Friday, March 4, 2011

Most Overlooked Xbox 360 Games - Part Two

I don't generally cover the Xbox 360 anymore as mine crapped out on me, and the urge to reward Microsoft for their gross incompetence is not on my top things to do on my to-do list. The Xbox 360 is home to tons of unplayed, underrated, overlooked games, and this list is to help you identify those titles and maybe even track them down to play. Let's get to this list, shall we?

Blue Dragon


The very first project from Hironobu Sakaguchi's (the creator of the highly-popular Final Fantasy franchise) studio, Mistwalker, Blue Dragon was a clever and cute RPG published by Microsoft. In Japan the game did respectable numbers, but elsewhere the game was in bargain bins faster than you can sing "prick your hand until it bleeds". Battling and summoning dragons was a cool aspect of the game, and it's a shame more 360 owners did not get a chance to play Blue Dragon. Fun-fact: the IP actually found its way to the Nintendo DS in Blue Dragon Plus.

Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing With Banjo-Kazooie


The kart racer that outclassed Mario Kart's current gen effort, Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing featured Banjo-Kazooie and avatars as exclusive playable characters. The game also reintroduced various long-forgotten SEGA characters into the mix from Jet Grind Radio's Beat to Space Channel 5's Ulala to even longer-forgotten characters in Opa-Opa and Alex Kidd. The track design might have featured the same five or six themes, but the courses themselves were out of this world. It was a balanced racer that many Xbox 360 owners missed out on.

Blur


Blur was a Mario Kart game for big boys as the ill-fated promotion suggested. Players gather power-ups on each course like blowing up other cars with a gigantic blast of energy, mines to drop behind your car, and Nitro boosts to give your vehicle an extra boost of speed. What separated Blur from other games was the ability to team up online in multiplayer with up to twenty players online. There was even good old fashioned four player split-screen for those who wanted to party locally. Bizarre Creations has since been disbanded, and the poor sales of Blur seem to be the culprit.

Split/Second


The third and final racer on our list for part two is Split/Second, published by Disney Interactive of all publishers. You race on destructible courses vying for the number one spot on a reality show. The racing was intense with obstacles spawning in your way as you madly tried to dodge them as well as worry about the other racers on your butt. Back when Blur and Split/Second came out, there was a bit of a rivalry between both games. It turns out though that both games would go on to sell a menial amount of copies on all systems they were released on, including the PlayStation 3, PC, and PSP.

Prince of Persia (2008)


Also mentioned on the Most Overlooked list for the PlayStation 3, Prince of Persia (2008) was unlike any PoP game before it. You literally could not die. When you'd fall into a chasm or hole, your female companion would save you with her voodoo magic of some type. The game came across as one gigantic series of quick time events as you'd press different buttons to climb across ledges and chasms alike. The game was gorgeous even in standard definition. The colorful cel-shaded visuals popped out at the player, and they were simply sensational. Bad sales meant a new turn for the series; it went back to its roots with the next installment.

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Did I overlook one of your favorite overlooked Xbox 360 games? Let me know in the comments section.

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