Many people use video game reviews to determine how to spend their hard-earned dollars. While as an adult I don’t take this as seriously and I now make my own money I am more forgiving of games that aren’t perfect. As kids or teens, we have limited money and are usually picked through gaming magazines to determine if that one game was worth the money because we only got a few a year. For me, it was only during Christmas time that my parents bought games. I mostly rented mine throughout my childhood and teen years. Even for rentals, I was picky as I didn’t want to be stuck on my weekend with a dud of a game. Even a 7/10 or 3.5/5 would be considered a waste of time. This was the last generation in which AAA title after AAA title would be considered fantastic and with so many exclusives it was hard to keep up with. The HD era of gaming would see budgets balloon to insane heights and game releases slowed down as a result.
In my eyes, 7/10 or 3.5/5 games are mostly ignored. These aren’t always considered hidden gems either. Some are, but some are just considered forgettable. Not awful or good, but just passes under everyone’s radar. These aren’t the “so bad it’s good” games either. A few of these games have cult followings; a few I had only heard of while compiling this list and some I played myself growing up. I compiled this list from Metacritic with games between 74-70. I feel that’s the true blue 7 range. 79 and 78-rated games usually only have about 25% of the critics giving it a 7 to bring an otherwise 8 score down some. These games are at least rated by half the critics as 7/10. While I know many people don’t listen to critics and some might feel this game should be rated higher or lower is subjective. Like it or not, critic reviews drive sales and it may be the reason why you might find a few games on this list you’ve never heard of, thought was talked about worse than you remember, or something along those lines
Marble Saga: Kororinpa – 2009
The second and final game in the Kororinpa series, Marble Saga adds enough that is new to make it feel worthwhile. It’s really addictive and fun despite the bland visuals. It has plenty of modes and a level editor as well.
Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz – 2006
The game doesn’t evolve much here. The mini-games grow tiresome and most of the overall content can get on your nerves, but the multiple control options really help.
Most Recent Entry: Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania – 2021 (NS, PS4, PS5, XONE, XSX, PC)
The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces – 2010
Motion controls were well done here, but in the end, the missions aren’t very exciting. It’s a good-looking arcade-like dogfighter on Wii, but don’t expect anything exciting.
Naruto: Clash of the Ninja Revolution 2 – 2008 Naruto Shippuden: Clash of the Ninja Revolution III – 2009
Simplistic gameplay really hampered the experience here, and the story is lame, but the online play really bolstered the longevity of the game and added challenge.
Most Recent Entry: Naruto X Boruto Ninja Tribes – 2020 (AND, iOS)
Lit – 2009
A unique horror game that used the Wii remote like a flashlight. The shadow puzzles were fun, but the game is forgettable due to a lack of a compelling story or world.
Dive: The Medes Islands Secret – 2009
A good-looking platformer that was mostly generic feeling and average. While it was fun and wasn’t bad in any way it just didn’t provide anything to stand out.
Just Dance 2 – 2010
The series was birthed on the Wii. The second major outing didn’t approve of the first very much. It’s exactly the same as before with a new song selection and slightly better visuals. The series has lived on to this day.
Most Recent Entry: Just Dance 2022 – 2021 (NS, PS4, XONE, PS5, XSX)
SSX Blur – 2007
The series made it to the Wii with motion controls and all but was hampered by cutesy visuals that clashed with the signature look and dumbed-down gameplay. The control scheme also had a steep learning curve. The series would eventually die out with a final reboot in 2012.
Most Recent Entry: SSX – 2012 (PS3, X360)
WarioWare D.I.Y. Showcase – 2010
To be accompanied by the DS game, Showcase was the classic WarioWare gameplay, but didn’t have enough content to keep people coming back for more. The connectivity to the DS was great and added some small replay value at least.
Most Recent Entry: WarioWare: Get It Together! – 2021 (NS)
The second and final offering on the Wii it went out with a fizzle and splat. The series was growing stale at this point only changing one thing for the good and screwing up something else. The boards felt like you were too often at the mercy of chance and the content was lacking.
Most Recent Entry: Mario Party Superstars – 2021 (NS)
Pandora’s Tower – 2013
This game has a pretty nice cult following. It’s a beautiful and unique game on the system that pushed it to its limits. It’s often compared to Shadow of the Colossus and Castlevania. A little bit of each. It just has really repetitive combat and there’s lots of it.
Rayman Raving Rabbids: TV Party – 2008
The penultimate release of this weird series that no one asked for. While the Rabbids are always fun to see on screen their games are just smatterings of mini-games and slapstick humor. This game uses the Balance Board on top of the Wii remote to make you do dancing numbers. It gets old quickly and is most fun with other people around.
Most Recent Entry: Rabbids Go Home – 2009 (PC)
Animal Crossing: City Folk – 2008
Wow, wait! An Animal Crossing game?! Well yeah. The series was pretty much not doing much around this time. Not much changed from the GameCube version and many long-time fans complained about this. You can skip this game in the series and not miss anything. It’s a great jumping-on point for newcomers, however.
Most Recent Entry: Animal Crossing: New Horizons – 2020 (NS)
Art Style: Cubello – 2008
The Art Style series was short-lived but pretty popular with puzzle fans. This game was considered unique and easy to pick up and play but became too complex and difficult too quickly.
Most Recent Entry: Art Style: Rotozoa – 2010 (WII)
Disney’s Epic Mickey – 2010
Warren Specter’s (Deus Ex, The Sims) colossal failure stemmed from poor controls and an awful camera. Diehard Disney fans were able to look past this, and if you do too, there’s a genuinely good game under all of this. The sequel was so desperate to turn things around that it moved away from its Wii exclusivity.
Most Recent Entry: Disney’s Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two – 2012 (WII, VITA, PS3, WIIU, PC, X360)
Fast – Racing League – 2011
The surprise Wipeout meets F-Zero game came out of nowhere and surprised many racing fans. It looked good and had a great sense of speed but flew under everyone’s radar. The series then launched on later systems garnering more coverage and love from fans.
Most Recent Entry: Fast RMX – 2017 (NS)
Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party – 2007
Pick one DDR game and you’ve played them all. Unless you want new songs there’s no reason to buy anything else. The series never changed up the dance mat, and this game had a small amount of content and didn’t change the formula up much. It was business as usual here.
Most Recent Entry: Dance Dance Revolution II – 2011 (WII)
Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles – My Life As A Dark Lord – 2009
The Crystal Chronicles series hasn’t received much praise after its GameCube outing. The Wiiware versions were fun tower defense games but had a lot of paid DLC that could have been included. This game is considered one of the best in its genre for the system.
Most Recent Entry: Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles – Remastered Edition – 2020 (AND, iOS, PS4, NS)
Talk about a ho-hum launch title. While Excite Truck had a great sense of speed and looked decent enough, the track design was very generic feeling and there was a serious lack of content including online play.
Most Recent Entry: ExciteBots: Trick Racing – 2009 (WII, WIIU)
Chick Chick Boom – 2010
A really fun party game that was praised for its visuals and fun factor, but didn’t have much overall content. It’s also best played with other people leaving solo players alienated.
Endless Ocean – 2007
Praised for its bravery in trying to create a living breathing encyclopedia, but lambasted for having zero gameplay and frustrating controls. It’s worth playing if you just want to relax and enjoy the sights. The series would get one more entry before calling lights out.
Most Recent Entry: Endless Ocean: Blue World – 2009 (WII)
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games – 2009
No game in the series is bad, but they are very simple and don’t provide enough to come back to. Many issues were addressed from the first outing, but the game is overall too simple and easy to challenge adults.
Most Recent Entry: Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games: Tokyo 2020 – 2019 (NS)
Deadly Creatures – 2009
A super weird game that surprised everyone with how good it was. It featured AAA actors for some reason too. The creatures themselves were realistically created and felt like their real-life counterparts. This adventure game got really hard though. I personally rented this and loved it. With a bigger budget a sequel could have been awesome, but alas this game didn’t sell well.
Shaun White Snowboarding: World Stage – 2009
Trying to capture that Tony Hawk magic Shaun White rode on the coattails of the legendary skater for years. With a quick succession of releases using motion controls the games were serviceable, but low effort. World Stage used the Balance Board and had clumsy controls, but was fun nonetheless.
Most Recent Entry: Shaun White Skateboarding – 2010 (PS3, X360, WII, PC)
Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars – 2008
Mushroom Men was a series I hoped would get better. There is a lot of potential here and it’s one of the most visually striking games on the system. Sadly, it feels dated and gets really repetitive. One last try squeaked by on PC to never be seen again.
Most Recent Entry: Mushroom Men: Truffle Trouble – 2015 (PC)
Dr. Mario Online RX – 2008
A remake of the SNES game RX only brought online play to the table. It’s the same gameplay without any interesting modes and won’t hold your attention for long. If you have any other version you don’t need this. Especially since the servers are shut down.
Most Recent Entry: Dr. Mario World – 2019 (AND, iOS)
Super Swing Golf – 2006 Super Swing Golf Season 2 – 2007
I loved PangYa on PSP. It was one of the best golf games on the system. The series is clearly aiming toward the Hot Shots Golf crowd with cutesy visuals. However, the was little content to keep people coming back despite being one of the first golf games on the system.
Most Recent Entry: PangYa: Fantasy Golf – 2008 (PSP)
Shiren The Wanderer – 2010
This roguelike looked great and had potential at every turn, but just felt a bit too repetitive and formulaic to be remarkable. It’s still a visually unique game for the system. A sequel eventually bore fruit to equally mediocre results.
Most Recent Entry: Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice Fate – 2020 (NS, PC)
Spectrobes: Origins – 2009
The final game in the short-running series. This seemingly lifeless and generic action game is actually rather good. It’s a monster collecting game with decent visuals on the Wii and is great fun despite the lack of any challenge.
Driift Mania – 2009
A fun call back to 16-bit top-down racers, but the lack of solo content really hurt here. The game was designed with multiplayer in mind. Many also didn’t care for its generic-looking visuals either. However, it controlled well and had a good sense of speed.
The Munchables – 2009
A fun game with cute visuals, but this time the game does have some challenges. It gets repetitive fairly quickly, but many felt the game was worth pushing through. The controls also needed some work.
Magnetica Twist – 2008
A fun puzzle game if not ugly. This Zuma clone was hampered by poor controls and no online play despite the price point. If you can get a hold of this game you’ll have a lot of fun at least.
Let’s Tap – 2009
One thing that was common with unique Wii games that were experimented with is the fact that these games always came to packed light on content. Let’s Tap only has four mini-games and a visualizer and must be played with others to fully enjoy. The whacky nature of the whole thing makes this one of the most interesting games on the Wii.
The Kore Gang – 2011
A fun and lighthearted platformer with zany characters. Switching between them allows some form of variety, but the overall experience is let down by a short run time and some fiddly controls.
NASCAR Kart Racing – 2009
A surprisingly good game despite the license. The game has great controls and a fun track design but has no online play and the visuals are really dated. The online part might not matter anymore so it’s probably even better.
Most Recent Entry: NASCAR Rivals – 2022 (NS)
Jett Rocket – 2010
A fun and addictive game but gets repetitive fast and lacks any depth. It’s also very short clocking in at just a few hours, but it’s a fun time at least with quality design choices.
Most Recent Entry: Jett Rocket II: The Wrath of Taikai – 2013 (3DS)
Excitebike: World Rally – 2009
This did a good job of updating the original NES classic but had no local multiplayer which was a real shame. However, it didn’t advance the formula much if at all and that brought it down some.
Most Recent Entry: Excitebots: Trick Racing – 2009 (WII, WIIU)
Pearl Harbor Trilogy – 1941: Red Sun Rising – 2010
Considered one of the better dog fighters on Wii, the game was praised for great controls and mission variety but was insanely challenging. This wasn’t a pick-up-and-play arcade game at all.
Super Mario All-Stars: 25th Anniversary Edition – 2010
Yes, these are good ports and play exactly like you remember them…but that’s it! No fancy extras, no remake of any kind, no HD remaster, just the same NES and SNES games slapped onto a disc. It felt like overpriced Wiiware.
Most Recent Entry: Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury – 2021 (NS)
Infinity Blade was a big deal when it was released. It was the Dark Souls of mobile games at the time before Dark Souls even came out. Chair Entertainment started a revolution that many tried to copy and failed. It was a rogue-lite that had you dying over and over to only use the gold and XP you acquired to level up and get further each time. Some consider it a repetitive grind, but others feel it makes them want to get further and further and find the chiseling of progression addictive. Rage of the Gladiator tries this and doesn’t do any of it very well. Forget a story, it’s pretty much nonexistent outside of a few stills with text.
There are ten bosses to fight through. Each one does more damage, has faster moves, and more of them. Despite this sense of progression in difficulty, the game is very easy. You have to dodge left or right in first person, jump, and then swing your sword left or right, and even kick when you successfully dodge. You can get a max of a 5-hit combo in unless you use a special move before that fifth hit. There’s no strategy involved, and I only died one time during my entire play-through. Moves are easy to predict and rather slow. The repetition gets worse when you have to win three rounds per boss. That’s 30 rounds in total before unlocking the medium difficulty. Yeah, you work your way up through hard, but the moves are just faster and one or two more are thrown in. You also take more damage.
You can buy weapons, shields, armor, mana, and health potions, acquire passive and offensive abilities and increase stats. You win gold after each match and earn one measly XP per match. Yes, it’s a complete grind and this is leftover from this being a mobile game. At the end of the tenth boss, I was only able to buy two new weapons, a single shield, and an armor piece. You can use gold to buy XP, but this system is in favor of grinding or slowing you down enough to make you buy this stuff via microtransactions, but these aren’t on the 3DS version. So, instead of rebalancing the game, they kept the grind in.
This would be fine if the game was as epic or good-looking as something like Infinity Blade. Instead, we get generic Greek mythology bosses, a ninja, and a Chinese martial arts master, and that’s about it. Medium and Hard difficulties have one additional boss at the end, but they’re not exciting. However, the animations are stiff, the visuals are ugly, and everything is just on repeat forever. There’s no strategy involved in the fights or even how to go about your attacks. Instead of adding a parry system that allows you to counter an attack you just dodge. There are a few attacks that can be paired, but it’s only on a few of the bosses. It would even be cool to change up the background, but instead, it’s the same Roman arena forever.
Overall, Rage of the Gladiator is a repetitive, boring, easy, and weak attempt at a genre that has been done better and to death. There’s no rebalancing of the shop or winnings so you’re grinding as if you can buy these things to advance quicker. The bosses are uninteresting and boring, the game is ugly and drab, and there’s no story to speak of. Shoving a mobile game onto the 3DS was a bad move and it shows here.
We all love a good scare, right? Horror games are some of gaming’s greatest past times. Usually booming in October, horror games from the past and present are played all around the world. The problem is, there just aren’t a lot of them made, and the best ones are far and few between. Usually, this is a great time to dig up old classics rather than trudge through recent crap. While the PS1/PS2 era was the golden age of horror games, the HD era, or the seventh generation of consoles, struggled and was probably the most anemic when it came to horror games, especially the good ones. There’s a reason why some of the rarest and most coveted physical games are horror. It’s the genre that’s been the least explored and not done well enough most of the time. If you can look past clunky controls and awkward gameplay most retro horror games do provide good scares, atmosphere, creepy monsters, and good visuals. I’ve compiled a list of the best and the worst.
American McGee is well known for his dark interpretation of the Alice in Wonderland series. The first game, American McGee’s Alice, was clunky mechanically but was a visual treat. The same goes for the sequel. It’s a gorgeous game with a lot of dark themes dealing with mental illness. The enemies are fantastically designed and the levels themselves are living art. Despite the incredibly repetitive gameplay, this one is a blast to play through.
A lot of people didn’t like Homecoming due to its more action-oriented combat, but I actually quite liked it. I feel it was the last good Silent Hill game in the series and it still retains the creepy atmosphere and insane creature design. The haunting music is still present as well. While it’s not as tense as the original trilogy, Homecoming does have better combat despite it being the wrong focus here. This was the first game in the series that was part of the jump to the next generation. The next game in the series, Downpour, would be considered the worst in the series, and I personally hated it. These would be the last games in the series to date.
Metro 2033 and Last Light, these were some of the best horror games to grace the seventh generation of consoles. While they played and looked best on PC, the console versions still looked great and did a good job giving us scares. The post-apocalyptic horror series had an intriguing story and tense atmosphere along with crazy creature designs. The final game in the trilogy, Exodus, would be on the next-generation systems and receive mixed reviews.
While not inherently designed to give you nightmares, Shadows has a lot of horror elements in its design such as creepy enemies and an overall atmosphere of dread. It’s more of a comedy horror title, but it has tons of style that help make swallowing the shallow substance a bit easier. It’s also not very good-looking, on a technical basis, but the art is awesome. Most of Suda 51’s games were one-shots and never saw sequels. SotD never saw high enough sales even if he wanted to do a sequel. To date, it hasn’t seen a remaster, remake, or port.
Condemned Series
Condemned: Criminal Origins really showed us what next-generation visuals could look like. The E3 2006 demo blew me away and it was one of the reasons I got an Xbox 360. This was one of the few games that looked the part and really pushed the industry into a new era of HD visuals. It’s a game that can be replayed many times and you will always have a fun experience. It’s too bad the series is dead because Monolith nailed the atmosphere here. The game is intense with crazy melee combat and incredibly dark and haunting levels. Crazy bums coming out of nowhere breathing and panting and trying to attack you in dark hallways is something else. The sequel, Bloodshot, was great but focused more on combat and less on the atmosphere, so it’s not quite as scary. It was also the nail in the coffin as due to the poor sales of the sequel Sega shuttered the series for good. To date, the series hasn’t seen a remaster, remake, or port of any kind.
Dante’s Inferno is one of the best hack and slash games ever made, but EA was bound to make sure you didn’t know that. It didn’t get much attention or was considered just another God of War rip-off. While the game was short, it had incredibly responsive and fun combat, an interesting protagonist, and insanely gory and adult-themed levels. It’s just too bad the story wasn’t fleshed out enough. What’s here is a fun 4-5 hour game that you won’t find anywhere else. Sadly, the game’s low sales sealed its fate to have no sequel, caused Visceral to shutter, and hasn’t seen a port, remaster, or remake to date.
Specifically speaking about the first two games, BioShock had a crazy dark atmosphere and some creepy enemies and horror that kind of just oozed everywhere. There was no jump scares or downright frightening scenes, but you always had a sense of dread and fear and that’s really hard to pull off in games. The game was more about psychological horror and isolation and it sure pulled it off mostly the best in the first game. Surprisingly, the entire trilogy was released during this generation and would receive barely passable ports later on as the BioShock Collection.
While Dead Space 3 was mostly about the action and less about horror, the first two games were damn scary. I would consider them one of the scariest games I have ever played. Jump scares aside, there was a constant foreboding presence of something lurking around every corner and the Necromorphs are some of the greatest video game enemies of all time. This was peak horror during the HD era. Another trilogy that saw its ending in the same generation cycle. The series would stall here and the first game would receive a remake two generation cycles later.
Deadly Premonition is the perfect game of it’s so bad it’s good. The gameplay is dated and feels like a PS1 game, the graphics are terrible, and the voice acting is awful, but the writing and overall atmosphere the game presents are well done and memorable. It really feels like a PS2 game that was quickly ported over to next-gen consoles without any improvements in mind. It can be scary in the sense that its trippy Japanese horror weirdness will freak you out more than scare you. This is one of the few games you should stomach the terrible design for the weirdness. It’s worth it. It would get a sequel in the next generation, but not look like it and would be poorly received
Oh man, this one brings me back. The first game was very scary with crazy The Ring girl vibes that were all the rage in the early 2000s. The gunplay was genuinely solid and you needed a NASA PC to run it back in the day, but forget about understanding the story. The second game had some really scary elements, but was more action-oriented and had less of a mid-2000s PC shooter Half-Life 2 style vibe to it. The third game, well, just isn’t scary at all. Another trilogy that was released all in the same console cycle. While the first game was a port and was released during the PS2/Xbox era, the entire trilogy would never see a remake or remaster.
The Resident Evil series really took off after the previous generation. This generation would see the most action-focused games yet. Resident Evil 5, 6, and Operation Raccoon City were the main releases. There was also an HD port of the 3DS exclusive Revelations as well as Revelations 2 as a sequel. Some would consider this the weakest run the series had only to go back to its roots in the next generation cycle starting with Resident Evil VII. The games also weren’t very scary around this time. They were just too action-focused and didn’t have the nuanced scares and puzzles as before. Revelations would be the only sub-series to feel scary or have any tension at all. Operation Raccoon City would be lauded as the worst game in the series.
The Last of Us would be considered one of the best horror games ever made. It was wildly praised and made waves throughout the gaming industry receiving awards and praise from all angles. The tense stealth scenes with the Clickers were awesome. These monsters are some of the creepiest and eerie creatures ever made for a horror game. This wasn’t just another zombie game. It would receive a sequel in the following generation as well as some of the most controversial decisions ever for a game. It would also receive a full remake and remaster.
Outlast
Released at the tale end of the HD era of gaming, Outlast never saw a port to consoles until the next generation. It was damn scary. This small indie game made waves and became one of the top streaming games of all time. The tense atmosphere and overall great design, in general, made Outlast terrifying. The sequel would be released several years later on PC and consoles as well as a port of the first game released about a year later.
Amnesia was probably the top-streamed video game of the year in 2010. Game streaming was new and scare reactions reached the charts on YouTube. There hadn’t been many really scary games during this generation. It was all action-focused and multiplayer-focused to generate sales. That’s why this indie game was released on PC only at the time. It had interesting puzzles and enemies you couldn’t fight. It wouldn’t receive a port until many years later and two-generation cycles later. The sequels A Machine for Pigs and Rebirth would be poorly received, and I personally didn’t like them that much either.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Series
The STALKER series wouldn’t sell well at first but would gain a huge cult following. The entire trilogy was released around the mid-life of the HD era and was exclusive to PC. It’s rough around the edges, but a huge following of modders would improve the game and it wouldn’t be until two generations later when a true sequel would be released. The game never saw a port to consoles and for a reason. The engine is already poorly optimized on PC and wouldn’t do well on consoles. It would be a huge undertaking to port the entire trilogy and it would be hard to market.
Alien Isolation
Alien Isolation wasn’t technically developed for HD consoles, but mostly for PC and next-generation systems. It came out right as the next generation was coming in and the HD versions were quickly forgotten. Isolation is considered the best game in the Alien series and one of the best horror games of the last couple of decades. It captures the 80s aesthetic of the movies and tells a great story while being terrifying. I still haven’t completed it to this day because of how scary it actually is.
Penumbra Series
The original horror trilogy, Penumbra, was developed by Frictional Games who would later go on to make the Amnesia series. This was released for PC only and never received a console port. It was a less talked about indie series that was loved among horror fans, but indie PC games didn’t receive the same spotlight that they do now. Console gamers didn’t care unless they were ported. Penumbra is a slow-paced, puzzle-focused horror series all about adventure and discovery. It’s creepy, full of psychological horror, and is a must-play for any horror fan.
While this is stretching it a bit, The Evil Within was mostly meant for next-generation consoles and PC. It played and looked nice on PS3 and Xbox 360, but those weren’t the intended systems. This was Shinji Mikami’s next opus and was definitely creepy and had some good elements, but was too action focused and unbalanced and the story made no sense. Some say that’s the charm of survival horror games. There’s a bit of jank that’s needed. I personally just thought this game was okay despite the amazing monster designs. A sequel would later come out, but not sell as well.
This is one of my favorite horror games of all time. It has a great story, memorable characters, and a great combat system that plays off of light and darkness. I’ve replayed this game many times and it wasn’t an instant hit for Microsoft. The sales were slow and it wasn’t appreciated until much later. It received a PC port and a recent remaster. It’s a must-play for any horror fan.
Siren: Blood Curse
It was a surprise to see a niche and obscure horror title return to PS3. Siren didn’t sell or review well but is considered a cult classic and part of the classic survival horror era. Blood Curse was a digital-only episodic release that had some great scares and an overall fun adventure. Sadly, only Japan received a physical release.
Oh man, where do I start? My favorite horror series was butchered with this release. I rented this from GameFly and had to follow a guide through most of the game. It was a confusing convoluted mess and felt like a chore to play. It wasn’t scary, wasn’t fun, and was the worst game in the whole series.
While the movies were quite enjoyable despite their flaws, the games were just awful. They weren’t as gruesome as the movies and played it too safe. Pretty much every bad conventional video game flaw was present here. Awful voice acting, terrible graphics, bad puzzles, and poor level design.
Vampire Rain
Easily considered one of the worst games of the HD era there was no redeeming value in this game. There was nothing you could overlook. There wasn’t any “it’s so bad it’s kind of charming” to this game either. It was just a disaster and an unplayable mess. It wasn’t scary, it felt like it was trying to be several games at once, it looked bad, it played even worse, and wasn’t any fun despite all the hype leading up to release.
Aliens: Colonial Marines
This game needs no introduction. It’s been covered by every “worst of” and “most controversial” video game on YouTube out there. Its history has been extensively documented. From broken AI to awful visuals, and just a completely unfinished and broken game. It’s also considered one of the worst games ever made. It’s a stark contrast to Alien Isolation.
I had the displeasure of actually finishing this game when it came out. I was hoping it was going to be a great reboot of a classic horror series. I followed the developer’s diaries all the way through the release and played it without reading any reviews. The game is pretty bad. It’s one of the worst games of the HD era. It was just an awful chore and a mess of a game. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t scary. It was just plain bad.
Amy
Probably one of the worst games ever made. This was a small indie game that was supposed to be full of suspense and horror, but instead, it’s a chore of a game with awful controls and graphics. The game was also poorly optimized and suffered terrible framerate issues. The story made no sense, and overall, it was just a stupid and lazy game.
I was so excited about this game, and every time I think about or have to write about it break’s my heart. I absolutely love Clive Barker’s work and had it since I was a young teen. I fawned after the figures from Todd McFarlane and loved the characters in his movies. Undying was also a cult classic. The game was just trying to do too much at once. It had cramped level design, awful performance, dated visuals, and just felt like a chore. The only thing it had going for it was the art design. It’s one of the worst games I’ve ever played and one of the saddest scars of the HD era.
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!
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 best FPS games of this generation.
TimeShift had a lot of hype leading up to its release. It looked great and seemed to have this cool sci-fi setting with some unique and cool-looking weapons. It had a suit that could shift time and allow you to solve puzzles and work your way through enemies. In the end, the game was a bore-fest corridor shooter with a few open areas. It had some cool effects like the rain and good-looking textures, but it felt like a shooter from the early-2000s. The time-shifting abilities felt like filler and the puzzles were nothing but a joke. The game enemies repeated throughout the game and the weapons, while looking cool, felt like pop-guns with no real feel or impact. I remember renting this from BlockBuster when it was released for Xbox 360 and was just utterly bored. It was so forgettable that when I replayed it last week I didn’t remember a single thing except for the rain effects.
Turning Point: Fall of Liberty
My god was this game just terrible. I rented this from BlockBuster upon release for Xbox 360 and it was supposed to be a cool World War II shooter with some sci-fi and history changes. With Nazi Germany winning the war you are a soldier stuck in the middle. Instead of having a great story and characters, the game just felt as generic as can be. The guns felt weak, the environments were ugly and boring, and the game had so many glitches and an insane amount of slowdown that it made it nearly unplayable. With the steep fall of WWII-based shooters that the industry was sick of, Turning Point needed something different and cool to make it as people were turning to realistic military shooters. The game was just so gray and ugly and didn’t have its own identity. It didn’t sell well and was panned by critics for good reason.
Another shooter with a lot of potentials. This game brought you giant mythological creatures that were taking over a city! Yes! No more boring soldiers, but they just had to screw it up. Developed by the not-so-talented Spark Unlimited, Legendary had decent graphics and cool boss designs, but the shooting itself was awful. There was no feel to them or an identity to the game. Even the story was just barely passable and entertaining enough to push you through the game. This was by far one of the worst games of this generation period. It had a horrible slowdown, glitches, and just didn’t feel good to play at all. I rented this from BlockBuster for Xbox 360 upon release as well and I don’t even think I finished it. That’s how bad it was.
Shadowrun
Shadowrun was a highly anticipated FPS online-only multiplayer game set in the Shadowrun universe. Upon release, however, it was pretty much dead on arrival. The lack of content for the full-price tag pretty much killed the game and it felt like a generic last-generation shooter. There was nothing unique about this game nor did it feel like it was in the Shadowrun universe at all. It felt like a cheap cash grab as were the majority of multiplayer-only games that kicked off in this generation cycle. The servers have long since shut down, but if you really are curious you could play with bots or someone next to you.
This was actually quite an impressive game before release. I remember being super excited about the demo. The game looked fantastic and actually next-gen. There were great lighting effects, good textures, and the guns felt okay…at first. Upon release, the game was literally just a single map with objectives thrown in it. It felt like a multiplayer setup and just didn’t belong as a single-player experience. The gimmick was that you could drop down anywhere in the map on a parachute, and it looked good doing it. Lots of gunfire below you, explosions, and the sound design were pretty good too. The weapons just didn’t feel right, they were poorly balanced, the difficulty was all over the place, and it didn’t run very well. This “open-ended level design” that EA toted was a joke. It was a lazy excuse to shoehorn multiplayer maps into a single-player experience.
Jericho had so much potential and it’s one of those games I’m really mad that never turned out well. Clive Barker only did one other game and it was fantastic. Undying is a classic. Jericho was just so good leading up to release. The atmosphere, Clive’s classic monster style, and graphics looked great, and upon release, it was an utter disaster. Switching between numerous squad members was just too clunky and you want to talk about corridor shooters? This is more like a hallway shooter. The levels were too small to move around in for the number of enemies thrown at you and the number of squad members you had to manage and switch between. The game’s difficulty was all over the place, but it was nice to look at. The game bombed hard and didn’t sell really at all and Clive Barker has yet to embark on another video game adventure again.
Hellgate: London
Hellgate was a long-anticipated MMO for PC but was surrounded by controversy. You could play the game offline, but to access new content you had to pay a monthly fee. The game was just ugly, clunky, claustrophobic, and the RPG elements just weren’t implemented well. It felt low budget despite the coverage it got and just didn’t feel finished upon release. You can still play the game today as Hellgate Global is owned by a Korean-based publisher now. It was released on Steam in 2018, but almost no one plays.
BlackSite was a game I was personally excited for as I thought it would be an awesome reboot of the 2005 Area 51 game which was fantastic. This game turned out to be just like the other games mentioned. Dull, boring, cookie-cutter, and with no identity. It looked ugly, had lots of glitches, and slow down, and there wasn’t a single redeeming quality to the game. The guns were dumb, the story and characters were pointless, and even the aliens were boring. How could you mess up an IP like this? I remember playing the demo on Xbox 360 before release and it was a decent demo as it showed the only interesting part of the entire game.
Soldier of Fortune: Payback
While not inherently awful, Payback brushes the line between mediocrity and bad, however. The game did have decent graphics and good gore effects. So good in fact that Australia banned the game. Besides all of that, the game was generic, boring, and the weapons felt like pop-guns. There was no character to the shooting, no feeling, no weight, no nothing. The game’s trial-and-error difficulty balancing was terrible as well and not even multiplayer could save this one. The series hasn’t had the best history and mostly lives in “bad game” territory.
Turok
Turok is another game that borderlines bad and awful. Being the second reboot of the franchise, this version barely resembles the amazing Nintendo 64 games. Instead, we get a boring and generic shooter through equally dull jungles and concrete buildings and even messes up dinosaur encounters. The story is bad, the characters and voice acting are bad, and there’s not much worth playing here unless you’re a die-hard Turok fan and want to see what the hoopla was all about. Don’t get me wrong, this was a highly anticipated game because of its positive history, but this wasn’t it man.
This was a game I skipped upon release due to the terrible reviews it got. I later played in 2020 and was highly disappointed. It had a lot of potentials. The few morsels of the decent story were when the game explored the effect of the Haze serum on soldiers and how they would hallucinate in battle. The use of the serum to overload you during gameplay was a neat idea, but the game looked dated even upon release and felt dated. The weapons were boring, the enemies repeated forever, and there were a lot of game-breaking glitches and slowdown. This game wasn’t even decent or barely passable, it was downright terrible and not worth your 6 hours.
Secret Service
Oh man, this game is laughable. I doubt it sold barely anything. Not only was it a budget shooter, but it felt like something from the early 2000s. It was ugly, boring, generic as can be (white dudes in suits and sunglasses generic) and there are zero reasons to even sniff in this game’s general direction. The idea of being a secret service agent was unique at the time as there aren’t any games that did that, but instead of an interesting story with well-written characters and maybe some unique gameplay with scripted events you just get a corridor shooter mowing down bland enemies with weightless guns.
I had the honorable displeasure of finishing this game on PC years after release. While it did have a few good scenes that depicted PTSD from ‘Nam soldiers, it was just such a terrible game. All the classic signs are here: awful story and characters, stereotypes, boring and generic gunplay, guns that have no weight, ugly visuals, slowdown and glitches, and too linear. Rebellion isn’t that great of developers anyways given their pretty bad track record, but you think after how bad the first was they would tighten it up a bit. There are zero reasons to ever give this series a minute of your time other than sheer curiosity. There are much better military shooters in this era out there.
Can you tell the difference between these two? I sure can’t. Only release 2 years apart this is one of the most generic shooters ever made for the Xbox 360 and PC. It’s so boring and generic I can barely remember the game I played years ago on PC without looking it up. Everything is gray, ugly, and the weapons feel weightless and boring to use. I do remember the game has awful difficulty spikes and was a chore to play through. The multiplayer didn’t redeem the series either and the PS3 version of the first game wound up being canceled due to poor sales. The studio had such faith in the sequel that it wound up being a digital-only release.
Painkiller: Resurrection
Yes, this was a PC-only release, as the series home is on PC, but how can you screw up such a high-profile classic? Painkiller may not have been very innovative, but it had a rocking soundtrack, really fun weapons, level, and enemy variety, and just felt good to play. It was a “wave shooter” like Serious Sam and less like Doom and Quake. This sequel just didn’t work and was completely broken gameplay-wise. The levels were awful, the guns weren’t fun to use, and the graphics were incredibly dated. Just how do you mess something like this up? Sadly, the series is dead and the low sales of this game are probably why.
Rogue Warrior
Rogue Warrior wasn’t just a low-budget FPS that littered the scene in the day. This was a somewhat high-profile shooter with a retired Navy Seal helping design the game and Mickey Rourke cussing his way through the game. What we got was just a broken mess that wasn’t finished. The story and characters were lame stereotypes and used cussing as a way to make the story feel mature. The guns felt bad, the controls didn’t work right, animations were broken, there was lots of slowdown and glitches and crashes. It was just a hot mess and it was a tale as old as time back in the late ’00s.
What could probably be known as one of the most anticipated games of the seventh generation of consoles, Perfect Dark Zero had a lot of hype behind it. It was a beloved Nintendo 64 franchise debuting on a next-gen console. It looked next-gen leading up to release, but once we finally got a hold of it the game felt like it was stuck in the ’90s. Dated gameplay, boring missions, pointless story, and the stealth gameplay were pretty much ruined. I don’t understand the high scores this game got outside of people just being excited about the game or possibly being paid by Microsoft. Even the multiplayer couldn’t save this one. There’s no redeeming value in this game other than it existed on the N64 at one point.
Call of Juarez: The Cartel
The Call of Juarez series is a causality of the HD era. It came and went in that single generation and this game is what killed it off. The previous games were forgettable but enjoyable experiences. Quick weekend rentals and nothing more or bargain bin purchases. The Cartel was an absolute disaster and it’s sad as it had a lot of hype around it. The game was pretty much unfinished with game-breaking bugs, glitches, and slowdown. This was a by-product and a common scenario of the struggle to bring games to the HD gaming era. This game just didn’t work out and was quickly forgotten about.
The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct
This game was heavily hyped as was the whole The Walking Dead franchise. It was at its peak in the late ’00s with The Walking Dead adventure game by Telltale Games launching the franchise into the stratosphere in the video game world. With the success of that series, everyone wanted their hands in the franchise’s honey pot, but there wasn’t a single good game that came from it. Survival Instinct was dreadful. It was ugly, boring, and despite using Norman Reedus in the game his likeness wasn’t used very well. The game followed the TV series pretty closely, and instead of the tense atmosphere from that show, we got a boring arcade-like shooter.
I have never seen a game series so consistently terrible as the Sniper series. Both of the first two games were boring and generic as can be for military shooters. The game looked great on PC as it used the Crytek engine, but it ran poorly and looked pretty bad on consoles. There were some great sniper animations, but other than that the voice acting was bad, the levels were borderline free asset quality and there are zero reasons to bother playing this entire series. The series took a 4-year break before releasing Ghost Warrior 3 in 2017 and that one is barely passable.
Dead Island: Riptide
Riptide’s mistake was trying to be a sequel. It was pretty much the exact same game without any changes. This would have been better off as an expansion or DLC. The game also didn’t fix any issues from the decent first game. Lots of bugs, glitches, poor optimization on PC, and overall just not a fun experience. The open-world was void of any interesting characters and the story was just as lame. It did retain the eerie post-apocalyptic atmosphere and setting and was still enjoyable to smash zombies up and run away from them and craft weapons. If you never played the first one you can skip that and go straight for this one, but the entire Dead Island franchise has a sad history and just isn’t very good compared to similar games like Dying Light.
Alien Rage
Alien Rage is another byproduct of the era. Boring and sleep-inducing gameplay with generic aliens, weapons, and an overall feeling of low-budget cheapness. The graphics were awful and there was zero redeeming value to look in this game’s direction. Even by bad shooter standards this one fell into almost infamy of “why did they bother?” The problem is that no one wants to buy your game if it’s bad. The idea of quick cash grabs by releasing quick and dirty shooters just doesn’t work. You couldn’t even save this one with just good graphics or cool aliens. Everything about this game screams “I don’t care”.
Probably the most infamous shooter on this list Forever has a well-documented development cycle of hell that can be traced back in detail. What we got was a gross, dated, ugly, and messy game that barely felt like a Duke Nukem game. The jokes were dated, the gameplay, while varied, just wasn’t fun. The game was also poorly optimized, crashed, and glitched everywhere, and the slowdown was abundant. The hype wasn’t enough to make sales and it flopped with collector’s editions rotting on store shelves. Sadly, we haven’t seen hide nor hair of the franchise since outside of some cameos and releases. This game may have single-handedly killed the franchise forever.
Brink
Another well-documented example of the troubles HD gaming brought to the industry. What was here could have worked, but the lack of support, content, and overall polish killed what could have been one of the best multiplayer shooters of the era. The game also had average gunplay that felt generic and the overall aesthetic of the game was very bland and sterile feeling. It didn’t have an identity or rather one that was the culmination of broken or half-baked ideas. No clan support or single-player campaign didn’t help either. Poor sales led to this game’s quick demise and you can’t even play it anymore if you wanted to.
Bodycount
This is a perfect example of generic military shooters. This game tried to be arcade-like but also felt too realistic for its own good. It was boring, ugly, messy, and just wasn’t any fun to play. The first level showed you pretty much everything there was to offer. The guns had no weight, the enemies were copy/paste from other shooters, and the story and characters were pretty much in the background barely existing. Codemasters was trying to capitalize on games like Bulletstorm and Rage with fast-paced FPS action, but this just wasn’t it.
Aliens: Colonial Marines
Probably as infamous as Duke Nukem Forever, and sadly by the same publisher. Aliens was one of the worst games released of the HD era. Period. It was unfinished, rushed, lie and mess. It was so bad that there were glitches in the AI script for the aliens that users had to fix on the PC version. It was so different from what was shown in demos that Gearbox was sued. The game was boring, ugly, and didn’t feel like an Aliens game at all. Even the multiplayer couldn’t save this one. I played through the first level and never touched it again. This isn’t even a game that could have been patched up. It was rotten from its core and it shows.
Danger Close is talented in the sense they can screw up two games in a row this badly. The first game was an ugly dated mess using the Unreal Engine 3 and just felt like a game stuck in the past. Ditching WWII and trying to capitalize on the realistic military shooters and compete head-to-head with Battlefield, Medal of Honor was just a boring and generic feeling. The use of the Tier 1 operatives didn’t do anything, and the multiplayer had downgraded visuals and felt like a worse game in general. Warfighter looked much better but was a linear, scripted, and boring unoptimized mess that didn’t stand out from the crowd at all. You’re better off playing the older WWII shooters and leaving these to rot. There’s a reason why the series died after Warfighter.
007 Legends
Probably the single worst Bond game to date. Legends shoehorned memorable Bond moments with some of the worst Call of Duty clone shooting you can imagine. This is a perfect example of the HD-era shooters that shouldn’t have existed. This was a plague in the industry to create quick cash grabs from the Call of Duty fanbase. GoldenEye this was not.
Punch-Out!! is a Nintendo staple as it was one of the first established exclusives of the NES. Playing as Little Mac, you run through a gauntlet of characatures with varying difficulty to put your reflexes to the test. Punch-Out!! is a remake of that game and utilizes the Wii motion controls.
Let’s get down to the dirty business of this game. In essence, this is an arcade game you must perfect to the T without missing a beat. Your reflexes are required to be lightning-fast to get very far in this game. Each character has a unique set of 5 moves that require memorization and pattern recognition or you will simply never get past the Title Bout of the Minor Circuit which is when the game gets really hard. The first three characters aren’t very difficult and are just warm-ups for what’s to come. You can duck, dodge left or right, and block, but blocking is rarely used as most attacks can’t be blocked. You can then jab and hook left or right. The controls are the same as the NES version, and this makes the game overly simple for some or just enough for others. Newcomers may find this game too shallow while veterans will feel right at home.
That’s where the motion controls come in. For a game that requires response time in the milliseconds’ motion controls just don’t cut it. I got through the first two circuits with them, but after so long I had to switch to the buttons on the Wii remote as I need to be that much quicker. Using the nunchuck and remote you can jab left or right and then dodge with the C-stick. I found this to be more complicated than it needed to me and punching with the motion controls just doesn’t feel like punching but more mindless shaking. The Wii remote on its side is the best way to go here or even the classic controller.
That’s the essence of Punch-Out!!. Soda Popinski took me 90 minutes to beat and maybe two dozen restarts as you have to learn his patterns and when to dodge his moves. He also drinks soda to refill his health and you only get a split second to knock it out of his hand. There are also taunts that some characters do that can earn you stars for Star punches that do extra damage, but these are rare and hard to get. Outside of the main career mode, there is Exhibition and a two-player mode so it’s definitely light on modes and things to do. This game is not for casual players despite seeming like it is. This is for hardcore arcade goers or veterans of the original. I thought I was going to blow through this game in a couple of hours, but I spent that one a few characters alone.
It does get incredibly frustrating needing to have such perfect timing and reflexes and almost seems unnecessary. Sadly, there are no difficult changes, but there are a few hidden secrets that can give you an edge. When the ref is counting down you can rapidly tap 1 and 2 to regain health. At the end of each round, you can press – and hear a chime and you will refill your health. This only works twice though. This leads to my biggest complaint of the game: You never do more than a smidge of damage to each character and there’s no way to level up and get more powerful. I had to widdle away at the health when a character could knock me out in two hits. I found this heavily unbalanced and unfair. Shouldn’t Little Mac get stronger as he fights and shouldn’t there be a training mode with mini-games to level up? It just makes sense. This game is too similar to the NES version and carries over all of its flaws.
As it stands, Punch-Out!! is a really fun game of reflexes and timing with interesting and funny characters, but it lacks modes, a way to get stronger, and restarting matches two to three dozen times just isn’t fun after a while. The motion controls also just don’t work for this kind of game that requires precise movements and response times. I also wish there were some original characters and maybe not rely on this being a remake of a 25-year-old game. At the end of the day, this would have been a good rental, but for $50 there’s just not enough meat here to justify that cost.
Most people think of Excite Bike on the NES when they were the word Excite with Nintendo, but a truck series? It intrigued people and had the potential to be as addictive as Excite Bike all those years ago. Being a launch title on the Wii, just like Excite Bike was for NES, it had a lot of hardcore Nintendo fans excited. Insane speeds, jumps, stunts, smashing? Was this Excite Bike evolved for the next generation?
The short answer is no, and the long answer is God, no, but it does have some good merits. While not really resembling anything Excite Bike-related, not even a track editor, it has its name and name only. Excite Truck pits generic monster trucks against each other and equally generic tracks turboing and drifting around corners to rack up as many stars as you can. This includes jumping through rings, morphing terrain, and getting invincibility power-ups. Sounds exciting, and it is quite thrilling, but it’s all flash and no substance.
The entire game is controlled with just the Wii remote on its side and you steer by turning the remote. The controls right off the bat are way too sensitive and this is especially noticeable once you are going at mach speeds and on cars that don’t have a high grip rating. I crashed into trees and went off course numerous times, but thankfully if you mash the 2 buttons fast enough you can hop back on track with a boost. Another underlying issue is the track design isn’t built for these insane speeds. It’s like they finished building the tracks and then decided to make the cars faster. A lot of times I would be a top speed-boosting through jumps only to jump farther than the turn or overshoot things. When you’re going this fast you shouldn’t have to hold back on the boost, it defeats the purpose. I’m not going to strategically manage my boost as most arcade games don’t do this. It feels like they were trying to make the player compensate for their mistake by letting you go too fast.
The speed and squirreling of the cars lead to missed pick-up items such as the terrain morphs (they add a jump in front of your or lower you down to the water to cool your boost meter) or the invincibility pick up are too small to hit when going at insane speeds. It just feels so unbalanced and not playtested enough. I constantly missed these things unless I slowed down to a crawl, and thankfully the AI is brain dead and incredibly easy as even in my worst races I still made first. There’s just too much to do in this game on the track at these speeds. I don’t want to do 360s in the air, I don’t want to morph the terrain. I want well-built, memorable tracks with insane jumps and better physics.
This leads me to more problems. The lack of content and just the overall meh feeling of everything. The tracks are some of the most generic I have ever seen. Just random turns and jumps with dirt and trees splattered around. I can’t tell one track from the next, and the visuals are so bad (even for Wii standards) that you won’t care. Awful aliasing and flat textures are just everywhere. Outside of the 25 races in the main event, there are challenges that have you racing through gates or flying through rings. Not very exciting honestly. After the first cup was finished I saw all there was that this game offered and it wasn’t much. This is one of the most generic and plain racers on the Wii and it shouldn’t carry the Excite name at all.
Overall, Excite Truck is a game with an awesome sense of speed, and after about 10 races it all wears off. Horrible track design, generic presentation, lack of content, and just too much speed for tracks not designed for it. I never felt completely in control of a race or my car no matter how good I was at it. A track editor would have been nice to make better ones than the developers provided, and there’s no online play. At best, it’s a filler launch title that I would have been mad to pay $50 for. It’s just like eating a small bag of potato chips. It’s fun during the 10 minutes it takes to eat them then you toss the bag and forget all about it.
Resident Evil is less known for its light-gun arcade games as these are held in public places that are niche hang-out spots. The Wii with its remote and Zapper attachment is just begging to be used as a light-gun and many of these games followed and Capcom jumped on the bandwagon. Umbrella Chronicles is one of the more solid light-gun games on Wii, but it must be played co-op or you’re not going to have a good time.
The game has four chapters with each one following bits and pieces from Resident Evil 0, 1, and 3: Nemesis respectively with the final chapter being an exclusively unique section just for this game. Each chapter has three or four sub-chapters and a few side chapters that are shorter and feature an alternate perspective featuring Ada Wong, Albert Wesker, and one Umbrella operative Hunk. Story-wise, don’t expect to get a comprehensive telling of the Resident Evil series as pre-rendered cut-scenes are chopped up and it’s not very cohesive or easy to understand. This is more for people who played the older games before.
Outside of that the shooting itself is rather solid. There are over a dozen weapons in the game with your side pistol having unlimited ammo and various other guns like sub-machine, shotgun, rocket launchers, and hand-cannons making up the majority of the arsenal, but the ammo for these guns is extremely limited, and that’s the first downfall of this game. Why make an action game from survival horror and keep the ammo count low? The pistol does very little damage and just forget about beating a boss with it. Ammo is incredibly scarce and requires you to have a partner as some scenarios and waves just can’t be defeated with only the pistol. Hordes of enemies sometimes over a dozen will spawn in front of you and popping them with 8-10 shots each with a pistol is just not feasible. With a second player, it’s possible, but solo is not. After chapter 3 I had to resort to a partner because it just gets too hard and too demanding for one player.
There are a good variety of enemies in the game with some not appearing until the final chapter, and the bosses are all unique and incredibly challenging and require great reflexes and aim, and actual skill. Bosses are recycled from previous games, but fighting them in a 3D environment is pretty awesome. Some bosses have multiple stages, but these repeat in a cycle and can even include quick time events that require button presses or a quick waggle. Quick-time events are peppered throughout the game, and thankfully not abused, but they don’t appear on-screen long enough and the waggle ones won’t trigger unless you start waggling the second it appears on the screen. This can lead to frustrating deaths.
Speaking of deaths, if you find a health spray this acts as an extra life and can resurrect you on the spot, but without one, you start at the last checkpoint. There are herbs lying around for health, ammo, grenades, and barrels just begging to be blown up to take out large groups. This is one of the most difficult light-gun games I have ever played, and sadly it’s impossible to finish solo without having unlocked the infinite ammo. The first two chapters have a nice difficulty scale and it just ramps up way too hard on chapters 3 and 4. There’s also an issue with the game feeling too repetitive and not having enough variety like vehicle scenes similar to other light-gun games. It relies too much on just shooting the same enemies ad nauseum.
Let’s talk about production values. Capcom is never one to skimp on a Resident Evil game, usually, and while Umbrella Chronicles looks fine it shows it doesn’t push the Wii in the right direction. It looks like a GameCube game at best with muddy low-resolution textures, but somehow there’s still a slowdown when too much is going on. It really could have looked better, even on the Wii as there are better-looking games on the system, but what’s here is fine. The menus are pretty ugly with not much going on and everything looks so blurry and low-res. I need to redact my GameCube comparison from earlier, it’s more like a Dreamcast port, to be honest.
Overall, Umbrella Chronicles is a decent light-gun game that requires a second player or you won’t get very far. The boss fights are bombastic and fun and each is unique, but the same enemies repeat over and over and the scenarios don’t change. You’re just running down hallways or open areas blasting enemies. The game goes on way longer than it needs to with each chapter taking about 30-45 minutes to complete if you include the bonus missions. There is a lack of variety when it comes to other stuff to do to make this game just more exciting to play. The extras aren’t worth unlocking as they require S ranks in each chapter, most of the time, and after finishing this game once there’s no real reason to go back.
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