Best of OG XBOX – 218 Games on a 500GB Drive (Example Build) - BeepFixer | Retro Gaming

13-FEB-2026 EDIT:

This section is drawn from my 1TB build post but is equally relevant for the 500GB build as well.

Full Game List + File Sizes (Public Spreadsheet)

To make your own build more plannable and customizable, I’ve created a Google Sheet that shows exactly which titles are included in each build – and, more importantly, the file size of every game so you can accurately calculate how much space you’ll be putting onto your hard drive.

The sheet is available here, and it makes it incredibly easy to plan and adjust your own build – especially if you want to check whether your personal favorites fit on a 500GB drive or would push you over capacity.

Especially with CCI sizes varying widely, having exact file size data removes the guesswork.

original post:

If you have been following my videos and posts on the original Xbox, you’ll know that my goal has been to build a growing collection of information and practical tutorials for anyone looking to refresh their hard-modded console – whether that’s via modchip or TSOP flash – and bring it up to modern standards using the latest version of Cerbios.

Cerbios and the CCI image format

One of the biggest advantages Cerbios brings to the table is support for the CCI image format. Thanks to compression, CCI allows games to take up significantly less space than traditional formats, making it possible to fit a genuinely impressive library onto relatively modest storage.

Obviously, I will not share any of the games themselves – you will need to source those on your own – but what I can show is the process and reasoning behind building a “best of the best” OG Xbox collection that snugly fits on a 500 GB SATA hard drive.

My collection is built entirely around NTSC titles, since any hard-modded Xbox can be set to output either PAL or NTSC, and even TVs in Europe these days can handle NTSC signals without issue. Switching modes can be annoying, though, so rather than constantly changing settings, I focused on adding only NTSC games – especially since the NTSC library is larger than the PAL one.

Why make a 500 GB hard disk image?

That size was not chosen at random. A 500 GB SATA drive is one of the most common, cheapest, and easiest upgrades available today. You will likely already have one lying around that you can recycle, and if not, you can easily pick one up second-hand for literally five bucks or less.

As mentioned in a previous video, it simply is my favorite budget option for upgrading an original Xbox – also perfectly matching an Xbox you might pick up in a yard-sale or marketplace locally. Give it a bit of love, and you can enjoy everything the original Xbox has to offer without breaking the bank.

How I made this list of 218 games

I spent the better part of a week carefully curating the entire Xbox library of CCI-compatible games, title by title. This meant sifting through roughly 99% of the catalog and provided a solid foundation for what I would consider a true “welcome to the Xbox” experience.

My focus was not on full sets or sheer quantity, nor on including every FPS the Xbox is famous for. Instead, I emphasized balance across games, fairly representing as many genres as possible while prioritizing the most important or best-executed entries in each series.

While there are many heavy hitters in FPS and racing – the genres where the Xbox truly excelled – I made sure to also give strong representation to other genres, such as platformers, horror, RPGs, and sports.

The goal was to create something that feels right both for longtime Xbox fans and for newcomers discovering the platform for the first time. The end result is a curated list of 218 games.

Here’s my full list (461GB total)

007: Everything or Nothing
007: Nightfire
Amped 2
Arx Fatalis
Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance
Beyond Good & Evil
Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII
Blinx 2: Masters of Time & Space
Blinx: The Time Sweeper
Breakdown
Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon
Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood
Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30
Burnout 3: Takedown
Call of Duty 2: Big Red One
Call of Duty: Finest Hour
Capcom vs. SNK 2: EO
Carmen Sandiego: The Secret of the Stolen Drums
Castlevania: Curse of Darkness
Colin McRae Rally 2005
Conker: Live & Reloaded
Counter-Strike
Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex
Crash Nitro Kart
Crash Tag Team Racing
Crash Twinsanity
Crazy Taxi 3: High Roller
Crimson Sea
Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge
Dead or Alive 3
Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball
Def Jam: Fight for NY
Destroy All Humans!
Deus Ex: Invisible War
Doom 3: Limited Collector’s Edition
Dreamfall: The Longest Journey
Fable: The Lost Chapters
Far Cry Instincts: Evolution
Fatal Frame
Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly – Director’s Cut
FIFA Soccer 07
Fight Night Round 3
Forza Motorsport
Freedom Fighters
Furious Karting
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Guilty Gear X2 #Reload: The Midnight Carnival
Half-Life 2
Halo 2
Halo: Combat Evolved
Headhunter: Redemption
Heroes of the Pacific
Hitman 2: Silent Assassin
Hitman: Blood Money
Hitman: Contracts
I-Ninja
Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb
Indigo Prophecy
Jade Empire
Jet Set Radio Future
Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis
Kill Switch
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend
LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy
LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game
Madden NFL 09
Mafia
Major League Baseball 2K7
Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance
Max Payne
Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne
MechAssault 2: Lone Wolf
Medal of Honor: Frontline
Medal of Honor: Rising Sun
Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction
Metal Arms: Glitch in the System
Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance
Metal Slug 3
Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition Remix
Mojo!
Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance
Mortal Kombat: Deception
MTV Celebrity Deathmatch
MX Unleashed
Myst III: Exile
Myst IV: Revelation
NBA 2K7
NBA Street V3
Need for Speed: Carbon
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2
Need for Speed: Most Wanted – Black Edition
Need for Speed: Underground 2
NHL 2K7
Ninja Gaiden Black
Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee
Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath
Operation Flashpoint: Elite
Otogi 2: Immortal Warriors
Otogi: Myth of Demons
Outlaw Volleyball: Red Hot
Outrun 2
Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast
Panzer Dragoon Orta
Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie
Phantom Dust
Pinball Hall of Fame: The Gottlieb Collection
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
Project Gotham Racing 2
Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy
Psychonauts
Pure Pinball
Quantum Redshift
Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc
Rayman Arena
Red Dead Revolver
Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Tides of War
RoadKill
Rocky Legends
RollerCoaster Tycoon
Samurai Shodown V
Samurai Warriors
Scaler
Scarface: The World Is Yours
Second Sight
Secret Weapons Over Normandy
Serious Sam II
Serious Sam: The First Encounter
Shenmue II
Sid Meier’s Pirates!
Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams
Silent Hill 4: The Room
Silent Scope Complete
Sniper Elite
Sonic Heroes
Sonic Mega Collection Plus
Soulcalibur II
Spartan: Total Warrior
Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy
Spider-Man
Spider-Man 2
Splashdown
SSX 3
SSX On Tour
SSX Tricky
Star Wars: Battlefront
Star Wars: Battlefront II
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II – The Sith Lords
Star Wars: Republic Commando
Star Wars: Starfighter Special Edition
Still Life
Street Fighter Anniversary Collection
Super Bubble Pop
Super Monkey Ball Deluxe
Syberia
Syberia II
Tak 2: The Staff of Dreams
Tak: The Great Juju Challenge
Tenchu: Return From Darkness
The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind – Game of the Year Edition
The Godfather
The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction
The King of Fighters 2003
The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
The Simpsons: Hit & Run
The Simpsons: Road Rage
The Suffering
The Suffering: Ties That Bind
The Thing
The Warriors
Thief: Deadly Shadows
TimeSplitters 2
TimeSplitters: Future Perfect
TOCA Race Driver 3
ToeJam & Earl III: Mission to Earth
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell 2: Pandora Tomorrow
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4
Tony Hawk’s Underground 2
Top Spin
Tork: Prehistoric Punk
Total Overdose
True Crime: Streets of LA
Ty the Tasmanian Tiger
Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 2: Bush Rescue
Ty the Tasmanian Tiger: Night of the Quinkan
UFC: Tapout 2
Ultimate Spider-Man
Ultra Bust-A-Move
Unreal Championship
Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict
Vexx
Voodoo Vince
Wakeboarding Unleashed featuring Shaun Murray
Wallace & Gromit in Project Zoo
Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Whiplash
Wings of War
Worms 3D
Worms 4: Mayhem
Worms Forts: Under Siege
Wreckless: The Yakuza Missions
WWE Raw 2
X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse
XGRA: Extreme G Racing Association
XIII
Xyanide

But My Favorite Game Is Missing

I hear you, I hear you… trust me – I have been arguing with myself the last few days, because it simply is impossible to fit every great game on a 500 GB drive. Just have a look below to see how I balanced heavy hitters and represented as many genres as possible on a 500 GB hard drive.

It is only natural to think, “Oh come on, where’s title X, Y, or Z?” Grin, I do fully expect everyone to make a swap or two based on their own preferences. It’s not set in stone friends, but it should save you a few days of comparing thousands of titles yourself.

Just focus on swapping a few games – remove the titles you like least and add the ones you feel are missing for your personal taste! Note, it is important to keep file size in mind! CCI images can range from 150 MB up to several GB, depending on the source material.

Presentation and Interface

Now, I could have just put all these games onto the hard drive and used any old Xbox dashboard to boot them. In all fairness, the games would play perfectly well all the same. That said, after spending days debating every title and trying to make the perfect library, why not go all out and make it truly enjoyable to browse and use?

Rather than simply dropping 218 games onto a drive, in my opinion the Xbox is a living room centerpiece. Even alongside modern consoles today, it needs to feel organized, intuitive, and visually appealing – something you turn on and get genuinely excited about.

Rocky5’s XBMC4Gamers

That is exactly where XBMC4Gamers comes in! Arguably the best dashboard available for the original Xbox, whether soft- or hard-modded, it transforms the console into a sleek, modern experience. Browsing your collection becomes effortless, the interface holds its own compared to modern consoles, and it finally makes a large original Xbox library feel accessible rather than overwhelming.

Xbox Artwork Installer

A dashboard is only as good as the way it presents your games, and this is why Rocky5 is a genius: he added downloadable expansions to XBMC4Gamers that prove to be incredibly handy!

One of the features it supports is Xbox Artwork Installer, a massive effort by NikeyMikey with contributions from countless OGs on XboxScene and the OGXbox forum. Together, they’ve created custom artwork that truly elevates the gaming experience!

Every title in the library now comes with clean, high-quality box art, full backgrounds, and consistent metadata, giving the collection an incredible, polished, unified look – in many ways rivaling, or even surpassing, the presentation of modern consoles or PC stores.

Why This Matters

Titles are properly displayed (even if the files or folders themselves are not), and every game in the library now comes with clean, high-quality art, full backgrounds, and consistent metadata, giving the entire collection a polished, unified look.

The difference is immediate: instead of scrolling through abbreviated titles, it’s all visual. Each game pops out like a poster or a full-page advertisement in a gaming magazine, enticing and inviting you to grab your controller and dive in!

Hard Disk Genre Highlights

One of the challenges in making a “best of” collection is that you need to take a few things into consideration. My library isn’t just about quantity – if it were, I could have simply sorted games by file size and squeezed in a lot more than 218 titles.

Instead, I focused on making sure every genre got a fair deal, so that anyone who visits my home and turns on the machine can experience the very best the original Xbox had to offer, not just the titles that sold the most back in the day.

It’s also important to remember that console rivalries were massive back then, and genres like platformers generally sold less on the Xbox. To make this collection appeal more to today’s average retro fan, I toned down the heavy emphasis on FPS games and gave other genres more of a spotlight.

Platformers, adventure, RPGs, fighting, horror, a slimmed-down sports section, and even a puzzling game or two all get a fair share of attention, giving the library a well-rounded, enjoyable mix.

Tips for Personalization

As mentioned, even after days of arguing with myself and ending up with a carefully curated library of 218 games, I fully understand that everyone has their own favorites or niche interests.

If you are pulling from the same large collection of CCI images floating around online, but do not want to run a 2-4 TB disk – or perhaps are downloading titles one by one on a slower connection – this collection is, of course, completely flexible.

After all, it’s just a list of games that I put together, and nothing stops you from swapping out a few titles without breaking the 500 GB hard drive limit (roughly 460 GB usable). This way, you can make it your own “best of” Xbox experience.

A few things to keep in mind:

File sizes vary: CCI images can range from a few hundred megabytes to several gigabytes, so don’t assume you can just remove five games and add five more. For example, if you remove five games around 1 GB each and replace them with games that are 4 GB each, you could quickly run out of space. Always check the total sizes to make sure you don’t exceed your drive’s capacity.
Your balance: Start by removing the games you like least – this is the easiest way to free up space. To decide what to add, copy and paste my list without the games you dislike, then ask an AI for recommendations of similar games if you don’t already have a list in mind.
Don’t go overboard with sports: If you’re a big sports fan, you might notice a few variants, like a street edition, that you could want to include. Of course, it’s up to you what to add, but keep in mind that many sports games came in yearly editions. That’s why I usually include only the latest installment in a series or favor one studio’s version over multiple competing titles.
Visuals versus disk space: Finally, if you are adding custom art to your games – especially video previews (which I avoided to save space) – keep in mind that these can take up a significant amount of disk space.

Wrapping It Up

Building this “best of the Xbox” collection has been a lot of fun and something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time. From carefully curating 218 titles and making sure every genre shines, to transforming the browsing experience with XBMC4Gamers and custom artwork, it’s truly been a labor of love.

At the end of the day, it’s not just about having a lot of games – that’s an entirely different cup of tea. Many of my friends know I actually own the entire Xbox collection in disk format, like the obsessed hoarder I am. So no, this isn’t about collecting – it’s about creating an enjoyable experience.

It really does not matter who powers on my Xbox in the living room; anyone can browse the library and jump into a game. Even if you are a collector like me and own all the original discs, having an easy way to just kick back and dive in is incredibly satisfying.

And I guess that is the beauty of having a console like the original Xbox back in the heart of your living room. It offers a perfect blend of nostalgia and has helped me rediscover games I skipped back in the day, while also realizing that I’ve grown to appreciate more genres over time.

Thank goodness there are at least some benefits to getting older. 😉

I hope this post inspired some of you to put together your own best-of collection, or at least gave you a solid starting point. Alongside posts like this, I also enjoy making videos and I am currently working on several focused on the original Xbox.

If that sounds like your thing, feel free to check them out: youtube.com/@beepfixer