Essential 360 exclusives

[Sno]

If the PS3 gets one, the 360 should too. So yeah, exclusives that are available nowhere else.

Probably not as many notable exclusives overall, Microsoft has never has as strong of a first-party presence as Sony does on their hardware.

... So, you guys like Halo?

Still, even aside from the obvious ones, there are a fair number of oddball exclusives that are quite good. I'm curious to see what others have to say, but i'll probably jump in with a few of my personal favorites at a later point.

[clyde]

I had a lot of fun with Kodu. It may not be considered an exclusive because they made it free for Windows PCs later, but whatever. It was one of my favorite experiences on the 360. For those who don't know, Kodu is a visual-language game-programmer that was aimed at children. After painting a 3-dimensional landscape, you can put little bots on it and give them protocols with pop-up menus. It can get fairly complex. This was my first experience programming games. When you get familiar with the process of programming their behavior, you can kinda zone out in a cool way and then play your game without worrying about it crashing (and bugs can be entertaining). 

[mikemariano]

Looking through the games Wikipedia claims are Xbox 360 exclusives, the only one I think was unique enough to be essential is 1 vs. 100.

 

A massively multiplayer game show!  It made good use of the Xbox Avatars, and even though most players were just a glorified play-at-home audience shouting at their televisions, it was a unique experience that made it seem like Xbox Live had a lot of versatility to it.

 

Then Microsoft cancelled it because they couldn't paste enough ads on it.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGpCcZoXqGU

[SilentBtAmazing]

Crackdown, Fable, Gears of War series but I am not positive which of those games stayed exclusive.

Personally I think first party stuff is the pits outside Nintendo.

The weirdest game I played and think was exclusive was that 3d Bionic Commando which was psychotically long and janky as hell but for whatever reason made a lasting impression on me.

[tegan]

It may not be considered an exclusive because they made it free for Windows PCs later, but whatever.

 

I have a feeling that this sentence is going to be the soul of this entire thread. It's the reason I still just can't bring myself to buy a 360. If I could, though, I'd get the HD version of Space Invaders Extreme and a little game called Deadly Premonition*.

 

Deadly Premonition is the definition of a system seller. Once you play it, you'll want to go sell your system.

 

 

*note: neither of these are technically exclusive

[Sno]

DEPRESSING CORRECTIONS:

Gears of War came to PC, but hey, its sequels didn't.
The big, awful third-person Bionic Commando reboot came to everything.
Deadly Premonition was exclusive to the 360 only outside of Japan, and still ended up later coming to both Steam and the PS3. (With extra stuff!)
Fable 3 ended up on the PC, but Fable 2 didn't, and Fable 2's the best one!

But hey! That Crackdown, both of those stayed exclusive, and that first one is pretty good. (That sequel, not so much.)

Crackdown didn't invent the open-world superhero(supervillain?) game, but it certainly popularized it.

[Bjorn]

Viva Pinata is a game that I was oddly fascinated with for awhile.  But I think it eventually did get a PC release as well.

[Zeusthecat]

Blue Dragon!! I am one of the few people that loved that fucking game. Along with Lost Odyssey which I mentioned elsewhere.

[Sno]

Viva Pinata is a game that I was oddly fascinated with for awhile.  But I think it eventually did get a PC release as well.

Apparently it did, but the expanded-remake/sequel, Trouble in Paradise, stayed on the 360.

Rare rightly gets a lot of shit for Perfect Dark Zero, it's a terrible game, but mostly everything else they did for the 360 was wonderful. Viva Pinata and Nuts & Bolts are both absolutely terrific games, and i'll even argue for Kameo being a pretty solid and enjoyable Zelda-like adventure game. None of those games really finding an audience, despite some pretty strong marketing pushes from Microsoft, is one of the sadder stories of the 360.

[juv3nal]

NUTS & BOLTS

[Bjorn]

Apparently it did, but the expanded-remake/sequel, Trouble in Paradise, stayed on the 360.

Rare rightly gets a lot of shit for Perfect Dark Zero, it's a terrible game, but mostly everything else they did for the 360 was wonderful. Viva Pinata and Nuts & Bolts are both absolutely terrific games, and i'll even argue for Kameo being a pretty solid and enjoyable Zelda-like adventure game. None of those games really finding an audience, despite some pretty strong marketing pushes from Microsoft, is one of the sadder stories of the 360.

 

That Kameo didn't catch on was a real shame.  It was a good game, with a lot of potential to improve in a sequel.  I've often wondered it if would have done better if it hadn't have been a launch title, but came out a year or so later. 

[Hermie]

Shadow Complex! One of my favourite games this generation.

 

 

 

I wish Infinity Blade didn't make so much money, so that Chair would make another one. =(

[Lu]

The big, awful third-person Bionic Commando reboot came to everything.

 

 

Man, the PC multiplayer of that game is the most fun I've had with a multiplayer game in such a long time. I still think someone should spin that off and make an Unreal Tournament-esque package out of that whole thing. That'd be amazing!

[SecretAsianMan]

I really love Metroid and many Metroidvania games, but for some reason Shadow Complex just didn't click with me.  I didn't really enjoy a lot of it and several things about it I actively hate.  I beat the game and got 100%, but I still don't like it and can't totally explain why.

 

On the other hand, I really loved 'Splosion Man.  There are some really cheap and difficult moments, but I loved that feeling of pulling off a string of sweet 'splosions.  I thought the co-op mode was really great too.  In a way it kind of reminds me of Portal 2, although Portal's puzzles are more of the "stop and think" type while 'Splosion Man's were the "let's just run forward and figure it out as we go" type.  I never played Ms. 'Splosion Man but I think that was supposed to be good too.

[Sno]

I'll start adding to this thread:

For whatever various reasons, it ended up that i've written a lot of words about Dead Rising in a bunch of different threads over the last few weeks, but it's relevant here too. Blue Castle/Capcom Vancouver's Dead Rising 2 and all of its tangent products went multiplatform, but with the exception of a wildly different and absolutely butchered Wii-port, the original Dead Rising has remained on the 360, so it's absolutely one of the 360's most essential exclusive games. (Certainly, at the very least, one of my favorite games on the system.)

I love the tone and the campy Romero-imitative social commentary, i love the eagerly stupid and creative applications of every conceivable object you might try to defend yourself with in a mall - if that mall was swarming with zombies.

I love the way the clock is used, forcing you to make choices about who to leave behind, which supplies you need, and where you most need to be. That time pressure also makes you treat the crowds of zombies as a environmental obstacle instead of a horde of enemies to be slain, it's a pretty unique dynamic that not a lot of other zombie games really have. I appreciate that the game is challenging enough that it forces you to sometimes just start over and tackle the campaign from different angles, exploring its large, sometimes branching quest paths. Additionally, that you're not simply starting over fresh with only knowledge gained, but also retaining mechanical character progression, really emboldens you to take more risks and try to complete more tasks. NPC's that you lost and tasks that you failed start falling into place, it's immensely rewarding.

 

The game also still looks great, it's built on a rock solid foundation and filled with high resolution art in service of locations that are filled with small, interesting details. (Dead Rising 2 may have larger crowds, but i think its environments suffer quite a bit.) The game was also actually a great early application of the achievement system, there's some in that first Dead Rising that are really challenging and fun trying to track down. Frank's camera is awesome too, it's a fun mechanic, and it's clever about how it quietly eggs you on to play Frank like a smarmy opportunist. I can't understand why it hasn't been employed more frequently in the Blue Castle/Capcom Vancouver sequels.

Unfortunately, Dead Rising's control is pretty awkward and terrible, and it doesn't come across like it's in service of pacing the gameplay like the control in RE4 does. It's just really, really awkward. The survivor AI can also be infamously difficult to deal with, but there's really a simple trick that nobody really ever seems to figure out. Set a waypoint at where you want them to go, so that when you go fish them out of a sea of zombies they won't just stand by your side and get munched on again. All of those seemingly frustrating rescue missions will flow much more easily.

Dead Rising 2 pretty much fixes the control, expands on item crafting dramatically, and generally has a much more open environment, but i like the characters and the locations of the first game much more. I'm also pretty confident in saying that it's actually a better looking game than its sequel, and i think the camera is a much more interesting device for earning experience.

[posh_somme]

I'm sorry but I really like Halo 4 and Gears of War 2. I don't really play or like shooters anymore but I had a really fun time with both of those last year when I got myself a 360. I didn't really like Gears 1 or 3 though. I played all 3 on one lonely weekend and Gears 2 happened to be the one I accompanied with a bottle of rum so maybe that was it. basically get Gears 2 and a bottle of rum and play it all in one go. as for Halo 4 i played that game probably more than I played anything else last year, bizarrely. there's a wealth of content and Halo online is still the best online FPS experience on consoles

[JonCole]

Cave brought a lot of weird arcade bullethell shooters to 360 in Japan, played them a while ago while I was visiting my girlfriend's brother-in-law in Kyoto. Otemedius also only came to 360, which I enjoyed despite it only being a mediocre shooter by any metric other than novelty (was my first side-scrolling shooter in a long time).

 

Witcher 2: Enhanced Edition was a console exclusive on 360, which was a great way for non-PC gamers to get a taste of what they were missing.

[Sno]

I'm sorry but I really like Halo 4 and Gears of War 2. I don't really play or like shooters anymore but I had a really fun time with both of those last year when I got myself a 360. I didn't really like Gears 1 or 3 though. I played all 3 on one lonely weekend and Gears 2 happened to be the one I accompanied with a bottle of rum so maybe that was it. basically get Gears 2 and a bottle of rum and play it all in one go. as for Halo 4 i played that game probably more than I played anything else last year, bizarrely. there's a wealth of content and Halo online is still the best online FPS experience on consoles

Halo's entire run on the 360 has been excellent, i think. I put a ton of time into 4 over the course of a few months when it came out and ultimately concluded that, while i really don't like a lot of what comprises the stamp 343 tried to put on it, the core of the game was intact and played incredibly well. (A lot better than Reach, i'd say.) Nevermind that 4 is also an incredibly, implausibly beautiful game. Holy shit, really getting some mileage out of that hardware.

 

 

Cave brought a lot of weird arcade bullethell shooters to 360 in Japan, played them a while ago while I was visiting my girlfriend's brother-in-law in Kyoto. Otemedius also only came to 360, which I enjoyed despite it only being a mediocre shooter by any metric other than novelty (was my first side-scrolling shooter in a long time).

One of the most interesting things about the 360 to me, personally, is the weirdly large array of exclusive 2D shooters it ended up with. I mean, and for every one that somehow ended up being released in the west, there were three or more that stayed in Japan. Luckily, some of the ones that did find their way out over here are actually really, really fantastic. (No... Not... No... No Otomedius. No. Konami, what did you do to Gradius. Why. Why.)

I would argue that Cave's

is the best non-import 2d shooter on the 360.

 

[SecretAsianMan]

I'm sorry but I really like Halo 4 and Gears of War 2. I don't really play or like shooters anymore but I had a really fun time with both of those last year when I got myself a 360. I didn't really like Gears 1 or 3 though. I played all 3 on one lonely weekend and Gears 2 happened to be the one I accompanied with a bottle of rum so maybe that was it. basically get Gears 2 and a bottle of rum and play it all in one go. as for Halo 4 i played that game probably more than I played anything else last year, bizarrely. there's a wealth of content and Halo online is still the best online FPS experience on consoles

 

I personally prefer ODST, but the Halo series in general is some of the best fun to be had on a 360.  I'm still incredibly impressed by the amount and quality of the player tools the later Halos made available to both create and capture gameplay.

 

I can also understand liking Gears of War.  The first Gears was the game that convinced me to buy a 360.  I sunk a lot of time in Gears 2 horde mode.  As much as that series is mocked, they were a lot of fun to play.

[JonCole]

I'm also a big sucker for Gears of War books, as they were written by the prolific former Star Wars EU author Karen Traviss. Added a whole extra level of enjoyment for the games in my mind, and Karen Traviss has even come on to be a story writer for the games in the most recent iterations. She's what gives me hope for future GoW games, because she built out a really interesting universe that a lot of people know very little about but could enjoy through gameplay.

[feelthedarkness]

I haven't played it, but I really liked Ninja Gaiden for the Xbox 360, and NG2 was a 360 exclusive. The first one was pretty hard.

[Salacious Snake]

I have a feeling that this sentence is going to be the soul of this entire thread. 

Yeah, I was going to post Space Giraffe, but it came out for Windows later. Still, there was something special about being there at release for the 360 with the leaderboards heating up, and it's the only game for which I've gone out of my way to attain all the achievements. 

 

I love everything about the original Dead Rising. Seeing stuff about the thirdish one has made me want to go back and replay it.

 

I would consider the Dance Central series essential. It's the one thing I miss about having a large enough space for Kinect. It's unbelievably fun, and it smartly accounts for the limitations of Kinect. It's fun to practice songs on your own, challenging yourself to nail the trickier moves on the higher difficulty levels*, but as a party game it's just off the fucking chain.

 

(*and by "nail" I mean figure out what the Kinect is looking for and do it, not necessarily perform a dance move in a way that looks coordinated.)

 

I haven't played it, but I really liked Ninja Gaiden for the Xbox 360, and NG2 was a 360 exclusive. The first one was pretty hard.

I think the first game (of the modern series) was on the original Xbox, not the 360. A rad game for sure.

[Professor Video Games]

Geometry Wars 2 is great. And though I only played a little bit of it, Bionic Commando Rearmed is highly recommended by a lot of people. Did Mass Effect 1 (the best one) ever come out for PC?

[Salacious Snake]

Geometry Wars 2 is great. And though I only played a little bit of it, Bionic Commando Rearmed is highly recommended by a lot of people. Did Mass Effect 1 (the best one) ever come out for PC?

Bionic Commando Rearmed and Mass Effect were on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows.

 

Both are games I'd highly recommend.

 

The best thing in Rearmed is the competitive multiplayer mode. Don't touch the floor! So good. It would make a good Idle Thumbs stream.

[clyde]

It came out for Windows Vista PCs and the 360, but the competetive FPS, Shadowrun defined my Video game experience for 2007. It was before I followed any video-game news and we had just been gifted an xbox 360. With the exception of Planetside, I had little experience with online gaming at the time. When we got the 360 and I found out that you could download demos for free from the marketplace, I started playing every one of them. The Shadowrun demo came out that summer and I tried it out of curiosity, knowing very little about the source material. The demo was a one map, multiplayer, assymmetrical capture-the-flag game with half of the abilities and weapons available. I had never played anything like it. I played that demo for two days straight and the bought a copy new. It was an amazing game. It was at a time when voice-chat with randoms was common and we talked and played a lot. The potential builds of your characters made various play-styles possible. I loved being a troll with a shotgun, tree of life and teleport. It was especially good for me because my dexterity is low and the troll cannot move fast. Everything you do as the troll has to be deliberate and confident. A lot of people played as teleporting ninja elves who were fucking evil, regardless of whose side you were on. They would teleport through a wall after using enhanced vision to see that you were there, and then they would slash you in the back with a katana and teleport away to let you eventually bleed out under a tree.

The resurection system and the trees of life ensured team-play. The best moments were the 5-5 win matches where one amazing player had rezzed their entire team and lost all their magical abilities because they were being used to keep them alive. Often, when someone was out of the game (you didn't respawn until the round was over or someone rezzed you) that's when tey would turn on the mic. So you'd have half the team rezzed by one person, and then the other half of the team spectating and giving advice. Someone would katana the top of the zombie chain and they'd start bleeding out, yelling "Throw a tree! Throw a fucking tree! I rezzed the entire team!" and then one of the zombie-players would try running the flag, knowing that if their rezzer died, then they would start bleeding out too. Man, there were some really intense moment. I've never seen as vocal and team-work orientated community in a FPS since then. There were horrible griefers, but it was worth it.