Hi,

I’m about to get an Xbox 360 and a Samsung DLP LED 61” HDTV. I have lots of old Xbox games I would still like to play (Halo 2, Ninja Gaiden Black, GTA games, Panzer Dragon…). I’m also thinking of getting some old but great Xbox games that I never played such as Jade Empire, Star Wars KOTOR and Mercenaries and play them on the 360. I like to ask are those xbox games worth playing on the 360? Do they all run smoothly and look better or is it hit and miss?

I read the 360 converts the old Xbox game to 720p. Does this mean playing the xbox game on the 360 on a DLP HDTV avoids the lag problem? I’m just wondering if I should keep my old Xbox and tube TV.

Thanks

I was in pretty much the same boat...got a 360 and wanted to play some of the classic xbox 1 games.

Be warned, I don't know if this goes for all old xbox games, but if you are online and have Halo in, it will update the game and it'll run in 4:3. Not a gigantic deal but I probably would have gotten offline every time I played it if I had known it was going to do that.

I've been happy with the backwards compatibility.

Don't forget to buy a copy of Psychonauts!


http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/backwardcompatibilitygameslist.htm

I would keep your original xbox (or buy another one) if you plan on picking up old games. I had some favorites like Ghost Recon 2 which was "compatible" yet unplayable on the 360 IMO.

Games like Halo2 work perfectly, but I think that's the exception.

Now is the best time to own the original xbox because new games are dirt cheap. For example, I picked up battlefield 2 for something like $5 on sale! Just crazy cheap. I also play COD3 on it, though the 360version is noticeably more detailed (duh).

You can still find brand new xboxes on ebay for around $100-120.

I bought Ninja Gaiden Black, Star Wars Battlefront 2 and Halo 2 to play on my 360.
Halo2 works great. Havent popped in Ninja Gaiden or Star Wars yet :)
-Evangelo2

I play SW Battlefront from time to time on it. I picked up Episode III for $7, and I've played that. Sid Meir's Pirates also gets played from time to time.

The 360 scales and applies antialiasing to original Xbox games. So old games look better than ever on the 360. Check this graphics comparison at GameSpot (http://www.gamespot.com/features/6140654/index.html?tag=result;title;6). Great games hold-up so I think it is definitely worth it to pickup games you never played through. I just played Psychonauts again on the 360 and it was better than ever.

Thanks for the links and suggestions. The Gamespot page was great to see the difference. Now I’m excited about getting my HDTV and playing the old games on the 360. I will keep my old xbox for insurance. I agree with some you on loading up old xbox games for the cheap right now. That’s exactly what I’m doing. There are just so many more great games on the xbox versus 360 right now. If I wasn’t getting an HDTV, I wouldn’t even get a 360 right now.

Here is a list of xbox games I currently have or plan on getting. What you think?

Halo
Halo 2
Ninja Gaiden Black
Forza Motorsport
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Panzer Dragoon Orta
Grand Theft Auto Trilogy
Black
MechAssault 2 Lone Wolf
Mercenaries
Max Payne 2
Sid Meier's Pirates
The Punisher
Jade Empire
Star Wars KOTOR
Psychonauts

I think the old games look much better on the 360. I have my old box modded for a media server. Only a few of my games are not bc.

While Xbox 1 games certainly look better on the 360, there are still some games that don't completely work. I get sound bugs in Shenmue II, but I got an import of the game for the Dreamcast so that's where I'll be playing it from now on. :D

You'll have to be wary of potential bugs when trying to emulate original Xbox games on the 360. They may look perfect, but there could very well be other stuff going on.

I'm still waiting patiently on them to release a patch so that I can play Godzilla on my 360

I'm still waiting for the original Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball. They made DOA 2: Ultimate backward compatible, they're basically the same graphics engine, and DOA:X 2 has come down drastically in price over the last several weeks/months, so it can't be making much money any more.

Thanks for the links and suggestions. The Gamespot page was great to see the difference. Now I’m excited about getting my HDTV and playing the old games on the 360. I will keep my old xbox for insurance. I agree with some you on loading up old xbox games for the cheap right now. That’s exactly what I’m doing. There are just so many more great games on the xbox versus 360 right now. If I wasn’t getting an HDTV, I wouldn’t even get a 360 right now.

Here is a list of xbox games I currently have or plan on getting. What you think?

Halo
Halo 2
Ninja Gaiden Black
Forza Motorsport
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Panzer Dragoon Orta
Grand Theft Auto Trilogy
Black
MechAssault 2 Lone Wolf
Mercenaries
Max Payne 2
Sid Meier's Pirates
The Punisher
Jade Empire
Star Wars KOTOR
Psychonauts

Of those games, I've tried Halo, Halo2, Forza Mortorsport and Black. All look and play great and really benefit from the upscaling that the 360 performs on Xbox 1 games. The following games are BC and also look and play really well, IMHO:

Doom 3
Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil
Outrun 2
Batman Begins (yes, Batman Begins)
Justice League Heros
Burnout 3: Takedown

All run in widescreen and play very smoothly (with the exception of some minor slowdown in Justice League when fighting some bosses).

Max Payne 2 works great on the 360...love that game! Best to play that when you're going to work through it and finish it in a few days (or hours depending on how you play). That way you get the most from the storyline.

The 2nd time you finish it the ending changes, btw.

of course it's worth it; play KOTOR for sure, my fav game ever

try going down gamespot's highest rated xbox games list

and i'm not sure what the guy two posts above me is smoking

Get RallySport 2. It's an amazing game and the graphics are still pretty good.

Don't forget Morrowind; both the original and GOTY work and I've had less lockups on 360 than the original.
Breakdown is also a very good game you can find dirt cheap out there. Its a pretty unforgiving play but it has a very good story to it.
Justice League Heroes works very good and since it supported 720p on the old XBOX it looks great on 360.

I think, to answer the OP's quesiton, is yes: Absoultely get those games at $5 to $10 bucks used and have a ball. I just picked up Ninja Gaiden for #7 bucks and a few other games.

However, if you still have your original xbox, there are more than a few games that are great, but not yet on the BC list....something to keep in mind.

PS: The only game I ever found really unacceptable on BC was NFS Underground 2, which just played a little too slow for my tastes (it lost some frames being emulated on the 360..but man it looked great). :)

I'm playing through Halo 2 on 360 now and I have to say, it looks awesome. Hardly last-gen at all. It runs silky-smooth, too. GET IT!

Geat suggestions for games. I actually have a lot of these on my PC already. But I will still get some them for the xbox anyway. I think it will be cool to play them on the 360 and see them on the large screen HDTV without the hassle of hooking up my PC to the TV.

Speedy - you MUST play Burnout 3: Takedown! You will thank me! (Play it on either system? Not sure about it's BC status - it is awesome!) By the way, any HDTV will upscale the Xbox output to 720/768/1080 or whatever - some scale better than others. However with the 360 output you do get a little bit of anti-aliasing, as has been mentioned. This is most noticable in still scenes, so for fast action (like Burnout 3!!) it's not as critical from what I've seen. Have fun man - I love getting $5 Xbox games!

Good list by the way. Add Phantom Dust.

I've never even heard ot Phantom Dust. I found it on Amazon cheap so I will give it a try. Thanks.

I am suprised no one has mentioned Abes Oddworld. Easily one of the best games for Xbox, and one of the first to come out. I remember preordering that stuff!

Mo!

when i get my 360 back from repairs i'll have to give some of the older compatible games another shot.

did a system update improve the picture quality of the scaling? it's been over a year since i've tried it, but i remember the black levels looking really washed out on the old Xbox games when played on a 360.

if not mentioned already, don't forget Fable.

I was in the same boat... skipped the box last gen and stuck with the station, so this gen I'm on the box and skipping the station.

BC has been nice, since I finally got to play a couple of games that were exclusives. But I'm still waiting for the original Mechassault. :)

Jade Empire worked like a charm.
Fable crashed... and ring of red'ed my first 360. I'm not putting it in my replacement just yet (too busy bioshocking) (let me add that I'm not sure if it was my system dying that caused the crashing, or vice versa... so YMMV)
Halo2 worked well enough for me, since I'm not Live-Gold, only Live-Silver
Mechassault 2: LoneWolf was great.

all these were very playable (and good enough looking, all things considered) on my 50' 720p sammy DLP.

I'm working through KotOR II on my 360 Elite, and while it plays reasonably well I hear a fair amount of audio hiccups and see some framerate issues. Gameplay freezes during some battles.

Well, I didn't think they would make my favorite game compatible with the 360 : Dai Senryaku VII: Modern Military Tactics

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/d/daisenryakuvii/details.page/

I'm in heaven. This is a great game if you are into these type games.

I'm still waiting for X-Men Legends 2 to be BC.

Well, I didn't think they would make my favorite game compatible with the 360 : Dai Senryaku VII: Modern Military Tactics

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/d/daisenryakuvii/details.page/

I'm in heaven. This is a great game if you are into these type games.
Another game I've never heard of. I love the old X-COM games for the PC, so I'm going to pick this one up. Amazon has it cheap.

Black, Crimson Skies, Fable are all good BC games. Hulk: Ultimate Destruction is kind of Crackdown like and runs at 720P.

did they fix Fable? the last time I ran it on my 360 (December of '06) the framerate kept dropping down to like 10 every few seconds and the game was unplayable for the most part.


games like jade empire, NGB, kotor 1+2, mercenaries, max payne 2, psychonauts, phantom dust, etc. are all amazing games and you should pick them up.

i only wish they would update red dead revolver. there are these huge artifacts that flash all over the screen and it totally ruins the game. /sigh

I LOVE Mercenaries - it was one of my favorites on the original Xbox. But I have problems with it randomly freezing on my 360. At this point you're 3 months out from Mercs 2 coming out for the 360. I'd hold off on the original unless you get get it dirt cheap. It's a great (FUN!) game, but the freezing is really annoying - especially since the save points are done in one of 2 ways - either A) manually or B) automatically after you complete "card" missions. So it's really easy to be playing just for fun for quite a while only to have it lock up and you lose a lot of progress. (side missions, $$$, etc...)

Is there a way to transfer old save games from original Xbox to 360?

Thought I'd revive this thread to ask about Jade Empire.

I'd heard that playing the Xbox original on the 360 had some major issues. I saw the game for sale for $7 at GS, but I wanted to be sure the game runs fine on 360 first.

Anyone know first-hand?

I was in pretty much the same boat...got a 360 and wanted to play some of the classic xbox 1 games.

Be warned, I don't know if this goes for all old xbox games, but if you are online and have Halo in, it will update the game and it'll run in 4:3. Not a gigantic deal but I probably would have gotten offline every time I played it if I had known it was going to do that.

Its supposed to, Halo isn't widescreen capable. It will only fill a widescreen display through stretching, which it sounds like it was initially doing before MS updated the emulation of it. Just do it through your television if you want it to fill the screen.

A person recommended Outrun 2. But it runs with problems such as frame rate hiccups that aren't there when played on the real system, longer load times than normal, and graphical glitches in the classic Outrun arcade game included.

And someone else recommended RalliSport Challenge 2, which while a great game, isn't backwards compatible.

I love how the xbox games look on the 360. Still a few that aren't bc, but overall I am very happy.

Problem is three things:

1. Wear and tear on the 360. We all know not to press your luck.
2. Saved levels and goodies that have to be re-earned on the 360.
3. Trade-in on an Xbox is $20. Certainly little if any resale also.

I'll play Forza and H2 on the 360 if I'm in the mood for a little more eye-candy.