I don’t remember the exact moment I got a Xbox, but it was surely to play Halo with my friend. I might have even bought the system new. Egads! I quickly changed out my gigantic “duke” controller for a more reasonably sized one and got ethernet link cables so we could move from split/screen play to having our own TVs. I moved from a CRT TV to a flat screen and started paying attention to screen resolution numbers, all because of Xbox and Halo.
The Xbox was a real monster compared to everything before it, and by that, I mean it was heavy. It was like carrying a cinder block. There never was a slim version of it, which is a shame because I would’ve loved one. I have the green Halo edition Xbox now.
We were still heavy into the FPS on Xbox. Halo: CE started it, but many others followed like: Area 51, Black, Brothers in Arms series, Call of Duty: Finest Hour and 2 and 3, Darkwatch, Dead Man’s Hand, Far Cry Instincts, Half-Life 2, Halo 2, Painkiller: Hell Wars, Pariah, Project Snowblind, Red Faction II, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Serious Sam I and II, Star Wars Republic Commando, Timesplitters 2 and Future Perfect, and Urban Chaos: Riot Response. And those were just the ones we finished and sometimes replayed.
Third-Person shooters were a second choice but some favorites were: Armed & Dangerous, Beyond Good & Evil, Max Payne, Psi-Ops: Mindgate Conspiracy, and especially Total Overdose: A Gunslinger’s Tale in Mexico. I can still remember some epic action movie events in that one.
RPGs were largely the action type, hopefully with co-op play like: DnD Heroes, Fable, Gauntlet Seven Sorrows, Hunter the Reckoning and HR: The Redeemer, Red Dead Revolver, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and X-Men Legends.
Racing was all about destruction type racing such as: Burnout 1-3 and Flatout 1-2.
The sole flight combat game was Crimson Skies.
Action games of a general sort included: Destroy All Humans 1 and 2, Evil Dead: Fistfull of Boomstick, Hulk, Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction, Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, Psychonauts, State of Emergency, Ultimate Spider-Man, and The Warriors.
Strategy games are a favorite of mine but only Goblin Commander and Sid Meier’s Pirates thrilled me.
Sports games were limited to golf with: Links 2004 and Outlaw Golf. My friend played a lot of Hockey but not me. The system had many, many sports games, but generally wedidn’t play a lot of sports games.
There were a lot of good retro collections for the system I collected such as: Atari Anthology, Intelivision Lives, three Capcom collections, Taito 1 and 2, Tecmo Classic Arcade, Midway Arcade Treasures 1-3, and Namco Museum and NM 50th Anniversary.
Xbox Live Arcade launched in 2004 and I got in on it right away to play those PopCap ports and a selection of classic arcade games. It’s interesting how online services have evolved since then.
TV Time! Munch's Odyssey commercial from 2001.
I never owned an Xbox. I sure did like the 360 that came after it, though. There just wasn't enough games on the original Xbox for me to warrant purchasing the system. Some I kind of wanted to play included OutRun 2001, a new Toe Jam & Earl game, a 3D Spy vs. Spy game, and some of Rare's offerings. But that's really about it.
I have this fondness for the original Xbox now that makes me want to collect every game that came out on it. Boy, that would be hard, and expensive.
I had PS2 at launch and was not interested in Xbox until I saw Spliner Cell, KOTOR, and Ninja Gaiden (possibly the best melee action game of all time)
I tried to get into the easier Ninja Gaiden Black but it still kicked my butt.
I remember being jealous of how great Oddworld looked on XBOX, but in hindsight I'm not sure it's really my kinda game.
I think I played a demo of it when demos were a thing. Not my sort of game either.
Yup, the demo is actually what made me envy it graphically.
