General and Gaming > General
52 Games Challenge 2026!!!
bikingjahuty:
29. Xyanide (XBOX)
One pet peeve of mine is how freely the word "hidden gem" is thrown around online. At this point, saying hidden gem is more or less just a buzz phrase to bait people into clicking on your YouTube video or Reddit post. The reason I mention this is because over the years of playing countless examples of supposed hidden gems, I've come to discover that the overwhelming majority, probably around 90% of them, range from being wildly mediocre to absolute trash in reality. For most of these obscure titles, there's a very good reason they remained obscure and relatively rare. And while I realize there are exceptions and special cases when it comes to this, most obscure games remained that way because, well, they kinda suck. Case in point, Xyanide on the original XBOX.
Never heard of Xyanide? Well, that's because this game is horribly made twin stick shooter released late in the original XBOX's life in 2006. The premise and even the opening cutscene of the game seem very promising, however when you actually play the game, you'll find a horribly designed dumpster fire of terrible gameplay balancing, inability to perform crowd control in a genre where it's absolutely crucial, a practically useless primary weapon and an arguably even worse more powerful secondary weapon, and to top it off, background enemies and visuals which often confusingly become part of the foreground, that frequently result in your ship colliding with another one. Not to mention, shooting anything in the background is about as clunky and inaccurate as it gets. The only reason I even finished this game was due to it fairly short length and also very easy mode slightly mitigating some of Xyanide's most egregious gameplay sins. Otherwise, I would have easily dropped this game well before ever reaching the end of the game, something I still feel like I should have done.
As mentioned, the visuals become a gameplay problem when enemies are flying in an out of the background and foreground while other enemies remain in the background firing at you, and you trying to fire back at them. There are some cool sci-fi visuals as you're blasting away at everything, but overall the 3D visual and gameplay style of this game did not mix together very well. I will also give some credit to the game's cutscenes which while limited do show off some very interesting sci-fi world building and pretty creative ideas. Unfortunately, they're not even good enough to redeem this game or the fact that the visuals are part of why this game sucks too.
Finally, we get to the best part of Xyanide, the music. While nothing special or overly catchy, the OST in Xyanide is still fairly good and definitely goes along with the theme and setting of the game. There are also exposition and various weapon sound effects as well, but they do little to enhance the overall experience of playing this game. I guess you could say the audio is slightly above average, which is among the only things about this game I can say that about.
Xyanide would have been a complete waste of money back in 2006, and it's still an even way bigger waste of money now seeing how it's fallen pray to the retro video game tax. Unless you're just some hardcore XBOX collector and have to have one of the consoles more rare titles in your collection, I'd strongly suggest spending your hard earned cash someplace else. This game is an absolute train wreck of gameplay design and one of the worse games I've finished in quite some time. (3/25/26) [18/50]
2ko:
--- Quote from: bikingjahuty on March 26, 2026, 12:33:45 am ---29. Xyanide (XBOX)
One pet peeve of mine is how freely the word "hidden gem" is thrown around online. At this point, saying hidden gem is more or less just a buzz phrase to bait people into clicking on your YouTube video or Reddit post. The reason I mention this is because over the years of playing countless examples of supposed hidden gems, I've come to discover that the overwhelming majority, probably around 90% of them, range from being wildly mediocre to absolute trash in reality. For most of these obscure titles, there's a very good reason they remained obscure and relatively rare. And while I realize there are exceptions and special cases when it comes to this, most obscure games remained that way because, well, they kinda suck. Case in point, Xyanide on the original XBOX.
--- End quote ---
Yeah it annoys me too lol. I feel this 100% If they were good games, even if they didn't sell well at the time for whatever reason, collecting is such big hobby now that they would have been found by now.
kashell:
Sometimes playing the bad games helps us appreciate the good games that much more.
bikingjahuty:
--- Quote from: 2ko on March 26, 2026, 01:03:12 am ---
--- Quote from: bikingjahuty on March 26, 2026, 12:33:45 am ---29. Xyanide (XBOX)
One pet peeve of mine is how freely the word "hidden gem" is thrown around online. At this point, saying hidden gem is more or less just a buzz phrase to bait people into clicking on your YouTube video or Reddit post. The reason I mention this is because over the years of playing countless examples of supposed hidden gems, I've come to discover that the overwhelming majority, probably around 90% of them, range from being wildly mediocre to absolute trash in reality. For most of these obscure titles, there's a very good reason they remained obscure and relatively rare. And while I realize there are exceptions and special cases when it comes to this, most obscure games remained that way because, well, they kinda suck. Case in point, Xyanide on the original XBOX.
--- End quote ---
Yeah it annoys me too lol. I feel this 100% If they were good games, even if they didn't sell well at the time for whatever reason, collecting is such big hobby now that they would have been found by now.
--- End quote ---
I think at this point there are no more undiscovered retro gems, but for whatever reason there still seems to be quite a few games that have this reputation for being good, under appreciated, and lessor known, yet I just don't see it when I've actually played them. As I said, I think hidden gem has become a clickbait phrase more than anything, but I also think sometimes people dupe themselves into thinking a game is way better than it actually is due to the game's rarity, value, or desirability among collectors.
--- Quote from: kashell on March 26, 2026, 07:56:16 am ---Sometimes playing the bad games helps us appreciate the good games that much more.
--- End quote ---
Very true. I tend to try and play games that have a pretty solid reputation for being good, but I also like to get adventurous and try out stuff that is lessor known, but also have reputations for being at least decent. I'm pretty sure I found my copy of Xyanide before Metal Jesus Rocks posted his XBOX Hidden Gems video, but at the time it gave me hope that game would actually be a gem. After all, I'm a pretty big fan of shumps, so I figured the game at to at least be okay. Nope...
dhaabi:
--- Quote from: bikingjahuty on March 26, 2026, 10:27:28 am ---I think at this point there are no more undiscovered retro gems,
--- End quote ---
There certainly are, such as games that never released in the US that don't have English language options alongside titles for older PC systems. Although, maybe you specifically said this in reference to the US home console market which is probably more true than it's not.
--- Quote from: kashell on March 26, 2026, 07:56:16 am ---Sometimes playing the bad games helps us appreciate the good games that much more.
--- End quote ---
Absolutely, and obviously this isn't limited to video games. If you're someone who has a favorite genre within a particular medium, then engaging in lower-quality contemporaries gives you the opportunity to think critically about what it is you do actually like. Sometimes, people don't know why it is they like a particular aspect because they don't actually have anything bad to compare it to.
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