Summer always makes me nostalgic. Right now it’s making me nostalgic for the glory days of the Xbox 360, and not just because the latest iteration of Xbox is, well, *sigh*. I was trawling the Xbox store over the weekend for something to buy after redeeming some reward points and quickly noticed that a lot of classic games from that era are ridiculously cheap right now. And thanks to the backwards compatibility initiative, they run and play great on current hardware.
So if you have an Xbox One or Xbox Series X/S, I would recommend checking out any of the games below if you don’t already own them. In fact, you could buy all 15 of them for less than the price of a new $70 game and immediately have a very decent starter library of excellent third-party Xbox 360 games. Here are some AAA gems that are currently heavily discounted until July 30:
- The Witcher 2: Assassin’s of Kings – $3 (85 percent off)
- Deus Ex: Human Revolution – $2.50 (85 percent off)
- Dragon Age: Origins – $3.75 (75 percent off)
- Lost Odyssey – $6.25 (75 percent off)
- Resident Evil Code: Veronica X – $3 – (85 percent off)
- Street Fighter IV – $4 (80 percent off)
- Blue Dragon – $5 (75 percent off)
- Mass Effect– $5 (75 percent off)
And here are a bunch of Xbox Summer of Arcade indie classics:
- Shadow Complex – $5 (70 percent off)
- Super Meat Boy – $5 (70 percent off)
- Limbo – $1.87 (85 percent off)
- Castle Crashers Remastered – $7.50 (50 percent off)
- Braid – $3.29 (67 percent off)
- ‘Splosion Man – $3.29 (67 percent off)
- Trials HD – $3.29 (67 percent off)
A few quick notes before anyone starts yelling at me. Street Fighter IV is on sale, but so is the upgrade to the superior Ultra Street Fighter IV for just $3 more. Resident Evil Code: Veronica X is technically a remaster of a PS2/Dreamcast-era game, but it’s the best way to play the spin-off before next year’s Code Veronica remake comes out. The Xbox 360 version of Mass Effect is busted, but still the best experience of the best Mass Effect game, in my humble opinion. However, the Legendary Edition remasters are also discounted right now and will give you all three games for just $6 if you prefer.
You also might notice that Supergiant Games’ isometric action-RPG Bastion, the best Summer of Arcade indie release ever, is not mentioned above. That’s because it’s not on sale and currently still costs $15. However, today is also the game’s 15th anniversary and it is indeed still worth playing for $1 for each year it’s been around.