Home

Tag: xbox

  • Top Ten Xbox 360 Games with Backwards Compatibility you Have to Play Again

    Top Ten Xbox 360 Games with Backwards Compatibility you Have to Play Again

    When regarding your backlog of old games, you usually think: “man, I wish I didn’t have to dig out my old console to play that awesome old game.” Thankfully, Microsoft has been implementing backwards compatibility with select Xbox 360 games on the Xbox One. If you’re wondering which of your favorite 360 games are playable on your modern-day system, we’ve got you covered. Here’s our ten favorite 360 games with backwards compatibility! 

    10. Braid 

    Photo Credit: Top Best Alternatives 

    This trippy, time-bending puzzling platformer is a great adventure to relive. If you missed it the first time, its new lease on life on the Xbox One is a great chance to replay it. Braid features a crazy story told in reverse and quaint, charming graphics. If you always wanted a more mature, thought-provoking take on Mario, Braid is for you. 

    9. Mirror’s Edge 

    Photo Credit: Cro Hasit 

    Mirror’s Edge is a slick, polished action game with a sweet “fight-the-power” narrative. If you’ve ever been interested in parkour or free running, check this one out. Mirror’s Edge features a unique first-person perspective, making the action feel very immediate and pressing. What’s more, the game’s protagonist is an empowering and believable bad-ass lady! Those are in short supply in the gaming world, so it’s worth mentioning! 

    8. Gears of War 3 

    Photo Credit: Gamers Heroes 

    Where the first entry in the series defined action games for a few years, Gears of War 3 set a new benchmark for horde modes in action shooting games. The series’ signature chainsaw guns and muscular protagonists are here, front and center. While the series has stumbled in recent years, GoW 3 is a great reminder of just how awesome the series once was. The action is pulse-pounding and white-knuckle, rewarding smart use of cover and good aim. If you’re looking for a blast from the past of shooting games, Gears of War is for you.  

    7. Super Meat Boy 

    Photo Credit: Threadless Blog 

    Super Meat Boy defined the indie formula for blistering difficulty balanced with rewarding gameplay. Allowing the player to respawn instantly saves this game from being mind-numbingly frustrating. The influence of SMB can’t be overstated: indie platformers have been taking inspiration from this masterpiece for a little under a decade. Notably, 2018’s breakout hit Celeste follows in the footsteps of SMB’s balanced, thumb-breaking gameplay. If you want to relive the meat grinder, give this one another shot. You won’t regret it… but the Meat Boy will.  

    6. Deus Ex: Human Revolution 

    Photo Credit: Square Enix 

    The sleek, sexy and thought-provoking reboot of the legendary Deus Ex series is as fresh today as it was seven years ago. With a surprisingly deep story and rewarding, branching gameplay, Human Revolution never fails to engage the player in the action. If you’ve ever wanted to be a super-powered assassin with robot arms, this is your game.  After you’ve enjoyed Human Revolution’s backwards compatibility, check out the sequel, Mankind Divided, which released in 2016. 

    5. Fable II 

    Photo Credit: YouTube 

    Remember when Fable was awesome? Before some seriously awful spin-offs, the name Fable signaled excellence in western-style RPGs. If you want to experience the magic again, Fable II, arguably the best of the series, has backwards compatibility. Fable features a beautiful, storybook world made with loving attention to detail. The gameplay and combat are both tight and satisfying, and progression is always rewarding. It almost hurts to wonder what might have been in store for this series in they hadn’t made that awful Kinect spin off… 

    4. Portal: Still Alive 

    Photo Credit: Know Your Meme 

    What can I say about this seminal first-person puzzler that hasn’t been said? It’s amazing. The writing is consistently hilarious, the puzzles are mind-bending, and the portal gun is awesome. You play as a test subject being tormented by an all-powerful, rampant AI. Your captor forces your through a series of increasingly deadly puzzles, outfitting you only with a portal gun. The portal gun can open a two-way portal on certain surfaces, testing your spatial knowledge and challenging you to think outside the box. 

    3. Dark Souls 

    Photo Credit: Bandai-Namco 

    Haunting, oblique and unapproachable, Dark Souls is a game that refuses to be easily engaged with. You’ve doubtless heard all the talk about “hardest game ever,” but that’s only part of the story. Dark Souls is difficult in the way watching Begotten is difficult. It’s so grand, so epic, so utterly alien, that you have to change the way you approach it to appreciate it. The game is art in the true sense of the word: it makes you feel. Feel alone, outnumbered, isolated, up against positively absurd odds. 

    When you first cross swords with a screen-filling demon, your heart fills with dread. How could you possibly fell such an imposing monster, an engine of raw destruction? But you persevere, you learn, and dodge and you kill the beast. And then you face another monster, this one even tougher and meaner. Then you face a dragon. Then you face gods. It’s hard to really describe the feeling of growing power, the satisfaction of winning in a world so bleak. But do yourself a favor: play this ugly, mean, triumphant game. And prepare to die. 

    2. Red Dead Redemption 

    Photo Credit: The Verge 

    Red Dead Redemption tasks you with bringing in the members of your old gang to save your family from a corrupt FBI agent. In the Old West. Yeah, it’s as awesome as it sounds. Rockstar’s magnum opus, Red Dead Redemption climbs into your heart and lives there. The voice acting, and world building, are absolutely top-class, unmatched before or since, and give the game a sense of place unseen in the medium. If you missed this one the first time around, it sports backwards compatibility now, so you owe it to yourself to experience it again. If you missed it (shame on you) try it out now: it hasn’t aged a day since it was released. 

    The Best Xbox 360 Game with Backwards Compatibility: Halo Reach 

    Photo Credit: Halo Waypoint 

    Legendary developer Bungie’s swan song to their incredible Halo series, Reach is a triumpant achievement. While both Bungie and the Halo series would stumble along into the 2010’s with middling-to-awful entries, Reach stands head and shoulders above all first-person shooters that have come after. With the possible exception of Overwatch, no competitive first-person shooter has matched the raw fun and intensity of Reach.  

    Sporting a storyline that ties into the original and adds great depth to the universe, Reach delights on all fronts. It also features the return of the excellent Firefight mode from ODST. If you never caught this one and have always wondered what Bungie did before they made a disastrous deal with Activision, it’s available now with backwards compatibility. Go forth, and enjoy a reminder of how awesome the series once was. 

  • Microsoft’s New Adaptive Controller Makes Xbox Gaming More Accessible Than Ever

    Microsoft’s New Adaptive Controller Makes Xbox Gaming More Accessible Than Ever

    For many gamers, the controller isn’t a portal into another world, but is a hindrance keeping them from enjoying the game. Microsoft seeks to alleviate that problem with their new adaptive controller. Retailing for $100, the adaptive controller looks pretty simple at a glance. The front face sports two big buttons and a directional pad. There are a few menu buttons, and some USB ports. It looks incomplete. And that’s purposeful, because it kind of is incomplete before its end-user gets their hands on it.  

    Accessibility Through Adaptivity 

    On the side of the controller are a series of 3.5mm jacks, each wired to be an Xbox controller button. This might seem very odd to some readers. Why 3.5mm jacks? What is this? The Adaptive Controller is an officially sanctioned version of something many gamers have been using for some time now. Accessibility rigs like this one have been the norm for years for limited mobility gamers, using 3.5mm jacks to customize their experience. Binary, on-off buttons are commonly plugged into the jacks to act as different controller inputs. Some of the jacks even support standard-style josticks. The adaptive controller also sports two side USB ports.  

    One Size Does Not Fit All 

    By releasing an eminently-customizable controller and making no assumptions about the end-user, Microsoft has made something truly special. Officially recognizing the existence and unique struggles of mobility-limited gamers is refreshing. Many hospitals and non-profits have been helping gamers with rigs like this for some time. Seeing it officially condoned and supported by Microsoft is truly exciting for the future of accessibility in gaming.  The unassuming adaptive controller will certainly be a boon to those gamers who want to enjoy their experience without a standard controller holding them back. 

    Adaptive Controller Affordability 

    By making this type of controller widely available for this price, Microsoft changes the game for limited-mobility gamers. Custom-built rigs like this are often prohibitively expensive. Broadened Horizons, a hardware maker, is somewhat similar to the Xbox Adaptive Controller, but has no large face buttons out of the box. It actually requires several add-ons to match the XAC’s functionality. Microsoft has certainly changed the face of this type of technology. The XAC will be compatible out of the box with all Xbox One systems, and a tiny bit of set-up gets it rolling on most Windows PCs. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come, and more accessibility options will be opened up because of this first step. 

  • Xbox One X is a 4k Beast

    Xbox One X is a 4k Beast

    The Xbox one X is the world’s most powerful gaming console. With 40% more power than any other console, experience immersive true 4K gaming. Games play better on Xbox One X. This is the Xbox One enhanced for true 4k gaming.

    The Great

    • 4k gaming and content
    • 4k native content and High Dynamic Range (HDR)
    • Digital 5.1,
      TrueHD with Atmos
    • Liquid Cooled
    • Plays the best games of the past, present and future
    • Stream and record clips in 4K resolution at 60FPS
    • Built-in Blu-ray player

    The Not

    • Xbox Gold subscription required $69
    • 1TB HDD fills up fast

    The Conclusion

    The X Box One X is one of a kind. You will feel fully immersed in the game as you play. With 4K resolution, the colors are brighter, whites appear whiter, blacks appear blacker with great contrast. and you can see differences in detail that truly bring the image and experience to life.  The console will revert to a still brilliant 1080p if you don’t have a 4K resolution. If you have a high end HD or 4k TV and are not sure yet if you should get it, just do it, you won’t regret it.

    I got very excited watching the Microsoft Xbox E3 2017 press Release, They said the Xbox One X is  ‘the most powerful console’ Microsoft ever made, like a monster in the gaming world. I also happened to be needed a new game console, since my day one Xbox One seems to be unexplainably hosing up. As an avid life long casual gamer, I’ve been waiting for the Xbox One X system to be released every since news of its inception. When offered an opportunity to test out the system, I quickly jumped on the opportunity.

    Tech Upgrades

    I’m really impressed and surprised at how much power Microsoft has managed to squeeze into the Xbox One X’s small case. The Xbox One X boast a new processor bulking up its power out put.  They used the Scorpio Engine with  6 Teraflops, 326GB/s of Memory Bandwidth and advanced, custom silico. Unquestionably is the world’s most powerful console gaming processor. That’s nearly two teraflops more than the PS4 Pro, a faster CPU, and 3GB more of overall RAM. The Xbox One X comfortably outperforms the PS4 Pro. On hardware alone, it’s smaller, more powerful, and even includes a 4K Blu-ray player over its PS4 Pro rival.

    4k Gaming

    The Xbox One X has the power and the peripherals to provide the best gaming experience, but you need the right games.   Most games made for the Xbox One are designed for 1080p TVs, which have a quarter of the pixels found on a new 4K TV. The Xbox One X is more than four times faster than the original Xbox One, so it’s capable of 4K gaming.Some games like Forza Motorsport 7 will offer the best of all worlds: 4K, HDR, and 60fps. Its still early and the ultimate content will follow. You can tell by the “games and apps” menu that lets you sort by “Xbox One X Enhanced Games.” Doing this doesn’t tell you exactly how each game you have installed is enhanced, but at least Microsoft leaves players without a doubt that, yes, your game has (or has not) been patched with Xbox One X in mind.

    The Final Thought

    This isn’t the next gen system we need, its the console we deserve. You’re not just getting the Xbox One version with more pixels and a grimy suite of dated visual niggles, It is the monster promised. The only thing to consider is you need a high end 4k TV to make any difference over the One S.