My Top-10 Xbox 360 Games!

Last month I did a top-5 list of the worst and / or most disliked games in my collection of Xbox 360 games (that's what I play on), so now I thought I'd do a top-10 best games instead. I have about 70 games or more now and most of the games I do like, of course, so finding 10 extraordinary awesome games shouldn't be hard for me. So let's go ...


10. Left 4 Dead

Today this game was a game I pretty much even didn't wanna put on the list, but I did it anyways for the good old times I've had with it. One of my first games for the Xbox 360, I pretty much played this on a daily basis with my stepfather back in 2009 and first half of 2010 (when I was living at my mom's, that is). We had lots of fun together with this game, but since then I have, pretty understandable I hope, grown kinda tired of playing it. I have recently played it on Xbox Live with a friend of mine, but I am just too tired of the same old four campaigns over and over again. I know every inch of them inside and out, and it's the same old zombies and you get the whole picture. I have Left 4 Dead 2 as well, but I never liked that one as much, thought it was "too much / over the top" compared to the first one. But yeah, while I play this today and rather irritate myself over the many bugs, especially in the second one, rather than enjoying it and having fun, it was a great game back in the day, and still would be if I would've started playing it today, and it also still is the best zombie game I've played. I had 1,5 years of total fun with this game and that is something I'll never forget.


9. Saints Row 2

The best installment in its series, I bought this game in early 2009, being one of my first games. I bought it for a probably very common reason - it being a GTA-clone, and me being a GTA-addict. Clone or not, it's still a very good and fun game, or at least it was for its time. Unfortunately it's grown to be one of my most "broken" games which I rarely feel to play anymore, and when I do it it's like fifteen minutes tops. But this doesn't make me deny its former glory in my collection. It is one of the games I overall have played the most, as well as loved. It was also the first game I played of this series and I liked it a hundred times better than the first one, and when The Third came out a little over a year ago I ultimately thought this was still the best one. This is a real street-gang drama like it should be, with a lot more options (like the character creation, great variety of clothes, etc.). The Third did bare puff on this one. I can only hope that Saints Row 4, which I guess will come to life, will be as good as the second, or of course even better.


8. The Darkness 1 / 2

I could not decide which one is my favorite out of the great Darkness games. The first one was one of my first games for the Xbox 360 and while the gameplay isn't the most awesome I've played, the story is the thing about it that gets the big prize. The second one is better in gameplay and much of the physics, like the cell-shading graphics and that it actually looks and feels more like the original comics. Though I think I found the first game to actually be darker story-wise, but it's really just a matter of opinion and I'm sure that it differs from people to people who've played the games around the world. Personally, I'm leaving it at this, calling it even between two great games, and maybe time well give me more of a single choice which is the better one.


7. Gears of War 3

This amazing series is simply nothing but amazing. I have played all three of them and looking forward to the prequel Judgment now. One thing about the GoW games I really love is the story. It's a very great, well-written and interesting sci-fi story which really is what these games are all about. The gameplay controls always were a bit clunky but got better with each game, but that's not all. I really think they outdid themselves with each game overall. The first one was great, the second even better, and the third one the best. Now that's how it should be with games when they do series of them. Of course not all game series are like this, but GoW certainly is. If you're the type of gamer that really enjoys a good story, then GoW is easily one the finest choices you could go with.


6. Vanquish

This is a game that really came out pretty much unnoticed if I'm right. Not many people seem to know this game or wanna play it if they do. The reason because of this is most likely that it's an obvious Gears of War-clone set in a different sci-fi environment (much more white instead of the grey decay which GoW is set in), as well as the real boring cover art. I mean, if I wouldn't have seen gameplay for this and then tried out the demo, but simply seen it for the first time in some store, I would've thought it looked like some boring child's game. Clone or not, I have all the GoW games, Quantum Theory (another clone, though rather bad) and Vanquish. Now there is also Inversion which I have yet to play, but to be honest, I really think that Vanquish was slightly better than all of the GoW games. I simply enjoyed the gameplay more, especially with the abillities you have with your suite (glide). It's also a very high-paced game with 100 % action all the time. The only thing really about Vanquish that doesn't beat what GoW have is the story, which is kinda mediocre. But as I said, the gameplay is awesome and that made this one of the funniest games I ever played.


5. Bulletstorm

Gears of War gone FPS style. This is what this game is in one sentence. Created by Epic Games just like the GoW-series, this was a sure go for me. After playing the demo before its release in 2010 I was really excited about this one. It was great and fun gameplay, really cool sci-fi environments and cheesy Duke Nukem-style humour. I think the missions are very fun and the boss battles are fun and memorable, to me at least they were. I recently finished this for the third time and I'm certain that I will do it again and again. Non-stop action, funny and interesting characters (a sexy chick, of course!) and lots of skill points (my favorite being "rear entry"). The games soundtrack theme is also very great and occassionally there are moments where the music goes great with the gameplay.


4. Max Payne 3

Another masterpiece in Rockstar Games' catalogue. I loved the first two Max Payne games so this was a must for me, even if the sunny Brazilian setting sure differs from the trademark snowing or raining New York City like in the previous two games. I wasn't really sure what to expect when I was about to play it, thinking too much about the previous games. But I gotta say, this game did not disappoint! Rather the opposite, it really did left as a very worthy installment in the series, though I don't know if it's better than the previous ones. I leave that up to everyone to decide for themselves. It also has got a very good and interesting original soundtrack done by the L.A. noise band HEALTH. I liked every single second of the soundtrack during the gameplay and is easily music I could recommend as a stand-alone as well. A great combo of a great game with a great soundtrack, is the final verdict for Max Payne 3.


3. Deus Ex: Human Revolution

I never played any of the earlier Deus Ex games, but I always heard good things about them. As I am a big sci-fi fan, or rather the dystopian style which is on earth, tall buildings, flying cars and so on. I'm not a very big fan of aliens and overnatural stuff, really. Anyway, this game is a futuristic sci-fi story and that's why I decided that I must have this game. When I got it and did not expect it to be such a big surprise as it turned out to be - it was awesome! I played the story through immediately almost twice before changing to another game. It was just such a refreshing experience in gaming for me from my otherwise sandbox-style filled game collection. I've played some Splinter Cell games back in the day but never was much for the sneak-style games, but this was just what I needed at the time. The story is also cool and always kept me wanting to get further into it, and the freedom while doing everything is just great. The soundtrack is also one of the best O.S.T's ever made and alone worth getting this game.


2. Red Dead Redemption

GTA goes the wild west, not a bad idea I tell ya. The result is amazing, too! In 2008 or even early '09 before I ever heard of this game (I didn't know about Red Dead Revolver at the time either) I would've never figured that Rockstar Games would do this kind of game, but I'm really happy they did, because it's an awesome game just like everyone else of their games. The graphics are also pretty nice for the game's size, details and loads of content. I've played this one quite a lot online lately as well (I haven't had Xbox Live before, shame on me ...) and it's so fun! I'm really looking forward to another game in this series.

The only disappointment with this game was the (big) DLC - RDR: Undead Nightmare - a zombie-themed version of the game with a small, new side-story in which there is a zombie apocalypse. While I had fun playing it, I also felt disappointed in some ways. I'm not really sure in what ways, but I just feel like I'm missing some things that other Rockstar-games have, but then again, not all games can be perfect. Nonetheless, the Game Of The Year-edition of the game which I have now is a must-buy and includes every DLC.


1. Grand Theft Auto IV

The big winner in my collection and probably my favorite installment in the GTA series as well. The first GTA game I ever played (from what I recall) was GTA II, which was another thing, kinda. In 2001 I played GTA III which instantly made a huge impact on me - I loved it so much! The complete freedom to do whatever you can, and as I was just 10-11 years old at the time, it was extra cool. The year after I went on with GTA Vice City which literally changed my life at 12. The game was not only awesome, it's radio stations had great (80's) music that made my interest break into that as well. I officially became a metalhead while realizing that V-Rock had some awesome metal music, but also the synthpop and new wave channels became well played. A few years later GTA San Andreas came and expanded all boundaries and really showed that GTA was about to stay as my favorite games. After playing both VC and SA for pretty much every day straight between 2002-2007 (I wasted my youth on this, really), the latest GTA IV came out in 2008 and really did not change my habbit. I was in deep love, again.

Liberty City, which is the city in which GTA IV takes place, is based on New York City, which is a city I love in the movies and dream about going to, so it's just a perfect atmosphere for me to drive around the city as well as doing the missions. It's a great story, the best yet in fact. I liked the other GTA stories as well, but especially San Andreas' street gang-theme wasn't really my dream come true. I also really liked the DLC episodes they introduced in IV, especially the biker gang-themed the Lost and Damned  (now this is the type of gang I like!).

I've just had so much fun with the GTA games for over 10 years now, and with the fifth installment, called GTA V of course, I will have at least two more years of solid GTA-fun (though I will continue to play no matter how tired I get of it).

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Some of my other cirka 70 games that didn't make the list, good as bad ones, with * for close ones:

Batman: Arkham City*
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow*
Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning*
Devil May Cry 4*
Mirror's Edge*
Rage*
Bioshock*
Bioshock 2
Gears of War
Gears of War 2*
Dead Rising
Dead Rising 2
Skyrim
Fable II
Fable III
Prey
Turok
Timeshift
Sleeping Dogs
L.A. Noire
Saints Row
Saints Row The Third
Assassins Creed II
Racedriver: Grid
Battlefield 3
Crackdown
Alpha Protocol
Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood
Duke Nukem Forever
The Godfather II
Borderlands
Left 4 Dead 2
Dead Island
Perfect Dark Zero
The Simpsons Game
Kane & Lynch: Dead Men
Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days
Gun
The Club
F.E.A.R.

and more!

The Top-5 Worst XBOX 360 Games In My Collection.

I have about 70-80 games for Xbox 360 and I have had more before. This is a list of the five worst games I ever had, that I've been the most disappointed or frustrated with, or simply have a pure hatred against now. So let's go ...


5. Borderlands (2009)

I love wasteland-themed movies and games, post-apocalyptic sci-fi style with the classic, cliché desert savages, small town camps, and super vehicles and so on. One really good game with these features is Rage, but unfortunately I can't say the same thing for this game. I bought this because it was supposed to be such a good game that very many people's got, but I guess opinions still relies in oneself and not the public. While not necessarily a very bad game in its classic sense, I found it pretty mediocre-boring while playing it by myself.

As I only played it once by myself, I've had it laying around for times when I have friends over so we could play it in co-op mode, which is a hell lotta more fun. But not anymore ... I'm generally a solid FPS games, half of my games are FPS I imagine and I've been playing FPS games almost exclusively lately. The last time we played though, we pretty much died once a minute. I mean it was really frustrating. I had the best weapons I had been able to find / buy and just shot, shot and shot the enemies, at times in the face for a long time - almost whole mags - without them dying! I mean, that sucks so badly. It's not even fun anymore when it gets like that. I rage-quitted the game and don't wanna play it now. It's very repetitive anyways, too. So ultimately - I did not like Borderlands.


4. Crackdown (2006)
 
This was one of my like 5-7 first games I ever got for the Xbox 360. At the time I had an old white Premium 20 GB, which is kind of nostalgic now. The reason I wanted this game was because not too many games really interested me, besides Grand Theft Auto IV that is. I'm a huge GTA nerd and it was pretty much the only series I played for some years in the mid to late 2000's. So looking up other, "similar" sand-box / free-roam kind of games, I found out about Crackdown. I got it from my stepdad who worked in a kind of media-disc warehouse where they had movies and games, so he brought a copy home. Since I didn't have too many games at the time, I believe I played this one quite a lot, almost finishing it actually. Though I played it so much, I couldn't help but to feel that it was very repetitive all the way through.

It's really the same thing you do over and over and over again from the beginning to the end, and I hate that with games. I really think game developers should actually develope a game, not develope a mission, repeat it lots of times and call it a game. You're a super-cop or agent or whatever, and you can jump and climb on buildings, collect green orps and then you assassinate some drug dealers, mafia bosses or whatever. It's really the same route over and over in this game with everything, not a very fun one at that. Needless to say, I got tired of it before I finished it and stopped playing it.


3. Duke Nukem Forever (2011)

I'm gonna stay short on this one. 14 years in development, the hopes of the gamers pretty much dead, no high expectations anymore, this was bound to fail.
I played Duke Nukem 3D as a kid, maybe I played the others too, I don't remember anymore. I got this without really expecting anything from it rather than the obvious - that is was gonna be bad. Therefore, I wasn't too surprised either. This game lacks pretty much everything it shouldn't. The graphics are horrible as they differ from stage-to-stage in the game, pretty mediocre / lame gameplay overall and the humour wasn't really that funny no more neither. Bulletstorm, also released in 2011, is what Duke Nukem Forever should've been. But ey, at least I had that 3D poster on my wall for a while.


 2. Fable III (2010)

First off, I never played the original Fable game, I started with Fable II for Xbox 360 maybe a year ago? I liked that game, pretty much playing it non-stop until I finished it. As Fable III had already been out for a while at that point, I had heard things about it and no good things, I can tell you. Actually, what I heard about it was so much bashing that I kind of thought it was ridicolous, really. So then one day I was at the local media store and found it for 99 Swedish kronor (about 13-14 bucks), so I thought I'd get it, it wasn't so much money to lose anyway.

So I came home and started playing it. At first I didn't really think too much of it, I was just kinda trying to see if it either sucked or was better than people say. As time went by I started to recognize the issues pretty much "everybody" had been talking about. I also found myself missing Fable II a lot during the playthrough of this. It's certainly a huge step down in every good way that was Fable II, and then I've heard that the second one was kind of that to the first one as well. But I liked the second, after a short while I did not think fondly of the third. I did finish it, however, but it wasn't too long either so I guess that explains it. I was ultimately very disappointed with this game. A huge let-down after the great Fable II.


1. Dead Island (2011)

And here's the crowned winner of my top-5 worst Xbox 360 games in my collection! This game is pretty much everything bad about a game and I don't think I've never been more frustrated by a game than with this stupid piece of shit! I generally love zombie games and have a bunch of them - Left 4 Dead 1 and 2, Dead Rising 1 and 2, Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare,  and I had the first four Resident Evil games and I even played the zombie bonus on Call of Duty: Black Ops, but this motherfucker takes the fucking cake for being a real bad, piece-of-shit-game which should never have been released! It's a fucking blasphemy amongst zombie games.

I bought this a while back after it dropped in price (THANK GOD I did that ...), at a cost of 199 Swedish kronor (about 25-27 bucks I think?), a price which is just too much for this crap. I do realize that I'm using lots of silly words and shit right now, but it's just my angry fucking frustration of this game that is getting out through my fingertips. I somebody mentions this game to me I also get in a very bad mood because it reminds me that I payed that much money for this shit!

Where Left 4 Dead are the zombie games I currently like the most, especially the first one (I thought the second was a little flawed and mediocre and that game frustrated me some as well, but that's another story), this is pretty much an obvious rip-off of Left 4 Dead. Now the style of this typical zombie-apocalypse themed game is pretty much bound to be "like the rest", especially Left 4 Dead when it's an FPS game, but the ripping-off doesn't end there. This is very much a total rip-off of Left 4 Dead - its "special infected zombies" looks similar too and ARE similar to Left 4 Dead's special infected. The boomers are here called Floater, the tanks are called Ram, hunters are Butcher, and so on. It feels so obvious that I get really mad at this game. How little imagination can there be to come up with some original ideas for special zombies? Very little I see!

The gameplay is probably even worse. I think it's kind of flawed in many ways. It's like often very frustrating when fighting zombies and you clearly see / feel / know you're hitting them, yet they get no damage and damage YOU instead. I also don't really like their melee-weapon system, that weapons break and you have to repare them (for large sums of hard-found cash!). I mean, it could be there to make the game more challenging, but I think the weapons break way too fast in the game = frustrating. It's also unbelieveably repetitive. Every mission is the same over and over. You go to some motherfucker and get a task to do for them, then you go do it. Now this is mostly retrieving things around the world for them as they're not bad-ass enough to fight the zombies themselves. The things are mostly unimportant shit too, the prime example being some girl in a bungalow who wants her fucking TEDDYBEAR back, which is located half-way across the fucking map! Was the teddybear meant to be funny or something? It certainly was NOT, just fucking irritating, nothing else. The people are often cocky or ungrateful towards you as well, making me think of how I hate most people in real life = making me angry. As said, it's very much the same thing over and over and it gets boring and uninspired real fast. Many times during these missions you also encounter other motherfuckers mid-mission, maybe denying you entry or passing if you don't GO BACK A WHOLE FUCK-LONG WAY to get them a fucking apple or whatever! During these encounters I just felt like I wanted to kill them and go on, but guess what - YOU FUCKING CAN'T! WHY did they leave out the option to chose whether to be good or bad? It would've been better if you were able to chose to be bad and kill survivors as well, but no. So when the missions were already irritating and boring, they make it even worse with all these stupid characters!

Now this is also a level-game. You get points, level up, yada yada yada, you get the point. The thing is though, no matter how fucking much you level-up, upgrade your feats ans so on, the zombies also levels up as much as you do, and the shit you upgrade pretty much doesn't make any difference, not a big anyways, meaning that this game's level-system is fucking worthless as you never get superior to the zombies anyway! On top of that new special-infected are regularly added to the world, making the level-sytem even more and more and more worthless all the time. I mean, WHAT THE FUCK were they thinking?! It also hasn't got a manual save option and the auto saving system sucks just as much as everything else in this game. There's an icon which flashes (if I remember right) when it's saving, but it does that at odd times so you can pretty much never quit when you want without being sure if it's saving or not, making it even. more. frustrating! The characters are nothing funny either. They're boring, uninspiredly created and just typically done like "we gotta have each of one race". As for the facial expressions, well they doesn't exist in this game. Surprised? They always look the same neutral, bored, fuck-faced fucking way and the dialogue is worthless as well. *Sigh*

This game is so fucking bad, I HATE it. It's not fun, it's not good, the mechanics, graphics and so on are either very bad or average. I've never been more angry, frustrated or even disappointed I think I dare to say, than with this fucking game. It's the worst thing I've ever played on Xbox 360 and I almost finished it, too! Go on and get Left 4 Dead instead. It's the same game but a thousand times better, only it hasn't got an open-world format. If you must have that, go and get Dead Island instead. It's a TPS game, but a hell lotta better than this. Dead Island is bad. Bad, bad, BAD! Fuck this game, don't buy it.

Gears Of War - A personal look-back

                      Some of the gears in the third installment.

I'm a big fan of the Gears of war-games. They're lots of fun, deep in story, have awesome soundtracks, characters, gameplay, just everything! I recently bought the last one (of this saga anyway), the third, about a month ago. Played it some hours here and there for a couple of days until I was done. I have to say, after having played through all three of them, the one thing about this series that surprise me the most is that it got better with each game. I think that's kinda rare among games, that they only get better and better? Maybe I'm wrong, I'm not THAT much of a gaming nerd really, I just play now and then when I'm bored and so on. But anyway. When I bought and played through the first one (in 2009) I thought it was fun, epic and quite varying (I hate games where you do the same fucking thing over and over again. Examples: Assassins Creed (1, the others were much better), Crackdown, etc.).

Maybe a year later, my ex (miss you...) bought me the second GoW and while I have forgot much of it (only played it through once so far), I do remember that I liked it even better than the first one. I do think I even liked it quite a bit more, to be precise. The one thing I hated with the first one was that there were THREE fucking beserkers. Well, I was fucking happy that they were sleeping or doing homo-erotic lesbian shit or whatever during the second, because there were no beserkers in it. As I said, I've forgotten much from the second by now, so I can't really remember what / if there was anything in compensation for the beserkers.

Well, now 1,5 years later I got on with the third and last one. It's the last game, but I've heard rumors (or fact, don't remember, too fucking lazy to look it up again) that there will be new GoW-games, just another story, characters and so on. If this is the case, and I can well imagine that since GoW brings in a lotta cash, I'd think it'd be cool if they showed how it all started. Maybe be playing as Dizzy or someone in his squad when they were young, I don't know. It would be cool, but that's one of my opinions and potential requests. Anyway back to the third game now. I think there were more gears in this that were close to you during missions compared to the other installments. As you see in the top picture, that are nine gears, and that's excluding Dizzy and that general or whatever he is and his name was (don't remember...). The third is also best story-wise among the games if you ask me. I really liked it, it was good action and the environments were also nicer, I think. Well, it's a destroyed world in decay, but still it's an environment and the third one's got the nicest. I also think there are more weapons which, of course, is always cool like hellfire. Liked the ending too, yap yap yap.

In conclusion: one of the best game-series I've ever seen and certainly one of the best I've personally played. I'm very happy that each game got better and better and I hope too see a new Gears-saga take form in the future. I sure as hell will play them all.

Gears of War:       8.5/10
Gears of War 2:    9/10
Gears of War 3:    9.5/10

            Clayton Carmine (GoW 3), one of my fave characters. Bad-ass dude.