Reasons to get an Xbox 360

Hi all,

I've been contemplating getting my first Xbox 360. And as a good buyer would, I've been searching for the exclusives, and seeing if it's worth it. I've gotten around to the idea of getting it, mainly because of Gears of War. I really enjoyed the first one on PC, and more of that would be great.

So, after searching for the exclusives, I've arrived to the conclusion that there's basically 3 series which seems to stand out. Gears of War, Halo and Dead Rising. But I'm not sure if these would be enough for me to get it. Gears would be awesome. Halo, I'm not really sure. I kinda like the space opera theme, but I have an issue with FPSes on consoles. 3rd Person ones are fine, but first-person is just hard for me.

Anyone else been in a similar situation? Can anyone help make this decision easier? I was really surprised by how few exclusives this console has. Exclusives that I'd be interested in anyway. Sony's PS3 has plenty more and better exclusives. But Gears of War would be great to enjoy. If they would release a HD remake of the whole series on Xbox One, I think I could skip it. Seeing as Remedy are developing Quantum Break exclusively for Xbox One. (unless they do the same as with Alan Wake, which they later released for PC).

Gears of wars is on PC too ? Halo disappoints me.

In short, not worth it

ilm said:

Gears of wars is on PC too ?

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The first one.

About, Halo, could you elaborate? I keep hearing all sorts of reasons. I wonder how mature and entertaining the story is. Or is it just flash and no substance to impress teenagers?

As proud member of PC gaming master race I condemn any dabiling with peasant box .

But seriously Dead rising isn't exclusive fist 2 parts are on pc already and 3 is confirmed.

Gears of war is good but there games that are just as good or better(whateve you think of Mass effect 3 it's third person action is great lot better thant GoF imo)

So imo X360 isn't worth it for exclusives only PS on the other hand has games like Uncharted, Last of us , and heavy rain those are on top of my head.

Nameless one said:

So imo X360 isn't worth it for exclusives only PS on the other hand has games like Uncharted, Last of us and heavy rain those are on top of my head.

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Yeah, looking at the list of exclusives, I am amazed how exactly has Microsoft managed to come head to head with Sony. I'm also got a PS3 and it has some amazing games on there. I keep thinking if it's all marketing and just buying timed exclusives. And maybe some small games from XB Live Arcade.

About Gears of War and Mass Effect 3, I just can't imagine them comparable third-person action games. I only played GoW1 on PC, and imo it blows the light action that Mass Effect came up with. My opinion anyway. The visceral combat and feel of the weapons (shotguns, chainsaw rifle, etc) was just unmatched. And that's pretty much my main reason for even considering an xbox. Otherwise, yeah, not even worth having the discussion.

About Dead Rising, yup, you're right. I missed that.
Edit: Actually, Dead Rising 1 is still Xbox 360 exclusive. Not that this would be a sole reason to get it.

I went with the PS4, I don't care about shooters, and I actually like (non twitchy) jRPGs so PS4 won for me. Besides, Playstation Plus' free games so far have kicked arse compared to Xbox Live Gold.

wolfing said:

I went with the PS4, I don't care about shooters, and I actually like (non twitchy) jRPGs so PS4 won for me. Besides, Playstation Plus' free games so far have kicked arse compared to Xbox Live Gold.

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I'm gonna go with PS4 for sure. Last of Us remastered, Uncharted 4, etc. But now, I'm considering the old-generation consoles. I might even consider the Wii, for Mario Galaxy, which I always hear is amazing.

My suggestion - don't buy console. At all.
But you knew I'll say that.

Why? Because of three things.


1. Graphics whoring aka Watch Dogs

A mediocre game in a shiny wrapping. Graphics at it's peak with repetitive content. Modded (unlocked hidden resources) on PC looks unbelievable and outshines current so called nextgen consoles.


2. Exclusives aka we can't sell this crap to normal people

So The Order: 1886 will be PS4 exclusive. Because, according to it's devs, the only hardware with enough power to run their game is PS4. When I saw that article I was like this:


The truth is, people have a brain and 2x5 fingers. A console exclusive means it's not nvidia ment to be played, it's ment to be played by:




3. Closed system aka forget creativity

For xth time I bring up the need of people to be creative. You don't want a game where you have to do exactly one thing, you want to have endless possibilities and combine them differently to achieve some goal. You want your freedom. And not just that, why wouldn't you go loco and edit some gamefiles and have fun with that. For example let's remove clothes from people. Or let's add your own music in the game. You just can't do stuff like that on consoles.

joxer said:

So The Order: 1886 will be PS4 exclusive. Because, according to it's devs, the only hardware with enough power to run their game is PS4.

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Everyone knows that's just bullshit. Still, they do have exclusives. And if you want to play exclusives, you don't have much choice. Of course, buying exclusives you pretty much support the idea of exclusives. So, I don't know what to say. But I want to play those exclusives.

joxer said:

3. Closed system aka forget creativity

For xth time I bring up the need of people to be creative. You don't want a game where you have to do exactly one thing, you want to have endless possibilities and combine them differently to achieve some goal. You want your freedom. And not just that, why wouldn't you go loco and edit some gamefiles and have fun with that. For example let's remove clothes from people. Or let's add your own music in the game. You just can't do stuff like that on consoles.

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I don't agree. I don't have to or need to mod or edit the original. Sometimes it does make sense. Other times it doesn't. At least for me.

Buying a Xbox equals to a direct contribution to further undermine PC (Windows/DirectX) gaming. It's sending the message to Microsoft: "Yes, please do further ignore and sabotage PC gaming and do everything in your power to convince people that gaming on a Xbox is so much better" (especially for Microsoft's bank account ).
If, like many Xbox owners, you either don't care about this or even welcome Microsoft's console focus then by all means go ahead and buy a Xbox.
Choice --> Consequence. I just want to make you aware of the consequences, not convince you to not buy a Xbox. That's all.
In the end all that matters is that you have fun with whatever you choose.

The consoles basically divide like this for exclusives - PS 3 RPGs, 360 shooters.

GoW was great, the series kinda went downhill form there imo. Assuming you don't have it on PC Left 4 Dead 2 is great, though I have no idea how active multiplayer is anymore and it's also a FPS.

If you don't mind jRPGs Lost Odyssey was really well received. Blue Dragon and Tales of Vesperia may also be worth a look.

Moriendor said:

Buying a Xbox equals to a direct contribution to further undermine PC (Windows/DirectX) gaming. It's sending the message to Microsoft: "Yes, please do further ignore and sabotage PC gaming and do everything in your power to convince people that gaming on a Xbox is so much better" (especially for Microsoft's bank account ).
If, like many Xbox owners, you either don't care about this or even welcome Microsoft's console focus then by all means go ahead and buy a Xbox.
Choice —> Consequence. I just want to make you aware of the consequences, not convince you to not buy a Xbox. That's all.
In the end all that matters is that you have fun with whatever you choose.

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Well, I understand all that. And yeah, I agree. And for them to get me to support them, they have to provide me value. And I'm not sure they do, with just Gears of War. I will still have to consider that. But, I was hoping that me getting it so late in the life-cycle of the console, does make some sort of dent. Not huge, I know.

And obviously, I'd love to not be forced into a console because of exclusives. All of these would be better on PC of course. But what'daya gonna do. I guess I'm not that opinionated about this and don't want to make a stance and refuse to even consider buying a console.

I don't like the way things are, but I don't have the energy or willpower to fight this.

greywolf00 said:

The consoles basically divide like this for exclusives - PS 3 RPGs, 360 shooters.

GoW was great, the series kinda went downhill form there imo. Assuming you don't have it on PC Left 4 Dead 2 is great, though I have no idea how active multiplayer is anymore and it's also a FPS.

If you don't mind jRPGs Lost Odyssey was really well received. Blue Dragon and Tales of Vesperia may also be worth a look.

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I don't really like jRPGs. And FPS are also kind of no go on consoles. Especially when L4D 2 is also on PC.

There are few worthwhile exclusives, in my opinion. All that anti-MS bullshit makes no sense to me at all though. If you buy a 360 - you're not telling MS anything except that you want a 360. The rest is pure fantasy or, at best, subjective conjecture.

Here's my conjecture:

MS don't want to get rid of PC gaming - they just don't have the first clue WHAT they want - except more money and power. They're too big and there are too many cooks in a very large and messy kitchen. They lost their way a while ago. Let's see if they can wise up a bit, though I kinda doubt it.

Anyway, the console is so cheap that it's hardly a big choice, and the games have always been the expensive part if you want more than a few.

I liked Fable 2 quite a bit, and the later Halos are decent shooters - but absolutely nothing special. I've played the first two Gears of War a lot - and, I believe, tried a couple others - though I'm not sure how many there are.

They're great in co-op - but I think they're very samey after you've completed the first game. But they're ok.

While not a 360 exclusive, Red Dead Redemption is probably THE best console exclusive I can think of, if you're into open world Westerns Fantastic game, really.

Also, Crackdown is a neat little GTA clone with a twist.

For other console exclusives, the 360 is the best last-gen platform in almost all cases - so if you don't mind that most games look a bit old and weary now - it's a great console.

However, if you plan to use it as a media center - it's crap. The PS3 is much, much better for that - and the PS3 does have better exclusives overall.

DArtagnan said:

I liked Fable 2 quite a bit, and the later Halos are decent shooters - but absolutely nothing special. I've played the first two Gears of War a lot - and, I believe, tried a couple others - though I'm not sure how many there are.

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I thought the first Fable was decent. But nothing special. I find it difficult to not associate that series with Molyneaux, who I just can't stand. At least his public persona. He's smug, has got a God complex, and I'd hate to have to work for someone like that. And, my fault really, that I can't seem to enjoy those games because I think of him. Plus, I heard the third one in the series is just bad.

DArtagnan said:

While not a 360 exclusive, Red Dead Redemption is probably THE best console exclusive I can think of, if you're into open world Westerns Fantastic game, really.

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I've got it on PS3. And yeah, amazing game.

danutz_plusplus said:

I thought the first Fable was decent. But nothing special. I find it difficult to not associate that series with Molyneaux, who I just can't stand. At least his public persona. He's smug, has got a God complex, and I'd hate to have to work for someone like that. And, my fault really, that I can't seem to enjoy those games because I think of him. Plus, I heard the third one in the series is just bad.

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Fair enough. The game would certainly have been much better without him, I agree

Except, of course, that he's responsible for the concept in the first place.

That said, most people seem to think Fable 2 is superior to the first game. I actually prefer the first one because of the charm and the character system being more to my liking - but F2 is one of the few reasons I can think of to get a 360 if you already have a PS3.

@danutz: OK, I understand. And just for the record: I'm not generally anti-console. I own a PS3 myself (mostly as a Blu-Ray player) and I'm fine with any of the classic console manufacturers from Sony to Nintendo and even if Sega got back in the biz it'd be fine. The more, the merrier . These companies are all doing their own thing with their own closed systems. Let them have their fun.

BUT I'm not fine with Microsoft. They basically "own" the PC/Win/DirectX gaming platform and of course the Xbox platform. There is an irresolvable conflict of interests there. It's really lame how they have gone about "solving" this conflict so far by trying to force gamers to switch to Xbox for their gaming needs.

E.g.: DirectX has been all but abandoned until recently when they got a wake-up call from AMD (Mantle). They shut down their successful PC studios Aces and Ensemble. They've screwed over PC gamers big time over the years with Xbox and Xbox 360 (timed) exclusives.
They don't give a crap about PC game compatibility with Windows 8. No fixes, no patches, nothing.
Games for Windows (Live) was a joke and is no more. They bailed out of the PC Gaming Alliance (which was recently dissolved) in 2011 and achieved fuck all during their tenure.
The only PC games released by MS in recent years were poor online ports of old franchises like AoE Online and Flight Online, the latter of which was quickly cancelled after release and poor HD remakes of some of their classics.
And the list goes on and on and on..

In essence any PC gaming efforts are pretty much nonexistent. The only seemingly pro-PC effort is that they are finally working on DirectX 12. I'm saying "seemingly" because I have a suspicion that they are primarily doing this for the Xbone. It's obvious that the Xbone is quite a bit weaker than the PS4, and in demanding games, the Xbone frequently needs to scale down from 1080p. Microsoft can't change the hardware but they can try to optimize the APIs so the Xbone can maybe catch up with the PS4 that way.
Also, they need something new for the post-Xbone generation anyway and for their plans to unify Windows/Xbox/Surface/WinPhone.
Thus it's more than questionable that DirectX 12 development is really primarily aimed at competing with AMD Mantle or nVidia's Gameworks on the PC platform. It may bring some improvements to the PC as a byproduct but I am convinced that MS' real goals lie elsewhere.

2 reasons to buy an Xbox 360, both RPGs, both made by the same people (yet vastly different in approach).

#1 - Lost Odyssey (one of, if not the most beautiful piece of art that has been made into a video game.)
#2 - Blue Dragon (don't let the cute graphics fool you, this is a deep RPG that beckons back to early days of RPG gaming on a console)

Both fantastic and must-plays.

Don't listen to the console naysayers. Nothing wrong with getting one.

The first GoW was awesome. Great new world, story and characters. The ones following were still good but not as good as the first one. Halo is ok but certainly not great. The single player campaigns on Halo are a solid meh. Never played the other game you talked about.

At this stage I'd buy a 360 on Craigslist as you can get one with 20 games on the cheap.

Fable 2 was a good game. A bit easy tho.

Lots of obscure but still good games out for the 360 and they are generally pretty cheap on Amazon.

If I was going new, I'd get the PS4.

I mainly keep my 360 for Dragon's Dogma and Red Dead Redemption. Neither has a PC release and both are great games and plays/looks better than the PS3 versions. Well worth buying a 360 just for RDR, but it really depends on what you like i guess.

I think i've used my PS3 for 2 games so far; TLoU and Journey, both are incredible though. The PS3 controller is really bad though, much better on the PS4.

danutz_plusplus said:

I'm gonna go with PS4 for sure. Last of Us remastered, Uncharted 4, etc. But now, I'm considering the old-generation consoles. I might even consider the Wii, for Mario Galaxy, which I always hear is amazing.

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It's amazing on PC (Dolphin) looks 10x times better than on WII or WII U too.. just need to buy the controllers (which i would never play without).. You can buy the game too ofcourse, to support Nintendo.. There's also Xenoblade Chronicles which is also a must play, imo.

I hate having so many consoles (5 currently), takes up too much space and i use them very rarely. Glad i can skip Wii..

To me the games I loved in the PS3 (I think they're exclusive, not sure):
- Persona 3
- Persona 4
- Ni No Ku Ni
- The Last of Us
- Valkyria Chronicles
- Heavy Rain
- Atelier series (I just love crafting)
- Beyond: Two Souls
Some people love the "Tales of..." series, I personally didn't like them that much, too twitchy for my taste, though I think I finished one of them.