title WebLog #535 Topic: 2008-04-14 02.09.56 matt: heads up for potential XBox 360 buyers
user matt
ip 64.142.12.187
vol 1
lock ********

A friend of mine just returned his XBox360 and got a PS3 instead. Why?


/more


  He had three XBox games he really liked:
/link http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000A3ON78/104-0246700-0999944?ie=UTF8&tag=matthargettbl-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=B000A3ON78 Evil Dead: Regeneration
,
/link http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00020BV2E/104-0246700-0999944?ie=UTF8&tag=matthargettbl-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=B00020BV2E Mercenaries
, and
/link http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0006SST9U/104-0246700-0999944?ie=UTF8&tag=matthargettbl-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=B0006SST9U  Conker's Bad Fur Day
. All three are supported by the XBox 360's backward compatibility. All three crashed or hung on him during gameplay. This, along with the hardware issues that the 360 is now known for, helped him decide to ditch further irritation and take back the 360. He bought a PS3 instead, since 2 of his favorite XBox games were available on the PS2. He was able to pick up those PS2 games (and a few others) for $3.

He didn't have any issues with the games using the PS3's backward compatibility. He would've picked up a Wii, had more of the games in question been playable via the Gamecube backward compatibility.

He also complained about animation issues in Panzer Dragoon, hangs in Breakdown, and the fact that he couldn't seem to do multiplayer in Crash Nitro Kart. He said not being able to play them again was better than the maddening frustration of wanting to enjoy the games again and having the console "piss all over [him]". One thing that helped his decision was that Metal Gear Solid 2 is emulated on the PS3, but not on the XBox 360 at all -- he didn't care as much about playing the new ones, but now its nice icing on the cake.

Of course, these are all known issues,
/link http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/backwardcompatibilitysupportissues.htm apparently
.

Listening, Microsoft?

Hopefully the next emulation update focuses on stability and the top-requested games. I suspect the other Prince of Persia games will be coming to tie in with the upcoming movie, at least. A sampling of the latest from blog comments and message board requests:

/list(
*Bang for the buck
/list(
*Beyond Good and Evil
*Prince of Persia: Two Thrones
*Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
*Otogi 1
*Otogi 2
*TimeSplitters 2
*TimeSplitters 3
*Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks
*The Warriors
*Destroy All Humans 2
*Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel (based on Baldur's Gate engine)
*Path of Neo
*Enter the Matrix
*X-Men Legends
*X-Men Legends 2
*Wallace & Gromit: Project Zoo
*Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the WereRabbit
*Tak 2: Staff of Dreams
*Tak: The Great JuJu Challenge
/list)

* Loose games
/list(
*Deus Ex: Invisible War
*Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup
*Syberia
*Robotech: Invasion
*Psi-Ops
*Sudeki
*Tao Feng
*Area 51
*Metal Gear Solid 2
*Castlevania: Curse of Darkness
*Second Sight
*The Suffering 2
*Voodoo Vince
*Still Life
*Cold Fear
*Myst IV
*Kung Fu Chaos
*GunValkyrie
*ObsCure
/list)

Besides 'Beyond Good & Evil', which seems to be universally craved by thousands, I've split the list by games whose XBE binaries appear to contain large amounts of similar code. That is, emulating one should make large strides toward emulating the other. These are mostly one-offs from an implementation perspective.

I took the liberty of removing the constantly requested racing and sports games.


/remark You should end with a /discussion !
/dis