I certainly have my qualms, let’s say, with XBOX and especially Microsoft as a whole, but I can’t argue that they’re first in class when it comes to backwards compatibility. PlayStation titles older than PS4 are largely unavailable, with a meager offering of PS1 and 2 titles available on the PlayStation 5 store, with PS5 being streaming only because they can’t be bothered with proper emulation. Nintendo is better in this regard, with a wealth of titles available on Switch and Switch 2 through Nintendo Switch Online, though their slow drip and lack of DS and 3DS games is still frustrating. It also requires a subscription to their service, and they can remove the games from said service at any time. XBOX ended their backwards compatibility efforts on console recently, with a decent amount of previous gen titles available for purchase or free downloads if you have the disc. It’s not perfect, but it’s the best we’ve got, and XBOX is continuing this trend by making original Xbox games available on PC for the first time. We’ve only got four titles in this first batch, but it’s already head and shoulders above the competition.
One of the biggest pros is how ownership works here. First, if you own one of these titles digitally, you already own it on PC. This does not work with physical discs, which is unfortunate, but that would be difficult to verify. If you don’t own the digital license (which we’ll get back to in a bit), you can just outright buy the game via the XBOX PC app on Windows 11 or get all of them via Game Pass. It’s like $10 and boom, you can play the game for… as long as the license is valid. Yeah, digital ownership is unfortunately non-existent outside of GoG, and companies can just yank your games away from you whenever they feel like it for any reason or no reason. It’s better to have these games available in some form rather than not at all, but we really need digital rights reforms.
Moving on to the games themselves, there are four titles available now: Conker: Live and Reloaded; Blinx: The Time Sweeper; Fuzion Frenzy; and Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge. The only one of these games I’d played previously was Conker, and I was especially excited to jump into Blinx as a big platformer fan. All of these games are emulated (duh), and they mostly seem accurate. I did notice that depth of field and blurring in Conker look a bit off, similar to the Super Mario Galaxy Switch 2 versions, so hopefully the emulation can be refined a bit from here.
To my surprise, you do have some emulation options here. It’s fairly barebones compared to fan-made emulators like PCSX2, Dolphin, or Duckstation, but you can do things like set the resolution (up to 4x the original resolution, which in the case of all of these titles is 4k), toggle VSync, add in some anti-aliasing, turn on Antiscopic Filtering, and adjust the overall volume. Most current, official emulation options do have some resolution bumps, but I appreciate the ability to adjust it to my liking. I can play in stunning 4k, go with the original resolution, or anything in between. There are no widescreen hacks here, though, so you’re stuck with 4:3 aspect ratio. You’ll also have to live with the original framerates, though that’s probably for the best given this was still an era where developers were tying crucial game components to the framerate. In exchange, you do get one big boon, and that’s loading screens. Or rather, the lack of them; you might see some loading for a second or two, but that’s about it.
Certain features sadly will not work in every title as well. I had my fingers crossed, but the multiplayer in Conker was not restored, and a pop-up will tell you that multiplayer doesn’t work. You can’t play any demos included in Crimson Skies or Blinx either; it’s a shame because all of these things were part of the original experience, but couldn’t be recreated here.
The games themselves, well, they vary by taste. I enjoy this version of Conker even though some consider it inferior to the original N64 game; Blinx is rad, Crimson Skies is very cool, and Fuzion Frenzy is… confusing. I do wish these games came with digital scans of their manuals and box art, both to explain things tutorials don’t and as part of each title’s history. Still, this is a great start to XBOX’s backwards compatibility on PC, and I hope they make as many games as possible available. Personally, I’m really hoping for Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey. So should you spend your money on these? No, because Xbox is currently a BDS target as Microsoft has a hand in the genocide of Palestinians. But I’d consider it when they stop doing that.
