You’ve gotten an Xbox 360 controller ready for you in your lounge and a console hungry to entertain you. It’s an older console, positive. But it surely nonetheless has a ton of nice video games.
This record was revealed on April 21, 2016. We’re re-posting it at the moment in honor of the Xbox 360’s twentieth anniversary.
As of April 2016, Microsoft has ceased production of the Xbox 360 console. It had an awesome run—pink rings and Kinect 1.0 however—and it received a ton of nice video games. These dozen video games have occupied our Bests record for a protracted whereas, and at this level there’ll in all probability by no means be one other replace. (By no means say by no means, although!)
Listed below are our suggestions for the 12 greatest video games on Xbox 360. Take pleasure in.
Murderer’s Creed IV: Black Flag
After years of adjustments each minor and main, the Murderer’s Creed sequence had begun to really feel in a rut. (For instance: We’d had Murderer’s Creed II on this record since its inception.) Lastly this yr, with the pirate-themed Murderer’s Creed IV: Black Flag, the sequence has taken a significant and unequivocal step ahead. It doesn’t lose all of the sequence’ dangerous habits—howdy comply with missions—however it improves many longstanding issues with higher stealth, easier-to-navigate cities, and sidequests that truly really feel like they assist make your character extra highly effective. Better of all, it provides naval fight and an unlimited Caribbean overworld that make the sport really feel like, within the phrases of Luke Plunkett, “Wind Waker for grown-ups.”
A Good Match For: Pirate followers, historical past buffs, anybody who’s ever wished to drag up alongside a British frigate, seize a rope and swing from one deck to the opposite earlier than combating your means up the deck to tackle the captain. So principally, anybody who’s ever wished to be a pirate.
Not a Good Match For: Those that demand precision controls. The on-foot controls in Black Flag are in all probability one of the best of the sequence, however they’re nonetheless a far cry from the place a third-person stealth/platformer needs to be. It’s time for a crouch button, Ubisoft.
Read our assessment.
Borderlands 2
With a good greater, wackier, lootier Borderlands, Gearbox has proved that their hybrid RPG/shooter franchise isn’t only a one-hit surprise. Three years after the primary launch, Gearbox put out a Borderlands 2 that doesn’t simply have 1000’s extra weapons. It’s extra advanced. It’s even received coronary heart. And but Borderlands 2 nonetheless manages to strike a steadiness between being extra soulful whereas retaining the slapstick, make-no-excuses-for-itself humor for which the sequence is understood. The characters you meet are sometimes borderline (if not full-blown) psychotic, however in essentially the most endearing of how. Enemies are simply as raunchy as they’re various. It’s colourful, it’s powerful, it’s meaty, and it’s a pleasure to play with as much as 3 pals in co-op. It’s additionally received TONS of additional, downloadable content material to maintain you busy when you end the principle sport.
A Good Match For: Avid gamers who need a enjoyable co-op expertise to play by with pals. There are many quests, loads of weapons, and loads of laughs available.
Not A Good Match For: Individuals who wish to burn by a sport simply. Borderlands 2 could be fairly powerful, particularly with out backup. And in case you aren’t prepared to spend a while churning out sidequests, you simply may catch your self on the tail-end of the sport with out the chops or stats to complete with out getting burnt out.
Read our assessment.
Burnout: Paradise
Automotive destruction’s by no means regarded as horny because it does in Criterion’s hi-speed racing sport Burnout: Paradise. You’re tasked with driving towards site visitors, scraping towards civilian vehicles and shoving opponents into signature crashes known as Takedowns. However, Paradise additionally deserves reward for a seamless integration of multiplayer the place dropping right into a showdown could be fast as tapping a button.
A Good Match For: Road racing followers. In the event you’ve ever pulled as much as a stoplight and imagined what it’d be wish to burn rubber on a wide-open stretch of asphalt—and survive any ensuing mishaps—that is your sport.
Not a Good Match For: To tune the specs of their rides. It could be Paradise however these aren’t real-world vehicles. You possibly can’t do rather more than swap out paint jobs, so these desirous to make adjustments to brakes, shock or engines might want to get their grease-monkey repair elsewhere.
Read our assessment.
Grand Theft Auto V
Grand Theft Auto V is a formidable crime sport. Not excellent, however spectacular. The sport provides gamers one of many richest, most lovely open worlds we’ve ever been capable of play in. On this case, the panorama is a fictionalized model of Los Angeles and the California desert. Go wherever on this huge sport. Seize a automotive, airplane, truck, bicycle, boat or tank. Head off in any path. You’re sure to see extraordinary sights and stumble into some type of good and possibly violent time. The sport seems wonderful even on the outdated Xbox 360 {hardware}. It additionally performs higher than any GTA earlier than it. GTA V’s revolutionary, swappable three-protagonist system creates the texture of a real ensemble journey, although loopy man Trevor steals the present.
A Good Match For: Gamers who like to enter a sport to interrupt the principles. GTA remains to be at its greatest when it’s a playground for digital misbehavior.
Not a Good Match For: Anybody who can’t abdomen the sport’s mockery of, effectively, just about everybody.
Read our assessment.
Brothers: A Story of Two Sons
Brothers: A Story of Two Sons got here out of nowhere this yr, shocking everybody with its unusual management scheme, sensible (if easy) puzzles and devastating ending. Can sport mechanics be emotionally affecting? Seems yup, they are often. It’s a pleasant, brief sport with virtually no fats—and even supposing the 2 predominant characters don’t talk in a language anybody might perceive, they nonetheless handle to speak a substantial amount of context and backstory. You’ll by no means consider your thumbs and your controller triggers the identical means.
A Good Match For: Individuals on the lookout for one thing completely different, those that like bizarre controls schemes, followers of old-school fairy tales.
Not a Good Match For: These hoping for a protracted sport—it’s just a few hours lengthy and affords no actual replayability—individuals who like their characters to talk precise languages.
Read our ideas.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Bethesda Softworks’ hit role-playing sport does nothing a lot as ship an enormous, Tolkien-styled chance house to its gamers. The high-altitude climes of Tamriel really feel alive with surprise and menace. The flexibility to customise your warrior outcast with a singular mixture of mystical abilities and melee mastery feels as broad as Skyrim’s horizon.
A Good Match For: Dungeon & Dragon gamers. Adventuring in Skyrim seems like spinning your personal epic yarn, as songs of your feats unfold digitally from city to city in a sport world that reacts to your actions. You possibly can spend weeks meandering in its fascinating sidequests, leaving the principle story.
Not a Good Match For: Those that play with urgency. The drive to wander and uncover overpowers the drive to finish in Skyrim. In the event you’re the sort of participant who desires these two vectors to satisfy in a significant means, you’ll discover The Elder Scrolls V a bit irritating.
Read our assessment.
Gears of Struggle 3
Gears 3 fills the marquee spot held by Bungie’s Halo video games and with good motive. Epic Video games’ scifi shooter threequel represents hardcore shooter nirvana: a tightly-polished marketing campaign that performs nice solo or coop and among the greatest multiplayer discovered wherever. Furthermore, the sport’s been robustly supported with each marketing campaign and multiplayer DLC designed to deepen an already hearty launch, significantly with the addition of most of the greatest maps from Gears of Struggle 2
A Good Match For: Devoted on-line shooter fanatics who play on daily basis. The extra you play, the extra Gears 3 rewards you.
Not a Good Match For: Those that need deep character improvement or intriguing story construction. Gears video games have at all times been meat-and-potatoes by way of plot
Read our assessment.
Halo: Attain
Bungie created one of the best goodbye attainable with a “final” Halo title that each seems ahead and backward within the blockbuster FPS franchise’s historical past. Pairing up a well being system just like that of the primary Halo sport with all-new skills like jetpacks and holographic decoys makes the decade-old sequence really feel concurrently acquainted and contemporary.
A Good Match For: Sci-fi followers. To play a Halo sport is to be launched to an expansive fictional universe. Attain locations you inside one of many Halo-verse’s pivotal battles and imbues its lead characters and environments with extra character than in earlier video games.
Not a Good Match For: Anybody who desires Grasp Chief. The Spartan you management in Halo: Attain isn’t as invulnerable or highly effective because the Xbox mascot and the texture of sure weapons will get tweaked when in comparison with earlier video games.
Read our assessment.
Mass Impact 2
Mass Impact 2 was the one which made you imagine. Its predecessor drew gamers in with expansive world-building and a tense storyline, however it was additionally a clunky, rough-hewn slab of a sport. BioWare’s 2010 follow-up polished the fight, launched characters who’d change into fan favorites and streamlined the general expertise to a high-quality focus. The primary sport made you wish to expertise all of the sci-fi motion and drama, however the second sport made it loads simpler to take action. Pack in an enormous variety of assorted and infrequently terrific downloadable content material packs and also you’ve received one beefy, galaxy-spanning chunk of online game to play.
A Good Match For: Followers of the Star Wars Expanded Universe. Like George Lucas’ signature creation, Mass Impact’s fictional cosmos has multitudes of tales to inform. The extraordinarily good post-campaign DLC chapters expose gamers to aspect tales centered on each new and acquainted characters, identical to Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy and the opposite Star Wars extensions. Overlord, Lair of the Shadow Dealer and the opposite add-ons actually made it really feel like thousands and thousands of little lives have been at stake in Shepard’s struggle towards the Reapers.
Not a Good Match For: Individuals who want closure. Mass Impact 2 tells loads of small tales, however the principle narrative arc remains to be primarily a set-up for the 2012 follow-up.
Read our assessment.
Pink Lifeless Redemption
Pink Lifeless Redemption, essentially the most assured work by the makers of the Grand Theft Auto video games finds its success by shedding the trimmings of the modern-day world and giving gamers an unlimited digital Southwest to roam looking for revenge. When your lonely ambles all of a sudden get shattered by an ambush or the plea to cease an unjust hanging, it’s a bittersweet adrenaline rush in contrast to the rest in trendy video video games. Silence, then gunfire, then extra fleeting silence once more.
A Good Match For: Admirers of killer endings. The denouement for the turn-of-the-century saga stands as an emotionally highly effective end that may stand amongst the cowboy cinema that impressed it.
Not a Good Match For: Followers of brevity. Redemption’s plot takes a protracted quantity of playtime to resolve and also you’ll typically really feel such as you’re doing busy work within the nooks and crannies of its spaghetti Western sport world.
Read our assessment.
Portal 2
Name it the Superman 2 or Empire Strikes Again of video video games. Valve’s follow-up to a basic improves on the humor, characterization and puzzle-solving of its predecessor to ship a decent, targeted expertise filled with poignancy and humor.
A Good Match for: Comedy lovers. The voicework alone—carried out in stellar vogue by Stephen Service provider and Ellen McLain—will make you chuckle out loud however the brain-teasing puzzles and embedded gags preserve the chuckles coming even when every little thing else within the sport goes quiet.
Not a Good Match For: Mediocrity followers. Individuals who argue with Portal 2‘s greatness are like folks complaining that diamonds came from dirt. Their argument is invalid.
Read our review.
XCOM: Enemy Within
There it is: proof that a multiplatform game released in 2012 can recapture the glories of a 1994 PC classic. The re-imagined XCOM delivers graphical upgrades and interface refinements like you might expect but what really makes it sing is the added attachment that you feel to the battles and the soldiers who fight them. If you’re contemplating selecting up the sport now, get Enemy Inside as an alternative, because it incorporates the unique sport in addition to the terrific 2013 enlargement. It’s bought as a standalone for consoles, so be sure you purchase the brand new model.
A Good Match For: Effectivity lovers. This model of human-vs-aliens warfare streamlines gameplay when in comparison with its predecessor. And the significance of canopy in fight and intelligent deployment of perks makes you contemplate each choice intensely.
Not a Good Match For: Those that need skirmishes. The fight in 2012 XCOM can stretch on means longer than is important. As a result of the battles require lively engagement, you possibly can really feel chained to a session.
Read our assessment and our assessment of the latest expansion.
How has this record modified? Learn again by our replace historical past:
Replace 12-9-13: With a brand new yr comes an up to date bests design and with it, the possibility to return and do a one-time overhaul of every record. After a lot arguing and debating, many adjustments have been made. Gone are Batman: Arkham Metropolis, BioShock, Dishonored, Tremendous Road Fighter IV, NBA 2K12 and Murderer’s Creed II. Taking their place are: Borderlands 2, Portal 2, Murderer’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Brothers: A Story of Two Sons, Mass Impact 2 and Grand Theft Auto V
Replace 11/13/12: As promised, we’re swapping out older good video games from new good video games. Goodbye, Lego Star Wars III and Toy Troopers: Chilly Struggle; howdy, XCOM and Dishonored
Word: 12/28/12: We’re bumping up this record of Xbox 360 Bests for these of us who could have simply gotten an Xbox 360 throughout this vacation season. Some nice video games have come out for the system because the final replace—like Far Cry 3, Halo 4 and Name of Responsibility: Black Ops II. Kotaku’s editorial workforce thought-about these video games however couldn’t attain a consensus as to whether or not they deserve a spot simply but. We’re holding our eyes and minds open as new releases preserve hitting Microsoft’s platform.
Need extra of one of the best video games on every system? Take a look at our full listing:
The Best PC Games • The Best PS4 Games • The Best Xbox One Games • The Best Nintendo Switch Games • The Best Wii U Games • The Best 3DS Games • The Best PS Vita Games • The Best Xbox 360 Games • The Best PS3 Games • The Best Wii Games • The Best iPhone Games • The Best iPad Games • The Best Android Games • The Best PSP Games • The Best Facebook Games • The Best DS Games • The Best Mac Games • The Best Browser Games • The Best PC Mods
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