Assassin’s Creed II is by far one of the biggest sequels in video game history. When it came out everyone was blown away by the scope and ambition put into this game. It made the first game feel like a concept demo. It felt like just the core of the first game was present and so much was built on top of that game. The world was five times as big, there were new mission types, cinematic story missions, and tons of overall additions and improvements, however, the game did suffer on its own for various reasons.
This game starts the epic saga of Ezio Auditore De Firenze. One of the most iconic video game characters of all time. It was a surprise that Ubisoft scrapped Altair and his story so quickly, but we are greeted with 15th century Italy and various historical characters that appeared during that time such as Catarina Sforza, and Leonardo Di Vinci, and Machiavelli. The story itself is fairly easy to follow and has a few twists, but most of all have a really surprising ending. Ezio works his way up as an assassin knocking down templars to retrieve the Apple of Eden and keep it from the templar’s hands. The main villain, Rodrigo Borgia, is a nasty snake and overall all the characters are well written and I wound up really liking most of them.
First off, the overall way you maneuver has been improved slightly, but more things have been added. While you can swan dive into haystacks and climb ladders, the entire game has been built with parkour free-running in mind. You can climb every building and stay off the streets by staying on the rooftops. Overall, the system was impressive back in the day, but it has a lot of quality of life issues. The overall parkouring feels too sticky. Ezio will jump around like a rabbit sometimes so fine-tuning your turns is difficult to forget any type of mid-jump changes. Once you get close to a wall or object Ezio will climb and quick button presses just aren’t responsive. I would start climbing a wall and then try to tap the descent button, but instead, he would just fall to the ground. Other instances had guards chasing me while I was trying to round a corner and Ezio would cling to the wall and get stuck or jump onto the wall or object nearby instead. This can get incredibly frustrating as the system just doesn’t allow fine tuning or sudden changes.
That’s not to say the parkour system is bad. When you have a good line of sight it works well or you just want to climb broadly over a building. There were other instances in which precise jumping became a chore during Assassins Tomb missions. There is a fast walk button and holding down the run button together allows Ezio to scale things quickly. If you are holding that run button after each jump Ezio will just go in that direction whether there’s something to grab on to or not. For small jumps across beams, I had to let go of the run button after each jump to re-align myself for the next jump. Quickly parkouring around just isn’t possible due to this finicky system.
Some other frustrations stem from combat. Firstly, the system is mostly the same as the first game as it can be easy due to the whole system being a parry-fest. You can whack away at enemies, but instead, just hold the block button and parry when enemies strike and it’s a one-hit-kill city. Once I acquired my wrist blades I didn’t even use my sword anymore and never once used my secondary dagger weapons. This is a flaw in the combat itself and needs serious overhauling. It makes open combat boring and sometimes too easy. What is challenging, and annoying, is trying to lose guards and become anonymous. Sure you can blend into crowds, benches, and haystacks, and you can now hire prostitutes or mercenaries to distract guards and get them off your tail, but the combat plus finicky parkour system makes losing guards incredibly frustrating. You have to lose their line of sight by rounding corners or jumping off buildings and if you can get far enough away it will create a search radius. You can hide in that radius or continue escaping. There is an anonymity meter and once it’s solid red every guard will recognize you and it’s a frustrating mess of finding a town crier to bribe and take 50% of the meter away.
With those two major things out of the way that leaves content itself. The sad thing about all this new content is that it’s meaningless in the end. There are no rewards for any of it except for achievements or completion’s sake. There are 73 viewpoints to find which are actually fun as most of these are climbing puzzles on their own. Now it does still feel like overkill as each viewpoint only reveals the surrounding buildings and not much else. I felt there were just too many. There are races, assassin contracts, courier missions, and fights. These are boring and pointless and just there to add in filler. You can really tell this is where the Ubisoft plague of too much crap to do in a game starts. The only rewarding side content is The Truth puzzles. There are 20 hidden glyphs throughout the game and finding them will grant you puzzles to solve. These get increasingly hard, absurdly hard in fact, in which the clues become obtuse and impossible to decipher. However, what’s revealed is a cool video.
The story missions themselves are mostly varied with various tasks such as assassinations, tailing, fights, horseback riding, and the occasional scripted mission. I really liked the story and characters enough to stick around and wound up completing all viewpoints, The Truth puzzles, and finding all the codex pages which max out your health. I do need to mention the various gadgets you get which are mostly useless. Poison darts can make enemies go berserk and attack each other, but you also have smoke bombs, throwing knives, a pistol, and that’s about it. I mostly used the throwing knives to take out rooftop guards and smoke bombs were great to get away from large groups of enemies to become anonymous. In fact, they’re required to reduce frustration.
The visual upgrade for The Ezio Collection is minimal. There aren’t any actual improvements outside of some draw distance gain, anti-aliasing, and texture filtering. The lighting is slightly improved as well, but not by much. The game runs incredibly well through with no slowdown, but I did run into a few crashes and glitches. I wish we got a full remaster or remake, but what’s here is fine. It’s crazy how well this plays so many years later and just shows how far ahead the game was at the time. There are a lot of quality-of-life improvements that need to be done and most of the core mechanics have frustrations you will need to forgive or workaround, but the story and characters are worth sticking around for. There is also a lot of bloated side content that has no meaning or rewards including fully upgrading your villa which literally just generates more income and isn’t used for anything besides dying armor, buying weapons, and armor itself. The assassin and templar tombs are a lot of fun as well.
I love adventure games, especially ones that do something interesting or unique for the genre. Mostly I love adventure games with fantastical stories and great characters. Graphics usually comes last with these kinds of games. Kentucky Route Zero does have an interesting art style and is signature for Annapurna, but it doesn’t really add anything to the game either. The first couple of acts of the game start out well enough and are easy to follow, but the game’s story quickly devolves into visual novel-level walls of text and pointless stories that lead to nowhere.
You play as an antique shop delivery driver who needs to make one last delivery before the shop closes to 5 Dogwood Drive. You start out at a gas station on a highway and a strange man tells you about taking “the Zero” out to the address. You soon meet an electronics repair woman and end up seeing strange stuff on a TV. You follow clues to get the Zero and this is where act two leads you. Once in act two, the game’s pace stays sharp and breezy. There’s nothing to really play here as you mostly just click around leading the characters to icons to read more dialogue and text. There are no puzzles, combat, scripted events, etc. This is a straight-up borderline text adventure. Once you hit act three things slow way down and then there are the pointless interval chapters in between each act. One chapter was 30 minutes of nearly endless boring dialogue that didn’t add to the main story at all. It was painful to read it all and I actually read novels in real life regularly. It’s dry and dull and not interesting in the slightest.
Each act has several scenes and they are usually rather short. Once you click on each icon and read all the dialogue you will advance to the next scene. There are at least a lot of locales and the visuals are striking in some scenes. There’s little spoken dialogue, but I actually quite liked the songs here. They were very sad and helped set the tone of the entire game. This also isn’t a horror adventure either. It’s just super weird and I wish I could have followed the story or cared about any of the characters. If the dialogue wasn’t so damn boring I would care more. In some areas, I straight up just skipped through the dialogue because it was either really abstract and poetic that didn’t add anything to what was going on or just super uninteresting. Many people will probably shut the game off after act two as that’s when things really slow down and drag.
I want to say that the ending was worth all the hours of reading, but it wasn’t. It made no sense to me and the entire trip to the address almost felt like it was an afterthought. I would say I don’t want to spoil anything, but there’s not much here to spoil. There’s so much character and world-building that the actual adventure is eventually forgotten about and said world-building is dull. There are a lot of slice-of-life moments talking about real-life personal situations from the past and then there will be some sort of narrative poetic thing for a while and back to two random characters talking about how much they like a certain food. Normally this is great, but in this game, it doesn’t add anything as I have to already care about the characters to want to read this stuff.
Overall, Route Zero starts out great and quickly drags on into a dull and uninteresting visual novel with interesting visuals. There isn’t a satisfying ending and the intervals between acts are pointless and dull. There is zero gameplay involved and mountains of text to click through. This would normally be fine if the actual characters and scenes were interesting. Some may like the abstractness of some of the writing while most others will fall asleep.
Lone Sails was an interesting puzzle adventure game that took place on a 2D plane. You micro-managed various things on your vessel while acquiring upgrades to pass new obstacles. Changing Tides is exactly the same thing but on a boat instead.
There is no store or character building at all and that really sucks. I can tell the world in Far is sad and clearly post-apocalyptic, but the game gives me no reason to care about it other than the puzzles. You start out swimming this time and learning the basics. Jumping, climbing ladders, moving objects, and picking them up. You then acquire your ship and learn how to manage your fuel, sails, filling with air or water for submarine controls, cool your engine, and use your boost power. You acquire these over the course of the game, but fuel management is key. Don’t use fuel unless you don’t have wind which was the mistake I made. I wound up with tons of fuel at one point without realizing that’s the most I would ever get and that was 2/3 through the game.
Gathering fuel is done by collecting junk laying around. This isn’t often and sometimes you will hit a buoy and below these are caches of fuel. Don’t get lazy and skip them, but sadly the game never tells you to look out for these either. Each upgrade requires a giant puzzle of a level and they were never hard or complicated. Mostly it’s pushing a lever to drop an object to place into a machine. They’re fun, but not hard. While you’re sailing there will be long stretches of nothing. Sometimes not even music. This can get quite boring as the micromanagement of the ship gets tiresome after a while. It was fun at first, but I felt like this was the main gameplay loop and not the puzzles. Overall there are only four upgrades to get so about 4-5 puzzles in total. You spend at least 2-3 hours just sailing and micromanaging your fuel and sails.
Once in a while, there are cinematic platforming moments in which you just follow a linear path which was neat because it’s the only action in the game. I just can’t care a lot about this series without some kind of back story or context. Games like Limbo, Inside, and Little Nightmares do this well with storytelling from your envirnment. There’s not much to tell in open oceans with just wasted buildings. Even the puzzle areas had murals that supposedly told a story, but it really didn’t mean anything. There’s only one neat moment at the very end of the game before the credits roll and that was it.
The platforming itself is fine if not slippery. I constantly found myself wanting to twitch jump around the ship and I would constantly fall down holes, get stuck on ladders, or not get to where I wanted because of the slippery jumping and physics. It’s also a bit too floaty. The puzzles are the most enjoyable part of the game and it’s a shame the boating is so tedious and boring most of the time with nothing going on. If it were cinematic or more interesting of a management system I would really like this idea. I didn’t care for it in Lone Sails and it was doubled down on here.
Overall, Changing Tides looks good for what it is and has a nice art style, but you will quickly forget this game. It’s about 3-4 hours long and I can’t stress enough that there’s way too much boating and not enough puzzle-solving or platforming.
Video games that are considered moving art are rare and don’t happen as often as they used to. Games like Shadow of the Colossus, Okami, Journey, Monument Valley, Echochrome, and various games from large to the small budget would be among that crowd. Lost in Random takes visual and character design inspiration from the likes of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, Alice: Madness Returns, and Psychonauts. Now, I don’t know if those are exact inspirations, but it sure does feel like it. I feel like I’m playing a Tim Burton cartoon.
You play as a girl named Even. The world-building in Lost in Random is very well done. By the end of the game, I completely understood this world and the horrible things people have to go through. There is an evil queen who rules a black die. When she rolls a die it determines where a child gets sent to. There are six realms in the world of Random. You, are, of course, starting out at the bottom and have to work your way up to Sixtopia where the evil queen resides. Children are used for something and the queen also takes your sister Odd back to Sixtopia with her. The people of Random used to have their own dice and the evil queen didn’t like this so she took them all away and only she can decide anyone’s fate.
Each realm is very well done. They all look different and each realm plays an important role in serving the queen. One realm makes the cards, one realm offers the garbage to create the evil robots, and so on. As you climb through the realms you meet the people and can do side quests which surprisingly aren’t that annoying. You mostly finish them all just by completing the main quests in each area and I rarely felt any made me go out of my way. Exploring is one of two major parts of the game and it’s quite enjoyable, in fact, I enjoyed it more than the combat which there is more of. I loved seeing the beautifully crafted areas, talking to the crazy NPCs, and learning how each realm is dealing with everyday life. This kind of detail isn’t put into games as much these days unless they’re a strict RPG.
As you explore the realms you can shoot down pots to earn coins to buy cards. Cards are used in combat, but it’s not like Hearthstone or anything like that. This is real-time combat with cards that give you what you need in the battle. You can carry a deck of 15 cards and there are around 30 or so in the game in total. You can carry usually 2-3 of each one in your inventory. The deck is varied and broken down into categories. Weapons, traps, hazards, assists, and so on. The problem is that because the combat is in real-time it can drag on and take a while to get any battles over with. You start out with just you and your die. You only get to roll a one at the beginning and as you climb realms you get more sides. This is an issue because until you get at least four sides you can’t roll very high. You must run around the arena shooting crystals off of enemies to build up your hand. I find this whole process tedious and really dampens the combat a lot and nearly kills the fun. Once you gathered enough crystals you can roll your die and that determines the spending points you get. Each card has a number from 0-3. The strategy is picking the right cards for the situation and making sure you have a varied deck. You don’t want to be caught without a melee weapon or health for example.
Once you play your hand you have to shoot crystals all over again or “blink” through enemy attacks. An important card is Blink Attack which damages enemies as you dodge because without a melee card you’re weaponless. This also drags out combat as I wish the slingshot would automatically do some damage. You’re stuck just running around shooting crystals and hoping a hazard or weapon card comes up so you can attack and do some damage. This also makes for cheap deaths, especially in the board game areas as there are no checkpoints there. Board games have various rules in which a game piece is moved around and your roll determines the moves. There are hazards, enemies, traps, and obstacles to overcome and I absolutely hated these. They dragged out the already dragged out combat and if you died towards the end it was another 20 minutes to fight your way back to the end.
As you can see, the combat has some great ideas like the real-time combat mixed with card battling, but getting to that sweet spot is a chore. There is also so much combat in this game. Once you left a town you just went into one arena after another and it felt like it would never end. The only reprieve in combat was the boss fights as they changed things up. The same five enemies repeat throughout the entire game and then after a while, it just becomes a game of survival rather than strategy. You already know how to kill these enemies after the 50th time so the strategy is gone early in the game. I wound up just equipping the cards that did the most damage, dropped my spending requirements down, gave me more spending points, and required fewer crystals to get to the cards. I stuck with melee weapons, bombs, healing, blink attack, poison, and that was about it. Most other cards end up becoming useless as the game gets harder.
Overall, the game also overstays its welcome. The combat isn’t interesting enough to last 10 hours. As you battle your way through six worlds each with multiple bosses, quests, side quests, and cards to buy the game grows tiresome towards the end. I just wanted to explore the beautiful worlds and enjoy the scripted events towards the halfway point. Every time another board game came up or another arena I groaned. That’s not a good thing. I liked the mix of combat types, but getting to that point with the crystal shooting is just such a chore and slows the whole game down. What’s here though is a wonderful story, great characters, fantastic voice acting, and a beautiful world to explore.
Undertale took the gaming industry by storm. Its Earthbound inspired humor, innovative combat system, and fun characters drew huge crowds and garnered great sales. The 16-bit RPG was short in length but large in spirit. It’s hard to make you really like a game and remember it in less than five hours, but Toby Fox managed to do it.
You play as a human who wakes up in an underground world run by demons. These demons need one more human soul to break the barrier between our world and theirs. It’s a simple story, but it’s the characters you meet along the way that make up for the overall lacking scope of the game. Sadly. there’s no deep lore, no real backstories to any characters, but the here and now is well done and the dialog is sharp, witty, and fun. The game mocks standard JRPGs and Zelda games all the way through. The beginning tutorial dungeon doesn’t wait to get around to it. Pushing boulders onto blocks just to have one that’s sentient and makes the task harder for you. A lot of different puzzle-solving elements are found anywhere else in the game, but puzzles do exist and they can be quite challenging.
The combat system is the most unique aspect of Undertale. You can attack, but the entire system is mini-game-focused. There is a meter on-screen and you need to press the attack button when it’s in the center. Different weapons move this bar faster or have multiple hits. The enemy attacks are all skill-based. It’s essentially your own fault if you die. The center of the screen shows a white box and your heart is the object that you need to move around to essentially dodge various bullet-hell style mini-games. Spirling projectiles, daggers, flames, you name it. There are several dozen various attacks and each enemy and boss is unique with their own. The game’s other system is its moral system and you can be a pacifist and not kill a single enemy thanks to the Act command. You can try and figure out how to weaken the enemy through charm or talking and spare it via the Mercy command. If the enemy’s name is yellow you can automatically spare it. This is an interesting concept and leads to two different endings based on whether you’re a pacifist or not. If you choose that route you don’t get any XP to level and just get gold which can be used to buy better armor and weapons.
There are a few towns you can visit to shop, but a funny tidbit is you can’t sell anything in the game and the shop owners comment they don’t want your junk. There is one town you can sell at, however, so make sure you save all your old items to score big towards the end of the game. There are also a few side quests you can complete, but these are cryptic and require holding on to certain items throughout the game. The tip here is to save everything in your box near the save points. Don’t drop anything. When you’re not fighting you can solve puzzles, as stated earlier, and these range from mini-games to various switch-based puzzles. Backtracking is thankfully minimal unless you want a certain item at a shop that you couldn’t afford previously.
The sheer variety of the gameplay is astounding. Not a single battle is the same and not any boss battle plays out the same. Sometimes you have to fight, sometimes having a specific item makes the fight easier or ends it instantly. Levels aren’t labyrinthine and difficult to navigate and random battles are minimal as leveling up isn’t quite necessary. At the end of the game, I was level 12 and had the most powerful armor and weapon. Due to the variety and constant changing of the way the game is played it never gets dull or boring. I played through the entire game in one sitting because I wanted to see the ending and the game was just so fun and interesting. I can’t remember the last time I sat through an RPG like this and was this hooked.
The visuals are incredibly charming. They are clearly inspired by Earthbound and each character has a whacky 90s 16-bit era style to them that I adore. The soundtrack is also amazing and I listen to it often outside of the game. Toby Fox did an amazing job with this game and it’s something you only get once in a lifetime. There hasn’t been this unique of a Western JRPG 16-bit clone that I can remember. Undertale is the perfect RPG. No grinding, fun characters, great writing, charming visuals, fantastic music, and constantly changing gameplay with a unique battle system that has never been done before. If I were to pick something to gripe about it would be the cryptic nature of the items you need to find or hold on to as there are no hints as to needing said item at all. You just end up with a character asking for something or maybe accidentally using an item during a boss fight and having it do something.
I have actually never heard of this game before seeing the remastered release make some noise. It’s an arcade game from the mid-90s that is basically frisbee with tennis rules. You pick your character based on their speed and power and toss a disc around a court. It sounds way too simple at first and looks simple at first glance, but the controls have a steep learning curve due to the speed of the game.
Don’t expect a story or even a back story for the characters here. This is pure arcade action and it’s all about the sport. The game has an 80s aesthetic of purples, blues, pinks, and oranges. It looks really good and the characters look nice too. There’s a surprising amount of detailed animations here as well, especially for a top-down sports game. The first thing you should do is read the tutorial. It shows animations to help you understand the text, and at first, it seems simple. You can dive for the disc, toss it back, do a curve toss, and a lob. Simple enough. It gets more complicated as you add power for each move. You need to stand still and press up or down on the control stick plus the respective move button. There’s strategy involved in this, but mostly for other players.
That’s the downside here. The AI is downright cheap and I almost felt as if I scored out of pure luck. There’s a difficulty setting of course, but it just feels like you’re playing against an AI and there’s no way around that. There’s online play, which is awesome, but lots of practice against the computer is recommended to get better. You should pick a character and stick with them at first. Faster characters don’t need to dive as much as they can dart around the court, but the slow players rely on diving quite a bit, but they have more power and can toss the disc faster and harder.
There are mini-games thrown in which can help you master the controls and your play style, but the best practice overall is with someone else. This is truly a 2-player competitive sports title through and through. There’s also no more to this game, so it’s great for pick-up and plays and not much else. About 30 minutes per session is all I could stomach before I felt like I was either beating my head into a wall or just couldn’t tolerate the same thing. There’s only one court, and the visuals, while looking fine here, are dated and look blurry, but the control is responsive and there are no audio issues.
Overall, if you hate or don’t want anything to do with 90s arcade games then stay away. There won’t be anything here to interest you. Being an arcade port or remaster there’s not much the developers could have added without breaking the core game. It’s fast-paced, fun, and a blast with another person, but the single-player AI feels cheap and calculating making the game, not as fun. At least there are mini-games to help hone your skills.
Well, I finally pulled the trigger and bought a system I thought there was no point to. I was on vacation in Oregon, the local Target finally had some in stock, and I said, “What the hell? It can’t be that bad” The box itself is more vertical and more compact than the original models which I found strange. Smarter packaging techniques I guess. Once I pulled the tablet itself out of the system it looked bigger, but I wasn’t sure. The bezels were nearly non-existent and the bottom and top edges were smooth and round. Overall, the tablet itself felt the same, maybe just a bit heavier.
The white Joycons were beautiful. A brand new color we haven’t seen yet and it makes the Switch look very smart and less like a child’s tablet. Those weren’t any different, but the straps looked different. They have the same white and black straps that the Skyward Sword Joycons had. I guess this is the new standard now. The dock was probably the biggest physical difference. While it’s white and looks beautiful and adds to the smart higher-end electronic look of the OLED the back was different. There’s a quarter circle cut out for cables and the back flap isn’t hinged. It just comes off which is kind of annoying. However, there’s no USB A port back there, but a LAN port now!
Other than these noticeable differences at first glance, the HDMI cable, charger, and grip are all the exact same.
The Differences
When I first powered on the Switch the difference in screen quality was noticeable even with just the Nintendo logo flashing. The colors are brighter, sharper, more vibrant, and somehow the screen just has a smoother feeling to it. Almost like it has a higher refresh rate, but I know it doesn’t have one. It just felt that way. The usual setup process was the same as any Switch, but I did notice the internal memory has been doubled to 64GB which is great for anyone just starting out and doesn’t have a massive library. You won’t need an SD card for a while at least.
The OLED feels heavier in the hand and it is slightly bigger. The screen ate up the large LCD bezels of the original models and then expanded out about 0.1mm so the screen size expanded a whopping 0.8″ and it shows. The bezel-less design is so clean and sleek that I can’t go back to the original model or even to the Lite. Games look amazing in motion on this thing, and then there’s the controversy about the Vibrant mode exclusive to the OLED model. The Vibrant mode pushes the saturation a bit and doesn’t look good on some games, and you can really see it on the home screen, but it works well in games that are full of color or are very dark. Flashes of color pop in dark areas and it just looks so good. I didn’t realize the upgrade would be this noticeable, but it’s stark if you hold any other Switch model up in comparison. The colors, even on the Standard contrast mode, make the other models look dull and less colorful in comparison.
With a huge 7″ screen a sizeable upgrade is nothing to scoff at. The next best thing to hold up that giant screen and the heavier Switch is the kickstand. This is probably the second biggest change as the stand goes along the entire back of the Switch and is basically a metal plate that folds out almost flat. You get steeper and shallower tilting angles this way and it no longer basically stands straight up. This is great if your sitting higher or standing and can lay the Switch flatter. With the metal design it no longer constantly pops off and is leaning on one side of the Switch. The MicroSD slot is also just underneath here and is easy to access. This should have been on the original model, but we won’t go there.
The OLED’s 4310mAh battery is exactly the same as the older model, but it lasts a bit longer thanks to the OLED’s better power management, but it also depends on the game. Brighter and more colorful games will drain the battery faster than darker ones. Nintendo claims a wide range of 4 hours to 9 hours and 5.5 hours playing Breathe of the Wild. On average you will get around 5 hours of life for most 3D Switch games, and more with 2D games. One thing I see anyone failing to mention is the improved top buttons. The power button is now oval instead of round and less inlaid, and the volume rocker is thinner and sticks out a bit more. All these buttons have more of a subtle sharper click and aren’t as mushy a feeling. However, the game card door no longer has a notch for your finger and instead has a small gap for a fingernail and is harder to open. It’s also rectangular instead of a rounded door.
Lastly, I want to mention the speakers. They have improved quite a bit and are the third-best upgrade for the Switch and add another plus to edge towards a purchase. I didn’t know this going in, but the speakers are larger (or at least more exposed) and are located on the bottom of the system instead of the back. The speaker’s grilles are right where the kickstand opens and go right along to just under the screen. The sound is louder, clearer, and overall more of what I expect from the fantastic sound quality of Nintendo’s 3DS lineup. The 3DS has fantastic handheld speakers and has always been hard to beat. When it comes to your old Switch cases this will fit as it’s only 0.1mm longer than the standard Switch and it fit for me even in a tight case. I also want to mention that the white OLED just seems like an added bonus for the cost and it looks smarter and sleeker than the black model does. It’s not as eye-catching.
Overall, the Switch OLED is a phenomenal upgrade over the standard and can justify the extra $50 price increase. With almost a single inch larger screen, better and louder speakers, a bigger and better-designed kickstand, better top buttons, a LAN port in the dock, and seemingly better battery life thanks to the OLED screen’s better power management, there’s so much going on here that is hard to see on the surface. No, there are no upgrades under the hood, the overall design is the same, but the gorgeous display with the Vibrant setting (on some games) just makes this the best handheld screen on the market and surpasses the 2012 original Vita OLED screen which had the crown for the best handheld screen until now. If you can’t justify the extra cost for another Switch just know that of course, no single thing is worth the cost increase, but everything added together makes this an amazing package.
*Note* The OLED model DOES have 5GHz wifi. During testing, it wasn’t seeing any 5GHz connections for a few days, but it’s working now.
The seventh generation of consoles was really rough. While we did get some awesome games there were a ton of experiments as developers struggled with rising development costs and complicated hardware tech. With the rise of HD gaming, being games rendered in 720p or higher, there was also the struggle to evolve genres with this newfound hardware. First-person or third-person shooters struggled probably the most in this era as open-world games were evolved and, mostly, well done with games like Grand Theft Auto IV, The Elder Scrolls Oblivion, Skyrim, and Saints Row. Shooters were stuck in the past gameplay and design-wise. Corridor shooters with no story or interesting characters, and not to mention lacking an identity which helped make up for the lack of the latter. Your favorite shooters like Doom and Quake didn’t really have a good story or characters, but they had an identity that helped them stand apart from other shooters. The look, feel, weapons, and overall design were unique to that game. This just didn’t happen with the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 shooters, and if it did, it was rare. We’re going to take a look at the worst and best shooters in this generation of consoles and why the genre stalled and didn’t really evolve much until the next generation cycle.
The Outfit
A launch title for the Xbox 360, and developed by the excellent Relic Studios (Warhammer fame), it was a surprise that the game was so boring and bland and a complete flop. The game forewent realism and instead encouraged total destruction, but the campaign was repetitive and dull and overall a very forgettable experience.
Bullet Witch
I really wanted this game to be good. Not only did it have a fun female protagonist, but it had style as well. However, upon release, it was a buggy, clunky, awful mess of a game and looked really ugly and dated. I don’t know how this game wound up so bad, but even a recent re-release of the game on PC didn’t help it any. There’s a lot of potential here, and if you really want to play it…it’s possible. Sadly, the game flopped really hard despite releasing early in the HD era cycle.
Infernal: Hell’s Vengeance
This is probably one of the worst games on this list. This is “Steam Early Access” quality gaming here. The game is literally incomplete. The controls don’t work half the time, the puzzles don’t make any sense like they were still in the planning stages, the visuals are horrendous, and the voice-acting is awful. There isn’t a single redeeming quality to this game at all. You’re better off forgetting it exists. What’s even worse is the console version is an “updated” re-release of the PC version and clearly nothing was fixed.
Kane & Lynch: Dead Men
Kane & Lynch really tried, they really did. While the cinematic moments are entertaining, the gunplay is weak and feels half-baked and the story doesn’t really go anywhere. Not to mention, the game looks really dated. The sequel is much better, despite it having its own flaws. While Dead Men isn’t inherently awful, you’re not missing out on much by skipping it entirely.
Iron Man
Woof, yeah. I can’t believe I’m talking about this. This was one of the worst games ever made in 2008 and it remains so. This was when superhero games were still awful, plus a movie tie-in? No thanks. Iron Man had a good sense of speed and tearing apart things was kind of fun, but the game was ugly, bland, repetitive, and just didn’t have a drop of fun. Sadly, everyone bought it! The game sold really well and I don’t understand why. There were much better superhero games at the time, but because of the movie, I guess people needed it in their life. Thankfully, movie tie-in games aren’t as common these days because of the rise of development costs and the stigma surrounding them.
You know, making these lists is really depressing. I remember renting this game from Blockbuster when it was released because of the cool new terrain deformation technology that LucasArts was supposedly going to shock the world with. While it looked cool, and the graphics were nice, the game was just plain boring. It’s one of the most boring shooters I had ever played and this was a plaque during this time. There were so many generic boring shooters out there that didn’t want to do anything interesting or build worlds and characters. Generic white dude with a bald head? Check. Sci-fi weapons that don’t have any meaning but mostly resemble real-world weapons? Check. The same multiplayer modes in every other shooter? Check. A single gimmick the entire game hinges on? Check. Generic military dudes as enemies? Check. Everything is gray and looks like Gears of War, but not as interesting? Check. The list goes on.
Destroy All Humans! Path of the Furon
Oh man, whoever was behind this game was complete dicks. Not only was Path of the Furon an incomplete mess, but the humor sucked, and had many racial stereotypes in the game that would make the most racist people on the planet blush. Who approved this script? Even if you look past that the graphics are last-gen, the game crashes and breaks often, and the game just isn’t fun at all. It’s easily the only bad game in the series. Don’t even pick this up out of curiosity if you can avoid it.
SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs Confrontation
This is easily the worst game in the series. Not developed by Zipper Interactive themselves, Slant Six really screwed up here. While the game felt like a SOCOM game they forgot everything else. Only seven maps at launch, no campaign mode (whoops), and essentially since the servers are dead this game is a piece of vaporware now. The animations were bad, the graphics were dated, and overall it just wasn’t very SOCOM-y enough to garner sales. By this point, the series was waning in sales and was becoming just another yearly military shooter.
Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard
Eat Lead is a generic and boring shooter despite its attempt at being a video game parody. The level design sucks, the characters are dumb, the gunplay feels like BB guns, and the graphics are downright hideous. This could have been an interesting game, but instead, we just get more typical shooter garbage of the era. Everything is gray, the lead protagonist is a bald white dude, and there’s no effort put into it.
Damnation
The game originally had potential. It was first entered into an Unreal Tournament 2004 mod contest and became a Total Conversion mod. The premise of an alternate American Civil War is a great idea, but they forgot to make a good game. Awful performance issues, terrible gunplay, bad voice acting, ugly visuals, man the list goes on. This is probably one of the worst games of the HD era hands-down. There’s not even enough here to bother trying out of curiosity. Even the gore and interesting-looking weapons don’t save this mess.
Terminator Salvation
Why is it so hard to make a good Terminator game? Not a single one exists. Salvation is of course a movie tie-in but doesn’t feature anyone from the movie. While the game looked decent, the action was repetitive, there wasn’t an interesting story, the gunplay was weak, and the game was just another gray shooter of the era. At least the Terminators looked cool, but it’s still not enough to pick this up. You can also beat the game in a few hours and it was $60 upon release. Yikes.
Specifically for this era of gaming, Sniper Elite V2 and Sniper Elite III are what I’ll be talking about. Both games are incredibly dull. Sure, the series is known for really awesome X-Ray sniper shots and exploding testicles, but that excitement ends before the first level is over. While Sniper Elite hasn’t been an inherently bad series, it’s just not very interesting. This is a generic gray and boring WWII shooter with broken stealth mechanics (somehow it has yet to be fixed), boring level design, and of course a pointless story. Hardcore stealth-action fans might squeeze a tiny bit of juice out of this, but most won’t.
Man, at this point should I just do checklists? Another generic, gray, boring Gears of War rip-off shooter with a single gimmick it hinges on. Look! It guarantees the gimmick is so cool and unique they made it par to the cover art! Yeah, walking on walls doesn’t change anything here. The graphics were pretty good but other than that it’s a generic city. Boring weapons, lame story, stupid characters, bad voice acting, and a complete short and forgettable experience.
Army of Two Series
EA was really convinced this new IP was it. So instead of capitalizing on better original IPs like Mirror’s Edge, they took off with Army of Two. Again, another gray, generic, and boring military shooter, but the gimmick here was co-op campaigns. The game was pretty unplayable solo because of the dumb AI, and a lot of situations required quick reactions from both players. The story was dumb, and the attitudes they gave the two main characters were pretty lame. As you can see, this was a plaque of the HD era. Shooters just weren’t very good and were pumped out like candy.
This one had a lot of potentials and I was excited leading up to release. A WWII Splinter Cell with a female protagonist? It was unheard of back then. Then the game came out and it was a complete mess. Awful level design, stupid AI, terrible controls, boring story, and the lead character had no depth. The selling point was tight clothes and lingerie. The graphics had too much bloom, looked gray and boring, and overall it was just a bad experience.
Dark Void
This was a reboot of the classic 8-bit game, but it was considered one of the worst games of the era. Here we go again, say it with me now! Generic, gray, and dull. It had no life and was just another generic shooter. The main thing that made Dark Void fun was the jetpack! So what do the developers do? Take it away during most of the game. Wow, good job guys. You couldn’t even get the game’s main gameplay mechanic right. The enemies repeat ad nauseum, and the story is dumb too. Seeing a pattern yet?
Defiance
An MMO shooter you say?! Wow, how exciting! Yeah, not. This was another over-ambitious project from the start. The game was supposed to tie into a TV series and the choices players made during the story would affect the show. Advent Rising also wanted a TV show and look what happened there. The game was just dull, boring, glitchy, and not fun at all. You can’t even try the game now because the servers are offline so the game makes a decent coaster.
Quantum Theory
Here we are! We made it! The ultimate Gears of War rip-off award goes to Quantum Theory. I remember playing this demo and thought it was one of the worst games I’d ever played. The game is essentially incomplete and rushed together to capitalize on the gray, white-dude, Gears of War looking-ass shooter trend. There’s not a single redeeming quality here outside of a few good-looking characters, but this was a Japanese-developed rip-off so it had that weird stuck-in-the-early-2000s Japanese developer weirdness that took forever to change.
Transformers Series
While the High Moon Studios games were great, this section covers all other Transformers games released at the time. They were mostly movie-based and dreadful. Boring is the best word to describe them all. While they functioned and weren’t glitchy, they just weren’t fun at all. Incredibly short, repetitive missions, ugly graphics, terrible controls, and the list goes on. Not a single one has any redeeming values even for the most hardcore Transformers fans out there.
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City
When Resident Evil 4 became as successful as it did Capcom thought it was a good idea to take away tension with each new release and add more shooting. Sure, the shooting mechanic in RE4 was revolutionary, but don’t make the games just about that. ORC was a complete disaster and easily the worst game in the series. Nothing but a pointless and boring corridor shooter with terrible cover mechanics, lame weapons, dumb AI, and a stupid story to boot. The game mostly focused on multiplayer which it couldn’t do that right either. The enemies were also bullet sponges. Making enemies take a stupid amount of damage doesn’t make the game more fun. That’s now how shooters should be. Stay away at all costs.
The seventh generation of consoles was really rough. While we did get some awesome games there were a ton of experiments as developers struggled with rising development costs and complicated hardware tech. With the rise of HD gaming, being games rendered in 720p or higher, there was also the struggle to evolve genres with this newfound hardware. First-person or third-person shooters struggled probably the most in this era as open-world games were evolved and, mostly, well done with games like Grand Theft Auto IV, The Elder Scrolls Oblivion, Skyrim, and Saints Row. Shooters were stuck in the past gameplay and design-wise. Corridor shooters with no story or interesting characters, and not to mention lacking an identity which helped make up for the lack of the latter. Your favorite shooters like Doom and Quake didn’t really have a good story or characters, but they had an identity that helped them stand apart from other shooters. The look, feel, weapons, and overall design were unique to that game. This just didn’t happen with the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 shooters, and if it did, it was rare. We’re going to take a look at the worst and best shooters in this generation of consoles and why the genre stalled and didn’t really evolve much until the next generation cycle.
This will be a multi-part series due to the number of games. The next feature will talk about the worst third-person games of this generation.
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter Series
Ghost Recon was one of the best FPS games for the longest time. It was one of the few good military shooters in the sixth generation of consoles and dominated the Xbox space. Advanced Warfighter was one of the few real next-gen games upon release and was one of the reasons I bought an Xbox 360. It helped introduce me to a real next-gen experience along with Gears of War and Condemned. Advanced Warfighter was nearly perfect. Fantastic level design, perfect gunplay, amazing visuals and animations, and somewhat interesting soldier banter. It still holds up to this day and looks great on Xbox One X. The series went to shit with Future Soldier and completely changed everything.
Gears of War is probably one of the best third-person shooters of all time and by far the single best series for the seventh generation of consoles. It’s the main reason I got an Xbox 360 and I have replayed these games numerous times over the years. They are just perfect. Excellent weapons design, great cover system, well-balanced difficulty, a wonderful cast of characters with depth and backstories as well as a fascinating world to just be in. The games were also leaders in visual and graphical design at the time. Each game pushed the Xbox 360 to new limits I didn’t think it was capable of. The first three games are gems, but Judgement lost me. Developer by the Bulletstorm guys it just felt like an arcade shooter and pretty much ruined the flow of the original games. You aren’t missing anything bypassing that one up.
Lost Planet Series
Lost Planet was an interesting attempt at a third-person sci-fi game from Japanese developers. It felt dated and clunky but was overall a fun game. It looked pretty good too and the PC version was even better. Fighting aliens with orange explodey blood is a blast and the game could get downright hard. The second game was fairly decent mostly focusing on online multiplayer and was incredibly difficult. The third game was more story-focused but didn’t really explore its story to its full potential or gameplay mechanics. The last two games are worth playing through the campaigns but don’t expect anything amazing.
Stranglehold
This was a game that stood out from the crowd. Directed by John Woo and starring Chow Yun Fat, the Hardboiled team took a crack at a video game and it mostly succeeded. The game had great cinematic flair, fast-paced arcade-style gunplay, and great visuals. Sadly, it wasn’t enough to push sales as the game mostly flopped, and Midway canceled a sequel. It’s a lot of fun, if not repetitive, even today and still looks decent. Think of this as an Eastern Max Payne.
Kane & Lynch was a promising series. The first game had a lot of ambition and the first part of the game was mostly decent in scope, but the gunplay felt really bad and it was just a mess. The second game was much better and was an enjoyable cinematic corridor shooter with interesting characters and much tighter gunplay. The game was graphic and a roller coaster ride of bombastic gameplay and was quite a fun evening despite how short it was. Sadly, these improvements weren’t enough to keep the game alive and Square Enix quickly shuddered the series and we haven’t seen anything since.
Does this series need explaining? It’s one of the best third-person shooters franchises of all time and one of the most consistent in terms of quality. Every single game is solid and you can easily spend a weekend going through all three games and have a blast. While the first game feels more dated than the others they are gorgeous games pushing the PS3 to its absolute limits and featuring memorable characters and fun adventures. The gunplay never quite felt right to me, but it’s still solid. The puzzles were fun and the best parts are the huge vistas you get to explore. Each game feels like a new adventure and Nathan Drake is a very lovable character.
Despite Mass Effect is an RPG it’s mostly a third-person shooter with RPG elements. This was a juggernaut for nearly a decade when all three games were released. The first game, while clunky and had poorly implemented RPG elements and loot system, felt vast and large in scope with great characters and a huge system of lore and space fairing universe to dive into. The races, planets, and overall mythology of everything surrounding the story were fascinating and memorable. The series tightened up with Mass Effect 2 and fixed a lot that was wrong with the first game and ME3 was probably the most refined. Great gunplay, tighter explorations, amazing visuals, and a great conclusion to one of the biggest franchises of all time.
The Ratchet & Clank reboot series for PS3 was just as good as the PS2 series. The games pushed the PS3 to its limits and featured the same tight gunplay, unique and zany weapons, and fantastic voice acting with a colorful and well-written cast of characters. The locales were varied with lots of secrets to find and the entire game was just so well balanced and well done. While there is a lot of platforming involved there is also a lot of mini-games and various other things to do in this series. You can spend a week playing this trilogy and have a blast doing so.
Surprisingly not based on the movies, The Bourne Conspiracy was a sleeper hit low-budget title that was really good. I rented this and was surprised at just how solid it was despite its very short length. There were great animations, visuals, voice-acting, and tight controls. The story was pretty forgettable, but it was just so varied and well done I’m surprised it never got a sequel despite the low sales. There were a lot of games like this in the HD era that was pretty good, but no one knew about them and sold poorly. It’s such a weird license to choose and never capitalize one as the Matt Damon films were still coming out at this time.
Another series that doesn’t need an introduction. This was one of the few good horror games of the HD era and a surprising new IP from EA. I remember the first game very clearly as it was so unique and new at the time and was a visual treat. The limb system and using power tools instead of traditional guns helped carve Dead Space into its own thing that separated it far from other shooters and horror titles. It was tense, eerie, and had some good scares. I picked this up on day one with the strategy guide played it straight through and went through it again. The entire series has great replay value, but the third game is a lot to be desired. It strayed too far from the traditional ways of the series and implemented microtransactions and a weird loot system. Still decent to play, but nothing like the first two.
We’re specifically talking about RE5 and RE6 here. These were the two mainline games released during this generation. RE5 was a hotly anticipated sequel and follow-up to RE4. How can you fill those massive shoes? RE5 was pretty much the same as RE4, but a little blander and less interesting. It incorporated co-op and online play which I wasn’t interested in. I was so excited for this game I stood in line at midnight and picked up the collector’s edition. It was a solid game and still is, but doesn’t hold a flame to RE4. RE6 was something that grew on me. I feel like if the game only focused on two campaigns instead of 4 it would have been more focused. I hated this game at first, and it still has balance issues. It can’t decide if it wants to be survival horror or action game. It looked dated at launch, and the PC version is the best way to go as the console versions just look like total crap. Still, the series introduced great new characters into the series that are well-loved today. Revelations were ported from DS and are also a fantastic shooter despite being more simple and linear than the mainline games. It had solid mechanics and some creepy monsters and felt more like RE4 at heart to me.
Hear me out here. This is actually a decent if forgettable shooter. While the first game was a huge deal because 50 Cent was one of the biggest names in the world at the time, this game fell under most people’s radar. The shooting is tight, the graphics are decent if bland and Mr. Jackson’s terrible voice-acting is hilarious. The story is also really stupid, but you get good music, lots of explosions, and shooting action, and after a few hours, you finish the game and put it aside. It’s still a fun romp and is endorsed by a celebrity makes it strange that it turned out halfway decent.
Despite this being an open-world game, it doesn’t quite break the rules being on this list as it’s very underrated and not as well known. While there is an open world it’s still rather small and there are a lot of linear missions in the game. While pretty clunky in most departments, Pandemic was one of the best studios when it came to open-world games and this was one of their last games. The story was forgettable as well as the characters, but the art style was fantastic, and an open-world setting in WWII? Can’t beat that. The stealth gameplay was a lot of fun and the missions were quite varied. There’s a good weekend here waiting for you.
While the first two games were linear FPS games the reboot sequels were “open-world” destruction simulators that were quite entertaining if forgettable. The story and characters were pretty dumb, but Guerilla featured a fantastic destruction system in which you can destroy every building from the outside in or reverse even. I remember playing the PC version and the DirectX 10 version made my PC chug. It looked good, but the open-world part was barely that. It was just an excuse to extend the time between missions. Driving around on the boring Mars sand just to get to another mission was an excuse, but the gameplay was still fun. Armageddon was better in my opinion as it focused more on the story, was still forgettable, and introduced new weapons and less on the open-world stuff. A very interesting franchise for sure, and sadly we haven’t seen anything in a decade.
A lot of people consider this game to be the third Ghostbusters entry. There was a lot of skepticism around this game and rightfully so. The franchise has always been in turmoil due to creators arguing and rights being discussed, but the game turned out great if not forgettable. The story was pretty basic and paper-thin, but we got all the original voice actors and they sounded except for Bill Murray who mostly phoned his lines in. The gameplay was fun and you actually felt like a Ghostbuster. The locales varied from the hotel to a library to a graveyard and while it was short it was sweet.
WET was one of the few new IPs during the HD era that never got a sequel due to poor sales. The game was a boatload of fun with varied gameplay, exciting visuals, an awesome protagonist, and a style similar to Quentin Tarintino’s films. It was brutal, looked good, and had tight controls. Sadly, the story was nonsensical and there wasn’t anything to remember the game by after its short length. It’s still an awesome experience to this day and should be played by anyone who missed it. Sadly, it never got a PC release.
Alan Wake is one of my favorite games of all time. I picked this up on launch day and just remember all the hype leading up to release. It was supposed to be an open world and then not, the story changed numerous times, and we never quite got an idea of what it was until just up until release. I have played through this game many times on both Xbox 360 and PC and thankfully the new remaster can be played by all. I eventually moved into the area where the film was researched. The PNW, and I’m not far from Snoqualmie, WA where the setting was inspired. Whenever I drive around in more remote areas of where I live I think of Alan Wake every time. It has the same atmosphere and feels that the game does, or the game captured the atmosphere here. The gameplay of light vs dark is awesome and unlike any other game at the time. It has a confusing story, but after a couple of play-throughs, you catch what you missed.
I have to be very specific here. There were a lot of Transformers games released during the HD era on both consoles and handhelds, and most were trash. What I’m talking about is probably the best Transformers games ever made and these are both developed by High Moon Studios. War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron not only looked good, but you felt like a Transformer. The controls were tight, each character was detailed and had the same weapons they do in the show and abilities. The story was a bit mundane, but it kept you going. Despite how good all of this was the game was still repetitive and got tiresome towards the end, but thankfully that’s around when the games ended. Even if you aren’t a Transformers fan these are great mech shooters in their own right.
An open-world game you say? You could barely call this game that. It’s an excuse to extend the game time and have driving missions. Outside of missions and going in between missions there’s no reason to be out in the open world. It looks good, feels authentic to the time period, but is mostly pointless. The game has an entertaining story and characters, but they aren’t memorable or anything. The gunplay is tight and the missions are varied. Overall, it’s a great Mafia crime thriller that you can kill a weekend with. The series has always been rough around the edges, but Mafia II is probably the best in the series.
Vanquish kind of came out of nowhere. Like Wet, Binary Domain, Shadows of the Damened, and many other original IPs it just didn’t sell very well. This was an era dominated by mostly sequels. Statistically, these mostly sold the most for any publisher or franchise, and with rising development costs and an economic recession, that’s what publishers stuck to. Vanquish was a gamble, and while it has its issues like severe repetition, a short length, bad voice-acting, and a stupid story, the gameplay itself is fast-paced, frantic, tight, and it looked decent doing it too. Sure, it looks like any other Japanese futuristic military shooter, but the sliding gameplay worked here. Platinum Games was on a roll around this time and every game they made paid off.
Around the time this game came out I was out living on my own and moved away from my parents. Money was tight and I could only afford to rent games for a good couple of years. Shadows of the Damned is a perfect example of a rental you play for an afternoon or evening and send back. There’s nothing memorable about it, the story was dumb, the characters were lame, but man was the game crazy! There were a lot of good ideas here with interesting weapons and some crazy gameplay ideas and monster designs, but the game also looked ugly and dated. Grasshopper Manufacture’s Suda51 was pumping these oddball Japanese games and some were hit and miss. This is still worth a bargain bin purchase for a fun evening.
This was another original IP in which the publisher gambled it would make big bucks, but this one did not. It just didn’t look appealing but it played very well and was highly entertaining. It looked like another generic Japanese military shooter of the time and most people passed it up. What was here were entertaining characters, bombastic gunplay, and just an overall really fun time. This is a great evening and shouldn’t be missed.
This was a hotly anticipated sequel. The original two were from the previous generation of consoles, so what would Rockstar do to bring it up to speed? Well, not much. The game is mostly the same overall but has a much longer length. While Max himself is a treat to see and hear on-screen everyone else makes this feel like a generic drug cartel B-grade story. The gameplay is pretty thin too. You just shoot everyone in sight, activate bullet-time, and heal. That’s all you do in this game. The weapons feel great, the cover system works well, and the production values are top-notch, but the game also looked dated on consoles and only looked really good on PC. I remember this game struggled in DirectX 11 on my gaming laptop and wouldn’t run very well. It was state-of-the-art tech-wise.
This was probably one of the biggest and bravest franchise reboots of all time but let’s not talk about those yet. The Tomb Raider series had two reboots in the same generation cycle. Legend came out right at the tail-end of the sixth-generation consoles and was later released on Xbox 360 and looked amazing. Legend had tight controls, fun puzzles, and classic Tomb Raider gameplay. Later a remake of the first game was released as Anniversary was played well across all platforms. The Wii had its own unique version and the game somehow even looked good on PS2! Even the PSP version was rock-solid. Lastly, Underworld was released with larger levels, a bigger story, and improved visuals. This trilogy was awesome, but it wasn’t enough! Tomb Raider then rebooted to some chagrin. Lara Croft was a sex symbol, and when Crystal Dynamics took that away fans revolted. They wanted Lara to be more human, more believable, a Lara that wasn’t a superhero. The reboot is one of the best games in the entire HD era of consoles. It had cinematic bombastic gameplay, tight controls, and an awesome semi-open world experience.
Despite coming out at the tail-end of the seventh generation cycle, the game still looked decent on PS3 and Xbox 360. I played this on PS4, but it was probably one of the few good horror titles to release on the HD consoles. While the game had awesome monster designs and was quite scary in some areas, it was poorly balanced, and couldn’t decide if it was a survival horror game or an action game. The game felt like a chore to get through, but playing on easier difficulties would probably remedy this. It’s a memorable experience due to the awesome art design and monsters, but the story itself is a convoluted mess.
Metal Gear Solid didn’t see many releases during this time because Hideo Kojima takes his time with them. MGS4 was probably one of the most anticipated games of all time and a huge PS3 seller. I remember when I picked up a slim PS3 in 2009 MGS4 was one of the games that came with me. It was absolutely fantastic in terms of visuals and production values. While the cut-scenes could sometimes drag on as long as 45 minutes, it was entertaining all the way through. The multiplayer component was hugely popular but wasn’t enough to keep the game afloat. Later on, MGS5 would also release on Xbox 360 and PS3, but it wasn’t the ideal way to play. It was pretty ugly and dated and clearly wasn’t meant to run on this ancient hardware. There was a fantastic HD remaster of MGS2 and MGS3 that are a blast to play through. Overall, it was a good era for the franchise, and probably the best overall.
The Splinter Cell series was a massive hit on the sixth generation of consoles, mostly a huge seller for Xbox consoles. The series debuted on Xbox 360 with Double Agent, but it didn’t sell super well. Conviction was a kind of reboot for the franchise making it more streamlined and a little less clunky feeling. While the story was forgettable, seeing Sam Fisher on screen is great as he’s a powerful character. Michael Ironside does a fantastic job with him. The game was a lot of fun and pave the way for Blacklist later on which was also solid, but not as good.
The Hitman series had a reboot of sorts with Absolution, but Blood Money was an HD port of the sixth generation game on Xbox 360 and was a pretty awesome game. I remember playing it and finishing it on PS2 and had a blast with it. Absolution looked pretty good for the dating hardware, but I played it on PC and I remember the DirectX 11 mode pushed my gaming laptop beyond its limits and chugged a lot. Absolution had more memorable assassinations and some awesome levels. Later on, the series would reboot again, but these were the only two Hitman games released on the HD consoles. There was an HD remaster of the first three games released which were also quite entertaining. Overall, you got the entire Hitman package on these systems.
This was a huge surprise and was a sleeper hit. The Dead to Rights series isn’t well-known for being all that great. I remember playing the original as a kid for the PS2 and only the stripper scene stood out for me. As a hormone-enraged pre-teen, I would constantly replay that level to see that scene when my parents weren’t looking. However, I totally skipped the second game, and the PSP game wasn’t all that great, but Retribution was a huge surprise. I rented it from BlockBuster and it was super entertaining. Using your dog as a companion was awesome and the game also looked good too. While the story was pretty dumb, the game overall was super entertaining.
Another awesome sleeper hit. This was a rental for me and I highly enjoyed it. The Glaive system in the game really stands out and the graphics were pretty good as well. It had a nice art style and atmosphere and really sucked you in despite the forgettable story (what story wasn’t back then?) The gunplay was tight and there were some fun environmental puzzles you had to solve with the glaive as well. This is a must-play if you missed it, and it’s just too bad the game didn’t sell well enough for a sequel. Another great shooter lost to time due to poor marketing.
The seventh generation of consoles was really rough. While we did get some awesome games there were a ton of experiments as developers struggled with rising development costs and complicated hardware tech. With the rise of HD gaming, being games rendered in 720p or higher, there was also the struggle to evolve genres with this newfound hardware. First-person or third-person shooters struggled probably the most in this era as open-world games were evolved and, mostly, well done with games like Grand Theft Auto IV, The Elder Scrolls Oblivion, Skyrim, and Saints Row. Shooters were stuck in the past gameplay and design-wise. Corridor shooters with no story or interesting characters, and not to mention lacking an identity which helped make up for the lack of the latter. Your favorite shooters like Doom and Quake didn’t really have a good story or characters, but they had an identity that helped them stand apart from other shooters. The look, feel, weapons, and overall design were unique to that game. This just didn’t happen with the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 shooters, and if it did, it was rare. We’re going to take a look at the worst and best shooters in this generation of consoles and why the genre stalled and didn’t really evolve much until the next generation cycle.
This will be a multi-part series due to the number of games. The next feature will talk about the worst FPS games of this generation.
Call of Duty was at its peak when it was released as a launch title for the Xbox 360. This was a huge console seller, and despite the “2” in its name, this wasn’t the second game. A few console exclusive releases came before this one, but this was a true follow-up to the original PC game. While not quite as good, it was still cinematic and it felt like there was some thought and love put into it, unlike future sequels. Call of Duty 2 looked amazing on Xbox 360 and was one of the best online shooters for a good year or so.
Prey
The development hell this game went through has been well documented and is one of the most tragic video game franchises of all time. Prey was a fantastic shooter that had its own identity among so many clones and boring games stuck in the past. The interesting use of portals, fun weapons, and a creepy alien atmosphere and setting were a lot of fun. Prey is so good it has high replay value and I replay this game every few years it’s so enjoyable. It was one of the first games to introduce me to the HD era of gaming on Xbox 360 and I have fond memories of this one.
The Call of Juarez series is forgettable yet enjoyable. It’s a fine shooter series, minus The Cartel, with varied themes and overall solid gunplay. The story and characters are absolute trash, but this has fun gameplay that makes up for that. Bound in Blood is set during the American Civil War where you play two brothers on a mission for…something. Gunslinger is based during the Wild West era in the late 1800s. Both can be bought for cheap and Gunslinger even found its way over to the Switch. They are fun enough to even be worth playing through again every once in a while.
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas Series
I remember this was the first reboot of the Rainbow Six franchise for quite some time. I rented both games when they came out and quite enjoyed the campaigns. They looked fantastic and had some great bombastic set pieces. The multiplayer wasn’t half bad either, and I really wish the series would go back to this style of tactical gameplay. The games are worth playing today for a fun weekend shooter and I don’t have much to complain about other than weird difficulty spikes.
Battlefield 2142
Battlefield was already a huge franchise before debuting on consoles with Modern Combat. 2142 was a long-awaited sequel to 1942 that was set with a realistic military theme rather than WWII. The same gameplay proceeded, but with the power of PCs at the time we got massive maps, more modes, vehicles, and just classic Battlefield gameplay. While it did have a rough launch the game was eventually smoothed out and there are still people even playing today.
While the third sequel was released after everyone was sick of WWII shooters, and during a console transition, it was still a solid if forgettable experience. At this point, these games were being phoned in but still had a AAA quality to them that made them worth playing. Call of Duty 3 feels very dated compared to today’s shooters, and it was the last WWII shooter the series would dip its toes in for many years. The online multiplayer was fun for a while, but the game suffered from needing to be ported to last-gen consoles. Your typical WWII shooter stuff is here like planting charges, moving up waves of enemies, grenades that bounce around like rubber, and incredibly linear levels.
By far some of the finest shooting you’ll play during the HD era of gaming. The Resistance series was helmed by the Spyro the Dragon and Ratchet & Clank creators Insomniac Games. Originally teased as I8 during E3 2006 the series had tons of hype. It looked next-gen and felt like it upon release with Fall of Man. The series has a decent story, but the classic Insomniac weapons are what makes the game so fun. Each weapon has a unique alt-fire and each weapon is carefully crafted to be needed for certain situations so you’re always switching up your weapons which is one of the most key things in shooters that almost no one seems to understand. The games look absolutely fantastic even for today’s standards. This is a trilogy that every shooter fan must play.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Series
The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series was never released on consoles, but it has a huge following on PC. The sequels Call of Pripyat and Clear Skies just improved the game more. The series is a hardcore survival shooter where you must preserve every bullet and item for healing. Running and gunning will get you killed and it can be very daunting and intimidating to play. It’s for the hardcore only. The game released a buggy mess, but over time players have modded the game to near perfection and is one of the best post-apocalyptic open-world games to date. Some of the developers later went on to form 4A Games and create the Metro series.
The Darkness is based on the comic of the same name. The original game is one of my favorite shooters of all time. The atmosphere, story, characters, graphics, and the ability to use your demons on your shoulders to command minions and mutilate people were so much fun. The sequel was good, but felt more arcade-like and had less of a slower-paced haunting atmosphere, and didn’t feel as bleak. The sequel is still tons of fun and retains the same great voice acting, but has a less memorable story.
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
Metroid Prime 3 was a huge juggernaut for the Wii upon release and was one of the few really good shooters that the system got that wasn’t a port of some sort. Improved graphics, great use of the motion controls, and overall just classic Metroid gameplay and clearly the best in the series. Corruption was a big system seller and is easily one of the best shooters of the HD era of gaming. Even though the Wii lacked the horsepower of the PS3 and Xbox 360 Corruption still looked fantastic on the aging hardware.
The Halo series peaked with the Xbox 360. Halo 3, Halo 4, Reach, ODST, and Combat Evolved: Anniversary were great games. While I don’t really care for ODST or Halo 4, the series reached its best with Halo 3 and remains one of the best shooters of that era. The games still pushed the 360 to its limits graphically and remained the top multiplayer game through its entire life cycle. The series hasn’t seen this many releases since, but you can now play these games remastered on PC and Xbox One which is awesome. They are still fun to play on the original hardware just to see what it was like back in the day. When a Halo game launched it sold consoles big time and everyone played Halo at least once during this time.
Team Fortress 2 was a huge deal on consoles. Despite never receiving updates and being shut down and abandoned the game had lots of players. I played this game for many hours on Xbox 360. I would come home on my lunch breaks from work just to get a few rounds in. The game looked good and ran very smoothly on consoles, but I just wish it got the features or some maps that the PC version got for at least a couple of years. While I wouldn’t bother playing on consoles these days, the PC version is still alive and well and one of the most played multiplayer games to date.
While originally only released for PC, The Orange Box was a huge hit giving console gamers Valve’s best work for one cheap price. The games ran and looked great on the dating hardware, and I was a huge fan of The Orange Box. Upon release, I didn’t have a PC that could play these games and I was so excited when this was finally released. I did play Half-Life 2 on an older computer as well as Episode One and loved them to death, but they didn’t look great. With achievements, there was a ton of replay value here, and it’s still worth a pick-up if you don’t play PC games.
Crysis is famous for being a go-to benchmark game for PC hardware. I remember seeing this game for the first time at E3 2006 and it blew me away. The textures, lighting, physics, and everything that went into this game were truly ahead of its time. So much so that Crytek had to demo the game running in SLI mode with two graphics cards to get it running. There wasn’t a single GPU that could run the game at 60FPS maxed out at the time. I remember when I got my first real gaming computer in 2010 I was blown away I could finally run Crysis. Even then it pushed my laptop to its limits and I still couldn’t run it at maxed-out settings. The second game was highly anticipated and my laptop couldn’t run it above 30FPS maxed out. Crysis 3? Forget it, but I did end up playing the game at 20FPS. These games didn’t have a great story or characters but instead had incredibly tight gunplay fantastic visuals and decent weapons.
Unreal Tournament 3
There’s no coincidence that UT3 looks exactly like Gears of War. It has the same color palette and even similar character design. UT3 wasn’t nearly as popular as UT2004. I remember I just couldn’t get into it as much as I did UT2004. Something felt off about the way the game felt. I didn’t have a PC that could run this game at the time so I picked it up for PS3 years after release and it was mostly dead then. The game just felt so far away from Unreal Tournament that I couldn’t play it, but it was still a solid multiplayer shooter for PS3 and PC at the time and was solid despite feeling different.
The series is by far one of the best that graced the HD era of consoles. Quality shooters at this level were rare and I remember just how hyped I was for the game upon release. I remember getting so excited and counting down the minutes for the demo to drop on Xbox LIVE. I bought this on launch day and it was one of the most memorable gaming experiences I ever had. I was also hyped for BioShock 2, but it wasn’t as memorable. A good game, but was too safe. Infinite got me as hyped as the first game, if not more, and I even went to the midnight launch at GameStop for it. This is an incredible series and thankfully they have all been re-released on newer consoles.
Frontlines: Fuel of War
I remember seeing this one at BlockBuster along with other generic-looking military shooters at the time. I passed it up numerous times despite the decent reviews. At first glance, it looks dull and boring, but it has great gunplay and fun multiplayer. While the former no longer exists there’s still a fun weekend campaign here and you can pick up the game at bargain bin prices these days. There’s no reason not to pick this one up. Just don’t expect a deep story or any type of character development.
Bad Company was a smart departure of the series and helped reboot the series for consoles. The two games actually featured fun and interesting characters with witty dialog, and of course, the gameplay was tight and tons of fun. Both games also featured impeccable sound design with the sound of bullets changing inside buildings and somewhat destructible environments. The multiplayer portion was insanely popular and a lot of fun. Especially the Conquest mode. Servers are gone now, but you have two entertaining campaigns here worth playing over a weekend.
The third and final installment in this highly anticipated series. Brothers in Arms was considered the “grown-up” WWII franchise as it wasn’t as arcade-like as the other games. It required strategy, a bit of thinking, and you could command your squad. It also was the only WWII shooter that had gore in it. Hell’s Highway had a mostly forgettable experience, but it sure was fun and a blast to play through. It really stands out from the crowd at a time when WWII shooters were waning and becoming a flea on the industry’s hide. Well worth a weekend playthrough despite the servers being shut down.
Specifically, Far Cry 2, 3, and Blood Dragon were released during the seventh generation of consoles. I didn’t care for Far Cry 2. I bought in a bargain bin purchase as BlockBuster was shutting down and found it dull and boring. However, in hindsight, it’s not quite that bad. Far Cry 3 is by far still the best game in the series as Vaas is a strong antagonist and remains so to this day. Blood Dragon is one of the most fun and unique spin-offs ever. Being a love letter to 80’s sci-fi action movies like Terminator, Robocop, and Blade Runner, you can shoot T-Rex’s, and everything has a Tron/Cyberpunk feel to it. It’s very short, but has witty dialogue and is just so unique. Some consider it the best game in the franchise. These Far Cry games were the peak of the series and it has been falling fast ever since.
Every once in a while we get a decent Bond game. Quantum of Solace, based off of the same movie, was a sleeper hit and was surprisingly entertaining despite how forgettable it was. It felt like a bond game. It was fast-paced, had great feeling weapons, and didn’t overstay its welcome. This is probably the best Bond game of the HD era as Blood Stone was a bore-fest. Well worth a bargain bin purchase for a fun evening.
Cryostasis isn’t an action-packed shooter. It’s more of an adventure game where you unravel a mystery on a derelict ship. The game has a haunting atmosphere and you must really use your bullets wisely here. It was a graphical powerhouse when it released and pushed PCs to their limits. I remember my gaming laptop at the time struggled to run this game. It used, at the time, brand new DirectX 11 visuals which made it look “next-gen” and beyond anything the PS3 or Xbox 360 could muster up. Sadly, it’s been pulled from Steam for some time now, but keys do exist online at various retailers. It’s worth a playthrough for something more unique and interesting.
While the first game was released during the sixth generation of consoles on PC (PS2/Xbox) it did get an “HD” release on PS3 and Xbox 360 but wasn’t nearly as good as the PC version due to lowered graphics and framerate issues. However, F.E.A.R. 2 and 3 were made with these consoles in mind. While the story of the series is convoluted and pointless, the second game had quite a bit of excellent cinematic moments and some creepy segments. While mostly forgettable it was fun. The third game had solid gunplay, but pretty much took out the creep factor entirely. The first game remains the best in the series and is a classic. It pushed PC hardware to its limits and made me want a gaming PC at the time.
Killzone is a strange beast. It’s not exactly the most polished shooter out there. The first game on PS2 was an absolute technical mess despite trying new things like long realistic reload times and pushing that poor system beyond what it could do. Killzone 2 was pretty much the biggest hype around the PS3 with the questionable pre-rendered demo shown at E3 2006 and being pretty impressive upon release. I remember it was a reason I wanted and bought a PS3 in 2009. The game looks great even today and has fantastic gunplay despite a forgettable and pointless story. The third game was more polished but felt more forgettable due to bland-level design and a continued pointless story with lame characters (I really can’t stand Rico), and it had a great multiplayer suite. The first game got an HD release in the Killzone Trilogy. Some of the best shooting you’ll play during this console cycle.
While Dark Athena isn’t quite as memorable or impactful as Escape from Butcher Bay the former game was included as an HD version with this game. Dark Athena was mostly more of the same, but with less memorable locales and it didn’t do enough that was new to make it stand out more. Still, the Riddick games remain some of the most interesting shooters of that generation and are worth a play through whether you like the movies or not. They have a great atmosphere, fun gunplay, and stealth mechanics.
The Conduit Series
A very much hyped FPS series on the Wii, The Conduit was a fun sci-fi shooter with interesting guns, but it was pretty run-of-the-mill as shooters go. We didn’t get many non-on-rails shooters on the Wii so when they came along they were a big deal. The Conduit was fun to play as it used the Wii hardware well and looked good too. It was nice to not get another military shooter and it’s probably why the game stood out from the crowd.
Originally released for Wii and then later on PS3 using the Move controller, Extraction was a sleeper hit and considered one of the best games in the series. Sure, it was another Wii on-rails shooter, but it had atmosphere and had some great scenes (cutting off your hand in space for example) and just felt tight and fast-paced. I picked this up new when it came out and replayed it a few times. It has high replay value thanks to its short length and entertaining shooting and scenes.
ARMA Series
The ARMA series is a PC exclusive military simulator and probably one of the most realistic out there. There is a huge mod community behind all three games, and they look fantastic. When I talk about simulators I mean it. A single bullet could kill you and the maps are large and expansive, there’s no hand-holding here. You must cooperate with your squad and everything from physics to not knowing where the hell enemy fire is coming from exists here. It’s some of the most rewarding cooperative squad-based gameplay in existence and it can only be experienced on PC.
Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising
Similar to ARMA, but with a little more user-friendly and arcade-like gameplay thrown in. It’s a long-running franchise and it still requires tight cooperation with squad-mates. I picked this up at a bargain bin for PC but didn’t realize how much was involved and never got past the first mission. I appreciated the visuals, the realism, but non of my friends are gamers, so I was stuck playing solo and it wasn’t very fun.
Borderlands was a game no one saw coming. It pretty much created the “looter-shooter” genre that is so popular today. I picked the first game up when it was released and played it solo. It was a lot of fun and had a lot of character, but later games were pretty much the exact same. If you played one Borderlands you played them all. These games are best played with a friend, but the interesting NPCs and weapons keep you coming back despite the dull environments and visuals. The Pre-Sequel is one I couldn’t get through, but it’s not bad. There is also the Telltale Games adventure Tales from the Borderlands which is fantastic and worth a playthrough.
Who would have thought this would be one of the best-selling shooters of all time and continue on for over a decade? Who thought that it would be the most played multiplayer game for that long as well. The first two games in the series were fantastic. Bombastic and well-designed campaigns and revolutionary multiplayer for the time. Both games had impeccably designed maps and the ranking and unlock system became addictive. Tight gunplay, clans, and state-of-the-art visuals helped sell these games. Modern Warfare 3 was just more of the same and people were starting to tire of the series by this point. Surprisingly, the Wii and DS had decent ports as well that were tailored for the hardware.
The first Black Ops game is still the best. The different setting of the Cold War was a nice change of pace and the multiplayer and zombies introduction made it stand out from the crowd. The second game was decent but had the best zombies mode. Black Ops is an interesting experimental side series of the main Modern Warfare series. It was darker, grittier, and had more of a government conspiracy theme to it. There are also great ports to Wii and DS as well. The series has been all over the place since and to be honest feels redundant at this point.
I remember picking this up new shortly after release. Despite being a co-op shooter you really didn’t need to communicate with people to enjoy it. I didn’t have a PC that could run either game at the time so Xbox 360 it was. It played and looked great on the system and had some of the most realistic-looking zombies at the time. Each character felt unique and you really had to pick a way to play and that included the weapons. The maps were well laid out and the fast-paced horde shooter stood out from games like Dead Rising and Resident Evil.
MAG
The now-defunct Zipper Interactive developers of the mega-blockbuster SOCOM series decided to take advantage of the PS3 hardware and pit 256 players against each other in a realistic military shooter. The idea was sound on paper, but what we got was a buggy mess. This is about as generic as shooters get. Despite the occasional fun moment running into dozens of enemies in a game that was mostly unheard of outside of PC space, the game just flopped. The level-up system was clever, but the game didn’t sell enough to iron out all the bugs and glitches and sloppy animations. If the game had more time in the oven it could have been bigger than Call of Duty.
I remember being so hyped for this game. While it wasn’t as good as AVP2, it looked amazing, in fact, one of the best-looking games at the time taking full advantage of DirectX 10 on PC, and had a pretty sweet triple campaign all around. The multiplayer was pretty boring, but you felt like the Predator and Alien, but sadly, the Marine campaign was the worst of the three. It’s worth a play-through today.
Fallout 3 was one of the most played games for me of all time. I spent nearly 100 hours between the main game and all four DLCs. The best character in the game was the world. Everything told a story. A skeleton in a washer, text on a computer, a note left on a desk in an empty vault. There was so much detail crammed into this game you could get lost exploring for dozens of hours without completing a single mission. The guns felt good, the game looked mostly decent at the time, but it was a super buggy mess in general. New Vegas was even better with a crafting and ammo system and had a better story and characters to boot. New Vegas looked incredibly dated when it launched and was also a buggy disaster, but eventually got patched and the modding community is insane. It’s one the most modded games of all time and is a must for anyone playing on a PC. Both of these games are full of life and character and if you like RPGs or just great storytelling, you must play them.
Bulletstorm was made by the guys behind the excellent cult classic Painkiller series and some developers from Gears of War. What we got was a bombastic and crazy shooter that wanted combos of carnage to rack up a score and killstreak. It was so fun using your lasso, tossing people up in the air, shooting them down, and even kicking them into environmental death traps. The story and characters were stupid, but it didn’t matter. The game looked fantastic using an advanced version of Unreal Engine 3 and tapped both consoles max power. This is a must-play, and the newly remastered version is the best way to go.
Homefront isn’t just another Call of Duty clone. This one tried to create a story with characters and mostly succeeded. Set in an alternate timeline where North Korea basically takes over the world, you are a rebel group trying to stop them. The beginning scene is one of the most memorable in gaming history. Seeing soldiers execute people and having your bus crash. The cinematic gameplay is tons of fun while it lasts. There’s a lot of humanity pumped into the game so it’s not just another game of Whack-a-Mole. The multiplayer wasn’t good enough to keep the game alive, but the campaign is one entertaining evening.
This was probably one of the most anticipated games of the HD generation. Warren Specter’s return to one of the most popular PC games of all time was a huge welcome. Despite major technical issues, this was one of the first games to use DirectX 11 on PCs and I remember my poor gaming laptop just couldn’t do it. The game looked dated, and pretty awful on consoles, but it gave us tons of choices to approach various situations. Stealth, non-lethal, guns blazing, hacking to get more info to make conversations go your way. It was all up to you. Despite a bland story and uninteresting characters, there was enough here to keep you moving along.
This was kind of a sleeper hit. Despite having an awful story that was almost non-existent and stupid characters, the crafting system and overall open world of killing zombies was a blast. It looked great too at the time and had decent gunplay. Despite the game being a lot of fun while playing it you won’t remember any of it after a while. It’s a very forgettable experience, but it’s not a bad game. There is a clunkiness to the game and lots of bugs and glitches even after a few patches, but it’s one of the only good open-world zombie games out there. Totally skip the “sequel”.
Hard Reset didn’t make it to consoles, but it is a sleeper hit hardcore FPS on PC. The story is lame and pointless, but the cyberpunk graphics, weapons, enemies, and overall atmosphere were fantastic. The ads on the streets trying to sell you products, the weird nearly broken server bots, and the overall color palette of the game are amazing. Sadly, it’s still a linear corridor shooter and can be downright brutal difficulty-wise even on normal. It’s not for the faint of heart.
Red Orchestra Series
Red Orchestra is a multiplayer-only WWII simulator that a lot of people don’t know about because it was never released on consoles. In 2006 Ostfront 41-45 was a major hit on PC with fantastic visuals and realistic gameplay. Get into a tank with several other players and coordinate each part of the tank just like in real life. Weapons fire so accurately that you even had bullet drops and weapons would jam. It was an amazing experience and only got better with Red Orchestra 2 released in 2011. RO2 had a single-player campaign, but it was plagued with crashes and bugs, and sadly, the series has never been as big as Call of Duty despite the care and effort that went into it.
Payday Series
The Payday series is fairly popular as a fun co-op heist game. It’s addictive and can get quite involved and there’s plenty of DLC. The first game wasn’t as good as the second and felt a lot more low-budget and amateurish compared to how great Payday 2 is. The game won’t blow you away visually, but there’s a lot of fun here with tightly made maps, well-balanced classes, and tons of maps to play. If you want a co-op shooter to play with friends it doesn’t get much better than this.
Serious Sam 3 was a long-awaited and highly anticipated game. While it’s mostly well known in the PC and Xbox space, this was the first game to grace Nintendo and Sony consoles. The game had state-of-the-art tech for PC and pushed my poor gaming laptop beyond its limits upon release. It looked great and was a lot of fun during the first play-through. Sadly Serious Sam games are incredibly repetitive wave shooters and it gets old fast. There’s a lot of humor though, and it still looks great today.
Syndicate
Barely related to the series before, Syndicate went from a tactical strategy game to a fast-paced first-person shooter by EA. The game had a lame story and wasn’t very memorable, but it was a lot of fun to play. It had quick gunplay, tight controls, and looked pretty damn good to boot. Sadly, it drowned in the plethora of shooters in the early ’10s and was quickly forgotten and never sold well. Thus, knowing EA and knew IPs, chucked it in the bin to be forgotten forever. It was also one of the last games developed by Starbreeze Studios.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
One of the few times Counter-Strike has been released on consoles, Global Offensive is still played to this day and is the latest version of Counter-Strike. There are still worldwide championships, eSports tournaments, and overall toxicity in the community raining high. Lawsuits, arrests, and SWATTING, Global Offensive is still one of Valve’s juggernaut franchises going strong. There’s a reason for this. It has impeccable map design, solid gunplay that’s well balanced, and the newer loot box system is addictive to those who can’t keep their wallets closed. There are constant updates made to the game and if you haven’t jumped in yet don’t worry, the servers are alive and active with hundreds of thousand of players daily.
Stealth-action games aren’t released very often, and Dishonored was a fantastic mix of stealth and FPS gunplay. The fantastical abilities of Blink and the use of various pistols and knives made the game a ton of fun. The interesting story and characters also helped, but the freedom was awesome too. You could stealth your way through everything or blast your way. The choice was yours. You can also choose to knock out or kill your enemies. There’s also a loot system so you can buy upgrades and ammo and various healing items. The game was dated visually when it was released, but it still had a wonderful art style.
Metro is one of my favorite game series of all time. It was developed by ex-S.T.A.L.K.E.R. creators and they built an amazing atmosphere and weapons system. While the first game’s stealth was flawed and frustrating it still told a chilling tale and had a haunting atmosphere and creepy monster designs. The weapons felt clunky and unreliable and home-built like they might in a post-apocalyptic setting. The game looked and ran best on PC, but the Xbox 360 version was adequate and was the first I played upon release. Later, Last Light pushed my gaming laptop to its limits and didn’t run very well, but it looked absolutely stunning. It looked really dated on PS3 and Xbox 360, but at least it was running well. These are some of the most original shooters for this generation as they weren’t straight-up Call of Duty clones and had no multiplayer!
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