Category: Xbox 360 to One BC

So….we had a major drop this week in terms of backwards compatibility.  76 games in all including Xbox 360 games, Xbox Original, Games that were Physical releases, digital releases and everything in between.  The full list from just Monday is below with notes regarding their physical and digital (with pricing) status.  I also updated the main list which is right here.  – Main List

There are a lot of great games here, most of which I would have never expected.  Binary Domain, the FEAR series, the Max Payne series, a couple of Mortal Kombats, NIER, Risen 1 & 2, Sacred 2, more Star Wars Games, Timesplitters, and One freaking chanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad.  Yes I own that.

Outpost Kaloki X which was a ridiculous fun little strategy game is on the list.  If you were paying attention to me during my numerous articles back when weekly BC adds were a thing, I stressed that you should have already bought a copy of Xbox Arcade: Volume 1 Unplugged on disc.  It’s cheap, goes for $5 to $10 and there were already 4 BC games (Hardwood Backgammon, Geometry Wars, Bejeweled 2, and Texas Hold Em) on this thing.  Well here is one more, tested it on Monday and it has no issues at all.  Now if I can just remember how to play the darn thing, I’d be set.

I always told myself I would get around to playing games like Conan (on sale for $5.99 at the Xbox Store this week btw), Max Payne 3 (remember this one has a ton of FREE DLC) and NIER all of which have been on my backlog longer than some of you have had your driver’s license.  Well I no longer have an excuse.  I might be adding a few more as well with the likes of The First Templar, Risen, and a 50 Cent game of all things.  I had to also laugh and chuckle at RAW – Realms of Ancient War which has been on sale about 20 times and how many times I passed over it because I didn’t think it would be BC.  I was wrong.

However, I would be amiss if I didn’t mention some of the bad from this drop.  There is no Saboteur, no Gun, no Two Worlds, no Risen 3 (which seems a bit odd considering 1 & 2 made it through).  Certainly there are titles missing that would have been nice.  I mean, were people really clamoring for Chicken Little and Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?  But BC has always been full of questionable choices.

Second, not everything works.  I’m having a problem with TimePilot right now.  It shows that I own it on the Xbox Marketplace page (and I certainly remember buying and playing it), but wants me to pony up the $5 on my Xbox One.  I even tried installing it from my app on my phone and then when I try to start it, it’s looking for a license.  I have contacted Xbox Support on that one and still waiting for an answer. I’ve heard that Elements of Destruction and Warlords have had similar issues.

Screwjumper! is on the list and was previously only available digitally.  But now, it’s not even available which means only people who bought it previously will get to replay it.  If you are into TrueAchievements stats, that’s a grand total of 236 people on that service who have played it.  Not a whole heck of a lot.  Also there was an announcement earlier this week that the Skate 2 online servers would be closing.  That is such an Electronic Arts announcement if I ever heard one.  The Max Payne 3 servers also closed in September which is when I pretty much gave up on the game and basically discontinued half of the achievements.   So much for new players discovering that one.

Overall, I realize I am nitpicking just a tiny bit.  But then, this is what I lived and breathed for years and it was nice really to just reflect on this wonderful thing we call Backwards Compatibility.  It also made me sad because it’s also been confirmed by numerous sources that this is the LAST DROP.  Out with one big push and then we are done, back to work on other things.  Anyway, take a look at the list, I tried to provide as much information as possible and hopefully you’ll find as much enjoyment as I did writing about it.  Take care and enjoy.

(if you are ready this thru the summary, please click the continue Reading link for the full table)

Continue reading “Xbox Backwards Compatibility News for November” →

About 2 1/2 years ago, I wrote about the final batch of 360 and original Xbox games going backwards compatible. I thought I had closed down that chapter of this site and that’s when the site started changing into more of a blog and review site. I wasn’t bagging out weekly reports anymore, and honestly content has never quite been the same despite my efforts otherwise.

Well, October was an interesting month for backwards compatibility. There were a couple of articles that I am linking here for you to read about.

Strange MS Store activity could suggest new backwards compatible OG Xbox games

A lot of news to absorb here, the first being that we should be getting actual official news on new titles in November, just a few days away. The second being that titles from OG games are popping up on the Xbox store which usually is an indicator that they will become BC.

Dead or Alive 3, Dead or Alive Ultimate, Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers, Gladius, Gunvalkyrie, Advent Rising, and Chicken Little were found in the MS Store in their original form as placeholders which used to be a sign that BC was coming for those titles.

The Dead or Alive games are always exciting (outside of the obvious male reasoning) but Gladius was an interesting tactical rpg that I will certainly look into.  Advent Rising and Gunvalkyrie were third person shooters that probably don’t get a lot of love but are worth looking into.  The two least worthy titles are probably Full Spectrum Warrior and well, Chicken Little.  Chicken Little could very well be just a red-herring and that Xbox was testing something.  Hopefully the others are legit.

And then this article today:

Two more Xbox 360 titles spotted on Microsoft Store with backwards compatibility IDs 

The first game mentioned was The First Templar, a hack and slash adventure that from the looks of it was a decent amount of fun and even had a piece of DLC in the Arena.  It is available both digitally ($14.99) as well as physically (an used copy should run you about $10).  As someone who plays a LOT of hack and slash, I’m really surprised I haven’t at least given it a try.

The second game is Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?  which I hope is something of a joke.  Not that I don’t support all BC because I do…but come on.  It’s not available digitally at the moment and physical copies vary wildly in price from $10 to $25 and higher.  Are people really paying rare prices for Jeff Foxworthy gameshow adaptations?  Anyway, I’ll probably try to grab First Templar at some point.

Hopefully this is a continuing trend and I am excited about the potential come November.  While most would agree that these are some odd titles, I don’t expect the actual releases to be all that mainstream.  All of the truly mainstream and sought after titles are already backwards compatible.  I mean, sure I am still wishing for Saboteur, Max Payne 3, Gun, or the Two Worlds games, but at this point of the game I would be just happy for a new batch of titles to discuss.  Stay tuned as I will certainly follow this and report as soon as I know more.  Take care and enjoy.

Peggle 2 as I predicted is ticking me off.  It’s not that it is too hard or taxing my fingers, it’s just the headaches have returned and I’m begging for it to be over.  I only have half a dozen objectives left and then I can call it quits but I’m trying to do so before the New Year.  Then I can put it away for a very long time unless the DLC goes on sale for a $1 or something (which hopefully isn’t for six months at least)

I did play Skyrim for a hot minute over the past week, pick pocketing and sneaking my way to level 5.  Once a thief, always a thief.  I think I shot a few arrows too, it’s amazing how fluid this game is on Xbox One X.  I don’t think I ever want to go back to Xbox 360 for that particular game even if I have a ridiculous high level save there.  I have no idea how long it will take me to get even close to what I was on the 360 version but playing it here and there seems to be the best idea.

I did get a few games for Christmas including Control Ultimate Edition, Cyberpunk 2077 and Cloudpunk.  Obviously, I’ll wait on Cyberpunk as I see no reason to throw myself into bug hell.  I do have confidence it will turn out to be an amazing game (and I pity those who jumped off the bridge so quickly and got refunds), but I also believe that it will be about six months before we get there.  Control and Cloudpunk are already pretty well vetted and mostly bug free so I imagine I would play one of those first.

If you are looking for sales, then be sure to visit the following link for this week.

https://majornelson.com/2020/12/28/this-weeks-deals-with-gold-and-spotlight-sale-plus-the-countdown-sale-2/

There really isn’t much to be had that’s new (since this is the last week of the Countdown sale) on the 360 side.  A good point of interest is that the DLC for ArcaniA(not backwards compatible) is on sale.  The Raven DLCs (also not BC) are also on sale if you never got around to finishing those.  On the Xbox One side, there is as usual tons to go through but I’m kinda taking a look at Bear with Me which for the complete collection is under $5 now (and I do have Microsoft Rewards to burn).  On the retro end but updated for Xbox One, I do want to make a quick mention and remind you that Doom 64 is still only $1.49 for the rest of the week.  It’s normally only $5 but at that price, it’s easily worth the nostalgia trip.  Have a great New Year week and Enjoy.

Still playing through Peggle 2, I’m about 40 optional objectives away from completion.  And it’s started, the I’ve played this level five times and can’t quite get this objective.  Which is what I didn’t want to happen because the headaches started.  So, I will probably be using the bug to get through the rest of them fairly soon.  As mentioned previously, I did the 360 version 100% clean and hated myself for it.  2020 has been a messed up year and I really don’t care how I finish certain games and Peggle 2 is certainly one of them.

2020 has been such a messed up year that last night I finally decided to start Skyrim on Xbox One due to game pass.  Now keep in mind, I actually own the Xbox 360 Legendary Edition, the Xbox One version w/steelbook, the giant three hardback set of the “Histories”, two different hardback guides, the hardback art book, the signed by the composer 4-cd soundtrack set, and I even have a freaking Skyrim blanket that I got on Gamestop clearance a while back (which my son has claimed and uses to turn his figures into “Venomized” versions of their former selves, I’m not making this up).  So you would think I play the game all the time.  Well I did for roughly about 3 years off and on from 2012 to 2015 on the 360.

However, I had never played the Xbox One special edition.  I knew it would be a time suck, I very well knew it could be the only game I could touch for the next 6 months without batting an eye.  But I did it anyway.  Playing it on the Xbox One came so naturally, even after not touching it for 5 years, I could still pick locks with little to no effort.  I played a Dark Elf (cause I almost always play Elves given the opportunity) and had fun getting through the first quest.  And true to form, I even pick-pocketed the guy that was guiding me (hey I needed arrows!).  Like I didn’t miss a step.  I need to work on my sword play, but then I always stuck to stealth and arrows when I played the 360 game too.

Anyway, I could go on for days about Skyrim.  You want sales, we got sales.

https://majornelson.com/2020/12/21/this-weeks-deals-with-gold-and-spotlight-sale-plus-the-countdown-sale/

Actually, I already participated in the sales.  Got Life is Strange complete edition and then went over to NewEgg and got codes for Sleeping Dogs, Life is Strange: Before the Storm (deluxe) and Shadow of the Tomb Raider (deluxe) since they were about 50 to 60 cents cheaper than Xbox store counterparts.  Much like Skyrim, I know I’ll play Sleeping Dogs again.  Life is Stranges were bought because I have the limited editions and don’t really feel like opening them up if you catch my drift.  Shadow of the Tomb Raider looked fun from the gameplay video I saw.  There really isn’t much from a 360 point of view as all of the titles have been on sale before which is unfortunate considering that a large portion of the BC catalog doesn’t go on sale, ever.  However, be sure to take a look and hope you find something that you are wanting.  Have a great Christmas Week/Happy Holidays.  Enjoy.

To be honest, I did not do much video gaming this past week.  You would think with the holidays coming around I would have a little less to do.  Actually that’s the far opposite and I’ve been feeling about as stressed when it comes to my actual job more than ever.  I hope it smooths out in the coming year because I’m not sure I can keep up the pace for very much longer if you catch my drift.

Anyway, I did play a little bit of Peggle 2 as I try to complete optional objectives and 100% the Xbox One version (minus the DLC which I have no interest in).  I’m hesitant to start another game before the end of the year and try to focus on and see if I can complete anything that’s open (like Broken Sword V).  But as I mentioned I have very little energy, even on the weekends because of the overwhelming stress.  It’s frustrating.

We do have some sales this week however, but not too many.

https://majornelson.com/2020/12/14/this-weeks-deals-with-gold-and-spotlight-sale-190/

The Xbox One sales are smaller than usual and the Xbox 360 is virtually non-existent except for Call of the Juarez and the almost usual Bound by Flame, Faery and RAW (last of which is not backwards compatible).  Spiders (who put out Bound by Flame and Faery) do know how to make a good RPG so don’t be put off by the near bottom barrel pricing.  Have a great rest of the week and enjoy.

Well, I 100% NHL 94 Rewind, and in fairly easy fashion as well.  The only tough part was the achievement where you had to actually be behind with 3 minutes to go, then pull your goalie and win the game.  The problem was that I played so effortlessly (from the tons of hours of playing the original), that losing on purpose was actually hard at first before I remembered I could skate basically into my own net.  After that, it only took a few tries to make it happen.  I did have a good chuckle at all of the comments that said it was hard to score in this game.  Apparently they weren’t old enough to remember this game in the first place and furthermore weren’t aware of the angles that make scoring fairly easy.

Moving on to Peggle 2 for Xbox One.  I have now beat all 60 levels and their 60 trials.  I am over half on the objectives.  That might get completed by Christmas, it might not.  I’m not going to force it and have the headache to go with it.  I kinda want to play River City Girls next, but I looked this up today and realized that River City Ransom actually got a $5 port for Xbox One?  Why do I not have this?  This is my favorite game on the NES of all time.  Even if it takes about as much time as NHL 94 Rewind, it’s still worth the $5 effort (supposedly this is part of a collection on the Switch).

Here are the sales for this week:

https://majornelson.com/2020/12/07/this-weeks-deals-with-gold-and-spotlight-sale-189/

There isn’t too much going on here to be honest.  But I guess there again had to be some sort of let down as we get closer to the actual Christmas holiday.  Far Cry and the usual assortment of Tom Clancy adventures.  On the Xbox One side, unfortunately I’m going to hold out on the Mafia remasters until the UK Trilogy disc gets to a reasonable price (at this point it would still cost me about $50 including shipping to get it here).  UK corporate shipping prices are absolutely ridiculous ever since COVID.  They have absolutely no reason to charge $20 for one game to get shipped here.  My only hope is that some third party seller gets a copy and charges a reasonable price for that service.  Anyway, hope you have a great weekend and enjoy.

Well, over the last week I needed a new game to play and I fell into a trap.  Game Pass now of course has EA Games to play and I spotted Peggle 2.  I figured since I aced the 360 version, let’s do it with the Xbox One version.  Now, while from what I can tell I still have “it” so to speak and have blasted through 40 levels and trials, I forgot how much of a physical headache it causes.  I’m sleeping worse than usual, truth be told.  I really don’t want to go past beating the game and it’s trials if I don’t have to (meaning I have little desire to complete the optional objectives).

Thankfully, to get me out of my rut when I was looking around last night, I saw a wonderful thing.  NHL 94 Rewind.  Full disclosure, I played the living crap out of this game on the Sega Genesis when I was in my college years along with 93, 95, and any NHL game up to about 98 before it got a little “too real” for me.  Now, some 25+ years later, you want to relive that time with achievements?  Sign me the heck up.  And I played it for about an hour last night, and I freaking love it.  Of course, it’s updated with new rosters (no Jaromir Jagr or Mario Lemieux unfortunately) but it still has the same gameplay that I love so much.  I will be 100% this game, and I will love every minute of it.

Anyway, here are the sales for this week – https://majornelson.com/2020/11/30/this-weeks-deals-with-gold-and-spotlight-sale-plus-black-friday-cyber-monday-sale-2/

On the Xbox 360 side, some Far Cry, some old school Assassin’s Creed, some Blood Knights but nothing too much unfortunately.  I guess that is to be expected for the drop off from Black Friday/Cyber Monday.  Note, if you get swayed easy by games that are cheap like Alien Spidy, don’t get it.  It has plenty of broken achievements and apparently isn’t even a good game.  Now, I did buy Anna and it’s pretty decent so you might want to pick it up because it’s not on sale all the time (but it’s not BC though).  On the Xbox One side, I did pick up Eventide Collection because good easy point and clicks are good for me every once in a while.  Anyway, have a good weekend and enjoy.

Well, I was able to nab the final two achievements of Streets of Rogue and I can say it was a much deserved completion.  Not my favorite game of the year, but in the top 5 for sure (still think Sparklite or Yoku’s Island Express are probably my favorite games of the year).  Since then, I haven’t played a thing.  I’ve watched some movies, read some books, and kinda taking a week off along with Thanksgiving.  After November is done, I’m sure I will start on something else but it’s nice to have the break.

Here are the current sales for the week – https://majornelson.com/2020/11/23/this-weeks-deals-with-gold-and-spotlight-sale-plus-black-friday-cyber-monday-sale/

If you sort by DWG (Deals with Gold) which separates the Black Friday sales I mentioned last week, you’ll be able to see the new sales games.  All of the Rayman games are on sale as well as Brothers in Arms along with some non BC games like Omerta and Arcania.  Port Royale 3 is also on sale at $3.99 and BC which isn’t on sale very often so it might be worth the pickup.  But be warned on that game it is a long completion (50-60 hours according to estimates) and it does have three pieces of DLC as well ($2.99 each).

Do not pickup Stacking as it will be a Games with Gold next month.  I unfortunately picked up that game a long time ago and never played a lick of it.  Shame on me I suppose.  Anyway, have a great holiday weekend if you are in the US like me, hopefully others get some fun out of this time of the year as well.  Enjoy.