Microsoft does a lot of things well, but the first-person shooter genre is an area where the company truly excels and has been able to dominate. The Xbox 360 has some clear gems in the FPS genre, but there are also plenty of unexpected hits where looks can be deceiving.
10 Dead Island: Riptide
The zombie genre of video games is so bloated at this point and that means there are both titles that excel with the concept & others that fail. The Dead Island series has struggled to find its place and Dead Island 2 remains stuck in a discouraging limbo. Dead Island: Riptide is the follow-up to the first game and while it doesn’t add a ton to the formula, it’s a fun enough time for those that never played the original. Dead Island: Riptide meshes together the first-person shooter genre with survival horror in a way that’s imperfect, but still entertaining.
9 Bloody Good Time
Bloody Good Time is an extremely weird first-person shooter that looks like some Hot Topic reject. It’s a title from Outerlight and Ubisoft that’s set on a Hollywood movie set and features an exaggerated cast of characters with a cartoonish atmosphere & mature sense of humor. Bloody Good Time prioritizes its robust arsenal of weapons more than anything else, but there are still various modes and maps to work through. It’s not Ubisoft’s strongest work, but the weirdness oddly works here, especially with the right players involved.
8 Duke Nukem Forever: The Doctor Who Cloned Me
There are few games that have gone through a more difficult development process than Duke Nukem Forever and it really doesn’t feel like it was worth such effort. The Doctor Who Cloned Me is technically a DLC pack for Duke Nukem Forever, but it’s as big as a new game with 14 new levels, an original story, and many more additions.
The original Duke Nukem Forever is quite flawed, but The Doctor Who Cloned Me is able to slightly course correct things. The story brings back Duke Nukem’s original antagonist, Dr. Proton, and features a gloriously self-aware storyline.
7 Zeno Clash II
Zeno Clash II mixes together several genres and while it pulls from action titles & RPGs, it still applies an interesting approach to first-person shooters. The game may look somewhat questionable, but it’s a refreshing change of pace for how it’s set in the past and features melee weapons more than the standard projectiles. Zeno Clash II adds a lot more to the equation in terms of weaponry and scope and it also has multiplayer this time around, which is a major improvement. Atlus’ Zeno Clash II isn’t perfect, but it’s easy to fall into a groove with it.
6 Sanctum 2
Sanctum 2 is a satisfying title from independent developer Coffee Stain Studios that’s set on a distant planet in a highly advanced future. Shooters that are set in space or futuristic versions of society are so plentiful at this point that they can sometimes be a wash. It’s easy to overlook Sanctum 2 as a result, but the game manages to stand out with how it combines shooter elements with the tower defense genre. It also features environments that look great and feel unique rather than derivative of the genre.
5 Aliens: Colonial Marines
The Aliens franchise is perfect for video games and they’ve had a complicated history with figuring out how to properly bring these terrifying creatures to life in the medium. Alien: Isolation has set the new standard, but before that point, Aliens: Colonial Marines, was a fun take on the property.
Aliens: Colonial Marines may suffer in the graphical department and the enemies are flawed, but it’s successful as a co-operative game and the multiplayer especially stands out. It’s easy to dismiss this title, but there’s still a lot in it that works.
4 Brink
Brink is a first-person shooter courtesy of Splash Damage & Bethesda that looks like other generic shooters, but it does offer up some unique and enjoyable ideas. The biggest way in which Brink differentiates itself is how it heavily involves parkour-like movements into the game’s action. It’s a very fun mechanic when it works. The multiplayer also allows for up to 16 players at once as players wage war between the Resistance and Security factions on the floating city of The Ark.
3 RAGE
RAGE comes from id Software & Bethesda and it pushes the first-person shooter genre into a chaotic post-apocalyptic future that takes more than a few cues from the Mad Max films or Fallout games. RAGE features smooth gameplay, but the use of smart vehicular combat helps the game make even more of an impression. RAGE as a whole is entertaining, but it’s The Scorchers DLC pack that brings out the best in the title. It expands the world in major ways and incorporates a fascinating new variety of character that’s just so much fun.
2 Goldeneye 007: Reloaded
The magic of the original Goldeneye 007 for the Nintendo 64 is hard to replicate, but Goldeneye 007: Reloaded attempts to do exactly that for a new generation. Many are quick to dismiss the game, but even though it’s a strange mix of Daniel Craig’s films with the plot of Goldeneye, it still works. Goldeneye 007: Reloaded is the James Bond shooter that gets the most attention on the Xbox 360, but 007 Legends is a less polished game that’s still worthy of love and acts as a showcase as the whole Bond series.
1 Singularity
There are so many first-person shooters set during different historical wars that many of them can blend together and some real gems can be missed because they’re consumed by the bloat of the genre. Singularity is an excellent game that shouldn’t be slept on. It plays around with both the Cold War and time travel, but the time manipulation device that’s the game’s major tool uses the alteration of time as a brilliant weapon & means to solve problems. Singularity is the perfect mix of history with science fiction and it’s far from just another war game.
Next: 5 Xbox 360 Games That Still Look Good (& 5 That Don’t)
