The 360 era was a time of taking classic game franchises and dumbing them down for the console generation. This wasn't always a bad thing. Fallout 3 and NV are great examples of it actually working really well. The truth is some game types are better left on the PC with a mouse and keyboard. Shadowrun maybe epitomises this more than any other game on the console, with the cyberpunk strategy rpg story based game becoming, yes you guessed it, a multiplayer online shooter. If this isn't disappointing, then I don't know what is. So was it a complete disaster? Well not really. It is a fairly decent online shooter with some interesting mechanics which is still populated to this day. You can select from different races of characters with different skills and battle in team based first person fun, with all the standard modes like capture the flag and team deathmatch. The respawn system is quite cool. If you die a teammate can respawn you, but if they then die, you will die with them. It's a nice mechanic which adds to the complexity of a game. You can also pay to buy certain skills like summoning monsters to help you. It's quite unique and feels like a 2007 version of overwatch. With that being said, at some point people will stop playing online, and then we will be left with effectively a bot shooter. Don't get me wrong, including bots is a great idea and all multiplayer games should include them. But it's not really the same. The game's single player is basically a tutorial mode. It is cool to see this weird fantasy style multiplayer shooter with spells and abilities, but it's a shame that at some point this will be obsolete. For that reason I probably can't recommend it. Bonus points for the ace box art though.

This is going to sound strange, but the 360 is lacking on extremely low budget, browser like games, released on disk. The wii was full of them. MnM's racing, chicken shoot, cheggars party quiz. Shovel ware as it's called. The smurfs 2 is one of the closest things we have on the 360 and it's surprisingly not too horrible. A 2d platforming game, another rarity on the console, smurfs 2 is a simple and child friendly affair which is very rough around the edges. In Smurfs 2 you can choose between a collection of different smurfs to play as, each having their own special abilities. The abilities are not special and a lot of the time it doesn't make any difference who you pick, but it is a nice touch. Most of the fun you will get out of this game is playing 2/3/4 player with a younger gamer. The simple nature of the game makes it suitable for kids and easy to pick up, with the collectables leaving you coming back for more. Saying it is rough around the edges is an understatement however. The whole package just reeks of cheaply made. The character models, level design, menus and even the music just seem cheap. The controls and gameplay are not great either. Jumping doesn't feel responsive and the hit detection is awkward too. However, there is a certain charm about this cheapness, especially when you think this was released on disk. It's not a good game, but I have a soft spot for it, and if you want some 4 player coop, this should definitely be in your collection.

It's almost surprising how many different genres of racing game you can find on the 360. This is the 2nd of the Moto Gp series to be released on the 360, and is an officially licensed product. Like a lot of these official licensed racers, it's not particularly forgiving on the beginner. I mean i'm sure moto racing is super challenging in real life, but I was basically falling off at every corner, and as a video game that is no fun! With that in mind, you can see this is definitely aimed at the more experienced and skilled players, and I'm sure fans of Moto Gp will get some enjoyment out of this. But it's a real kick in the face to new players when the training is extremely poorly executed and difficult to understand. Unless you have nostalgia for this year or moto gp, or love simulation racing games, this is probably one to avoid.

Dark sector is the type of game that people like to refer to as a hidden gem. It's a fairly unique and obscure IP that looks kinda cool and hasn't been used since. In reality, I can only really agree with the hidden part. Dark sector is a 3rd person cover based shooter ala gears, which adds in a couple of extra mechanics to add a bit of spice to the game. The visuals are the first thing I noticed, and you will see a very dark and brooding game, and this style is pretty nice. The most loved aspect of the game is the super sharp boomerang that you can use to slice up enemies. You can fling it through fire and it will set enemies on fire and there are some puzzles that use it too. Aside from these two points we have a fairly bland game. Maybe I'm just a bit fed up of gears-ish games, but I don't even think the cover system works all that well here. The levels are fairly dull and linear, intersected with some alright boss battles. Nothing really changes throughout the game. Each level is effectively a corridor of enemies who jump out at you, with a a little bit of cover to hide behind. If the gameplay was clean and fast like gears I could accept this, but it's just not quite as polished which left me feeling a bit bored. A game which is unfortunately far less interesting than it looks, which ends up being just ok. In 2023 you are probably tired of these time of games so I'd suggest leaving this one.

This game will be forever remembered for the award on the front of the box art. Proudly wearing it's best of E3 on its cover art like a badge of honour, Raven Squad comes crashing and burning onto your console with a very awkward splash. A FPS game where you control two squads of 3 soldiers, Raven squad lets you move between a first person mode and a tactical overhead camera, to control you two teams and infiltrate enemy compounds. It's a fairly unique game on the system and the concept seems really cool. Of course, if you have heard of this game, you will know its a C grade, so bad its good style game, and was not met with rave reviews. In some ways this has actually helped RS age well. People will probably have more fun playing it now than on release. The stereotypical characters, over the top voice acting, just plain dumb cutscenes, everything about this game is cheap and tacky in a endearing way, and it could have been good. The premise of the game feels like it could work and for a couple of minutes it kinda does. There is one section where you have to defend a group hostages as they tried to escape while getting attacked by waves of enemies. The enemies come from both sides so you need to use your tactical view wisely to hold of enemy waves, then switch to your FPS mode to deal some damage. The thing is, this is probably the only time I found the game to work as intended. Most of the time you can just jog through the game in FPS mode, with its frankly horrible controls and shoot everyone with one dude. Each soldier has different weapons and specials, a sniper, heavy machine gunner, close range shotgun dude. They have grenades, smoke bombs etc etc. Again thought, you rarely need to be tactical in this game. As expected the levels are bland and ugly, it is unresponsive and hard to control and of course, the classic mega short 3 hour campaign. BUT, and this is a big but, it is fairly interesting. It attempts something different and fails in a funny way, which in 2023 I quite admire. There are no games like this released nowadays and for that reason I think it's a worthy addition to a collection. It does suck though.

I hate this game. Maybe the hate is a little unwarranted, but its just so forgettable. In fact I beat the campaign last night and I can barely remember it. Now I am not an FPS snob by any means. I love a crappy FPS. Shell-shocked 2, Soldier of fortune, Rogue warrior, hell even Turning point had an interesting concept. But this, this is just bland. Jump through a 10 level romp around very similarly rocky locations, fighting the same group of enemies with basically the same weapons. It handles fine. The graphics are fine. The story is fine. There's just something about it that seems so unnecessary. I mean this was the era of Call of Duty and Battlefield Bad Company, and you can see this game borrows heavily from them. Heavy scripted shooting sections in modern times with some gruff real american heroes by your side. You can forgive Danger Close Games for trying to tap into this popularity. And there is the Tier 1 mode which adds a bit of challenge and replay ability to the game. I just really can't recommend this, even to hardcore FPS fans.

I think it's fairly safe to say that you have played Monopoly before, and if you are like me, you agree its one of the most monotonous board games out there. So it's safe to say I wasn't expecting much with this one. Monopoly is basically exactly what you expect it to be, whether that excites you or not is down to the individual. The game consists of 2 games modes. The original game mode, which plays basically the same as the board game, is the main event. You can take part against your friends, all on one controller which is cool, or the AI, in a standard game of Monopoly. It's fine. The extra package is a new updated version of the game, featuring mini games. 4 dice are rolled, each dice representing how many spaces will be randomly chosen for you. You then play a mini game and from it are ranked 1 to 4. The winner gets to choose the first dice, thus how much random spaces they are given. If you land on an empty space it becomes your to keep. If you land on a property owned by someone else, you need to give them some of your owned properties. If you land on the community chest space, the lowest ranked player recieves 3 properties from the highest ranked player, and your score at the end of the game is the total value of your properties owned. It's a really dumb system which is very random and doesn't really work. There's very little skill involved, aside from the mini games which aren't great, and the game tends to quickly evolve into one random player snowballing. My advice is to ignore this mode. If you want to play standard Monopoly on your console, pick this up. If like me you don't, then don't. Easy.

SBK brings more bike racing to the console, with X being the 2010 version and the third SBK title on the consoles. SBK, a competitor to the slight more popular MotoGP series, features road bikes instead of specialist bikes, but for the uninitiated it won't make much difference. Now these games are tough, especially the older versions of SBK which are full on simulation games, and for me the SBK series is even tougher than the Motogp series, leaving beginners likely to give up fairly early on. SBK X is no different in its simulation mode, it requires precision and skill to get around even one lap of a track, and tweaks are required for different weather conditions, tire degradation and track layout. There is a solid campaign here, with constant upgrades to the bike and different competitions to take part in. How SBK X differs however, is the newly introduced noob mode. This beginners mode has most of the features of the regular simulation career, but its really easy. You basically can't fall off the bike if you try. This feels great for maybe 1 or 2 races, but gets boring quickly. What you are left with is a bit of a mess, games modes which are either too easy or too hard, and little to help you improve. The game also feels quite dated and low budget. The game models of the characters you meet throughout the campaign are weird static images that don't change at all. The graphics are ugly which doesn't really matter as there is nothing to see on these boring tracks. All of it feels a little off. I think some huge racing fans may get some fun out of this, but for most others, avoid.

It's 9am, I've got the house to myself for a couple of hours. I hastily close all the curtains and slip the Just Dance 4 disk into my console. I pray that no one walks in on me dancing to Umbrella by Rihanna 3 times in a row on my own just to unlock some dumb video game points. As the song goes on, I start to get into the rhythm of the song and put a bit more effort into my moves. Maybe I am having fun, I think to myself. I start to build up a slight sweat and really get into it, running my hand up my leg and shaking my hip, the best Rihanna impression I can muster. As the song comes to a close, I manage a 5 star rating, sick! Following the song the game decides to share with me lots of images of me dancing and I realise how stupid I look. I hang my head in shame, shut down the console and remind myself to never embarrass myself like that again.

This game has a target audience and I'm sure you know if you are part of that target audience or not, and I am not. However, for the sake of reviews, I wanted to give all the Just Dance games on the 360 a try. JD4 was the second of the mainline games on the console, after 3, and it is actually really good. Getting the basics out of the way, unlike a lot of kinect games, the game actually works. The motion sensor can track your movements really well and I never really felt hard done by missing moves, it was normally my fault. The songs can be attacked on your own or with a group of up to 4 players and you follow a on screen chracter to perform moves to match the songs. Unlike some other version which use the controllers, the 360 has the kinect to track your whole body and it uses this tracking images to give you scores from perfect to miss. The song list is very subjective, so I won't go too much into that, but it's some basic pop stuff ranging from recent to classics. The songs work well from this type of game and it's just fairly solid all round, with all the songs being fun to dance to and enough content to keep you entertained for a long time. There are some negatives though. The game has a work out mode which measures how many calories you have burned. As far as I can tell though, this is just more dancing, it doesn't change up the game in any drastic way and isn't really competition to any of the kinect fitness games on the console. The other, and more frustrating thing, is the menu navigation. It's a little difficult to explain, but instead of the standard hold your hand over an item to select it method of most kinect games, JD4 goes for a push the button to select it input method. If you have every played a kinect game, you will know how bad at depth perception the kinect is and how frustrating this will become. Still, if you can get past this, you will enjoy this one. It's one of the better kinect games on the console.

Nowadays, Fifa is basically known as the copy and paste of games. Add a different number on the front of a the box and hey presto. But looking back at these early 360 fifas really shows you how much they used to change every year. That doesn't mean Fifa 07 is a good game, it's shite. But its complete lack of features and teams compared to next year's title is astonishing. There's only about 7 leagues to choose from and very few game modes. The gameplay itself is also rubbish. The ball tends to bounce of players in an awkward way. If there's a player anywhere near the ball when you shoot, they will block it. It's not unplayable, and is an improvement over the previous two Fifas, but there's really no reason to play this version in 2023, especially when you people practically give away these sports titles for free.

Paintball Championship 2009, a game which features slightly different branding in the PAL and NTSC markets, is one of 2 paintball games on the 360. I think it is also the first paintball game I have ever played. Upon inserting the disk you are greeted by some aggressive music, a montage of men shooting each other in the face with paintballs and the message "Just a game????". It reeks of an attempt to portray paintball as some hardcore sport, which is fine, but we are playing a game, so yes it's just a game. You are left with a few game modes, some exhibitions and a fairly difficult training mode, but the main focus of the game is the campaign and its team building. In the campaign, you enter into paintball tournaments, all of which are capture the flag style games, with some variety in terms of the number of players on each team. You can also buy better equipment and improve your players skills as you play. It all sounds fine, but its a bit of a train wreck. Firstly, every match is pretty much exactly the same and goes like this. You spawn in as your player, run to hide behind an obstacle before you get shot, wait a little while as your teammates try to shoot the enemy team, then try to rush to get their flag. There may be other tactics, but the controls are just so broken it's hard to do anything else. That's about it really, that's pretty much all there is to see in the game. They don't make games like this any more, but there's a reason for that.

The general trend of the FIFA games on the 360 is for them to improve each year up until they are exactly the same game every release. This one bucks the trend a bit as it is a little better then 07. After the absolutely horrendous Road to the World Cup 06, here we can actually play in a world cup. But that's about it. You can do qualifying for all 6 regions, and then play in the big tournament itself. There is also a challenge mode, which gives you some difficult tasks to complete, and an achievement after completing all of them. The challenges are actually kind of interesting and based on real footy events. However, it's still sorely lacking in features compared to the later games. The gameplay is also slightly better than 07, but only just. One of the weirdest things about it is how quickly the ball moves. It's difficult to plan attacking or defensive moves because the ball moves so quickly, and that's on normal mode, there is a fast mode too! Tackling is very boring too, hold the B button for long enough and your player will steal the ball, no matter the position. This is slightly better than the ping pong of the 07 game but we have gone from one extreme to another. The one positive I can say is that at least it's interesting to see the changes in each game, and these early titles really stand out (in a bad way) for how differently each one plays.

When it came to the battle of the NBA games on the console, there were two main competitors, NBA Live and NBA 2K. Both games started with a 2005 release, hoping to corner the market first and build a loyal following. Unfortunately for EA, 2K sports released the better game, especially over the first couple of years, and slow sales lead to the series be cancelled before the infamous NBA elite 11 was released. The games themselves are fine. It's interesting that both companies managed to get licensing and it has all the basic modes that you would expect. Interestingly also is that they managed to improve the games each year, especially in terms of how it plays, with NBA Live 9 and 10 much superior to 6 and 7. At the end of the day though, they lost the battle because it was a worse game. The live series is more simplistic and less detailed than its 2K cousin, feeling more arcadey and less polished. This actually makes the first few hours of play more enjoyable and for a casual player this may be a good thing. However, most people who pick up a basketball game are basketball fans and are looking for something a bit more detailed. With over 10 2K games on the console, as a serious basketball game, the only reason to play this is to compare it with them. On the casual arcade side, we have a selection of much better and more fun games to fill this void such as NBA Jam and NBA streets. Not horrible games, but pointless to own nowadays.