A few days ago I was browsing a used book store, and while I should be looking at the books available, they have a small video game section that I'm often drawn to. I was looking for some old school games to play on my PS2, and while I was there, I spotted a copy of Dark Alliance 2 for $15 on original Xbox. I was thinking, "man, I would love to have that game, and it's kinda hard to find a PS2 version" However, I didn't own an original Xbox anymore, so I went and looked at their used systems, and I saw they had an original Xbox for $22. I was surprised at the cheap price honestly, and I really felt like I could justify it the price with the game. While I was picking up the Xbox, I grabbed the Dark Alliance 2 and a copy of Guilty Gear X2 Reload which they had for $5 as well.

Since then I have been going to many stores that sell retro video games and been browsing the Xbox section, picking up multiple titles for the system on the cheap. I feel kinda bad that I did actually end up spending close to $200, but considering all the titles I got for it, I feel happy knowing I have a lot of great game time ahead of me.

During my search for old Xbox games, I was just really starting to notice and realize recently how little love the original Xbox gets. Not only from Microsoft, who seem to keep trying to ignore it ever existed by calling their latest system Xbox One when this system was always the Xbox 1 to me. However, it seems like a lot of gamers have either forgotten, or don't care how awesome this system really was.

I admit, I kinda forgot myself until I recently picked up another Xbox again for real cheap, but a part of me always remembered how much fun I had with the system. Looking at these retro game stores recently, and seeing all the titles for the original Xbox, it's flooding back to me just how great the system was. It was like the successor to the Dreamcast for me, because a lot of obscure games that I would have gotten on Dreamcast, ended up showing up on the original Xbox. Microsoft took a lot of chances with developers, especially Japanese developers back in this era, and I actually think it is still the best system they ever put out. The games that were cross gen at the time were a significant step ahead from their previous generation counterparts, and the new games for the platform were impressive from the very start. Something I feel like this current gen of consoles has yet to do for me.

Unlike the Xbox 360, who's identity got lost thanks becoming a Netflix box, or way to push Kinect, the original Xbox was all about the games. It had beefy hardware for the time came out, and because of that I think some of the games on the system still look great today. Microsoft actively pursued relations with developers to get games on their system. They knew they had to because they were the new kid on the block with their hardware, but this was healthy for the industry, and great for the gamers.

What I find disappointing, is how it doesn't seem to go appreciated by many gamers even today. I've been going on youtube trying to find game reviews or footage of some classic Xbox games, but there is little to nothing out there by gamers. Even here on Giantbomb, there have been little to no old Xbox games played on streams (with the exception of that unarchived stream that Ryan and Dave did when Xbox Live shut down) On youtube though, you'll find some old reviews by gamespot for some, and a very few by CGR, but no one is even reviewing Xbox games, when classic game reviews is a pretty hot thing to do these days.

You can also usually tell how serious a fanbase based on prices for old games, and what the demand is, but I find that a lot of old Xbox games don't even approach the high prices that some other classic systems have. I admit that's a weird thing to complain about, I love having cheap price games to pick up now that I'm starting to collect Xbox games, but it's weird to see so many great games for so cheap. The same games will sometimes go for higher on PS2, or Gamecube, when the original Xbox often had the superior version of multi-platform games.

Maybe this is just the down period in which people are forgetting about the Xbox, and it'll have a resurgence in the coming years, I can never predict that stuff well. It just seems that that generation of consoles has already seen a steady increase in value for certain games on PS2 and Gamecube. Many games I would like to still own on the Gamecube have gotten too expensive to justify a purchase for, and some rare games on PS2 are steadily going up. I just felt like discussing this topic, because I have always felt like this system was great since it came out. It shouldn't be forgotten, and be remembered for the great platform it was.

The original Xbox was (and still is) fantastic. If I had to pick my single favorite gaming memory, it would be playing Halo LAN back in college. So much damn fun. I, too, would like to see them do some throwback Xbox stuff on UPF. The console had a huge impact on gaming, and it definitely deserves more love.

The problem with the Xbox was that the controller was garbage and Microsoft had no interest in getting third party exclusives that people actually want (but a ton of sequels to cult classics). The only games that the average consumer would want on the Xbox were Halo 1 and 2.

Jet Set Radio Future was pretty cool though.

It had beefy hardware, sure, but PS2 actually had the games. PS2 had the vast library and because of that it'll always be looked at more fondly than the Original Xbox.

The Original Xbox was a beast of a machine. It was the first platform I bought with my own money and it was worth every cent.

First game I ever got was Mechassault 2. It came with the bundle and I remember being blown away by the cutscenes. Then the game allowed you to pilot mechs and destroy EVERYTHING in sight....it wasn't the game I bought the system for but it quickly became one of my favorites. It had a pretty cool multiplayer component that I never actually played because I never got xbox live gold on the original machine.

I think right after that I started renting a whole ton of games from the video store and had a great time with Burnout 3, Secret Weapons over Normandy, Medal of Honor Frontline, The Prince of Persia trilogy of games, Ghost Recon 2, etc. They weren't all bangers but they were a whole lot of fun.

Then I finally got the game I bought the damn thing for:

Fable

That shit was fire, I just remember being so enthralled by the world, the setting, the characters, the story. I was skipping school to play the game even after I had beaten it multiple times. I searched for every key, every chest, every secret weapon, every sidequest. I even spent months trying to figure out how I could get to the snow troll mission that you get the very first time you leave the hero academy. For a while I thought that maybe I was making a bigger deal out of it than it deserved by I played Fable Anniversary and it was still awesome so many years later. I like Fable 2 and Fable 3, but I never loved them like I love Fable.

Then of course I got the games that everyone was talking about when it came to the xbox. Halo and Halo 2 were considered the best shooters around for a reason. Halo didn't invent the console FPS but it made it make sense. Halo was how you did it and it is still how they do it to this very day. People are still playing this game to this day, making speedruns, finding glitches, building custom campaigns (on the PC)....it's a timeless game. Halo 2 was more on the multiplayer side of things. Yeah the campaign was okay at best but people flocked to the multiplayer in droves. I can't remember a console multiplayer game being taken seriously before Halo 2. I didn't have gold but you can bet I played against my friends locally for hours and hours.

Also the Xbox had the best versions of multiplatform games. And I'm not talking about just one game running at a slightly higher resolution or framerate. I'm talking about games being built different from each other because one console just couldn't do what the other could. Listen, the PS2 is probably the best console of all time, but when it came to certain games, it just couldn't handle what the Xbox could. Just look at Splinter Cell Chaos Theory:

This was the case with a lot of games. I think it was especially problematic with Tom Clancy games. You would have two different versions of Ghost Recon 2 and Ubisoft tried to push both as companion games to each other rather than admit that the PS2/Gamecube was unable to match the Xbox. Brother in Arms looked amazing on the Xbox. The same game looked like a muddy mess on the PS2. But hey at the end of the day, it's not about what's under the hood but what games you have and the PS2 absolutely mopped the floor with the Xbox. No wonder MS shot that thing in the back of the head and put all their chips into the 360. The PS2 had GTA first, and that was enough on its own to kill any competition.

I'd say as a top 10 favorite games on the original Xbox, my picks would be:

1. Splinter Cell Chaos Theory (Ubisoft Montreal)
2. Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 (Gearbox Software)
3. Fable (Lionhead Studios)
4. Halo (Bungie)
5. Splinter Cell (Ubisoft Montreal)
6. The Simpsons Hit and Run (Radical Entertainment)
7. Forza Motorsport (Turn 10)
8. Mercenaries (Pandemic Studios)
9. Prince of Persia The Sands of Time (Ubisoft Montreal)
10. Far Cry Instincts (Ubisoft Montreal)

It sucks that the console has been almost entirely forgotten about. It probably means that nobody will ever bother with an emulator. Yeah I'll admit I don't go around searching for videos of Conker's Live and Reloaded, but as someone who's into speedruns I'd love it if there were more people playing Jade Empire and less people running Zelda and Mario.

My Xbox that I bought back in 2005 is still here and running. It's loud as hell and sometimes the tray won't open, but it was built to last and will probably continue to do so for a few more years.

I really loved the Xbox. I felt it had a really nice mix of games. My only complaint was that there weren't many JRPGs on it, but it had western RPGs to round them out.

Otogi, Otogi 2, Phantom Dust, Forza, Gunvalkyrie, Jet Set Radio Future, Halo 1 and 2, Munch's Oddysee, KOTOR, KOTOR 2, Morrowind, Jade Empire, Splinter Cell, Fable, Project Gotham, Deathrow, Ninja Gaiden, Dead or Alive 3, Amped... such great memories on that system.

@vinny_says: Wow. The difference between the Xbox and PS2 Splinter Cell is like it's an entirely different game. Looks like absolute garbage on the PS2...

Xbox was okay, I don't regret having one and I don't regret having sold mine a few years ago either. Kingdom Under Fire was a really bizarre/interesting experience and I've been following KuFII's prolonged development for years.

@xyzygy: I agree it truly felt like this was the the last generation where it was East vs. West when it came to console games. The ps2 just had a greater library of japanese games to play through while the xbox system like the pc during that time had a greater affluence of western games which we now see today. I never owned a xbox when it initially came out but now have two sitting in my living room passed down from family and friends who just gave me there's cause they know I like games. I remember when the system first came out and my friend showing me morrowind, my mind was blown away by how big of a world that game was. Nothing came close to something like that on the ps2.

Yeah it was alright. I'm happy I had one but I can't describe how much more I loved the GameCube and PS2. I do think the OG Xbox gets a bit of a hard shaft, but then again so does the GameCube. The PS2 was just so ultra successful and dominant it owns the public mind-share of that era near completely.

Contrary to popular belief, I think we'll start seeing more "coverage" of PS2-GC-XBOX generation as those people grow up and replace the dominant SNES-PS1 nostalgia crew. Probably that coverage will bring more people to discover Xbox again.

@corruptedevil: I don't know if I'd call the controller garbage...at least not the s-controller. In fact, other than the placement of certain buttons, and white and black buttons rather than bumpers, it feels very similar to the 360 controller to me. I've been playing games on my Xbox for the past few days, and it still feels good to me. The sticks are nice and responsive, the triggers got a good feel to them. It's not the best d-pad, but it's actually better then the original 360 dpad I think.

Every time in recent memory that they've used the Xbox it's been for horrendous games. Blinx, Reign of Fire, Toejam & Earl 3. Not exactly giving good impressions.

My favorite XBOX memory... While playing Splinter Cell Chaos Theory my friend walks in and says, "What are you watching?" I replied, "playing a video game..." He says, "No way! Really???"

FUCK THE XBOX! I REFUSE TO APPRECIATE IT!

All of my friends had Xboxes, while I was a PC guy. By the time I really heard about these "consoles" it was all Xbox talk. I didn't find out about the PS2's market domination until later.

When I did finally buy an Xbox, just before the 360 launched, I though that Halo (a game I had already finished several times on PC), Halo 2, Fable, Need for Speed Underground 2, Doom 3, and the Splinter Cell series made it a worthy investment. I liked the controller, too, since I had only S's. In fact, shorty after buying it--ignorant of the design of the 360's controller--I thought that the only real issue was that they should have put the black and white buttons as secondary triggers.

If you would have asked me a few years ago, I would have said that the Xbox 360 was vastly superior to the PS3. Now that last generation is closed I've been using my PS3 a ton more, and I have to say that it's a great system. Most of the weaknesses (slow interface, slow network, etc.) are still very obvious, but its strengths are more apparent to me. I think if most people returned to the Xbox, they'd have the same eye-opening experience.

Pretty much the only reason why I still have my 360 is so I can play Unreal Championship 2 and Jet Set Radio Future.

Also, maybe Amped and Dead or Alive.

As well as Ninja Gaiden and Project Gotham Racing.

Okay, I'm never getting rid of my Xbox.

It was a great system. That was a pretty great era for games, fuck what people say. It was kind of the last generation of the niche. Probably the last time where we saw, on a large scale, massive budgets thrown behind creative, risky ideas. Now that the medium is huge, and that's really good for its own reasons, it's too risky to make creative gambles. Of course, the size has also opened the doors for tons of really small, nimble teams to fill in that creative void. I digress.

I played a good number of PC games online, but I was always too young to actually get a job and buy my own, so it was always whatever my brother had.

I got the original xbox for my middle school graduation, and a number of my friends had one and it was the first time I actually played games online with friends. Games like Counter Strike, Doom 3, Far Cry for the custom maps, and a few others here and there. Good times good times.

It had some classic games, but I wouldn't call it a classic system. If it is then so is the GameCube and pretty much every other system. You've gotta draw the line somewhere.

beast machine

All this xbox love and no one mentions Panzer Dragoon Orta? PDO might have been best looking game on the system, and it was one of most challenging games as well... Truly an overlooked classic.

Yeah I really liked the original Xbox. It was kind of a weird thing for me because my family came into one because my dad's cousin was working as a game tester at the time, and when his company folded everyone raided the supply closets and he waked out with an extra Xbox which he gave us. I was in middle school at the time and I was the only person in my class that had one, let alone had even heard of them. Halo and Halo 2 were such huge revelations to me in terms of really atmospheric games (Halo 1) and then of course online multiplayer (Halo 2). Fable was indeed absolutely incredible for its time and still remains the best in that series in my opinion. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory totally blew my mind with the best Spies vs. Mercs mode that series ever had, in addition to a surprisingly fun co-op mode. The other weird thing about that system was it sorta became a refuge for unfinished Dreamcast games or former Dreamcast properties. While it certainly had its share of garbage, it really is dramatically under-appreciated.

I thought Xbox was a great system. I bought a used one around 2006 when it was already dead. It just had so many innovations that most people take for granted now, like online play and a built in hard drive. I thought it was worth the purchase just for the exclusive Bioware games.

I'd classify the Gamecube as a "classic system". Metroid Prime, Metroid Prime 2, the first release of Resident Evil 4, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Super Mario Sunshine? All of those hold up pretty well. Doesn't hurt that I consider at least one of those one of the best games ever made.

On the topic of the original Xbox, I bought one for $20 while in high school (about 2009, I think) and softmodded it. I played Far Cry Instincts long after its day, Doom 3, the Prince of Persia games, Burnout 3, and a handful of other games that I felt held up pretty well in 2009. I still have that Xbox in my closet.

Unfortunately, some of its best-remembered games were either multiplatform games or ported to the PC. The Gamecube and PS2 were full of exclusives, so the systems are remembered along with the games.

The Xbox was great. It was the first console of it's generation I owned. It's funny though, because in retrospect I didn't play many of the system's greatest games in it's heyday. Halo 2 and Kotor 1 and 2 were the only notable titles I played. So, I don't have a whole lot of nostalgia for it.

Now that I think about it, I think I still have my original system some where around in my house. Maybe I should drag it back out.

I always kinda appreciated niche games, and I was a big Dreamcast fan, so maybe I liked that niche element the system had going for it, while the mass market didn't. I've always tended to root for the underdog, and that was part of the appeal of the Xbox for me at the time. I have been discovering a few games now that I actually didn't play back in the day like Otogi 1 and 2, and I really want to play them, especially after learning they were made by From Software.

Even with many of it's great games being multiplatform though, it's already been mentioned, but many of them are better on the Xbox. Burnout games, Mercenaries, Splinter Cell...they all just look great on the Xbox compared to PS2. Even the games that did also come out on PC though, I've always been more of a console gamer, so if I want to go back and play KOTOR, I'll play the Xbox version because I personally can't stand the controls for the PC version. I need to have a controller in my hand for that type of game.

A handful of games doesn't make a classic system. I can only think of a dozen or so games that I would add to that list. On the other hand, I could probably name 50 for the PS2.

I think for me it is also a bit underrated in that any game you could get for PS2 or Xbox, personally the Xbox version was always my choice. I really preferred the controls (for shooters it was no contest way better) and you had all the space from the hard drive. Things ran better and looked sharper.

A lot of interesting exclusive games too but that is one part of the system that's underrated now.

I'd say that the super high quality of games for the Gamecube work in its favor. There aren't tons of them, sure, but the likes of Metroid Prime 1 and 2, Resident Evil 4, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Smash Bros. Melee are better than almost anything on the other platforms, and the Gamecube had some other games that I never got around. Wind Waker and Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones are two of those.

The Gamecube gets a pretty bad rap these days and I'd say that's pretty unfair.

Had some amazing times with the OG xbox. Dead to Rights was definitely one of my favorite games to play on there. Countless hours with Halo 1, Fusion Frenzy, JSRF, Dead or Alive 3, and Splinter Cell. I remember playing the Ninja Gaiden demo that came with OXM and thinking that was the second coming. It almost felt like Dreamcast 2 in a way. I loved the way the system smelt for some reason too...Yeah, dope console for sure.

I never own an original Xbox and time to time I think about getting one.

The Xbox was both a massive success and a massive failure. On the one hand the system lost enough money to bankrupt any company without the massive cash reserves of the likes of Microsoft. There were a handful of great games exclusive to the system but not nearly as many as on PS2 or Gamecube. The controller had the best analogue sticks seen up until that point, but the controller was oddly designed and the black and white buttons were useless. But multiplatform games looked far better on it than on PS2 or Gamecube. I mean people talk about the Xbox One being underpowered compared to the PS4 but it is at least 80% if not 90% as powerful in most ways, especially with Kinect gone now. The Xbox was several times more powerful than a PS2 and it's GPU had several features that the PS2 GPU did not support. Doom 3 could not be made on PS2. It just wasn't possible to do dynamic lighting on that system. They faked it a bit for Splinter Cell, but that game was God awful on PS2. The difference between PS2 and Xbox is honestly not much smaller than the difference between Wii U and Xbox One.

The massive success of course is Xbox Live. That isn't something you can go back and play for nostalgia's sake, but much of modern gaming wouldn't exist without Xbox Live. In that sense the Xbox was probably the most influential system of this century. Gaming as we know it would not exist without Xbox Live. But the original Xbox and Live were in a sense a proof of concept. The Xbox 360 seemed like the system that they wanted to make the first time around.

Know what they need to play on UPF sometime? Mothereffin' Deathrow. So underrated. That game was fun as hell.

I won't partake in the whole "classic system" debate, but I certainly agree that the Xbox is underappreciated. The PS2 simply eclipsed it in the game department. But like other have said, there were some gems! Fable, Halo, MechAssault, Splinter Cell, Riddick, Mercenaries, KotOR, Ninja Gaiden, Burnout, etc. Yeah, some of those were on PS2, but damn if they didn't look great on Xbox...

Maybe I'm crazy, but one of my biggest gaming regrets is not dropping the cash on Steel Battalion...

Don't get me wrong, I like the Gamecube. I just don't think it deserves classic status.

I guess? What does "unappreciated classic system" mean anyway? People say the great things about the TG16 as well but I'm not sure it means anything either.

I always get super nostalgic when I see the OG xbox hooked up somewhere. Really great system with great games.

The original Xbox was always a weird thing for me. I had a ban against M-rated games until I was 18 and wasn't into first person shooters at all. I've always been a serious Nintendo fan too, though my family got a PS2 for Christmas back in 2001 instead of the GameCube because it had DVD playback functionality. So the Xbox was always this completely pointless waste of space in my mind - a machine built for Halo, a game I had zero interest in and wouldn't play anyway, that had almost no good exclusives and an incomprehensibly bad giant controller. When I got a GameCube with my own money a year later, I had access to every game I could possibly want - Square's RPGs on the PS2, all the freaking awesome Nintendo stuff on the GameCube, and I was set.

In 2006, the Xbox 360 suddenly became very appealing to me. Oblivion, GRAW, Viva Piñata and Gears of War all seemed really, really neat. Geometry Wars was insane looking, and I was captivated by the possibilities of the new system. I didn't have even near the amount of money I would have needed, though, so I started looking into the original Xbox to try games I didn't traditionally like. I borrowed a friend's console and played Halo, Halo 2, Ninja Gaiden Black, and Knights of the Old Republic and I found a very interesting western development flavor to all the games that wasn't present on either of the other consoles. Then there's stuff now that I wish I had tried - Otogi, Jade Empire, and a handful of interesting other games that were either exclusive or had a PC counterpart only, which was impossible for me to experience (the first time I've ever had a PC that could reasonably play good games on is right now).

So on the one hand, especially with all the third-party stuff available on it, I could see how somebody could have been satisfied with the Xbox, but not me. On the other hand, it is still a distant third to the other two consoles that generation for me. The GameCube was easily, far and away the winner with its mindbogglingly good exclusives like Metroid Prime, Resident Evil 4 (a lesser port eventually showed up on PS2), Wind Waker, Pikmin 2 and Smash Bros. Melee. The PS2 had a small handful of games I really enjoyed like Final Fantasy X, Sly Cooper, Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest VIII and...well, not much else really. It had a huge library of games I thought were just fine but not terribly interesting, to be honest. There's been interesting games to go back and play though, like Persona 3 and 4, Amplitude and the MGS games. And then the Xbox had literally nothing I was interested in until I branched out when I was 18 and 19 and tried some new kinds of games. Even then, only Ninja Gaiden Black and the original Halo stand out to me as particularly memorable.

That's my spiel. Hope you enjoyed.

Agreed on two areas: Deathrow was fucking amazing (it remains the best sports video game I've ever played) and Steel Battalion was something I should have taken more seriously. Man, to be able to play that game...

Also, Rainbow Six 3. That game had a great campaign AND great multiplayer.

The original Xbox was the console my brother and I got after our rather old family PC became underpowered after years of playing Deus Ex, MechWarrior 3, and Jedi Knight. We got Halo and Amped with our system, and I don't think I could have asked for a better bundle. We got it at the time because we were young and dumb and were certain that since it was the most powerful system that it would be "way better" but even though the PS2 had the dominant game library I still was never wanting for great games at my house. It didn't hurt that my best friend had a PS2 which I used to play all the JRPG's I wanted.

People talk a lot of shit on the OG XBox but I know I had a ton of fun on it. Even if it were only a KOTR and Halo machine it would have been worth the price of entry.

There were so many great games for it. I still have one around here somewhere. A lot of people seem to dislike the controller, but I actually liked it a ton. The original Amped was a great game. We got that and Halo with our Xbox and that was all we needed for a few months. Then Forza came out and we played that for a huge amount of time.

Not under appreciated by me. It's the system that really got me hooked on gaming. Halo: CE & Halo 2, PGR2, Kotor(s), Ghost Recon, Max Payne, Tiger Woods 04, Colin McRae 05, Unreal Championship 2, Rallisport Challenge 2, Splinter Cell, Conflict Global Terror, Kingdom Under Fire, and much more I'm forgetting. Great memories.

Rallisport Challenge 2 was the best. I remember playing the shit out of that with Audioslave going as the soundtrack. Good times.

One of my favorite things about the original xbox was that it was a fucking TANK. It was a large loud and burly beast of a machine & I loved the damn thing.

Also I miss how it virtually never ran out of hard drive space for me. I don't think the amount of "Blocks" ever went under like 50,000 the damn number never moved. INFINITE MEMORY (or like 8gb...)

Now that people are coming in here and listing off so many of their favorite games, it really shows that the Xbox could hold it's own. Sure it didn't have the vast library of the PS2 (with which comes a lot of shovelware and forgettable games), but it still had some greats.

Yeah the OG Xbox is one of those consoles I never owned but really liked. I was just glad I had some friends that had them. Especially, when one of my buds got his hands on an import copy of Metal Wolf Chaos. We were like, "Holy Shit this game is bananas!!" Good times those were, good times.

That is the trick though. I love a bunch of stuff about the TG16 but I would have never bought it "back in the day" either.

it also had the worlds greatest controller ever made

For me I'll always love the first Xbox because of KOTOR, Halo, Mech Assault and Fable. I know I'm probably in a minority here but I really liked the "Duke" controller.

I loved the first Xbox.
At the time I was actually working at an Electronics Boutique and recommended it to many customers.
Got a lot of those puppies sold!
First console with a built in ethernet port!
Respect!!