The 5 Best Xbox 360 Games of All Time
GTA IV
What I love about it: It’s cliche I know, but GTA IV is fucking awesome. Everyone and their dog ranked it 100 on the zero hour after it’s release; it’s ranked 98 on Metacritic for a reason
The city, the story, the soundtrack, the freedom; everything that made the previous GTA’s so fantastic is back, but stepped up a notch. I actually couldn’t imagine not liking a GTA game. Just cruising around town, listening to tunes, enjoying the beautifully rendered cityscape, randomly shooting obnoxious citizens is fun enough; throw in a gripping crime saga, crazy criminal characters, and the most subversive sense of humor ever found in a video game and it becomes a sure fire classic.
What could be better: Even the best games have their knocks and GTA IV is no exception. My two biggest complaints are the repetitive mission structure – with no save checkpoints – and sometimes shitty controls.
Every mission is like, go there, get this, shoot these people, get away from the cops, shoot more people, etc. Not only is that boring and should be spiced up (maybe with some Hitman style stealth assassinations, eh Rockstar?), but it also gets really fucking tedious when you have to do the whole mission again after passing the first 3 stages of it and were on the last part. The missions where you rob the bank and where you had to get the coke from the old run down hospitial come to mind; while they were great, they were a true test of patience.
The controls too, need some work. The new cover system works great in theory, but it does start to piss you off when you try to move from one wall to the next but the game decides to put you in font of some garbage can where you are easily in the line of fire.
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
What I love about it: While I am not normally one for games about orks, magic kingdoms and all of that shit, I seriously loved this game. Similar to GTA IV, the game has a massive open world, only Oblivion has the most massive open word of any console game I’ve played.
The game takes place in the literally huge mythical country of Cyrodil where you have full reign. You start out by escaping from the prison of the Imperial City and from there you are free to explore the 8 other cities or the countless villages, ruins, forts, caves, mines and even other dimensions held within the game’s world. I’ve played nearly 100 hours and gotten every achievement point available and I have certainly not seen and done everything the game has to offer.
I haven’t even mentioned the fact that every single non-player-character in the game is unique! Unlike GTA, where 99% of the NPC’s are simply scenery, spouting random lines, every one you meet in Cyrodil is an individual person with their own name and dialog. You can ask them questions, do quests for most of them, or follow them around and see how and what they do every day.
Oh, I nearly forgot to mention, the action is top-notch too, so you action fans (such as myself) won’t be disappointed.
What could be better: I honestly cannot think of too much they could do to improve. There were some frame rate issues because they really pushed the console as far as it could go, but they didn’t bother me much. One thing I found annoying was the fact you can’t go out at night without having to fight off wolves or bears or lame-ass crabs or something. You typically are in the middle of something and just walk on by them, but then they chase you for 10 minutes. It’s much more lame than challenging. They should just get rid it and let us roam the countryside in peace. There’s plenty of other places to fight baddies if we want to.
Mass Effect
What I love about it: Do you like science fiction? Did you like choose your own adventure books as a kid? Do you love stunningly beautiful, completely immersive, next generation video game experiences? If you answered yes to those 3 questions, then Mass Effect may be the best game you will ever play.
You star as Commander Sheppard, who can be either male or female and fully customized to look however you want him or her to look. I made my Shepard look like a buff version of me; that way I can really feel like it’s sexy me saving the galaxy. The game is half action, half RPG, which really helps to convey a cinematic feel. You meet characters and while in conversation with them you get three choices as how to respond. You can choose to either be a good guy, be a bad ass, or take the middle ground. The choices you make effect the outcome of the game at various later points, including your ability to hook up with a sexy 200 year old alien chick. Making the character reflect your personality to this degree is one of the coolest things I’ve ever done in a video game.
There’s lots of worlds to explore, mysteries to solve and evil plans to undo. I can’t recommend Mass Effect highly enough.
What could be better: For starters, it could be a whole-hell-of-a-lot less tedious. Sometimes there are just so many conversations you need to have and so manyclittle plot details to learn you spend 50% of your time just listening to what can quickly become boring conversations. In truth, much of it is interesting, but it can test your patience.
Also, the inventory system just blows. You end up picking up and carrying 100’s of items, and much of it is redundant because you have something better in your inventory already. This would be no problem if there was an easy way to get rid of it all, but you have to delete one by one, making it a huge time eater.
BioShock
What I love about it: Bioshock is a phenomenally creative first person shooter. The setting is what I love the most. Set in a parallel 1960, you star as plane crash survivor Jack, who discovers an elevator in a lighthouse that takes you down to cryptic underwater utopian city named Rapture, which of course, has gone horribly awry.
The game features really cool elements, like the ability to inject your self with DNA shots that give you special abilities, and a morality element where you decide to save little sisters (who are being protected by awesome bad-asses called Big Daddies that are pictured to the right) or harvest them for the power. If you decide to harvest, you get an instant power up, but if you decide to save them, you are rewarded with a more positive ending. There are twists and turns as the plot unfolds and I found myself fully enthralled through the entire game.
What could better: In the end, Bioshock is still just another first person shooter. The levels are straight forward and you can just blow your way through the entire game if you want to. There are neat things to check out, and you can get pretty deep into the story if you want, but in comparison to the other games on the list, the lack of a true open world works against it.
Gears of War
What I love about it: Gears of War is the only game I know where you use a gun that has a fucking chainsaw on it to slice bad guys to bloody bits! This game is pretty much the epitome of what video games were meant to be. You star as super tough guy soldier Marcus Fenix, and you lead a group super hulk commandos to victory over a race of hideously ugly underground alien-type things called the Locust Hoard.
GoW has fantastic graphics and superb gameplay; it was one of the first games to implement the cover system that is so predominately used today. It’s also one of the most fun games to play in the traditional 2 player mode - you know with 2 friends in the same room, as opposed to a random person on Xbox Live - as it the levels are designed for teamwork.
What could be better: The game is too short! I finished the whole thing in 8 hours on the hardcore (medium) setting, and I’m not exactly a game pro. The final boss, General Raam, was a little bit of a let down as well; he was almost too easy. Other than that though, the entire thing was spot on.
I am anxiously awaiting Gears of War 2 due out in the fall.
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