When I think of the Xbox 360, I think of the amount of great shooters it has to offer. How can you not when the very first game that comes to mind for the Xbox 360 is a little game called Halo? Bungie claims that the Halo trilogy “single-handedly” made the Xbox a success. That can be argued I am sure, but I won’t be the one doing the arguing. Halo is just one of many shooters for this next generation console but there are plenty of other shooters out there to get your killing spree on. What other shooters out there come close to the greatness that is Halo?
THE ORANGE BOX
Never in the history of the game industry has a game been released that is such an unbelievably good deal. Who else but Valve has put forth an offer of 5 games for the price of one? I felt guilty only paying $60 for these great games. You can tell Valve put a lot of love into Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2:Episode one, Half-Life 2: Episode two, Portal and Team Fortress 2. Life for gamers does not get any better than this. This is by far the best investment I have ever made for my gaming needs. I have played these games over and over again and for once, this is a game I do not plan on trading back in to save some money for the newest must have game title. I am keeping this one, whether it starts to collect dust or not, this game package is that good. Which is why this tops my list for the must have shooter for the 360. If you’re a fan of the shooter genre and you have a 360, you’d be a fool to not purchase this.
LEFT 4 DEAD
Hey I am starting to see a trend here! Why is Valve in the top 2 games I have listed here? It’s because Valve knows and understands what gamers want. Gamers want the biggest bang for their buck and they want to have a damn good time shooting shit to pieces, especially zombies! Valve made the right move in releasing a pretty wicked demo as it got me pumped for the rapidly approaching release date. So I got it, played it, still playing it and will continue to play this game into the foreseeable future. I better start seeing more of my friends playing this though as it’s not that fun to play by yourself. The 4 player co-op and multi-player is zombie shooting heaven. Whhaa? There’s a heaven where you can shoot zombies? Yes, and Valve is God.
Oh, did I mention the Versus mode? Very nice addition. Basically, one side plays the human characters and the other side plays a randomly picked zombie. Playing as the zombie and using their unique attacks is a nice change and I have to admit I creepishly enjoyed using the Boomers special attack to vomit all over the opposing team. Yea, I said vomit. Do I really need to say anything more?
GEARS OF WAR 2
Epic won Game of the Year with their first Gears of War title, quite possibly they will win it again for their second time. The makers of the Unreal Engine have gone above and beyond and have shipped shooter fans one of the most engaging and action packed game I have seen yet. When you think of the Xbox 360, of course you think of Halo, but you now have to think of Gears of War at the same time. It’s a perfect strategy on Microsoft’s part. Release a Halo game one year, sell millions of copies. Release a Gears of War game the next year, sell millions more. Rinse and repeat. Two different shooters, one great shoot ’em up party! Now, it seems Epic has concentrated on improving their multiplayer more in Gears of War 2. I have hope that I will not trade this one in like I did with the first one. Time will tell but I think Epic scored a near perfect 10 with this one. They got a 10 on the environments though, that’s for sure.
CALL OF DUTY 4
Hands down, the best military shooter ever. Better than any COD game prior, better than any Ghost Recon game, better than any Rainbow Six game I have played.. and I’m just talking about the campaigns! From the first level where you storm a container ship to the end of the game where you storm a hijacked airliner, this game entrenches you in a one of kind modern warfare extravaganza. How did you react when you first looked down at your enemies in the AC-130 Gunship? I thought it looked almost too real. Most of us have seen real war footage of U.S. Gunships taking out terrorist strongholds in infrared. Infinity Ward got this part down perfectly. I found myself not even caring to play other parts of the game because I have so much fun in the AC-130 level. I hope to continue to see new COD games like this in the modern setting. If they make one more World War Two Call of Duty, I think I may have to stop buying these COD titles altogether. That’s why you don’t see COD: World at War on this list. I’m not hating on it, I’m just saying I’m done with WWII. Done! Stop making ’em already!
COD 4 multiplayer is a different story. You know the developer made a multiplayer experience you won’t forget when they dethrone the king of 360 online play.. that’s right, our beloved Halo 3. It seems fans of both games like to go back and forth. Play Halo 3, get bored, change it up and play Call of Duty 4. Back and forth. At least, that’s what I do. These two great multiplayer games as well as the games I mentioned above make Xbox Live shine.
Well, there are plenty of other games out there that could be labeled as “must haves.” But these are four that I cannot do without right now. What are your must have shooters, and what do you think your future must have shooters might be?
The Gamer Report 
