The Xbox Legacy 2: Xbox 360

A retrospective and review of the generation defining Xbox 360

After the release of the original Xbox, the relative failure of Nintendo’s fondly remembered Gamecube and the massive cultural impact of the Halo franchise and Xbox Live, it seemed for a little bit there in the mid-2000’s that the industry might have been about to become a two horse race again. Helpfully, in the run up to the launch of the seventh generation consoles, Sony seemed to have learned all the wrong lessons; the PS3 was still a pain to develop for, was bloated with a load of superfluous features to make it seem more powerful and their PS2 dominance-fuelled arrogance caused them to attempt to sell the console at an outrageous price, practically handing the generation to Microsoft’s Xbox 360 on a plate.

In retrospect, we know that the PS3 would go on to marginally out-sell the Xbox 360 and that the Wii sparked a massive fad that led to it outselling both but also fizzling out in relevance by 2010 and yet, I think the gaming community pretty much remembers this time as ‘The 360 Era.’

Was the Xbox 360 the best of its generation? has it left a bigger footprint than the competition? Let’s find out.

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HARDWARE: 3/5 Stars

The Xbox 360 had a load of different models: too many to comprehensively show without filling up the article but I chose to display the original model and the Xbox 360 E just to highlight how different these could be but generally? They all looked good and the console became smaller over time.

But no matter which model of 360 you purchased, 2 things were guaranteed: poor storage and unreliable build quality.

You knew it was coming, I knew it was coming, this is the 360’s famous Achilles’ Heel and even if they did manage to handle the Red Ring of Death within the first couple of years, it still didn’t remedy the fact that every console and accessory bar the gamepad was flimsy, shoddily made junk. During the 360 days, at least one of my online friends would go silent each month because their microphone had broken; I must have had to replace mine 6-7 times a year. On several Xbox 360’s I’ve had the disc tray start sticking in place or the console begin struggling to synch up controllers; worst of all, both me and my friend at the time had our Xbox 360 hard drives brick themselves at one point and I was on the final mission of a Mass Effect 2 Insanity-difficulty playthrough too. This was before the Save Game Cloud so I had to kiss my save goodbye.

I’m still annoyed about that.

To top it off? By the time downloadable Triple-A games became widespread on 360 (around 2011 if my memory serves) the Xbox 360’s storage was rendered woefully inadequate unless you had a newer model or an external solution.

So with all these major issues, why does the Xbox 360 get 3 stars? Well, despite suffering many hardware issues, random breakages and having to replace headsets constantly, I’ve never had a 360 actually die on me. Usually (and this was before I knew how to fix some common hardware issues) I’d get too annoyed at the mounting hardware troubles and get another one; this was and still is a cheap console to buy.

Another reason is the gamepad.

The Xbox 360 controller is the greatest gamepad of all time. The Series-X controller might feel slightly better in the hand but considering one of these is £15 and the other is £70? I’m happy to say the 360’s is better on a value basis alone.

The 360 pad is much smaller than even the Xbox S-type pad, incorporates a rear battery pack for wireless connectivity and scraps the seldom-used black and white buttons while slimming down that oversized Xbox jewel and turning it instead into a home button, with the Start and Select by its sides; the face buttons are moved closer together and the oversized, stiff triggers of the original Xbox S-pad are made a little more wieldy and accompanied by the new LB and RB bumper buttons… which you’ll learn to hate because they they are the parts on your gamepad that always break first.

There’s a reason this controller became the standard design from which all 3rd parties and future pro-controllers were derived, because it’s excellent.

In terms of its actual power? The 360 was behind the PlayStation 3 but this ended up being a non-issue as that console’s difficulty to develop on hindered most titles and even then, the power gap wasn’t very wide; Halo 4 in my opinion is the best looking title on the 360 and it outshines The Last Of Us graphically.

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Picture Was Not Taken By Me

SOFTWARE: 5/5 Stars

The Xbox 360 had fantastic exclusives, the best versions of that generation’s 3rd party games and an online store filled with quirky indie games and exclusive arcade titles. While a lot of its edge has been neutered by the closure of said store and there are a select few PS3 and Wii games I adore, I still think the Xbox 360 represents the very best of 7th generation gaming.

Halo was the biggest franchise in gaming during the mid-late 2000’s and the Xbox 360 was the platform on which it peaked. Halo 3 had a shorter, more balanced and consistent campaign than Halo 2 and while it didn’t meet the same heights as a single-player experience, the addition of Theatre, Forge and the online multiplayer’s abundance of community features meant that as an all round package? Halo 3 is, to this day, the best game in the series; everyone I knew on 360 owned this game, I made friends playing it online that I kept contact with for over a decade and I would later meet in real life, no online experience has ever matched it for me.

The 360 was also a time of experimentation for Halo and it delivered a few spin-offs and a prequel that portrayed the Halo universe in a new light.

Halo 3: ODST was a more noire-themed Halo game with a jazzy soundtrack and open world elements where you played as an ODST stranded in the ruins of New Mombasa: the African city from Halo 2 after nightfall trying to locate your squad mates. The inclusion of a disc containing all of Halo 3’s map packs and the new Firefight horde mode were added bonuses. As well as that, the space of time between Halo 3 and Reach saw the release of Halo Wars: an RTS game set in the early days of the Human-Covenant War and it might not have been the greatest RTS game ever made but it was a great Halo story and extremely enjoyable in CO-OP and in online battles. Finally, in 2010 we got Reach: the last mainline Halo game developed by Bungie and really? The last good Halo game altogether. Reach was a darker, more grounded Halo experience with more complex weapon handling, a muted colour palette and a story that showed the grim lead up to Halo: Combat Evolved and the events of the much referenced Battle of Reach. It doesn’t match the original trilogy in quality and the multiplayer was a big step down from Halo 3 but Reach saw big improvements to Forge and is generally well-remembered to this day.

We don’t talk about Halo 4.

As well as Halo, most Forza fans would probably say that Forza Motorsport peaked on the 360 too with Motorsport 4 and although it wouldn’t hit its stride until the Xbox One, the first Forza Horizon game launched on 360 too along with the original State of Decay which was a real sleeper hit. Now, I’ve never been a big fan of the series but it’s hard to deny the sheer popularity of Gears of War on the 360 as well, that original trilogy of games played out across the 360’s lifespan and it was everywhere, arguably more popular than Halo was by the time Gears of War 3 came around; I can talk all the smack about that series I want but even I have to admit… that Horde mode was the cream of the crop. This was the golden age of Xbox first party titles, Viva Piñata was an addiction of mine for months and while it they’re not masterpieces or anything, Fable 2 and 3 were really fun to piss about in.

Third party titles were also at a high point in this era: probably the best Triple-A gaming has ever been and the Xbox 360 was the place to play them. The 360 got Minecraft before anyone else, unlike PS3’s blurry GTA4 and even more buggy Oblivion, these games worked well on the 360 and the earlier release date of the 360 and the greatly superior online experience meant that a lot of those early 7th generation classics like Lost Planet, GRAW, Hitman: Blood Money and Rainbow Six Vegas also shined on that console.

Notably, Call of Duty peaked in this era too and began to outsell Halo. That run of games from 2008’s World at War to Black Ops 2 in 2012 was absolutely stellar.

Anecdotally too, on the PS3 a lot of the franchises and IP’s I liked as a kid just sort of went AWOL or stagnated, so I never felt the need to buy one until late in its life. Ratchet and Clank just kind of became the same thing every time, Timesplitters died, Jak and Daxter seemed to vanish and while Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots was a technical marvel even back then it had a reputation for being ‘the best film I ever played.’ I really love Killzone 2 and Killzone 3, Yakuza was extremely niche but still rolling along on the PS3 and Uncharted was a great series that came out of the console but at the time these weren’t exactly games I was allowed to own; I’ve tried The Last Of Us before and it just wasn’t for me.

I can’t even begin to list how many great games came out around this time but the list of them that played better on PlayStation 3 is not an extensive one.

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IMPACT: 5/5 Stars

Despite coming a narrow 3rd place in sales, the Xbox 360 was the cultural centre of the 7th generation, to the point where I see most people refer to that generation as just ‘the 360 era.’ I added the above video to this section (created by Crowbcat) just to showcase not only how good we had it but to highlight how, despite most of these games being multiplatform… the PS3 is hardly mentioned. Despite those raw sales numbers and the enduring popularity of games like The Last Of Us and Uncharted, the 360 is still often regarded as the winner.

Xbox Live has become a veritable fountain of memes and nostalgia since those days. Everyone remembers the time they went into an online lobby and verbally ripped to shreds by a bunch of Secondary School kids or the time where they switched to in-game chat just to tell someone how crap they were. More importantly though, Xbox Live and the products offered on the Xbox 360 Marketplace were the blueprint for the online services of all other consoles today. Netflix? 360 had it first, achievements and trophies? The 360 did it first, that console online setup with a premium tier membership? Xbox Live Gold was the original.

The Xbox 360 has left the greatest mark on the industry out of the 7th generation consoles, no question about it.

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MERIT: 4/5 Stars

So, is the Xbox 360 worth buying today? This one’s a bit more tricky to answer.

On one hand, the Xbox 360 and its games are extra cheap, it has both AV and HDMI support so it can be displayed on basically any TV, online play is still accessible (although not many people are still playing and servers for a lot of the big games like Halo 3 are dead) and its games are modern enough to not feel retro and play like modern titles, just with some rough graphics and framerates.

On the other hand, a vast majority of this generation’s games are backwards compatible with future Xbox consoles with boosted performance or have already received remasters; in the case of Halo especially, unless you’re nostalgic for those original Xbox 360 versions like me or a stickler for authenticity, there’s not really a reason to return to the 360 versions since The Master Chief Collection has multiplayer servers for all of them and runs at a crisp 60 FPS. These more recent re-releases are going to be the best option for online CO-OP unless you happen to know other people who both own an Xbox 360 with a copy of the game and are in possession of one of those god-awful old microphones.

If you’re on a budget and aren’t particularly bothered by online features or crisp framerates then grabbing yourself a 360 with a controller is probably only going to set you back around £60-80 and with most games costing £5-15 each, you can very easily build an excellent library and enjoy a hassle-free, offline experience with the option to hop online there but not forced into everything like the later generations.

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SENTIMENT: 100/5 Stars

The Xbox 360 is my favourite video game console of all time.

I get the impression most of my core subscribers view this as a Nintendo-centric Substack and while this is mostly true and the Gamecube was my first home console, I was primarily an Xbox fan until I rediscovered my love for Nintendo later; I’m sorry to have deceived you all, the Isle Delfino Court of Piantas shall decide my fate.

Anyway, the Xbox 360 was there for my most formative years: my main console from around 2009-2014 and shaped my social life and gaming really for the rest of my short, 25 year life so far. As I said before, I met a bunch of people playing halo that I kept playing with for well over a decade after, I made friends after a move to a big new city in 2012 through our shared love of Minecraft on the 360 and the console was also the only means with which I could keep in contact with those I grew up with. When everything else in life changed, the 360 was a stalwart and kept me entertained no matter what.

I can’t think about this console without getting a funny feeling in my stomach and a smile creeping its way up from my heart and onto my face. I remember the day Skyrim came out and rushing home, desperate to play, I remember comparing scores in Batman Arkham Asylum’s challenge modes with my school friend, every lunch time me and some buddies would discuss the previous evening’s Halo 3 matches, new forge maps we were working on and which ones we should play later; don’t even get me started on how many times I played through Mass Effect or Lost Planet 2 with online CO-OP.

I don’t revisit the Xbox 360 that often these days: its best games have better versions on modern platforms and my deserted friends list and dead servers make me feel a really heavy melancholy when I boot up the console but make no mistake, this is the greatest of all time.

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FINAL SCORE: 117/25 Stars