Nostalgia is a Cruel Mistress

So this morning saw the release of the much anticipated Xbox Live Fall Dashboard Update, and with it came the launch of the Xbox Originals Program. For those not in the know this is a Xbox 1 game download service on Xbox Live. You can buy a selection of old Xbox games right from the comfort of your 360′s marketplace blade. Each game is freaking huge about 2-4GB when downloaded and runs on your 360 using witchcraft the 360′s backwards compatibility functionality.

Seeing as this service just launched I had to do what all tech loving geeks would do, I HAD to test it out by downloading a game that in all honesty I would play only once. My game of choice was Halo 1 even though I already own it (actually I own 2 copies, one for each of the original Xboxen I own). From the list of titles currently available, this would be the one that I was more likely to play again if it’s sitting right there… but again I probably won’t touch it after this article is written. Microsoft points aren’t real money, are they?

Browsing to and picking a game is easy enough. The Xbox Originals section on the 360 is quite cool. When you select it from the “Game Store” section on the Marketplace blade you are taken to a retro inspired window that looks like your original Xbox dashboard. You can choose the game you want to look at or purchase by selecting it’s cover art. This is a nice touch, and is way different then how Nintendo and Sony do their retro downloads. Each game is currently 1200 Microsoft points ($15 in real money. Doh! The points ARE real money.) and Halo took me about 40 minutes to download. As a side note, even if you decide that 1200 points is too much for these games, you can always download the FREE themes and gamer pics that were released with each of these titles. Yay FREE!

After downloading Halo I fired it up and found that it runs just like the original discs do, although a little bit quicker with the loading times due to it running off a hard drive. So you people hoping and whining that new features would be released alongside these titles will be sorely disappointed. I can understand why there are no Achievements or online play added, but why oh why can’t we chat with our friends over Xbox live!? Even though I can’t compete against my friends in some Halo 1 multiplayer, I could at least talk to them and you know, use my imagination. This is my one and only complaint, but again you can’t do this with the normal back-compat features so I shouldn’t of been surprised.

All in all I’m quite impressed by the service, even though most of these games can be picked up in the bargain bins for $5-$10. The convenience of having them sitting on my 360 whenever I want to play them can’t be denied. I can actually see myself downloading some of my old favorite Xbox titles just to have in a fit of boredom.

Now I can hear you all asking why the heck I picked “Nostalgia is a Cruel Mistress” as this posts title. Well that was because simply, I forgot how bad the original Halo looked when played on the 360. Everything looks so muddy due to the upscaling of the graphics to your 360s display resolution. For example the first level when you are on the rings looks so washed out. The cliffs have a strange purple texture that has no definition. It’s amazing how your views on an old game change.

Also there are apparently a few things about Halo one that I either forgot due to old age or simply chose to forget. Things like a health bar, jumping like you were on the moon, and your melee attack being incredibly useless makes me realize how much Halo 3 has spoiled us!

Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to jump back into Halo 3′s campaign and drool over the textures while meleeing some grunts into mush. Hooray for progress!