The Finest Xbox 360 Games of All Time

As an open-world, sandbox-style recreation, Crackdown shares a variety of its DNA with the Grand Theft Auto sequence — and for good cause. Both video games have been created by Scottish developer David Jones (who additionally made Lemmings!), and the similarities are obvious. Set in a fictional Pacific City, Crackdown is mainly GTA with superpowers. Players management an unnamed agent whose job is to take down varied felony organizations throughout a totally explorable and extremely reactive metropolis.

With the flexibility to make the most of melee weapons, weapons, and (in fact) autos to beat down dangerous guys, on high of a wide range of superpowers, the sport frankly performs higher than the period’s GTA titles ever actually did. With ink-like outlines on the characters, the aesthetic is comedian booky by itself, however its mixture of open-world crime sim and cartoonish bodily feats really feel like a pure predecessor to most of the reputable superhero video games that got here later. Before there was Arkham City or Marvel’s Spider-Man, Crackdown allow you to bounce round its city expanse with the flowing grace of Ang Lee’s Hulk.

Taking a web page from Sony’s playbook of pilfering Nintendo’s working companions from below their nostril, Microsoft pulled a coup when it purchased British studio Rare in 2002. Previously, the corporate was largely recognized for Nintendo-exclusive hits like Donkey Kong Country (1994), GoldenEye 007 (1997), and the Banjo-Kazooie sequence. But after its acquisition, Rare introduced their very own IP (specifically, Perfect Dark and Banjo) to its new residence at Xbox.

Perfect Dark Zero ended up being a strong launch title for the 360 in 2005, but it surely was the third Banjo-Kazooie recreation that will need to have actually stung for Nintendo; that they had misplaced certainly one of their hottest mascot platformers, their bread and butter. Nuts & Bolts can also be an enormous departure from the sequence, which beforehand performed considerably nearer to Super Mario 64. This new iteration redesigned the aesthetics of the world and characters, and weaves in a fancy physics-based automobile customization system that was forward of its time. The Lego-like function arrived an entire yr earlier than the primary model of Minecraft hit PC, and 15 years previous to what the Zelda sequence would try with Tears of the Kingdom’s crafting mechanics.

Every gaming platform value its salt will need to have its personal preventing franchise. While PlayStation had Tekken, and everybody shared the spoils of Soulcalibur and Street Fighter for some time, Xbox made their mark by choosing up Dead or Alive from writer Tecmo. The third and fourth mainline entries within the franchise have been unique to Xbox platforms, with Dead or Alive 4 solely accessible on the 360.

Developed by Team Ninja, who would go on to have a vibrant future with Microsoft via its Ninja Gaiden sequence, Dead or Alive 4 was precisely the sort of preventing recreation the 360 wanted to attraction to informal audiences. Known for its easy-to-play, over-the-top fight and ridiculous characters (together with Ninja Gaiden’s Ryu and a newly created Spartan soldier from Halo lore), DOA served as an accessible entry for anybody choosing up the brand new Xbox in its preliminary months. While it lacks outright gooner bait of seaside volleyball discovered within the Xtreme sub-series, Dead or Alive 4 has actual mechanical chops, and have become an esports staple for some time and popularized digital worlds and avatars effectively earlier than fashionable video games like Street Fighter 6 (2023) and Tekken 8 (2024).

While the massive attraction of the 360 within the early days was its astounding graphics, you’d suppose that might largely apply to massive AAA blockbusters. But then there was Geometry Wars. Initially snuck into Xbox’s Project Gotham Racing 2 (2003) as a minigame, the twin-stick shooter was expanded as a full launch for Xbox Live Arcade — the 360’s groundbreaking digital-only storefront. One of the primary massive hits for the digital platform, Geometry Wars turned the little recreation that everybody needed to have (and was excellent for brief binges in between rounds of Call of Duty).

The sequel was greater and higher, with a neighborhood cooperative multiplayer mode evocative of top-down arcade shooters, however with psychedelic visible aesthetic that might blow any stoner’s thoughts. Despite its humble design as a comparatively easy shooter, Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 is deceptively thrilling and a straightforward obsession to select as much as at the present time.

Although Rare joined the Xbox household with their very own mental property in tow, they have been additionally tasked with growing new ones. Their second recreation for the 360, Viva Piñata, is an exceptionally creative tackle the comfy life simulator style — one thing like Animal Crossing meets Spore, however with cutesy piñata creatures populating its colourful world.

The first-person recreation requires gamers to wash up and foster a large backyard, customizing its format and options as they see match. Little minigames end result within the creation of recent piñatas and, with 60 sorts, the expertise has shades of the creature accumulating of video games like Pokémon — besides with a full prey/predator system whereby sure piñatas devour others to earn their place within the backyard. Viva Piñata confirmed that there was room for whimsy alongside the extra mature choices on Xbox, and even ended up branching out into an animated youngsters’ sequence that aired on TV for a number of years.

While Xbox wasn’t residence to the Final Fantasy sequence, Microsoft wasn’t content material to be disregarded within the chilly. Instead, they enlisted the sequence’ creator, Hironobu Sakaguchi, and composer, Nobuo Uematsu, to provide their very own authentic role-playing recreation that might attraction to Japanese and North American followers of the style.

Set in fantasy world on the cusp of a Magic-Industrial Revolution, Lost Odyssey bears all of the hallmarks of basic JRPGs, together with turn-based fight methods and an expansive world map to discover. With an emotionally gripping narrative following a band of amnesiac immortals, co-written by Japanese creator Kiyoshi Sigematsu, the sport hit arduous at a time when its sister sequence was approaching inventive stagnation. Although it by no means noticed a sequel, its legacy has remained alive amongst cult fandom, together with the creators of modern RPG favorites like Expedition 33.  

Few video games handle to mix as many online game and storytelling genres as deftly as BioShock. Developed by Ken Levine as a non secular successor to the basic PC sequence, System Shock, the first-person shooter mixed components of RPG development, horror recreation pacing and aesthetics, and a heady philosophical bend to its story. Players tackle the function of Jack, a passenger on a doomed transatlantic flight that crashes into the ocean, leaving the protagonist stranded in a beforehand misplaced underwater metropolis referred to as Rapture.

BioShock’s plot has lengthy been celebrated as revolutionary insofar as convincing naysayers that video games function a type of artwork. With a twisted imaginative and prescient that skewers the high-minded beliefs of everybody from Ayn Rand to Walt Disney, Rapture is a spot of pure terror, fueled by civil unrest and classism. While the sport was finally ported to the PlayStation 3, it first discovered its console residence on Xbox 360, and was a real feather within the cap for tradition warriors seeking to tout the exclusivity dominance of Microsoft’s platform. For over a yr, BioShock alone was value shopping for an Xbox for.

As with fighters, no console is full with out its personal bespoke racing recreation. Following Project Gotham Racing, the Forza sequence turned Xbox’s massive ticket to competing in opposition to Sony’s Gran Turismo, though the franchise had a leg-up by diverging into two totally different sub-series within the 360 period. Forza Motorsport performed like true racing sim, with sensible physics that required technical prowess; Forza Horizon was an open-world offshoot that catered to a extra arcade-friendly crowd who wished to discover large expanses at blistering speeds.

Forza Motorsport 4 was the ultimate recreation of its ilk for the Xbox 360, that includes hyper sensible graphics and complicated physics that pushed the console to its limits. Players can management the autos from a third-person exterior perspective or behind-the-wheel from contained in the cockpit. Through a partnership with Top Gear, the present’s host Jeremy Clarkson supplied coloration commentary, respiration a brand new stage of authenticity into Forza for devoted gearheads. The recreation additionally featured some less-than-thrilling, motion-based controls designed for the Wii-chasing Kinect digicam system, however they might simply be ignored to play Forza with a controller as meant.

One of the best features of the Xbox 360 was the sheer number of genres it housed. While it was well-known for its many shooters — a division the place each Nintendo and Sony have been slacking — 360 was additionally a platform for stellar RPGs. Specifically, Xbox turned the console the place Western roleplaying video games thrived. Series like BioWare’s Mass Effect and Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls discovered roots on Microsoft’s gadget earlier than finally spreading outward, however one franchise has thrived sporting the Xbox banner: Peter Molyneaux’s Fable.

Set 500 years after the 2004 authentic, Fable II returns gamers to the fantasy world of Abion, however a lot has modified (and can change) all through the journey. Unlike many RPGs which tout branching paths and open-ended gameplay, Fable II delivers on a totally reactive world that shifts and evolves all through the protagonist’s lifespan. The participant character’s actions inform their ethical alignments, and real relationships might be fostered — even resulting in marriage. Visiting cities and interacting with individuals can have a butterfly impact on how issues look additional down the road in ways in which really feel natural. Without a tough questline, it’s as much as the participant to determine how they’ll dwell on this world, and what they’ll make of it.

One of the most effective choices from Xbox Live Arcade, Limbo was one of many largest indie video games of its time when it arrived in 2010. Developed by Playdead, the 2D side-scroller employs an especially moody and grim ambiance to highly effective impact — its movie noir-inspired monochromatic visuals are equally enthralling and eerie. The story is minimalist, centering on an unnamed boy who finds himself on the fringe of hell, pursued by a horrific spider via the forest as he searches for his lacking sister.

Like another 2D indie video games of the period, Limbo’s side-scrolling mechanics are extra puzzle-focused than twitchy platforming, forcing the boy to outlive environmental hazards like bear traps which might be typically hid by the silhouette darkness of the world. The deaths sustained in failure are brutal, and paired with the sport’s dour visuals (impressed by German Expressionism), it may be off-putting to audiences who’re anticipating a extra playful gaming expertise. But for individuals who are keen to danger the momentary despair, it’s an awe-inspiring audiovisual journey that’s satisfying to resolve, even when its ending might be frustratingly ambiguous for some.

The authentic 2D Ninja Gaiden video games have been crown-jewel actioners for the NES, well-known for his or her issue and cinematic presentation. But with 2004’s Ninja Gaiden 3D reboot for Xbox, the franchise turned one thing else fully as Team Ninja and writer Microsoft cooked up a really brutal celebration of hardcore fight and wince-inducing violence. With Ninja Gaiden II — arguably the sequence’ peak — the franchise slipped even additional into ludicrous depravity in wonderful methods.

Ninja Gaiden II’s fight is quicker, extra complicated, and upps the elegant savagery to new heights with the introduction of the dismemberment system. Fighting enemies turns into a choreographed dance aimed toward lopping off limbs to provoke an insta-kill — a system that eight years later would make Doom’s reinvention so profitable — and the dense waves of various enemy sorts make each encounter a full-on homicide puzzle. Before Soulslike type turned the norm for third-person motion video games, Ninja Gaiden reigned supreme (and nonetheless does to many followers). And though remixed ports of Gaiden II and its sequel would finally hit different platforms, his look on this recreation and the Dead or Alive sequence catapulted protagonist Ryu Hayabusa into Xbox icon standing alongside the likes of Halo’s Master Chief.

Although its ubiquity is a given nowadays, Minecraft initially began as one thing a lot humbler. The indie recreation, created by controversial determine Markus “Notch” Persson, circulated in public alpha type in 2009 earlier than launching in full in 2011. It garnered a feverish cult rapidly, however issues actually exploded in 2012 when Minecraft arrived on Xbox 360 — a platform the place youngsters in all places might be glued to the TV with a controller while not having in addition up a PC.

Eventually, in 2014, Microsoft would go all in by shopping for Minecraft outright, resulting in the cultural phenomenon we all know at the moment the place a blocky crafting sandbox has turn into the highest-selling recreation ever, with bodily playsets filling retailer aisles and billion-dollar films dominating the field workplace. But like inserting just a little voxel that builds the inspiration for one thing extra, Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition was a vital a part of the franchise’s rise, and for a era of console players was a formative expertise.

One of the important thing promoting factors for Xbox 360 was its comparatively seamless on-line multiplayer setup with its Live service. Building off the community of its predecessor and Microsoft’s iron grip on the computing world, Xbox Live introduced console gamers a related expertise a lot nearer to what PC players had been having fun with for years — making it the go-to platform for aggressive and cooperative shooters for anybody not married to a mouse and keyboard. That place opened alternatives for famously PC-oriented builders like Valve to start out bringing their video games to an entire new viewers.

While 2007’s The Orange Box might be the most effective deal ever made in gaming (together with Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal), it was Valve’s different massive recreation sequence of the period that actually hit the candy spot on Xbox. Left 4 Dead and its sequel are four-player cooperative shooters the place survivors should work collectively to make their method via maze-like ranges whereas keeping off the unending onslaught of the undead. Arguably the most effective cooperative video games ever made (and a number of the greatest first-person shooters in addition), they’re mainly the blueprint for this type of recreation, endlessly imitated however by no means overwhelmed, and are nonetheless performed rabidly to at the present time. On Xbox 360, Left 4 Dead 2 was designed with two-player sofa co-op in thoughts, making it probably the greatest methods to burn a weekend with a buddy.

Like many indie video games with small dev groups, Fez was famously an uphill battle to make — a narrative detailed within the 2012 documentary Indie Game: The Movie. But after its five-year manufacturing cycle, the pixelated puzzler launched on Xbox Live Arcade to huge success. One of essentially the most beloved indie video games ever, Fez is a foundational textual content for all the scene; its long-running reign kicked off thanks partly to the Xbox platform — though the connection between its writer and the sport’s co-creator later soured.

The recreation itself is a delightfully mind-bending puzzler that toys with shifting 2D-3D views as gamers rotate the degrees themselves to disclose hidden pathways for its marshmallow-like protagonist, Gomez, to comply with. One of the good examples of how pixel artwork might be visually wealthy, Fez’s universe is rarely static; its environments are filled with small particulars and movement that breathe life into every thing even deep into its background. With a hypnotic chiptune soundtrack composed by Rich “Disasterpeace” Vreeland, it’s the sort of puzzle recreation that absolutely envelops you to delight in.

One of the good coups of the primary Xbox period was the discharge of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind in 2002. While PlayStation was swimming in Japanese RPGs like Final Fantasy, Xbox followers took solace within the unfathomably giant medieval imaginative and prescient of Bethesda’s D&D-inspired, role-playing opus. When it got here time for the subsequent installment, Oblivion, audiences have been virtually foaming on the mouth.

Oblivion is well-known for its huge explorable world which, powered by a sophisticated AI system, was full of NPCs partaking in complicated behavioral patterns on their very own accord. With a seemingly limitless quantity to find, it’s the kind of recreation that may be performed for years on finish, and was so beloved that even its successor, Skyrim (A.Ok.A., one of many highest-selling RPGs ever), was thought-about a backstep by many. Although it has tons of bugs and the janky animations that Bethesda video games are recognized for, it was a formidable technical feat on the time — and regardless of coming to PS3 a yr later, the Xbox 360 model is taken into account far superior for each the way it ran and the extra content material launched by the writer. For console gamers, the 360 version was the definitive option to play up till this yr’s shock remaster.

While the 360 was residence to an superior variety of RPGs, its greatest would possibly simply be a sci-fi shooter hybrid referred to as Mass Effect. Developed by BioWare, whose credentials embrace Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, the Mass Effect sequence had excessive expectations behind it — which it handily surpassed (not less than with the primary two entries). The recreation follows a bunch of heroes of all totally different alien species introduced collectively to fight an interstellar risk to the Milky Way galaxy, led by a totally customizable Commander Shepherd.

Mass Effect marries third-person shooter gameplay with strategic RPG mechanics, letting gamers construct their Shepherd to play as they like, in addition to situation real-time orders to their get together members within the warmth of battle. It partially popularized the Paragon system the place ethical decisions in branching dialog would affect how the story performs out, even all the way down to who lives or dies. Over the course of three video games, main choices can be carried over through save information, which means that the total journey was tailor-made to every participant over years’ value of funding. The hook, nevertheless, was that the primary recreation was Xbox-exclusive; anybody taking part in the sequel on PS3 didn’t have the choice to expertise the beginning chapter, not to mention proceed the threads they personally created. Until the trilogy capper arrived in 2012 with a PS3 port of the unique recreation, the one method for console customers to expertise Mass Effect as meant was on Xbox 360.

Of the numerous implausible indie video games launched for Xbox Live Arcade, maybe the best splash was made by Braid. The 2D puzzle-platformer arrived in 2009 simply because the indie scene was gaining traction, and the expertise it delivered subverted expectations.

Braid follows a person named Tim who’s doing the tried-and-true gaming schtick of rescuing a princess from a citadel. Each stage is designed like a bizarro spin on 2D platformers like Super Mario, with enemies to dodge and pathways to unlock, however with a time-altering twist. Most of the puzzle options depend on time manipulation; gamers should arrange an motion, rewind, and capitalize on the domino impact they’ve set in movement in a Rube Goldberg-esque method. But the massive shock, which is subtlety seeded in textual content all through the sport, is concerning the nature of Tim and the princess’ relationship — a closing act shift that recontextualizes all the recreation. With watercolor-like aesthetics and a comfortable vibe, Braid engrosses the senses efficiently sufficient to mood the frustrations of even the sport’s hardest puzzles.

When you consider Xbox, it’s virtually a provided that Halo involves thoughts. The first-person shooter sequence, initially snatched from Apple earlier than it may turn into their killer app, it’s the flagship franchise for Microsoft gaming, and revolutionized how first-person shooters labored on residence consoles. After the primary two video games landed as on the spot classics on the unique Xbox, the 360 period expanded into a special, greater part — fleshing out the lore with sequels, prequels, and spin-offs.

While the numbered entries within the franchise fall firmly into excessive sci-fi fantasy territory, telling a sweeping spacefaring warfare story centered on the superhuman Spartan Master Chief, Halo: Reach has extra dramatic ambitions. A prequel to the very first recreation, it follows a bunch of elite troopers referred to as the Noble Six, who struggle in futility to guard the human-occupied world of Reach from the sequence’ alien villains, the Covenant. Going in, followers of the sequence already knew the result; the mission is doomed and the sport’s story is a determined, somber march towards the inevitable demise of the characters. The Seven Samurai-like framing (or Rogue One for those who’re a fetus), imbues Reach with a extra complicated tone than the opposite entries within the sequence, and scales the fantastical components again for one thing extra intimate.

What Halo is to first-person shooters, Gears of War is to third-person. The sci-fi sequence, whose authentic trilogy (after which some) launched on the Xbox 360 from 2006 to 2013, was one of many defining motion franchises of the period. Alongside Resident Evil 4, which arrived only a yr previous to the primary Gears, the sequence’ over-the-shoulder gunplay modified the business, setting the usual for a way shooters would feel and appear to at the present time. Gears additionally popularized the sticky cowl mechanics that emphasised taking refuge in between fireplace, one thing Sony themselves would copy with its in style Uncharted sequence.

But there’s a particular sort of silly to Gears of War that’s a part of its appeal. Every hero on this world is an inconceivable huge and stout muscleman (or later girl), who speaks solely in gruff cliches. It’s a bombastic motion expertise via and thru, and the second installment is well the most effective. The story marketing campaign is absolutely playable in two-player co-op, and the improved aggressive multiplayer mode introduced as much as 10 gamers head-to-head on-line to tear one another aside with rifle-mounted chainsaws. Roll your eyes all you need, however they actually don’t make them like this anymore; the Gears sequence has largely floundered in later sequels, with Microsoft coasting on nostalgia with a remaster of the primary recreation each few years. For gamers of a sure age, this was peak — effectively, together with one different recreation.

This is the one — the sport which may as effectively have been pre-installed in each Xbox 360 console rolling out the gate. Although it launched two years into the console’s life cycle and was in the end outsold by Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto, anybody searching for the definitive gameplay expertise on Microsoft’s greatest console may no additional than Halo 3. The largest entry within the sequence served as the tip of the trilogy, and alongside 2010’s Reach, additionally acted as a swansong for the franchise’s creators, Bungie, earlier than handing over the reins for video games of diminishing high quality.

Halo 3 has all of it: an action-packed marketing campaign that may be conquered by two-players in sofa co-op or as much as 4 on-line; a best-in-class aggressive multiplayer suite with deathmatch, capture-the-flag, and ranked play; and a full map editor referred to as The Forge that added limitless customization for followers to proceed creating their very own experiences for years to return. It was performed far and huge from dorms to residing rooms to furnished basements, and stays one of many biggest video games of all time.

While many would argue that Halo 2 is the most effective within the sequence, Halo 3 confirmed that every thing its predecessor did might be executed on an even bigger scale with extra fashionable options, and stands as a trademark for the franchise that by no means fairly reached these heights once more. Picking up Halo 3 appears like a rosy reminiscence of less complicated occasions, earlier than battle passes and limitless annual iteration made every thing into homogenous slop. And it nonetheless kicks, too, and is value firing up through The Master Chief Collection on Xbox Game Pass.