The Xbox 360 is Microsoft’s most successful console, and it’s easy to see why. The system had a long shelf life and an extensive library consisting of more than 2,000 licensed games, many of which are excellent. There are tons that fans remember fondly, while many slipped under the radar for most players. We’ve looked through the archives and identified five underrated Xbox 360 titles that are all amazing games. For various reasons, they didn’t get as much attention as they deserved, and while they were ported to other systems, their Xbox 360 releases deserved much more appreciation than they received.
In 2007, 2K released The Darkness as a first-person shooter based on the comic book series of the same name published by Top Cow Productions. On its own, the game is a great FPS, but with the inclusion of the comic’s elements, it’s a robust, lore-filled narrative that’s absolute entertainment from beginning to end. The gameplay mechanics that incorporate the demonic elements of the Darkness are extraordinarily well done, and the game is fantastic, earning a sequel released in 2012. It received high marks for storytelling and was well-received, but wasn’t a huge seller on the Xbox 360.
If there’s one genre that’s not lacking in great content, it’s role-playing games, so there are many underrated titles. One such gem is Eternal Sonata, released in 2007 on the Xbox 360. It’s set in a dreamlike world produced in the dying mind of Frédéric Chopin as he succumbs to tuberculosis at the age of 39 in 1849. The game’s world is absolutely beautiful, and Chopin’s life and music heavily influence it. Musical elements make up most of the game’s battle system and nuanced features, combining into a truly unique and wonderful gaming experience intertwined with many of Chopin’s greatest pieces of music.
It seems strange to call a Spider-Man game underrated, but that’s the case for 2008’s Spider-Man: Web of Shadows. It’s an interesting title, as different studios developed multiple versions for various systems. The game developed for the Xbox 360 features an open-world and non-linear gameplay. It’s a robust game with an intense storyline, excellent characters, and great gameplay, though some critics didn’t love the graphics and other elements. Not only was it underrated at the time of its release, but Web of Shadows was eventually delisted due to licensing issues, making it largely unplayable today.
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is a post-apocalyptic action-adventure game set 150 years in the future. It’s a loose adaptation of the novel Journey to the West and centers on a quest to escort a girl home after she survives a crash. War machines still wander the world, which makes the journey a daring adventure, and there are platforming elements and puzzles to solve along the way. While Enslaved was well received by critics, players weren’t enticed to buy many copies, resulting in low sales and causing it to slip under the radar. This was unfortunate, as it’s a great game, and a sequel would have come about had it not failed financially.
Dark Sector is a 2008 third-person shooter that’s original in many ways while embracing several narrative elements from some familiar IPs. It’s centered around a CIA “clean-up man” who’s infected with the Technocyte virus that gives him the ability to manifest a three-pronged glaive and use it as a weapon, which comes in handy. Stylistically, Dark Sector shares a lot in common with Gears of War, and it looks amazing, featuring great action and weapon-based combat, but it wasn’t a huge hit upon release. It never saw a sequel, though 2013’s Warframe could be considered something of a spiritual successor to Dark Sector.
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