Posts with tag backcompat
Posted Nov 27th 2007 3:00PM by Richard Mitchell
Filed under: News
Seemingly out of nowhere, a backwards compatibility update has been unleashed for the Xbox 360. While there are over 80 new games on the list, the ones that catch our eyes are the numerous sports titles and a few of the Xbox's better dungeon crawlers. These include
Dungeon & Dragons Heroes,
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance,
Hunter: The Reckoning, and
The Bard's Tale. Honestly, we could recommend any of those titles for hours of excellent hack and slash action. You can even find quite a few laughs in
The Bard's Tale, which stars Cary Elwes and is narrated by the late, great Tony Jay. Another title that has finally made the list is
Breakdown, Namco's bold first person experiment. Check out the full list of new titles after the break.
Continue reading Back compat update brings sports, dungeon crawlers
Posted Apr 19th 2007 2:30PM by Richard Mitchell
Filed under: News
Update: As many have pointed out, the list has been official updated with lots of new games including
Soul Calibur II,
Spider-Man 2,
Mechassault 2,
Street Fighter Anniversary Collection, and much more. Follow this link for the fully updated list.
Xbox backwards compatibility updates are few and far between these days. Hell, the
last update was in December. In fact, many feared that the coming of
Physchonauts meant the end of new updates. Rejoice, true believers, for a new back compat update is upon us! Unfortunately, we don't know how many games have been added. In fact, right now the only way to get the update is to download the update, burn it to a disc, and install in manually (we assume it will be available on Live soon). However, we do have confirmation of at least two new titles, including SEGA's
Panzer Dragoon Orta and
Phantom Dust. If you've got the itch for these games, get to downloading. In the meantime, keep your eye on the official backwards compatibility page for the updated list. You can be sure we'll post it when it goes live.
[Via Deeko News]
Posted Dec 14th 2006 7:15PM by Richard Mitchell
Filed under: News
The backwards compatibility update we
reported about yesterday has now come to fruition,
Psychonauts intact. There are some other notable games on the list including
Conker (lots of you were looking for that one yesterday),
Soul Calibur II,
Shenmue II, and
Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit. We're curious to test out
Soul Calibur II, as it supported 720p even on the original Xbox. See the complete list after the break.
Continue reading Back compat update: Conker, Psychonauts!
Posted Dec 13th 2006 10:30AM by Richard Mitchell
Filed under: News
Working in close, yet uncomfortable collusion with Joystiq last night, we unearthed a newly updated backwards compatibility list on Xbox.com. The list has subsequently been zapped back into the nether realm, where it will undergo further transmogrifications. For the brief and precious moment that the new list was alive, we had the presence of mind to both copy
and paste the entire list. Of course, the big question with every back compat update is, "is
Psychonauts on there?" The answer
is was "yes." Other notable titles on the list included
Shenmue II,
Indigo Prophesy,
DOA Ultimate, and
Mortal Kombat: Armageddon. Don't jump for joy just yet, though. When contacted by Joystiq, Microsoft told them that the list is
not final and may yet change. That won't stop us from poring over the list and dreaming, though. Take a gander at the list after the break.
Continue reading Back compat update tomfoolery, Psychonauts
Posted Sep 4th 2006 12:00PM by Ken Weeks
Filed under: News
For the bargain price of $28.99, the smiling crooks at Circuit City will help some gullible soccer mom install "backwards compatibility" on a newly purchased Xbox 360, despite the fact back compat updates are free via Xbox Live (or by mail for those without an internet connection). On a more positive note, a call to my local store confirmed that Circuit City
does not charge Downes Syndrome kids double for all Xbox 360 related purchases. At least not yet.
Posted Aug 28th 2006 8:00PM by Richard Mitchell
Filed under: News
Thank God. See, I gave my old Xbox to my brother and I was just about to fall into a deep, deep depression because I couldn't play
Aquaman on my 360. Lucky for me, the fine folks in Redmond decided it was about time for a new backwards compatibility update. I thought to myself, "could it be?" My eyes furiously scanned the page and my heart leapt at the sight:
Aquaman: Battle for Atlantis is finally BC.
But seriously, folks, the update adds quite a few titles to the 360 roster, including one of my favorites,
Fatal Frame II (still no
Psychonauts, though). See the full list of new or updated games after the break. And a special thanks to Scott, the tipster who made the first of many
Aquaman jokes.
Continue reading Back compat update: finally, Aquaman!
Posted Jul 2nd 2006 2:00AM by Ken Weeks
Filed under: News
Several
Mortal Kombat fansites have banded together and started a petition to get
Mortal Kombat: Deception and
Mortal Kombat: Armageddon added (or in
MK:D's case, re-added) to the ever-growing library of backwards compatible games. I'm pretty cynical about online petitions, but Microsoft actually responds to earnest pleading when it comes to their back compat efforts. By all means sign it if you want to see some fatalities down the road.
[Thanks Patrick]
Posted Jun 15th 2006 7:00PM by Richard Mitchell
Filed under: News
Some strange news about backwards compatibility today. Apparently
The Incredibles (or
Mr. Incredible as it's known in Japan) was added to Japan's backwards compatibility in the recent update. Yet for some reason
The Incredibles is
not on America's list. Is backwards compatible
Incredibles goodness only available to the Japanese? For that matter, does anybody even care? What about Psychonauts? Please?
[Via Siliconera]
Posted Jun 14th 2006 12:15AM by Ken Weeks
Filed under: News
A suddenly compatible Peter Moore issued what you might call a major mea culpa on Major Nelson's latest podcast, wisely backing away from his poorly worded remark that "Nobody is concerned anymore about backwards compatibility. We under-promised and over-delivered on that." Sounding a bit like a prison convert, Moore apologized for the "trauma" his dismissive comments caused gamers and offered this rosy revision:
"Boy, do we care about backward compat[ibility]."..."We're going to get darn close to that stated goal of every title done."
Fortunately, the Xbox boss had some facts to back up his newfound enthusiasm: 20 new back compat titles in the next update, instead of the previously announced 12, including
Doom 3 and
Lego Star Wars.
[Thanks TxdoHawk]
Posted Jun 8th 2006 5:00AM by Ken Weeks
Filed under: News, How-tos
The hills are alive with the sound of reader Josh's musical discovery (unless you already knew about it) concerning old Xbox games:
Because of the "Music volume level persists between game / reboots" fix in the Spring Dashboard update, I found out purely by accident that you can now listen to music while playing XBOX 1 games on the XBOX 360.
Just start up any ol' playlist or a ripped CD and fire up Halo 2 or any other XBOX 1 game that suits your fancy. While the controls won't be there when you hit the guide button, you can still control the action with your 360 remote (if you have one).
Who wouldn't enjoy playing
Halo 2 with "Climb Every Mountain" playing in the background?
Posted Mar 29th 2006 11:30PM by Christopher Grant
Filed under: News, Downloads
The list of backwards compatible games has been updated today (that
last one was a false alarm). The back-compat list had last been updated
way back in December, after which we heard
rumblings that another update wouldn't be released until March.
Microsoft's Cesar Menendez (who I just met at the blogger's breakfast; hey Cesar!)
wrote in January, "The Backwards Compatibility team is still working on adding your title to the list. Just because David Reid said (back in December?!) that they were going on vacation, doesn’t mean that all BC efforts have been halted." I guess they might not have been halted but here we are at the tail end of March getting our first backwards compatibility update in nearly four months.
The good news is:
BLACK,
Star Wars Battlefront II, and
World Soccer Winning Eleven 9 have all been updated to work on the Xbox 360. I guess someone at Microsoft was listening when Alex Ward said
he asked them "four or five times" himself to make BLACK back-compat.
I would really love to see new Xbox games being developed to be backwards compatible right out of the box. Couldn't developers test their games on the Xbox 360 emulator before shipping? Once
Dreamfall comes out I'm gonna have to hook up the old Xbox again.
[Thanks, Matt and Brian]
UPDATE: These previously backwards compatible (and ostensibly buggy) titles have been updated in this release:
- Darkwatch
- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
- Half-Life 2
- Fable
- Fable: The Lost Chapters
- Forza Motorsport
- Ninja Gaiden
- Ninja Gaiden Black
- SSX 3
- Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Chaos Theory
- kill.switch
- World Series Baseball 2K3
Does this fix the Half-Life 2 physics bug?
Posted Mar 29th 2006 12:45AM by Ken Weeks
Filed under: News
The list of backward compatible titles may be growing (ooh...
Spongebob) but that doesn't mean that every title is worth a trip down memory lane. Reader PJ writes:
There are many of us who purchased Half-Life 2 in hopes of playing it on our 360. How ever this proved to be impossible with the physics engine wacking out on many gamers. I cannot even pretend to play because on Highway 17 my character fall directly through the floor. If you want a video i will post it for you without hesitation. We are all being crapped on by steam and xbox.
IGN touched on various emulation issues back in January and assured everyone that Microsoft was issuing the necessary patches, so it's a shame to hear that Half-Life 2 is still half-assed. I don't think most people buy a 360 to play old games, but I understand why people are pissed. I'm sure MS will remind us that
Spongebob Squarepants
: Battle For Bikini Bottom works fine.
How much do you care about backwards compatibility and what kind of bugs have you run into?
[Thanks PJ & DJphatjive]
Posted Jan 11th 2006 6:30PM by Jennie Lees
Filed under: News
Despite a five-month delay on new
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory maps, all is not well. Some Xbox 360 users are reporting problems with the update, some going so far as to say the new maps make
Splinter Cell unplayable. Fortunately, there's a workaround, but it involves deleting all your saved games in the process.
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory wasn't included in the original backwards compatibility list, but has since made it in--perhaps this is related to the problems some 360 owners are having with the new content. Either way, with months of testing, it's surprising to see this sort of bugginess.
