Nowadays, when people think about great racing games of this era, they think of forza, PGR, Dirt, Gran Turismo. The race driver series, the sucessor to the TOCA series, gets somehow forgotten. Racedriver Grid is the first in this series, and while it's not the best raceing game on the system, it's one of my favourites. Starting with the negatives, it's not a game full of different game modes, infact it feels a little sparse and you are basically left with 3 modes, campaign, single race and online mode. The campgain is quite confusing at first also. You start off doing random events for other teams taking part in a variety of different types of races, then suddenly you have your own team, it's not explained very well and there's little story and no training to get you up to speed. Despite these flaws, the racing itself is excellent. Your enjoyment of racing games probably largely depends on how well it aligns with your preference of Sim to Arcade style, and Grid rides this perfect balance of very difficult and competative arcade racing, which is helped by the excellent AI. Every race feels like a challenge, but not impossible, and the inclusion of rubber banding means that you are never laps ahead on you own like in some simulation racers. The races are fun and competative from start to finish. That's not to say it's fully arcade, you will need to use your break wisely and there is an excellent damage system which can mess up your stearing if you take too much damage, but you won't need to tweek your car too much each race. The campaign also features a huge variety of racing styles to keep you entertained. I really enjoyed the drifting events akin to Dirt 3, and the one on one races were really intense. For me it's some of the best racing to be had on the console, and I highly reccomend it if you enjoy hard but fun racing, of course this style is not for everyone.

Street Fighter 2 was the first video game I every played, and for that reason I loved it. The popular 1 on 1 fighting series basically revolutionised console fighting games and most modern fighting games in some way pay their respects to that absolute classic. The console realease of Street Fighter 4 also garnered a lot of praise and is apparently one of the best fighting games on the console, but for me, it's fairly boring. That's ok. We are all different and some games just won't gel with us, even though they are supposed to be excellent, but 7 year old me feels sad. SF4 has been praised for it's netplay and online modes, which isn't really relevant to me. Its graphics, which are beautiful. But most of all praise was heaped upon its deep gameplay. I think that is probably the issue for me. As far as a pick up as go fighter, SF4 isn't really it. It feels sluggish and slow to start off with, and combos and special moves are really hard to pull off. Another issue I have with the game is the lack of story and the poorly animated cutscenes. The characters and their backgrounds was one of the main draws of the SF series, yet it seems to have been slightly ignored here. I'm sure If i stuck a good 20 hours into this game I would love it, but so far in my 4 attempts I haven't got much out of it.

I'm weirdly nostalgic for movie tie in games. At the time, everyone hated them. Yet, I can't help but feel a bit of happiness when I see a random movie tie in game from previous consoles. Pirates of the Carribean, only one on the console thankfully, is a quite decent action adventure game. You play as Amber heard's ex husband on an adventure through parts of the movie? To be honest, I haven't seen the movie, BUT the game does look nice. The areas are all detailed, colourful and varied, and I really enjoyed exploring them. Gameplay is a mix between hack and slash, platforming and some elements of puzzle soliving, with a few collectables thrown in there. The gameplay is simple but varied and the levels do feel realistic. The game also has quite a nice plot with some great cutscenes. Did they get Legolas to do the voice lines? No idea. But the story was interesting and didn't feel tacked on. There is a quite unique duel system to the game, in which you sword fight one on one which was enjoyable and worked well. I also like the variety with different weapons and enemy types. Overall it's a game which appeals to both adults and chilren and will keep you entertained through it's short campaign. It's nothing incredible, but we rarely see games like this nowadays and I do miss them.

A very solid racer which still holds up to this day. While more catered to sim racing fans, what's great about forza 2 is that the assists are fully customizable, meaning you can cater the difficulty of the drive as you gradually get better. This really encourages you to gradually reduce the driving assists on the game and test out manual transmission even if you start off as a beginner. Aside from this the game has excellent graphics, handles well and includes a nice selection of vehicles. The track selection is also great and the real life track selection will appeal to racing fans. Super casual racing fans may find this all a little boring, but its hard to deny Forza 2 is one of the best racers on the console.

It's not a thing you would hear people say now, but I really like the call of duty campaigns. Call of Duty 1 was one of my first forays into modern shooters. It got better with United Offensive and then Call of Duty 2 blowing me away with how well it ported over to consoles. It really gave you the feeling of being a nameless grunt in a horrible situation. Call of duty 3 is the third in the mainline series and I have to say it really misses the mark. Now keep in mind I'm focusing on campaign only, because even though some of these games are still populated in 2023, most of them don't deliver the complete original experience. The campaign seeminlgy changes very little from the previous games. It looks similar, the same weapons and enemies. It feels the same, the controls work as intended. But it's just not as good. It's difficult to put your figure on exactly what they messed up here, but I'll try my best. Firstly, the campaign feels a lot more linear and less open, feeling a bit more like a corridor shooter. Epic battles where you are working which big groups of AI teammates were one of my favorite aprts of 2, and it is really lacking in 3. Yes you have AI teammates, but you often end up ploughing through areas on your own. Small tweaks like the annoying mini games, the less interesting locations, the ammount of time spent in the car and the unskippable cutscenes just seem to detract from the immersive and epic hell that was call of duty 2, and give more of a sloppy feeling. The AI also feels like a step down, both in terms of friendlies and the enemy. I can't recall an instance of a teammate coming to my aid or feeling stuck in a certain corner as the enemies had my number. It just feels average. It's kind of difficult to explain nowadays as COD isn't what it used to be, but going from COD1 and COD2 to this, felt like going from Call of Duty to Medal of Honor or another lesser copy. Still a fine game, but nowhere near the feeling of 2. With the sheer number of COD games on the console, this is definitely one to avoid.

I probably wrote this one off before I had even started. Sega went on a spree of making crappy superhero video games in the mid to late 2000s and this is one of them. If you have played one before, you probably have an idea of what they entail. 3rd person action featuring mostly hand to hand combat with a mix of your favourite characters from the hulk series. Hell does the hulk series even have characters? I could name one except Hulk. What's interesting about this one is how much it feels like the Spiderman games. Flying between skyscrapers in a 3D open world New York while completing a series of missions and looking for collectables is basically exactly what you do in Spiderman 3. On the positive side it is fun smashing everything to bits. The best part is the buildings, all of which are destructible. Chucking cars around and watching them smashing into skyscrapers is awesome for a couple of hours. The negative side is that it is pretty repetative. Missions end up being very similar to each other, kill enemies, smash building, the end. Probably a good one for young marvel fans as it is so easy to pick up and play, but not for everyone.

If there is one simple joy in video games that is universally recognized, it's gotta be shooting red barrels equals a big fun explosion. Battlefield Bad company is that idea bottled. In previous battlefield campaigns EA hadn't really bothered with the campaign. I guess after the success of the COD games like MW1 they decided to follow suit and flesh out the campaign with some characters and a story, and it works pretty well. The story is fairly interesting and the characters have some memorable lines. It controls well and has a nice variety of different guns and explosives, plus a bunch of vehicles to have fun with. It's one of the hardest campaigns I've played on normal, and I really enjoyed the challenge. This is slightly ruined however by the fact that when you die you just respawn and the enemies don't, which makes the difficulty pointless. I much preferred the never-ending wave of enemies style of Call of duty two. I even got a chance to play a bit of multiplayer too which was excellent. Overall a pretty decent shooter, let down by the respawns. Worth a shot for FPS fans.

Is it worth a try still?
Worth it for the explosions alone.

After loading up the game and being greeted by a bunch of random warning, yes it's ok to autosave no need to make a warning box about it, DOA5 informed me I needed a online pass. I loaded up the marketplace tab to enter the code on the back of my booklet and was greeted by a selection of purchase able costumes. Bikinis and bunny costumes galore. "You might find it hard to keep your head in the fight with this sexy cheerleading uniform", the marketplace proudly states. Errr right.... It was off putting to say the least. Luckily my code from my 2nd hand game worked ( I guess they don't expire), not that it mattered as the online was predictably dead. Ready to hate the game, I started off on the story mode. I was met with some really nice graphics and a very detailed story, which while extremely cheesy, was quite impressive, especially the voice acting. The fights themselves are interspersed among the story scenes and are directly related to the story. The fights themselves act as an excellent tutorial. Each fight teaches you a new move, from simple punches early on, to blocking, countering and combos later on. This is such a nice change from so many fighting games that fail to adequately explain the game mechanics and it really helped me understand and enjoy the fights. The fighting system itself is simple to use but difficult to master. Moves link together well so it is easy to pull of combos. Blocks are simple to execute and really give you a good chance to counter the enemy fighter. The system itself just feels great and is really nice to play. Perhaps I have acieved complete pervert status by enjoying a game famous for it's boob physics, but it's hard not to be impressed by DOA5. As with all fighting games, the death of the online community is a huge drawback nowadays, and there are definitely better fighting games out there, but DOA5 holds its own as a fun game for both perverts and non perverts alike.

Having played and enjoyed Battlefield 2 and Bad Company, I decided to skip 3 for now and move onto 4. The series has always excelled in its online multiplayer, so of course looking at the game as an entry into your collection today is perhaps a little unfair. I do think B4 is a worthwhile addition to your collection however, as more of a reference to the history of FPS games than for a solid single player campaign. In my mind Battlefield 4 is the perfect example of a modern or at least Xbox One style modern FPS game. It feels modern, with its highly detailed and dramatic cutscenes, it's excellent modern feeling control scheme, the online functionality, huge levels, good physics with explosions and bullet drop, some of th ebest graphics on the console and of couse a bunch of bugs. The campaign itself is a great example of this. Like a lot of modern shooters, the campaign feels like a an afterthought hidden behind a shiny Hollywood blockbuster story and set up. The story, voice acting and the feel of the levels can be commended. It feels like a lot of effort has been put in and on the surface level it's really impressive, but delving deeper the cracks start to appear. Firstly, the epic story doesn't really match the campaign. With only 7 levels, the campaign is very short, but the story seemed to be designed for a bigger project, which leaves it feeling very rushed and confusing. The levels themselves are also a bit shallow. The first mission is fairly epic and sets up the campaign well. Things go downhill fairly quickly however, with most missions feeling very narrow and linear, and a number of strange difficult spikes and strange tank destroying sections. It's a real mix of highs and lows and it gives the feeling that it could have been a great campaign if more time and effort was put in. There's a great section in the campagin where you are battling through a damaged city to reach the last base of resistance holding out deep in enemy lines. There's a great feeling of relief when you finally make it behind the friendly walls, seeing all the exhausted and depleted soldiers in the base. I was quite excited by some epic last stand style mission following this. Instead, we were greeted by the commander who basically told us to F off, and we just left in a car. These issues don't ruin the campaign, it's still pretty fun in parts. But It seems like this could have been an epic Modern warfare 1 style adventure, and what we are left with is slightly dissapointing. A very interesting but flawed campaign.

Over the past 10 years, people have began to re-evaluate this game, and rightly so. There's the famous story about programmers of the game getting a bonus if it got a metacritic score of 85 or above, however it ended up with 84. To me this is wild. A score less than Soul Caliber 4 and Far Cry 2. Playing it in 2023 I fell in love with it yet again, and for me it's one of the best games on the console. For the unitiated, this is a first person role playing game mixed with an FPS. The game utilises the VATS system, which stops time and lets you target enemies, making it a lot more accessible to those who struggle with shooting on consoles. It plays very similarly to the fallout 3, walk around the incredible environment, complete quests given out by the people you meet, explore the unknown, shoot, stab, explode enemies. The gameplay is fun and varied and the world is just so fun to explore. You can walk around for hours meeting interesting people and weird funny situations. Where this game really excels, especially compared to fallout 3, is the story and dialogue. Fallout 3's main story line was very simple and to be honest a bit bland. New Vegas's on the other hand is a rollercoaster of excitement, filled with wacky characters and different routes you can take. The dialouge show improvement too. You care about the story behind side quests and actually want to know what is going on instead of blindly following waypoints. Who doesn't enjoy helping irradiated zombies leave earth to live in the stars? All of this harks back to the (imo) best fallout games, fallout 1 and 2. For that reason, New Vegas is better than 3 and one of the best games on the console period.

Retro game collections seem so easy. Pick a bunch of good games, add some nice extras or unlockables, done. While some other collections on the console fail to deliver, the genesis collection is a really good effort. The game boasts 47 excellent games from the one of the greatest consoles of all time (and altered beast). You have all the big name classics like sonic, streets of rage, golden axe and some less well known gems such as dynamite headdy and my personal favourite: gain ground. On top of all this, they thrown in some great extras. There is a nice ranking system, so you can remember which games you like and rank altered beast 1 star. There are some great challenges which are tied in with the acheivements, and also unlock some interviews, new games and nice atrwork. While it's not really an important part of the 360's history, it still fun to play, and I am a sucker for these collections.

It's nice when a game has a clear simple concept, executed well. At it's heart, that's what bulletstorm is. A FPS which focuses on crazy kills and having fun. A bit like a first person gears of war that takes itself even less seriously, bulletstorm puts you through a while fairly short, pretty fun and action packed campaign. The story doesn't matter, it's all about killing enemies in the mos fun ways possible. You can kick enemies and they go flying. You have a leash to pull enemies towards you. Your guns all have a variety of firing modes, some of which are totally crazy too. Best of all, the environment is set up with a bunch of things to help you kill enemies. The main focus of the game is linking all these together to create ever more crazy kills as you work through the campaign or online multiplayer. In many ways it's a breath of fresh air, focusing 100% on fun, and it mostly succeeds. I really enjoy the challenges it gives you, a checklist almost, which encourages you to kill in different ways. At some points though, it does get a bit samey. It's perhaps because the levels all have the same focus. You are either fighting your way through a series or enemies, or holding a room from an enslaught of enemies. This is maybe a weak criticism, as many games are like that, but i did find myself bored at times. With that in mind, i still highly recommend bullet storm. I like to pull it out every now and again and blast through an hour or two in between playing other games. A nice one to have in the collection.

I love a good release title, and PGR 3 might just be the best of the bunch. Of course, to PGR fans this was absolutely no surprise, the previous two entries were both excellent too. But if you compare this with other early release racers on the console, it's really quite impressive. The game uses a Kudos system, which gives you points for finishing races with style. Racking up Kudos is difficult but fun. The most notable thing though about this game is the locations. The races take place in 4 major city hubs, London, Tokyo, Manhatten and Las Vegas, as well as the famous Nurburgring. These locataions look excellent and give the game a great atmosphere. Racing down the narrow streets of London in the twighlight or an early morning cruise down the Vegas strip, each race feels totally different, all the tracks are a joy to race on. The cars themselves handle well, as they straddle the line between the arcade and simulation racing. You quickly find that taking a corner too fast or smashing into an opponent will leave you at the back of the pack, and its difficult to catch up without some skills. However, you don't need to worry about changing the suspension or buying a new engine for your car. It's simple and it works well. The variety of the races is great too. There are standard races, one on ones, elimination races, hot laps, Kudos challenges, the list goes on. Additionally, each race has 5 different difficulties for you to attempt. There are a few things which could be improved. The career is a little short and a few more locations would be nice. Yet, its hard to not be impressed by this one, especially as we approach it's 20th birthday. A must play.

Fuck the whip. If you have played this you will know what I mean. Call of Juarez is a very interesting and quite unique FPS with a Western setting. Originally released for the PC in 2006, we got a 360 release in 2007 and if you can handle a bit of jank it holds up pretty well. The story is really nice. You play as Ray, a former preacher, hunting Billy (some random kid IDK), who has been accused of killing his parents. You also Billy running away from Ray (Your Uncle) and trying to find out who really killed your parents. The way the story untangles as you alternate between the characters is surprisingly good and will keep you interested for sure. The setting is also very nice and you can tell the developers put a lot of effort into making you feel like you are in the wild west. Jumping between gold mining towns and lush forests, with a nice selection of weapons and even some fist fighting. It also has a concentration gauge, allowing you to slow down time to blast enemies. Best of all, at the end of some levels you have a one on one pistol duels, just like in the movies, excellent. Consensus is that Ray's levels are more fun. He can lob dynamite and use twin pistols. Billy on the other hand has a bow and a whip. The whip is really the downfall of the game. I would argue that the reason Billy's levels are worse is because of the use of the whip. There are a few platforming sections in the game where you need to use the whip to jump over gaps or traverse rocks and it just kinda doesn't work very well. In addition to that, there are a couple of sections where the game isn't super clear on what you need to do next, but nowadays there are loads of video guides online, so you should be fine. This is not a perfect game, it's janky as hell, sometimes unfair and often confusing. Yet, I can't help but appreciate COJ for trying to do something a bit different and succeeding. In 2023 the datedness of this thing only adds to it's charm, an interesting addition for any collection.

Gen 7 seems to be the generation in which the trend of making a video game about every movie that was released died. I'm sure most gamers will have found memories of playing some form of movie tie in game when they were younger. I was particularly partial to the Toy story game on the snes and of course goldeneye. But over time these games seemed to get worse and worse, rushed out in time for a movie, hoping that parents will buy the game for their kids based on the title alone. For every knights of the old republic there is a chicken little, for every aladdin there is an ET. The early generation 360 game catalouge is full of horrible movie tie in games, and in some ways spiderman 3 is the worst offender of the bunch. After the excellent spiderman 2 on the ps2, we have the not so excellent spiderman 3, the first spidey release on the 360. It has everything you expect and know from spiderman games. Webslinging across Manhattan, all the characters you know and love and dumb one liners from spidey himself. The game is quite famous from its horrible cutscenes which almost rival the memes from the movie itself, and this is one of the highlights of the game. Its fun messing up button presses just to watch the frog eyed NPC look in horror as they get blown up. This is maybe only rivalled by Prison Break. Another fun aspect of the game is the boss fights. They are varied, often in 2 or 3 parts, and sometimes frustratingly hard, which I dig. Unfortunately, this is where the fun ends. Web-slinging through the city is fun for the first hour, until you realise there is nothing really going on in the game world. This is the most boring manhatten we have seen yet. Its all just gray, and there is nothing memorable about it. The combat system is another huge issue, its finicky and normally descends into button mashing or holding down the time slow button. Missions themselves give the impression of variety at the expense of fun. It's not the worst game in the world, but there are much better spidey games on the console.