The Xbox 360 era was a marvelous generation and the last time publishers regularly bet on strange, original ideas. Plenty of those bets paid off, from Gears of War to Assassin’s Creed. But time hasn’t been kind to all of them, and some of the generation’s best games have been out of the conversation so long that a whole new wave of players has never heard of them.
A few of these were genuine hits at the time, while others were cult classics sunk by bad timing or studio closures. A couple had their legacies buried by disastrous follow-ups, and one isn’t even available to play on any platform. What they share is that nobody talks about them now, even though their ideas still hold up against games released this decade. If your Xbox 360 collection is missing any of these, you skipped some of the best games the generation has to offer.
8
Viva Piñata
Viva Piñata, a social garden simulator developed by Rare and published by Microsoft Game Studios, launched on Xbox 360 on Nov. 9, 2006. Players turn a scrubby patch of dirt into a garden that attracts living, candy-filled piñatas, each with its own appetite for certain plants, foods, and mates. The game arrived two days after Gears of War, and it created a contrasting Xbox 360 double feature that could match Barbenheimer in its absurdity.
Viva Piñata was loved for its vivid art style, its whimsical soundtrack, and its surprisingly deep strategic gameplay. Microsoft considered it a success; however, sales started off slow due to the candy-colored art and tie-in cartoon dressing it as a kids’ game on a console built for hardcore shooters. Rare followed with Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise in 2008, but that sequel barely evolved the formula, and it didn’t seem like the team had enough fresh ideas for the series to continue.
In hindsight, Viva Piñata was a cozy game years before cozy games became a big deal. Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing: New Horizons turned peaceful life sims into one of gaming’s biggest genres, built on the same shtick Rare pioneered. With Xbox’s cancellation of Rare’s Everwild leaving the studio without a new world beyond Sea of Thieves, a Viva Piñata revival on Xbox Game Pass is a surefire hit that should’ve already been in development at this point.
7
Singularity
Singularity is one of the few Xbox 360 games that could recapture BioShock’s iconic game design. Raven Software’s 2010 first-person shooter sets you on Katorga-12, an abandoned Soviet island where Cold War experiments with a powerful element called E99 ripped time apart. As Capt. Nate Renko, you bounce between the island’s 1950s heyday and its ruined present while mutated soldiers and time-warped monsters stalk you.
The star of the show is the Time Manipulation Device (TMD), a gauntlet that manipulates time, allowing you to age enemies into dust and rebuild collapsed staircases and crumbling bridges to their prime. You can even manipulate a soldier into an aggressive creature that turns on its own squad. Combined with Raven’s sharp level design and survival horror pacing, Singularity feels like a mix between Half-Life 2 and BioShock with a time-bending twist.
Activision nearly canceled the game during its troubled development, then released it to good reviews, but sales didn’t meet expectations. Raven faced more layoffs that October and has spent most of the years since supporting Call of Duty. Singularity became Raven’s last original game, and its time-bending ideas still feel fresher than most shooters released this decade.
6
Crackdown
Most people may remember Crackdown 3 only as the game that was so bad, it tanked the Xbox One’s reputation to unsalvageable levels. But the original was an amazing open-world action game that brought something completely new to the table. Realtime Worlds, led by Grand Theft Auto and Lemmings creator David Jones, launched the game on Feb. 20, 2007, and sales skyrocketed due to Xbox bundling copies with access to the Halo 3 multiplayer beta. In Crackdown, you play a genetically enhanced Agent cleaning up Pacific City one gang boss at a time.
Crackdown blended RPG elements with platforming collectathon design. Hundreds of glowing Agility Orbs hid on rooftops across Pacific City, and every orb you grabbed let you jump higher and run faster, until your Agent was a full-blown superhero on par with the Hulk. Throw in strength, driving, firearms, and explosives skills that grew the more you used them, add online co-op, and you had one of the most addictive sandboxes of the generation.
The Halo 3 bundle helped push Crackdown past 1.5 million copies in its first six months, and critics loved it on its own merits. Crackdown 2 followed in 2010 to mixed reviews, but Crackdown 3 was so bad it killed the franchise. After years of delays and promises of cloud-powered destruction, it launched in February 2019 to mediocre reviews and mass ridicule. Microsoft hasn’t touched the series since, leaving the original as a superhero sandbox that never got the legacy it deserved.
5
1 vs. 100
Long before Fortnite concerts took over timelines, Microsoft turned Xbox Live into a primetime game show. 1 vs. 100 launched in 2009 on the Xbox Live Primetime channel, adapting the TV trivia show into a live broadcast where your Avatar could compete as The One against a mob of 100 other players. Host Chris Cashman ran each two-hour show live, cracking jokes and reading questions in real time.
Everyone else watched from The Crowd, answering the same questions for a shot at the next round, and the entire experience was free for Xbox Live Gold members. Best of all, players were able to win real prizes, from Microsoft Points and Xbox Live Arcade games to Zune music players. The beta season alone drew more than 114,000 players, proving that live events could work in a gaming environment as well.
Microsoft canceled 1 vs. 100 in July 2010 after two seasons, and since it only existed as a live event, it’s completely unplayable today. It’s incredibly disappointing that we still haven’t had a true successor. Nothing on Xbox, PlayStation, or Nintendo Switch has recreated that mix of TV, community, and competition since, and in an era built on Twitch chat and live events, it would be an even bigger hit now.
4
The Saboteur
The Saboteur has one of the boldest art styles of its generation, and it even doubles as a gameplay mechanic. Pandemic Studios’ December 2009 open-world game drops you into Nazi-occupied Paris as Sean Devlin, a hard-drinking Irish race car driver who joins the French Resistance after a Nazi officer kills his best friend. Occupied districts are drained to black and white, except for blood, Nazi red, and Resistance blue, and every act of sabotage pushes color back into the streets.
Sean climbs Paris rooftops with Assassin’s Creed-style freedom, blows up guard towers and anti-aircraft guns, and races through the French countryside in cars that reflect the period. The open world is packed with Nazi targets, so a simple drive across Paris can turn into a guerrilla battle at any moment. It was a unique take on World War II that traded battlefields for liberating a city, and that angle still feels unexplored today.
Sadly, EA shut down Pandemic Studios before The Saboteur even hit shelves, so the game launched with no studio left to receive the praise it deserved. It was viewed as Pandemic’s stylish swan song, and it quickly slipped out of the conversation. EA closing the team behind Star Wars: Battlefront and Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction before even giving them another shot will always be a sore spot in gaming history.
3
Sleeping Dogs
Sleeping Dogs, a high-octane, crime-driven open-world game from United Front Games and Square Enix, launched on Xbox 360 in August 2012. You play as Wei Shen, an undercover cop infiltrating Hong Kong’s Sun On Yee triad as his loyalties blur between the badge and the gang. The game began at Activision as True Crime: Hong Kong before Activision canceled it and Square Enix rescued it.
Sleeping Dogs has the best action to ever grace the open-world crime genre, and it’s honestly not even close. United Front built a dynamic martial arts system with grabs, counters, and environmental takedowns that defeat enemies using meat hooks, table saws, A/C fans, and more. It features robust hand-to-hand combat that even Grand Theft Auto 6 would be hard-pressed to match. Wei Shen earns separate Cop and Triad experience as you play, and you can even hijack speeding cars by leaping from one to another mid-chase.
Square Enix still called the game a disappointment, despite Sleeping Dogs selling about 1.75 million copies in six months as a new IP. Square Enix passed on a full sequel in favor of the online spin-off Triad Wars, which was canceled in beta before United Front Games closed in 2016. Sega’s Like a Dragon series and Sloclap’s Sifu have since proven how much players love brutal martial arts and crime drama, which makes Sleeping Dogs look less like a misfire and more like a game that arrived years too early.
2
Saints Row 2
Volition dropped Saints Row 2 in October 2008, the same year Rockstar released Grand Theft Auto 4, and it felt more like a follow-up to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas than GTA 4 ever did. Rockstar packed San Andreas with robust mechanics that made the game feel giant and expansive, but GTA 4 stripped away much of what made its predecessor special to chase realism. That worked for some players, but it went too far for a lot of fans, and Saints Row 2 became the safe haven that felt most like home.
Everything fans loved about Los Santos was still there, just bigger and better: gang territory to take over, businesses to buy, tons of activities and minigames, and a completely customizable protagonist. While GTA 4‘s Liberty City felt gray and dreary, Stilwater was a playground with plenty of fun to be had outside of missions. Volition’s take on the formula was goofier at times, but it still knew when to deliver a heartfelt or serious moment.
Here’s the hot take: Saints Row 2 was a better GTA than Grand Theft Auto 4 by a mile. It offered drop-in, drop-out online co-op across the entire campaign, a robust character creator, crib and vehicle customization, a bigger map, and a deeper melee system with finishing moves. Volition’s story didn’t end well: 2022’s Saints Row reboot landed with mediocre reviews and sales, and Embracer Group closed the studio in 2023. Still, history should remember the time a developer went toe-to-toe with GTA and came out on top.
1
Lost Odyssey
Lost Odyssey, a AAA cinematic turn-based JRPG from Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi’s Mistwalker, reached the North American audience in February 2008. This Xbox first-party exclusive follows Kaim, an immortal warrior who has lived for 1,000 years and lost the memories of nearly all of them. It spanned a whopping four discs, carried a transcendent score from the legendary Nobuo Uematsu, and was Microsoft’s boldest attempt to give the Xbox 360 its own Final Fantasy. Amazingly, it was better than any Final Fantasy game that launched that generation.
Lost Odyssey was lauded for its engaging, active turn-based combat and mature storytelling, especially the “A Thousand Years of Dreams” short stories written by novelist Kiyoshi Shigematsu that Kaim recovers as he travels. Xbox said it was happy with early sales in Japan and hinted the series would continue, but a sequel never materialized. Xbox quietly retreated from its Japanese RPG push, and Mistwalker moved on to The Last Story, exclusively on Wii and, years later, Fantasian.
Although mainline Final Fantasy games never went back to their roots, turn-based JRPGs are thriving more than ever. Metaphor: ReFantazio sold strongly in 2024 and should’ve won game of the year, while Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 became 2025’s breakout hit after launching on Xbox Game Pass, proving a cinematic, melancholy RPG with active turn-based combat can move mountains. With Final Fantasy now committed to real-time action, Lost Odyssey looks more and more like the masterpiece Xbox needs to revive ASAP.
Some of these games were hits and others barely found an audience, but all eight deserve to be held on a pedestal today. Viva Piñata, Crackdown, and Lost Odyssey are sitting untouched in Xbox’s vault, while Sleeping Dogs, The Saboteur, and Saints Row 2 lost their teams and 1 vs. 100 is unfortunately gone for good. On the bright side, you don’t need to dig out an old Xbox 360 to catch up on these classics: Viva Piñata, Crackdown, Lost Odyssey, and Saints Row 2 are all playable on Xbox Series X|S through backward compatibility. Boot one up tonight, and you will also wonder how these games were ever left in the seventh generation.
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