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[Theslammer]

From the pre-orders, long lines on launch day, surprise Christmas presents, and anticipation for new technology, console/handheld launches can be some of the most times as a gamer.

Some launches produce classic games. Some launches produce a lot of good games. Some launches, you look back and think, "There really wasn't much, was there?" I've put together the launches at the bottom of the post for the US, Europe and Asia. When looking at the launches, ask yourself a few things:

1. Did the launch line-up encourage me to buy the system, or was I going to buy the system anyway?
2. What did I play the most at the time?
3. If I bought the console well after the launch period, what launch games did I buy, if any?
4. What games do I consider to be classics?
5. What games could I play years later and have fun, classic or not?
6. What games did I enjoy at the time but found fewer reasons to come back to as the generation progressed (I played it because I didn't have as much to play at the time)?

My experience:

My brother owned a 360 at launch, so my experience with the console during the launch period was through him. Despite the big titles MS released, it was really Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved that impressed me the most. I remember looking at the waves your ship created as you shot at the enemies and thought, "Wow, that looks smooth. I've seen nothing like that on the PS2 or Xbox or GC." It was addictive, I could play over and over, I could come back to it for 10 minutes the next day, whatever. It was easy to pick up and play, you didn't have to invest a lot of time in it, and it was FUN.

Even years down the line, whenever my brother and his wife needed me to watch their dogs for a week because they were going on vacation, it was REALLY exciting because I got to use his Xbox. Xbox Live was cool by itself, but seriously, any excuse to play Geometry Wars was fine by me. I'm glad Housemarque has filled that genre for me, and then some, on the PS4.

Perfect Dark Zero was an interesting case because at the time, Perfect Dark was my favorite N64 game. I played the hell out of single-player, I played so many levels to unlock the cheats, I played so many of the single-player challenges, and I played a ton of games against the AI, especially on the Fortress map. Sometimes I wouldn't even play for the challenge: I would set up a 7v1 match with six of the easiest bots as my allies and the hardest difficulty of a bot as an enemy, basically using my allies as fodder and being entertained if they were able to kill the enemy, and I'd do this on King of the Hill mode. Sometimes I'd make it an even match, but I quite liked my set-up!

When the Gamecube released, that was the one game I was really looking forward to more than anything. Then Rare went to Microsoft, and then we eventually found out it would launch with the 360. So there went that.

It was weird playing Zero. Yeah, I remember all the lines on the ground to get you to Point A to Point B, but it wasn't even that; I just don't remember having a lot of fun with it. I never went back to finish the single-player, and it just felt weird that I reacted to the game like that. All that excitement over what the Perfect Dark sequel could be, and when I was able to play it, it was like my hands grasped on air. It just felt like the actual game released to a whimper, which felt so strange considering how big Perfect Dark was to me when I owned an N64.

I didn't play too much outside of that, but Geometry Wars alone made it memorable, and it was still a fun, slick game years later. What was your experience like?

Amped 3
Bankshot Billiards 2
Bejeweled 2

Call of Duty 2
Condemned: Criminal Origins
FIFA 06: Road to FIFA World Cup
Gauntlet

Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved
GUN
Hardwood Backgammon
Hardwood Hearts
Hexic HD
Joust

Kameo: Elements of Power
Madden NFL 06
Mutant Storm Reloaded
NBA 2K6
NBA Live 06
Need for Speed: Most Wanted
NHL 2K6
Outpost Kaloki X

Perfect Dark Zero
Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie

Project Gotham Racing 3
Quake 4
Ridge Racer 6
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06
Tony Hawk's American Wasteland

European launch:

Amped 3
Call of Duty 2
Condemned
FIFA 06: Road to FIFA World Cup
GUN
Kameo: Elements of Power
Madden NFL 06
NBA Live 06
Need for Speed: Most Wanted
Perfect Dark Zero
Peter Jackson's King Kong
Project Gotham Racing 3
Quake 4
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06
Tony Hawk's American Wasteland

Asian launch:

Every Party
FIFA 06: Road to FIFA World Cup
Need for Speed: Most Wanted
Perfect Dark Zero
Ridge Racer 6
Tetris: The Grand Master Ace

Live games:

Bankshot Billiards 2
Bejeweled 2
Gauntlet
Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved
Hardwood Backgammon
Hardwood Hearts
Hexic HD (pre-installed on the hard drive)
Joust
Mutant Storm Reloaded
Outpost Kaloki X

 

[Strootman]

I want kameo 2.

 

[dc89]

Got the 360 day one in Europe with CoD2 and PGR3.
Got Kameo and PDZ a couple of weeks later.

PGR3 and CoD2 provided hours of entertainment for months and months.

 

[Courage]

That King Kong game was actually pretty good.

 

[gamz]

I still play Geometry Wars. Love that game.

 

[mcfrank]

Lots of good games with that launch.

 

[RomeoDog]

A part of me always envied the 360's perfect dark game.

One year later I bought a PS3 and played resistance. No regrets.

 

[7DollarHagane]

Weird that the project Gotham games aren't back compatible. They seem to have been forgotten by Microsoft.

 

[Syinn]

I enjoyed PDZ. The multiplayer was enjoyable.

 

[blackMamba1187]

Played geometry wars, marvel blast ultra and doa4 (edit: and pgr3) a lot around launch. There was never any doubt I was picking up the system prior to launch. Couldn't get one until Jan!

 

[Doffen]

I want kameo 2.

.

 

[YuShtink]

I waited a good 16 hours or so in line at a 24 Hr Walmart near my college on launch day for one. I bought PGR3, CoD2 and PDZ (which was the only one I ended up feeling meh about). Loved CoD and PGR3. A few days later I bought Kameo, which was fantastic, and I think I bought Geometry Wars within the first week too. Was a very fun launch. Blade Dashboard 4L. Fight Night, Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, and GRAW all releasing the following March made it one of the best launch windows I can remember, personally.

Oh yea you guys are also reminding me that it was the early glory days of GameFly. I played every good launch game I didn't want to buy with the service back then. You could get anything you wanted within days of release. I played Condemned, NFS Most Wanted and King Kong through GameFly in those first weeks as well.

 

[Laplasakos]

I got my 360 on the launch day along PGR3 and NFS Most Wanted. I remember liking the graphics of PGR3 and the interface of the console. Some weeks later i got Perfect Dark but i didn't like it. The real big game come out some months later though. I am talking about TES IV: Oblivion.

Overall the launch line up was pretty solid. For me, it was missing THE game that would make you buy a 360 at launch but the hype for the console was big if i remember correctly.

 

[Ein Bear]

Condemned really was a fantastic game back in the day. Definitely the surprise highlight of the launch lineup for me, along with Geometry Wars.

Kameo was great fun too. Shame that Perfect Dark Zero turned out so disappointing.

 

[GamerJM]

It's weird, I didn't buy a 360 until a couple years after launch but I ended up playing a few of the launch games anyways.

Condemned is really good. I couldn't get into Kameo, it felt kinda gimmicky and I didn't really like the controls. Geometry Wars is of course a classic and the best of the bunch. Not a launch game but Dead or Alive 4 was launch window and a solid fighter.

At the time I had no interest in the console but in retrospect it was a pretty decent lineup. Not to die for or anything but if I had an interest in 360 hardware and upcoming games at the time I'd probably have bought it.

 

[Christocolus]

Mine came with Kung Fu Panda, and the game was excellent. Kameo was great fun too.

 

[inner-G]

The Giang Bomb quick look for Amped 3 was amazing: https://youtu.be/BVyGH2Q5zeQ

 

[blackMamba1187]

Bonus question. What was your first achievement?

Think by march fight night, oblivion and graw set things off for the gen.

 

[Jack The Nipper]

I bought PDZ early and man it sucked but was interesting I guess. I was always going to buy it and at least condemned ended up being really good and call of duty was decent. Dead Rising came soon but oblivion was ass honestly and open world games continue the trend today. I couldn't play that mess then either.

 

[Camp1nCarl]

Was an amazing launch IMO. I was set to get a PS3 at launch and was pretty anti-Xbox at the time (lol). Then I played Halo 2 on my friends Xbox and the rest was history.

Perfect Dark Zero was amazing. I convinced so many friends to pick it up and we all loved it. Easily one of my favorite games, granted I hadn't played the original before it. I personally think some of the hate is unwarranted considering it's a really solid game in its own right.

The rest of the launch was solid too with Kameo, PGR and Amoed as well. Plus year 1 was great with Dead Rising, Oblivion, XBL Arcade (Cloning Clyde, Marble Blast Ultra, etc)!

Really loved my Xbox 360. Probably a good portion of it being one of my favorite consoles had to do with when I played it (mainly high school) and the abundance of friends playing on it too.

 

[ShabbadooJr]

I had a job working for CompUSA at the time of the launch so I bought a bunch of games at cost which were ~46ish dollars. I went all out. I bought Condemned, Call off Duty 2, Kameo, King Kong, Need for Speed, Madden, NBA2K, Perfect Dark Zero, and PGR3. I also bought the Logitech Harmony remote for the 360.

Most of the games I bought before the system was out as they weren’t street dated. I hated just staring at them for a week or so, until I got to pickup my system from the GameStop, I preordered it from. I was fortunate to have an rear projection HDTV and was blown away by how good some of the games looked. I remember playing the Call of Duty demo at a Walmart before the system was out, and was amazed. Now I had games that looked as good at home. The first real HD system was awesome. I was an Xbox user primarily through the first 3-4 years of the system but I grew tired of the same types of games and I switch over to PlayStation and haven’t switched back.

 

[brawly]

Amazing launch line-up for an amazing system. Unfortunately I was still pretty young then so couldn't get one until Gears but I was drooling at all the videos.

 

[kuYuri]

I got an Xbox 360 a year later right after Gears of War came out, but I did go back and play games like Geo Wars, CoD2, Perfect Dark Zero, Kameo, and Condemned. Loved all of them, not so much PDZ but it was still decent.

EDIT: Also forgot Hexic HD and also played King Kong, mostly for achievements, heh.

 

[Certinty]

Awesome launch line up.

Put so many hours into PGR3, absolutely loved that game. Call of Duty 2 and GUN were also great while King Kong and Tony Hawk's AW were good too.

Can't think of a console which came out afterwards with a better launch titles.

 

[evanswolves]

I got 360 with harddrive, PGR3, PDZero, COD2, Kameo, and thanks to a mess up from GAME i got Condemned for free (they sent out a booklet about preorders, launch games and offers they worded it wrong, so lots of us ended up with the game for free)

 

[Zophar]

PGR3 looked the best and Call of Duty 2 played the best. I remember feeling like the 360 lineup was pretty underwhelming until Oblivion came out in the following Spring.

Chromehounds IMO was the best 360 game to come out in the first year. Really underrated and forgotten

 

[neptunes]

The initial online community for PGR 3 was super chill

 

[Bits N Pieces]

Midnight launch at GAME in Glasgow and I picked up COD, Kameo, Perfect Dark and PGR.

Christ, I loved that console.

 

[Theslammer]

Amazing launch line-up for an amazing system. Unfortunately I was still pretty young then so couldn't get one until Gears but I was drooling at all the videos.

I got one shortly before Halo 3 came out (bought my brother's 360 and he bought a Halo 3 edition), so it was a couple years for me. But hey, perfect time to get into it!

 

[GHG]

I didn't get it at launch but I did 6 months later and got PGR and Kameo.

Both amazing games and it makes me so sad that both of these franchises have been killed off.

 

[Izayoi]

Chromehounds IMO was the best 360 game to come out in the first year. Really underrated and forgotten

One of my all-time favorites. LOVED the '360 launch window. Dead Rising, Chromehounds, PGR, Kameo, CoD2...

360 was so strong software-wise, it's too bad about the hardware... Microsoft seems to have flipped, unfortunately. Brilliant hardware, lacking software... The only thing I'm super interested in on the horizon is Forza, and I can play that on PC.

 

[Psychoward]

I played a grand total of zero of those games lol.

For some reason I thought Oblivion and Gears were launch games.

I got mine a little bit after Halo 3 came out.

 

[Gradon]

I bought one for Sonic the Hedgehog's launch.
Hahahahaha. 😂 It's hilarious to think about considering how that turned out. I got Oblivion with it and loved it. Eventually became my main console until Christmas 2007 when I got a PS3.

In terms of the launch line up, only Perfect Dark Zero was of interest because of the original but that also didn't turn out to be a great game when I eventually played it....

 

[Breakage]

PGR3 was the star game in 360's launch line-up. The game looked incredible.

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

I was unimpressed with the 360's launch line-up... I never particularly liked the system, but I remember seeing the games that were out at launch, and thinking "yeah, I don't need that," even though up until that point, I always bought new systems right away. A big part of that was that I was already a PC gamer, so the interesting games were, for the most part, either ports, or felt derivative of stuff I was already playing.

And, when one of my friends got a 360 at launch, along with Perfect Dark, I knew I made the right choice by skipping on it at launch. That game was soooo bad. I did end up getting a 360 like 6 months later, but I probably could've gone a solid 2 years without getting one.

 

[ss_lemonade]

I remember people complaining about PGR 3 being sub 720p but that didn't stop it from looking like a next gen title to me on our 1080i RPTV.

 

[Rodeo Clown]

I pre-ordered my 20gb console the day after the MTV special. (Remember that?) I wasn't super excited about any of the launch day games except Kameo, which I also picked up with my console on release, but by Christmas I had Perfect Dark, Gun and Project Gotham.

Even though I would mostly use my 360 to play Halo 2 until Gears of War came out, it was still so worth it to me. Being invested in that launch was crazy and when I booted that thing up to play Kameo for the first time, it was like, wow, this is leaps and bounds better than the original Xbox. I knew so many people that were trying to win them through the Mtn Dew contests because they were so scarce. It was really impossible to come by for months and months.

 

[Oozer3993]

My parents agreed to buy me one for Christmas that year, but I had to track one down. I lucked out with a Best Buy resupply on December 22nd. I got Call of Duty 2 and Perfect Dark Zero. PDZ had it's moments, mostly in multiplayer. CoD was excellent. I picked up Project Gotham Racing 3 a little while later and had a lot of fun with it. Also, Hexic was great, and Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter was awesome. Especially the amazing co-op.

 

[Canadian]

I really have great memories from those games at launch. I remember getting one just after new years in 2006. I got PGR3, Call of Duty 2, Perfect Dark and Kameo. It was the winter holidays for school and I stayed in doors playing all day. When school started up again there was another week off because the buses were cancelled because of bad road conditions.

Later on Burnout Revenge, Oblivion and GRAW stole more of my time.

 

[boyshine]

Didn't own a HDTV yet, so tried my best to convince myself there really wasn't that big of a difference.

Bought it day 1 (first ever over night camp out for a console) with PDZ, Kameo, COD2, PGR3 .. and I'm pretty sure RR6.. but you're not listing it for Europe, so now I'm not so sure after all. Also, the wifi-adapter and the RGB SCART cable was a must, I remember.

I sold and replaced it several times, pretty much with every new upgrade, never getting any RRODs. My last and final X360 that I still own is the Xbox 360 S, 250GB (2010).

 

[Louis Cyphre]

Project Gotham Racing 3 and Call Of Duty 2 showed quite a jump from the previous generation. Kameo was also a sleeper hit for me, wish they would make another one. Overall it had a strong line-up.

 

[timberger]

PGR and COD2 were the big highlights of this launch by far. Condemned and King Kong were passable enough as well.

The ones people seem to remember the most of course are Kameo and PDZ, when really those were two of the worst games in the line up. Replaying them fairly recently on Rare Replay has shown how badly they've held up as well.

 

[black070]

Kameo (deserves a comeback) and King Kong (I don't even know) for me.

 

[Gestault]

I wasn't there until maybe four months after launch, but PGR3 was a mainstay for me for more than a year. PGRTV was a crazy-good feature. That plus Kameo, Call of Duty 2, Geometry Wars, and Hexic HD made this a strong launch for my taste.

Edit: Oh man, I completely forgot about Condemned. That game was fantastic.

 

[see5harp]

This had to be one of the greatest launches ever. Man Hexic HD and geometry wars really showed early on how important achievements, leaderboards, and all of that rich game data meant to next gen. You have to remember most people didn't even have HD televisions at the time. I had this console hooked up to my PC monitor for at least a year. I think the feature set is what really shone even a year later when you saw how far ahead the platform was compared to the PS3.

 

[Y2Kev]

PDZ was crushingly disappointing. It just didn't really work as a cohesive product. Some of the single player was really good, but on the whole it felt disjointed and confused. I can't explain some of the narrative choices they made.

 

[Gestault]

PDZ was crushingly disappointing. It just didn't really work as a cohesive product. Some of the single player was really good, but on the whole it felt disjointed and confused. I can't explain some of the narrative choices they made.

I came away with the same feelings about PDZ. I ended up getting some fun out of local multi w/ bots, and I struggled my way through the story mode, but so much about the game design just made me ask "why."

Nice textures, tho.

 

[Auto-Reply]

I remember it the most for being the big test for Rare, do they still have it? Will PDZ be as good as PD on N64? I loved that game so much.

Then there was no clear answer for me. PDZ was trash, it took me a while to come to the realisation that it was not good while having a lot of fun in the multiplayer part of the game.

However, I was quite happy with Kameo so not all hope was lost I thought.

That stupid club infiltration mission and it's music is somehow stuck in my head for all these years though... I don't know why.

 

[SenjutsuSage]

Bought 360 for Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey. Never owned Xbox prior to that.

 

[Mbolibombo]

Not many games for me in that lineup. At least the european launch.

This was during an era when console gaming was all but dead to me. I was all in to PC, and more specifically Warcraft 3:Frozen Throne for about 8 years.. crazy.

I kind of wish I was a part of the 360 community at some point.. I've missed out on some great games.