The Xbox 360 marked Microsoft’s finest hour in the console arena, holding its own against the PlayStation 3 for most of its lifespan.
The 360 owes its early and midlife success against the PS3 to a glorious video game library that kept it afloat until it died due to complications of a virus named Kinect, I believe. Let’s celebrate these golden days, shall we?
10. Fable 2
While it’s not asfabulousamazing as the original, I still likeFable 2quite a bit. Sadly, its pivoting to wider gameplay areas didn’t actually bring improvements over the neat corridors of the first game, but one has to value a bold attempt. The combat is exciting, the gun is very fun, and adding a dog is, naturally, perfect.
It sadly suffers from the lack of a glorious villain like the original’s Jack Of Blades — and of a great conclusion, due to that — but it still provides a damn fun adventure that you won’t regret getting into.
9. Alan Wake
The masterfulAlan Wake 2came out so long after the predecessor that it’s completely ok for you to have forgotten that there was even a predecessor in the first place. There was, and even though it went through an extremely lengthy and troubled development cycle, it didn’t fail to impress.
Alan Wake‘s environmental effects were breathtaking, the original concept was neat, and even though it became a bit repetitive at times, it’s still the rare game that kept getting better until the end. If you’ve only playedAlan Wake 2, which is totally ok because it’s a great stand-alone tale, I’d recommend you giveAlan Wake’sremastered edition a go.
8. Lost Odyssey
Understandably, many felt the 7th generation of consoles suffers from a lack ofFinal Fantasytitles. That’s wrong, though.Final Fantasy XIIIwas far from what anyone wanted, butLost Odyssey, a miracle of an Xbox 360 exclusive, of all things, unofficially more than filled that void.
Have you never playedLost Odysseyand happen to missclassicFinal Fantasyin your life? Well, the good news is that it’s easy to acquire and that it hasn’t aged one day.
7. Halo 4
Halo 4isn’t the bestHalogame. Hell,Halo 4isn’t even the fourth-bestHalogame — it’s the fifth. Its story is wackyevenif you don’t read all the side novels that the game awkwardly — and secretly — requires you to read to understand it.
The new enemies aren’t as fun to deal with as the good ol’ Flood or the still-present Covenant. But even with all that, I nearly forgot to put it on this list, not because it’s a subpar game, but because it looks so much better than any other game of that generation that I thought it was an Xbox One title. It looked unbelievably good back when it came out, and, to be entirely honest, it was still very fun to play both online and offline, as it features some of the best missions in the entire series.
The originalDead Risingremains the best zombie-killing theme park sandbox — with the twist that it isn’t a sandbox at all.Dead Risingis a regular game with its own awesome campaign and cast of characters, but it just gives players so many bonkers ways to interact with the zombies — and so many zombies — that it’s hard to remember what game we’re playing.
Dead Risinghas “labor of love” written all over it and remains one of Capcom’s most underrated masterpieces.
5. Mass Effect 2
While I maintain thatMass Effecthas the best story, overall campaign, and shooting mechanics — unlimited bullets, anyone? I thinkMass Effect 2has the biggest heart — and the smallest amount of bugs.
I’m sorry for awakening these memories, but holy crap, did the originalMass Effectrun like crap on the 360. And the huge loading screens masquerading as elevators? That all got fixed in the sequel, which also added one of the most memorable cast of characters in the history of gaming.
4. Gears Of War
Watching the first gameplay reveal for the originalGears Of Warwas one of the last, if not the last, times something felt “next-gen” to me. It just didn’t look like something a console — or even PC of the time — could handle.
The game itself didn’t disappoint either. Despite a very straightforward plot about very big men doing very big bad things to even bigger monsters, the gameplay just shines.GOWtook all the right cues from games such as the underratedKillswitchandResident Evil 4and remains one of the most fun games involving guns — and certainly the most fun involving chainsaw guns — in history.
3. Halo: Reach
Halo: Reachis the finalHalogame by Bungie, and it’s a perfect showcase of the studio’s prowess. The series never failed to keep the series from going stagnant by adding ever-new and ever-fun new mechanics, and that’s on full display here with the armor abilities. The game naturally aces at both its campaign and its online modes. This is one of the best bang-for-your-buck games of all time.
Whether you preferReachover my very unpredictable pick for #1 on this list, it’s impossible to deny thatReachis by far the most dramatic out of the two and that you’ll have just as hard a time forgetting about the Noble team as you have forgetting that one friend from Xbox Live that never logged back on.
Red Dead Redemptionwasn’t even an Xbox 360 exclusive, but this is likely the best non-FPS game with guns in history, so it just needs to be here.
You enter the movie Western version of aGTAworld, but there’s a catch. Much like inGTAIV, you now play as a character filled with depth and pathos, one whose story you’ll want to follow until the end. And what an ending it’ll be.
1. Halo 3
Was there ever any doubt?Halo 3looked atHalo CE’ssuperior campaign,Halo 2’ssuperior multiplayer, and then surpassed both with eas.
Though the competition is fierce,Halo 3features the best campaign in the series, courtesy of many of the most memorable set pieces ever and a surprisingly tight and emotional plot. The online also shows, at least in my opinion, the series at its peak. All I want for the future of the series is simple:Halo 3: 2.
