Xbox 360 Games That Deserve Xbox One Backward Compatibility

This week, 104 Xbox 360 games were made playable on the (sort of) new Xbox One console. The catalog is pretty dope, but 104 games means some gems of last generation’s nine-year lifespan would be left out. The gamers of Inverse got together to talk up some old Xbox 360 games that deserve a new life on the Xbox One.

Eric Francisco: Lollipop Chainsaw was like playing a trashy horror movie written in earnest by Matt Parker and Trey Stone and it fucking rocked. Yeah it played like shit, but it boasted a punk attitude that Sunset Overdrive tried too hard to nail. It’s a shame Lollipop Chainsaw lives on now only through the handful of cosplayers that still rock Juliet’s look at Comic-Con.

The game was a delight with laugh-out-loud moments and a totally subversive premise. It was uncomfortably sexualized, which was the whole point. James Gunn and Suda51 were commenting on a particular era of American horror films, which are (arguably) guilty of ill-informing teenagers about sex. It deserves a second chance.

Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 are probably inevitably coming to Xbox One since Mass Effect was one of the 104 and you really can’t just stop at that. But I am kind of taken aback why the sequels weren’t included but, like, Bellator MMA was. How was Ugly Americans: Apocalypsegeddon chosen? That show has been off Comedy Central for years.

Anyway, the Mass Effect sequels. They would be nice.

I also want Splinter Cell: Conviction for no real reason other than because I’ve never finished it and it was a high school graduation present. I’ve been done with college for a few years already. I just want my pile of shame to be a little smaller.

Rowan Kaiser: Ikaruga was released in the waning days of the Sega Dreamcast, and then re released for the Nintendo Gamecube, seeming to guarantee its status as a rare cult gem. But a recent re release on Steam and Xbox 360 gave it new life — and it’s well-deserved, because this is one of the best shoot-em-ups (or “shmups” — the genre descended from Galaga) of all time.

What sets Ikaruga apart is simple. Instead of just flying, shooting, and dodging the enemies of a “bullet hell” game, each bullet is colored either white or black, and a button flips your ship’s color. Getting hit by a bullet of the same color absorbs it, and makes you more powerful in each combination of three, as well as granting you a higher score. So expert play becomes a beautiful dance of flipping back and forth, absorbing, dodging, shooting, absorbing again. Words aren’t great for describing Ikaruga — best to watch.

Brock Wilbur: Still amazes me that Red Faction: Guerilla doesn’t get the love it deserved. You’re a rebel dude on Mars and you have to dismantle buildings using weapons, and stuff realistically collapses and feels amazingly rewarding. The open world was cool, the crafting system was great (aka minor and simply), and more importantly the multiplayer was the most fun I’ve ever had outside of Duty Calls. It took a series from first person shootery fun into a space Grand Theft Auto that I’d love to be replaying on a new console.

Also, you know—Ostrich Hammer.

Alan Wake was supposed to be a launch title for the 360, and wound up being a few years late on that. The survival horror adventure was dripping with personality and the gameplay mixed perfectly with delightful tentpole moments and little touches that really snuck under your skin.

More importantly, not enough people got around to the Wake series. The constant delays burned through the advertising budget and some of the animation suffered by being a few years behind the rest of the game, especially facial animations, but holy cow would this be a great offering for a new audience and it would expand the paltry horror offerings in the Microsoft store.

I’m honestly more surprised that XCOM hasn’t seen a new release/backward release/update yet. The game itself is perfect, but the XCOM: Enemy Within expansion pack was released as a separate game disc and bundling the two together into a single download for modern consoles seems to make perfect sense. Enemy Within came out just as the Xbox One hit the market and I’m sure a lot of people missed it as a result, including me.

Corban Goble: For the love of God: College football.