It's a testament to the success of Xbox 360 that it's not until today, more than ten years after it first rolled out at retail, that we're taking a look back at its best moments. Had it been any less of a success, we'd have pushed this piece out a good couple of years ago and today we'd be talking about something far dafter, like Kendall Jenner's pierced nipple or nuns who grow weed in their garage.
Instead, we're feeling a little reflective. A little sad. A little contemplative. Which is why we've decided to look back at Xbox 360's best moments, according to us.
We stress that point 'according to us' because, when it comes to a console with ten years' worth of games to sift through, chances are there are going to be scores of releases you, your other half and your close friends and family would pick out that we're going to miss. If that's the case, feel free to drop your suggestions in the comments below. No crying though.
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Gears of War (Epic Games/Microsoft Studios)
It's a long time ago now but, as Xbox 360 headed towards its second Christmas, the console's release schedule was looking a little barren. Xbox's killer franchise - Halo - was still almost a year from making its debut on the system in the form of Halo 3, and few of 360's first year line up were setting the world alight. And then came Gears of War.
Indeed, it's to the development team's credit that, nine years on, Gears of War is still something of a looker. So swish were its visuals, in fact, that Microsoft did something that very few games do even now; it put together an advert built entirely from within the game's engine. That meant that there was no 'NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF IN-GAME FOOTAGE' disclaimer in the corner of the screen when Gears' lead, Marcus Fenix, ran through a dystopian city scape, with Gary Jules' Mad World streaming in the background.
Gamers knew that what they were seeing was what Xbox 360 was actually capable of, which put the system on another plain entirely to the market leader at the time, Sony's PS2. As you might expect, sales skyrocketed that Christmas, and it was clear Microsoft had a massive hit on its hands.
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Crackdown (Realtime Worlds/Microsoft Studios)
Roll the clock on to the start of 2007, and much was expected of Crackdown. An open world adventure set in the ficticious Pacific City, where criminal gangs fought street by street for territory, Crackdown was conceived by David Jones, the man behind a certain Grand Theft Auto.
It also served as the gateway to Halo, with a download code for Halo 3's multiplayer beta included with early copies. Indeed, stories at the time suggested there were many thousands who picked up Crackdown on launch day and never actually slid the disc into their systems, treasuring their Halo 3 download codes instead like a winning lottery ticket. Those boys and girls missed out.
Crackdown's mixture of no-holes-barred action - which saw you leaping from building tops long before Assassin's Creed made hitting such heights its signature - and comic-book style narrative proved to be a winner critically, if not commercially. A sequel launched on Xbox 360 a few years later courtesy of a different developer but, failing to sell to the same degree as the original, it appeared the Crackdown IP had run its course.
The good news, however, is that two years ago Microsoft announced it was teaming up with David Jones once again to work on Crackdown 3 for Xbox One, due out later this year. Fingers crossed it makes the same mark as the original.
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BioShock (2K Games)
It's fair to say that the launch of BioShock, at the end of the summer 2007, crept up on many. The shooter was pitched as a spiritual successor to the long-discontinued System Shock franchise and, until folk actually saw it in action, hadn't generated all too much buzz.
By the time BioShock launched, however, all that had changed. Once again, a TV commercial did much of the work for publisher 2K Games, setting a slice of BioShock's unwater adventures against a backdrop of Bobby Darin's swing classic Beyond the Sea. BioShock saw players discover an abandoned city frozen in time at the bottom of the ocean, populated by huge mechanical behemoths 'Big Daddies' and the 'Little Sisters' - small, almost corpse like, giggling girls with crimson red eyes.
At the end of every encounter with a Big Daddy, you could decide to either free or harvest said Sisters, the latter bolstering your own telekinetic powers as you looked to stay alive in this sodden cityscape. BioShock also boasted a huge plot twist revealed two thirds of the way through play that quickly became one of the moments of the generation.
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Crucically, BioShock was an Xbox 360 console exclusive for its first year. By the time it hit PS3 in October 2008, the damage to Sony's system had been done - Microsoft's console had been bolstered by another mammoth hit.
Alan Wake (Remedy Entertainment/Microsoft Studios)
Alan Wake has gone down in Xbox 360 history as being the big smash that never really was. Remedy Entertainment's third person adventure - a tale of an author of psychological thrillers encountering dark beasts in the real world during a stretch of writer's block - certainly came with big billing, but it never really found a sizeable enough audience to satisfy Microsoft's demands.
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Nevertheless, you'd be hard pressed to find a more harrowing piece of action in Xbox 360's library. Play was cut up into portions of day and night; while the rising of the sun gave you the freedom to explore the small mountain town of Bright Falls in relative safety, investigating the strange supernatural goings on as you went, nighttime brought with it sheer terror.
As the sun slipped away, so the bleak streets and surrounding forests became infested with The Taken - dark human-like silhouttes intent on taking you out. Combat revolved around staying in the light, dashing between the glow of street furniture and using a torch in one hand to free The Taken of their darkness before taking them out with the gun held in your other. It was hard, it was unforgiving, and critics claimed it quickly became monotonous, but for us it was a bold attempt to do something different with the third-person shooter.
Sadly, the proposed sequel never got beyond a concept video, but Remedy's Quantum Break - currently burning up the charts for Xbox One - is pitched as a spiritual successor to Alan's priginal adventure, and is littered with references to the game from start to finish. Alan Wake may not have been the massive hit Microsoft wanted, but it laid the groundwork for many of the action-adventure games that have followed.
Words by Keith Andrew
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