For a game that essentially forces you to repeat actions while skating, it is important to include some variety via different locations. It is disappointing that the multiplayer mode must be purchased separately seeing as it is a resounding success. The depth and hours of gameplay multiplayer offers is well worth the purchase. The zombie craze was taking over the entertainment industry and Valve did not shy away from this trend. In fact, Valve knew they had such a hot property after the release of the original game back in and immediately worked on developing a sequel.
Left 4 Dead 2 released exactly one year after its predecessor and improved on it in every way imaginable. Survival horror games were nothing new, however, Left 4 Dead 2 took the genre to new heights off the back of its innovative cooperative gameplay. The story follows four survivors of an apocalyptic scenario that has turned the majority of humans into zombies.
There are five different campaigns worked into this single title. The idea behind each campaign is to reach a safe point where the survivors can rest. Navigating areas becomes a real challenge and more importantly the first person camera creates a genuine frightening quality. Due to this game being a first-person shooter, the action appears up close and personal.
The game is no stranger to scenes of gore and violence. In fact, the game has been banned in several countries. Left 4 Dead 2 is made for cooperative play. It is simply not as fun to play any other way. You can still run through levels on your own, as any of the survivors not controlled by players will revert to acting as friendly AI. Valve put a ton of attention to detail in their weapons, which are a huge appeal of Left 4 Dead 2 's strategic gameplay.
Not all of the game modes are a success. The campaign is the clear frontrunner and all else hollows in comparison.
All in all, Left 4 Dead 2 is a highly enjoyable game geared for brilliant cooperative play. The third iteration of Guitar Hero launched the franchise into the stratosphere.
This game was released to the public at the peak of the rhythm genre craze. The concept is quite simple to grasp. The player uses a controller shaped like a guitar in order to play the correct notes at the right time as they scroll across the screen. Three core elements make this game a must-play. The first is the catalog of songs. Players can dive into a whopping total of 73 songs.
Not only is the catalog filled with memorable songs at launch but the developers also offered continued DLC content. Players could download additional songs of their choice after launch. However, once you get a few games under your belt you can comfortably tackle easy mode. The varying modes on offer were perfectly spaced out. Players could choose from easy, medium, hard, and finally expert. Each level would perfectly test the player's skill.
Only the masterful gamers would reach expert mode. Lastly, the varying game modes meant that the game never felt stale. Players can enjoy the short albeit extremely fun career mode in either single-player or co-op. Finally, the multiplayer mode offered players a ton of replay value. Fable III is the third installment of the franchise and is oftentimes remembered as the greatest. Players truly witnessed a compelling narrative develop before their eyes. The protagonist is tasked with overthrowing an evil King.
Once the successful uprising is complete, the player then assumes control of the throne. It is an all-encompassing story that begins as a revolution and continues as you command an entire kingdom. As you could imagine with a game that delivers such an extensive narrative, it does take some time to build up. However, this slow buildup is certainly worth the wait. The environments are imbued with such vibrant personalities.
From a small village to castles every detail looks fantastic. Fable III is all about building relationships and alliances. Therefore, interacting with characters is a vital aspect of the game. What makes Fable so special is that you are always in control. Although combat is not the main attraction, it does occur often.
Players can attack with short-range, long-range, or magic options. Different weapons will be available to you throughout the game. Unfortunately, the combat mechanics were criticized for being overly simple.
In truth, the game would have benefited from a more complex system. Thus, the voice acting is a major selling point of the series. It seems as though the Batman: Arkham series appeared out of thin air. It is safe to say at the time nobody was truly asking for a Batman video game series. Its sequel Arkham City quickly became a highly anticipated instalment.
As a stealth game, the camera angle was always going to be a legitimate concern. It is no surprise that a third-person perspective is utilized. This way, players control Batman as the camera freely rotates around him. The camera motion is smooth and rarely hinders stealth gameplay. Even in the shadowy locations, enemies remain visible. Combat is immensely satisfying this time around. It is up to the player to counter blows and attack in real time.
Striking down enemies is tons of fun. It hits the perfect balance between button mashing and strategy. Certain enemies can only be taken down in specific circumstances. Therefore, combat variety is also taken into account. For a campaign centric game, Arkham City has surprising replay value. In addition to its 40 hours of core gameplay, a new game plus mode is unlocked after completing the game.
This mode sees an increase in difficulty, as enemies are stronger. Luckily you can keep the equipment used in the first play through. As expected for a game based on comic book material, most of the voice acting borders on corny and ridiculous. Often times the dialogue will have you cringing. This leads into the following issue of too many characters. The number of characters distracts from the storytelling. It feels as though most are thrown in for fan service purposes.
Fallout 3 is credited with reviving the franchise after being dormant for ten years. Most people are unaware that the Fallout franchise debuted back in The franchise never broke through the mainstream. That is until the release of Fallout 3. The game released in would propel the franchise into much deserved critical and commercial success.
As a survivor of a nuclear apocalypse the protagonist lives underground as most survivors do. Forced to flee his safe haven, the protagonist must venture to the world above to find his father who mysteriously disappears. This plotline sets up the perfect premise for an open world game. The first-person camera and open-world environment work extremely well in tandem. However, Fallout 3 provides the unique option to let the player decide between first person or third person camera.
Very few games allow for this optional preference. The desolate wasteland is truly a shocking sight to see whether in first- or third-person. Due to the repetitive nature of combat and enemies, combat quickly feels stale after a few hours of gameplay.
Thankfully, the desire to level up your character pushes you through the majority of combat and eases the pain of repetitive battle.
This has more to do with the sound effects than it does the in game music. The creepy noises that can be heard throughout the game add to the loneliness of your surroundings. With the human population nearly extinct, the world is a hollow ground and the soundtrack perfectly captures this feeling. Although Fallout 3 won Game of the Year in , a disappointing ending keeps it from being one of the greatest games of all-time.
One thing is true; there is no shortage of stellar games to choose from. The dilemma arose from the countless options. Having too many options is definitely a modern problem.
However, it is a problem nonetheless. These categories might be able to help shape your decision. Oftentimes, presentation is the first aspect that gamers notice, making it an extremely important component.
It is essential to nail that first impression. This includes several aspects such as graphic style, menu layout, and aesthetic. Presentation has a lot to do with how a game makes you feel. For example Fallout 3 is a game that flourishes due to its presentation's quality. Its vast open world may not have all the detail of a more modern title, but it nevertheless presents an apocalyptic version of Washington D. Graphical style is an important piece of the world-building puzzle.
The game is given a personality through the presentation of its visual style. Repetitive gameplay can turn a hour campaign into a snooze fest. Many developers choose to implement variety to freshen things up, and Call of Duty: Black Ops II is the perfect example. Three core game modes help deliver an experience that will keep most gamers satisfied for a full year. Not only must they make conceptual sense but the modes should be fully fleshed-out experiences.
As video game standards increase, more and more gamers expect a cinematic experience from their beloved series. The right score can imbue scenes with a sense of larger-than-life grandeur. Take the Halo franchise, for instance. This iconic franchise is renowned for wonderfully composed music that appears throughout the campaign. That is definitely the case with Halo Reach. The cutscenes play like an actual Hollywood movie in large part due to the high-quality soundtrack.
Need for Speed: Most Wanted is one of the games on this list that features intricate sounds effects. All in all, there are many facets that go into a classic Xbox game, and the ones here are easily the best of the best. Unfortunately, the console was subject to various technical issues.
For example, an AV cable error would light up all four quadrants of the circle in red lights. However the most infamous without a doubt was the occurrence of three out of four flashing red lights. This indicated a general hardware failure.
Unfortunately for gamers, this meant that the console would need to be replaced. Just like that, it became unusable. This would occur seemingly at random. Thankfully, a warranty would protect users from losing out on an entire console. The user would need to send the console to Microsoft who would either provide a replacement or fix the issue. The list of best-selling Xbox games will surely surprise many gamers.
For starters, there are very few Xbox exclusives on the list. The notable exclusives can be found at number one with Kinect Adventures selling 24 million copies. Next, the Halo franchise takes up the 9, 12, and 13 spots with Halo 3, Reach, and 4 respectively.
This is surprisingly low for a franchise that is synonymous with the best Xbox games around. The final notable exclusive would be the Gears of War franchise which occupies the 14 and 15 spots with 5 million units sold. The majority of the top ten is made up of non-exclusive franchises such as Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto. Interestingly enough, the Xbox finds itself in the top ten gaming console sales of all time.
It sits comfortably in ninth place with over 84 million units sold. In comparison, the predecessor to the Xbox sold only 24 million units. In addition, the Xbox One failed to reach the heights of the Xbox As a successor to the Xbox , it sold around 51 million units. The seventh generation of consoles is the one time that Microsoft succeeded in challenging Sony for the top spot. The Xbox kept up with the PS3 that sold a reported In addition to the original version available at launch, the Xbox earned two redesigns.
The Xbox S. The S is meant to signify slim. As you may have guessed the model sports a thin redesign. This slim model was not only physically lighter but it also reduced the chances of internal overheating which plagued the past version of the console. Next, we have the Xbox E. The E model was the last model to release and therefore the most technologically advanced. It featured Kinect compatibility. Not only was this model faster but it also featured a brand new black color model. Regardless of which model players own, they can always enjoy the best Xbox games.
The first was a result of the fierce console war going on between Sony and Microsoft. The Xbox is the successor to the original Xbox. Thus many have suggested it could have been called Xbox 2. However, the would be competing with the PlayStation 3 upon release. Naming the console Xbox 2 would suggest that Microsoft is one step behind their rivals at Sony.
We hope you like the items we recommend! CBR has affiliate partnerships, so we receive a share of the revenue from your purchase. I can't seem to get enough of reading and writing. Let's add coffee to the list. Premium pick. Batman: Arkham City. Editors choice. Red Dead Redemption. Best value. Read our full Far Cry 3 review. The first Borderlands introduced us to the world of Pandora, a bandit-infested wasteland of a planet filled with secret vaults, guns, more guns, and even more guns.
The sequel took everything that made Borderlands a smash hit and improved on it twofold. Borderlands 2 is bigger, badder, funnier, and more colorful, making it one of the premier cooperative gaming experiences out there.
Borderlands 2 introduces new, more diverse guns, more legendary loot, and a new raid boss for the brave. But the studio still had one more story to tell, and Halo: Reach represents the culmination of all the passion and experience its developers had gained since beginning work on Halo a decade earlier. Ditching the Master Chief in favor of a group of Spartans tasked with defending the planet Reach against an immense alien force, the story is a tragedy where we already knew the ending, but it was the emotional and harrowing journey along the way that made the story so special.
Halo: Reach also happened to have one of the best multiplayer modes in the entire series, with new character abilities and weapons that offer a twist on the established formula.
With the excellent guitar controls of its former series as the base, Harmonix added drums and vocals to create the ultimate party game, loaded with songs from a variety of musical styles to keep nearly everyone entertained. Follow-up games added additional features, including a keyboard peripheral, but it was the original game that stands out in our memories the most.
BioShock Infinite chose to almost completely abandon its famous setting, Rapture, which made the previous two games in the series famous. In place of a story warning of the dangers of Randian Objectivism was a tale of nationalism gone wrong, with a floating city on the brink of destruction at the hands of a crazed prophet. Read our full BioShock Infinite review.
Prepare to make sacrifices and uncover the past in the final chapter for Marcus Fenix and his crew. The harrowing campaign is both brutal and emotional, spanning a variety of beautiful environments and providing tons of epic set-piece moments.
The game also features a robust multiplayer suite, with fantastically designed maps to support the unique, cover-based gameplay. Its longevity lies in its vast number of achievements and the expanded difficulty settings — not to mention the waves of enemies to slaughter in the updated Horde mode. Read our full Gears of War 3 review.
With no killstreaks or customized gear to worry about, all that stood between you and your opponent was your skill on the controller.
In addition to guns, baseball bats, and explosives, Frank can go after zombies with a chainsaw, cutting them into a fine bloody mist, and he has a good time doing it. That changed with Rayman Origins , an inventive 2D platformer that built on the simplicity of the earlier games, but with a gorgeous cartoony visual style and some of the best level design the genre has ever seen.
A sequel, Rayman Legends , is also available for Xbox One, adding special musical stages on top of the established Origins formula. Read our full Rayman Origins review. The Saints Row series leaned into its sillier elements with its second game, but it was Saints Row: The Third that sent the series off the deep end in a truly glorious way. With the Third Street Saints now living their lives as celebrities, their endorsements have caught the eye of a nefarious organization known as the Syndicate, setting the stage for a war that will determine the fate of Steelport.
Saints Row: The Third is goofier than its predecessors, with ridiculous open-world mayhem to rival the Grand Theft Auto series and cooperative play to make things even more hectic. There is no other game on the market that allows you to pummel your enemies into submission using an adult toy — perhaps that is for the best.
Read our full Saints Row: The Third review. Developer Klei has long been known for its gorgeous Saturday-morning-cartoon art style and eclectic mix of genres, and it was at the absolute top of its game with the 2D stealth platformer Mark of the Ninja. Blending the platforming of classics like Ninja Gaiden with the hardcore stealth of Splinter Cell , the game requires extreme precision if you want to complete it, with only a tiny window of time available before enemies spot you and blow you to smithereens.
A surreal puzzle game with a twist, the object of Braid may be to save a damsel in distress while navigating six story-book worlds, but the clever puzzle design and mature story render it more enjoyable than your average Mario knockoff. The music and watercolor-like world you inhabit are bewitching, and the increasingly sophisticated use of time manipulation is brilliant, to say the least.
Skate ditched many of the arcade elements found in its competitors, instead focusing on a realistic and relentlessly challenging version of the sport, complete with great skating personalities like Rob Dyrdek.
As with any skateboarding game worth its salt, Skate included a killer soundtrack of hardcore punk and hip-hop tracks, with artists like Bad Brains, Agent Orange, Black Flag, Dead Prez, and Rick Ross blaring in your ears as you attempted a sick kickflip that ultimately ended in a faceplant on the pavement.
Read our full Battlefield 3 review. Then there was Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved. It helped usher in a new wave of small-scale games on the Xbox Live Arcade platform when there was still a distinction between these titles and larger AAA games, and its popularity eventually led to two excellent sequels.
Noire has developer Rockstar on the box, but the third-person shooting and thievery made famous in the Grand Theft Auto series play a very small part in this period piece. Largely an investigation and dialogue-driven adventure game, L. Where L.
Noire shines is in its complicated rock-paper-scissors interviewing system, which makes use of performance-capture faces that allow the player to pick up on visual cues to determine if a suspect is lying or telling the truth.
Correctly determining when someone is trying to mislead you and pointing to the evidence in your notebook is incredibly fulfilling, and calling them out on a lie only to walk back your accusation and apologize two seconds later allows for some brilliant, unintended comedy.
Read our full L. Noire review here. The Splinter Cell series has undergone its share of makeovers since it began in , gradually changing from no-frills espionage into the character-driven revenge tale we saw in Splinter Cell Conviction. Blacklist also saw the return of cooperative missions, as well as the unique Spies versus Mercs competitive multiplayer mode, which is as addictive and chaotic as ever. No piece of the game feels like an afterthought — instead, they work harmoniously to create one of the most complete games we ever played, and one that is desperately in need of a sequel.
Read our full Splinter Cell Blacklist review. Enter the Animus to fly across rooftops and take down villainous Templars as Ezio Auditore, another ancestor of Desmond one of the main characters from the first game. Though later entries would certainly improve on some of its systems, ACII remains the tightest entry in the series with the best balance between crazy sci-fi and secret history. After all, Ubisoft did decide to build an entire trilogy around Ezio.
Visceral Games was there to fill that void, however, with Dead Space. The science-fiction horror game had all the tension of Resident Evil, and its Necromorphs were far removed from the zombies we had seen populating so many other games in the genre. What made Dead Space stand out from the pack, however, was its violence.
Gruesome and unrelenting, failure to complete a section of the game — sometimes just by making a small mistake — would result in an animation showing protagonist Isaac killed in a gloriously over-the-top fashion. Telltale Games earned a reputation over the last generation for its excellent story-based adventure games, covering franchises like Borderlands and Batman with great success, but it was The Walking Dead that helped elevate the studio to superstardom.
The grim, emotional tale of Lee Everett and the young girl Clementine helped to separate the game from the other action-packed zombie games on the market, and Telltale had the guts to kill one of its leads in the finale, even as the second season continued the storyline.
Read our full The Walking Dead review. Creating an alternate, rebooted universe with a new version of Dante was a bold move for Ninja Theory, but it paid off completely in DmC: Devil May Cry.
The stylish action game features the same frenetic combat and grotesque enemy design as the original four titles, but its grounded characters and macabre tone was more in line with contemporary design trends than we had seen before. Dante is still a smartass, but his emotions no longer feel exaggerated, and the supporting cast around him fits the story perfectly.
Though DmC drops the action to 30 frames per second instead of the usual 60, you can hardly tell in the heat of combat. Read our full Tomb Raider review. Throwing you into the mountains of Colorado with dozens of races and challenges to complete, the game is a true open-world racer, allowing you make your own fun instead of forcing you down a narrow progression system.
The spectacle moments in Forza Horizon are among the best on the Xbox , at one point tasking you with racing an airplane to the finish line, with its trail swooping and twirling in the sky above you as you slam the pedal to the metal. Read our full Forza Horizon review. But it is when you throw another player into the mix that Evolution begins to shine. Read our full Trials Evolution review. Remedy Games developed a reputation for moody, atmospheric action games with an emphasis on sympathetic characters not found elsewhere in the genre, and its long-delayed Alan Wake is perhaps the best example of this.
The result was Castlevania: Lords of Shadow , a game that teased its more sinister themes throughout an engaging action-adventure game that, while spooky and incredibly entertaining, felt like a Castlevania in name only. That changed, however, when players saw the ending, which completely changed how the rest of the game was viewed.
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