined and also more bland. It feels like a b-team stitched together the assets from the first game and called it a day. The levels have no sense of atmosphere or purpose like the first game, or I guess if they have a little atmosphere it’s because the area was lifted from the first game.
yes
you also should try phantom crash. it’s basically a lifestyle product about riding mechs while listening to early 2000s japanese internet music, and looking at cool menus.
That quote being up there is a videogame thing I think about a lot.
fatal frame 2 on the xbox has an exclusive first person mode, that makes me wonder from watching gameplay videos what is the point of the entire fatal frame series without it being in first person. it’s just, so much better. less goofy looking. it’s game about using a camera viewfinder.
I almost impulsively bought Phantom Dust on the strength of its cover and it being only $4 on eBay but then found that it’s free on Windows! Still don’t know what it is exactly but looking forward to it.
Phantom Crash is sounding very attractive. Bummer about Otogi 2 but that’s kinda the impression I was getting. Bog standard sequel stuff. More characters, costumes (that have to be shared between them for some reason), they took out weapon repairing but added more stats which isn’t really what I want from those games (though I do really like how the various weapons effect your jumping/maneuverability as trade-offs for attack powers and buffs). Also, random Otogi gush: the way the terrain deforms after being hit by some hellish force will never stop being cool!
Also, Otogi 2 is way more expensive than the first so it may not be an option anyway.
It’s an odd one! Battles are like a mix of Virtual On and Mega Man Battle Network if you can imagine that. There’s a great underground hub where you can just chat with people and enjoy the music.
How hard is finding all the files to covert an Xbox to one of the things like the xbox versions of XBMC I wonder.
Because IIRC, those let you run burned DVDs, which is a pain but like, you don’t have to worry about paying for increasingly valuable plastic discs that way.
I have been wondering about how it might be possible to get game files playable via HD or burn them to a disc to play on the console? I know next to nothing about these things.
it was pretty easy back in the day, but finding all the software for it is kind of a pain now? I dunno exactly where to start looking but I think it would be worthwhile if you don’t want to break the bank. DVD Rs are cheaper than just buying a bunch of the expensive stuff.
I can’t remember how far I got into Otogi 2 but I always remember this one mission where I was playing Seimei fighting a bunch of flying enemies in the sky. I guess it was above a town and some story stuff just went down, but I guess there were floating platforms you could jump between while trying to fight the enemies and since this is Otogi all of the environment is destructible and I kept accidentally destroying the platforms I was standing on. In the end I was left stranded in mid-air, using that slow and floating infinite double jump that mostly moves you vertical instead of horizontal to try and get to all of the remaining enemies just flying stationary in the sky or something. It took me forever but I think I managed to beat the level.
Box. Here’s to many more! 
