Best And Worst Game Surprises

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Modern Warfare 2. Mass Effect 2. Forza Motorsport 3. Tekken 6.

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There are a lot of big name games on their way before the year is out but that doesn't mean that they will universally please everyone who plays them. Some will inevitably disappointment, dragged down under the weight of their own hype.

Conversely, some games rocket out of leftfield and prove genuine surprises in how good they are, either because of their low profile or because everyone expected them to be bad.

Which have been the biggest surprise games on Xbox 360 to date? We list five that surprised us in a good way and five that surprised us in a bad way...

Good Surprises

50 Cent: Blood in the Sand

Never could there have been a bigger target for the hate and ire of the 'net. A mainstream rapper (50 Cent) who sings about how awesome he is (every single ever) with stupidly named friends (DJ Whoo Kid) and a failed videogame project behind him (50 Cent: Bulletproof). No-one expected anything from this. So imagine everyone's surprise when it turned out to be... okay. Even now, we're not sure if 50 Cent was in on the joke as Blood in the Sand seems to be a very, very sly piss-take but the solid gameplay mechanics, which liberally stole from Sega's under-rated The Club, meant it didn't matter.

Dead Space

No-one expected much from this. EA? Trying to do horror? Puh-lease. Cynics were expecting an overly polished romp with no atmosphere, EA Trax and maybe a guest appearance from Tiger Woods. EA doesn't do horror, everyone thought. It's as simple as that. But EA got it. They really, really got it. Playing like a cross between Aliens and Event Horizon, Dead Space has been the most atmospheric horror game released this generation, effortlessly trumping Silent Hill and the more action-orientated Resident Evil 5.

Warriors Orochi

At this point, Koei has exhausted everyone's patience with its endless Warriors games. Dynasty Warriors, Samurai Warriors, Dynasty Warriors Gundam, Dynasty Warriors Empires, Samurai Gundam Warriors Dynasty Empires, they're like insects. Millions of them about but no-one really cares as each game proves every bit as unremarkably mediocre as the one before. Warriors Orochi broke through that mould by actually being... well, rather good. It's not exactly a stride into triple-A territory and those who hated the series before won't have found anything to change their minds but it felt fresher and more relevant than the series had done for years, thanks to the character switching, intricate combo system and huge cast of characters.

Saints Row

A poor man's GTA is how Saints Row was billed before release and even now, it still carries that stigma of not being as polished, as epic or as important as Rockstar's flagship series. Yet the fact that it's talked about nowadays as a credible alternative was unimaginable when it was first revealed, with its hip-hop gangster pretences and sheer cheek at daring take on GTA, shows how good it was the first time round. Saints Row was funny, it was over-the-top and it was ludicrous. Most importantly, it was damn good fun.

Skate

When EA announced its own skateboarding game to take on the long-established Tony Hawk's series, 360 owners scoffed. When EA announced that its own skateboarding game was to be a realistic take on skateboarding, 360 owners spat their cornflakes all over their PC monitors in surprise. So imagine the surprise when it turned out not only to be a fun and accessible alternative to the Tony Hawk series but better. So much so that Activision has is now scrambling with life-size skateboard peripherals to try and counter the threat EA's series represents.



Bad Surprises

Call of Duty 3

Following Call of Duty 2 dazzling new Xbox 360 owners with its purrrrdy graphics ("look at that smoke!"), Treyarch had the job of tending to the next Call of Duty while Infinity Ward cracked on with the first Modern Warfare. There was no reason to expect anything but a great continuation of the series. What we got was good but ultimately, a disappointment. Strange glitches, awkward bomb defusing 'mini-games' and none of the drama that accompanied Call of Duty 2, the infamous short development time (reportedly less than a year) is undeniably to blame for Call of Duty 3 - the weakest link in the series to date.

Final Fantasy XI

We should have seen it coming, of course. It had already done the rounds on PC and the problem of trying to fit that interface and updating those graphics alongside all these PC players seemed an impossible task. And an impossible task it proved. Even so, expectations were high. So when it arrived with an install time of over five hours, onscreen keyboard that made using an actual keyboard a necessity and almost no help or guidance in the age of console gaming and tutorials, it didn't live up to the hype. It might have been the first Final Fantasy game on a Microsoft console but we're still waiting for the first truly good one.

Bomberman: Act Zero

We haven't made a game before but surely it's not that hard to get Bomberman right? Cutesy graphics, cutesy music, different modes to get stuck into, different themed levels and one-blast-and-dead gameplay. You start with that, you go on and add other stuff, you revel in a job well done. What you don't do is make it gritty, suck all the colour and personality away, only have one single-player mode and add a gameplay mechanic where you can survive direct hits if you crouch first. Nothing about Bomberman: Act Zero worked, which is quite remarkable given how hard it must be to screw up.

Perfect Dark Zero

With Microsoft signing Rare to a deal worth at least a billion trillion Microsoft Points, all eyes were on what Rare could do with the new powerful hardware of Xbox 360. The first screens emerged and Perfect Dark Zero looked incredible. With a monstrous advertising campaign and Microsoft pinning its hopes to Rare's shooter as the flagship launch title, nothing could fail. Except for Perfect Dark Zero being staggeringly mediocre, of course. And guess what! It was staggeringly mediocre, with underwhelming gameplay and slooow multiplayer combining for a pretty feeble game. The co-op was a nice touch and pointed towards things to come but ask anyone today about Perfect Dark Zero and all they'll remember is the crushing disappointment.

Prey

It was pretty much the coolest gimmick ever. You had portals where you could see through to the other side before stepping through, gravity tricks that would see you walking on walls and upside down and several stomach churning moments where you'd step through a teleport and then find yourself being spun to a new location by the new gravity laws on the otherside. It was trippy as hell.

It was also a novelty that wore off incredibly quickly, exposing the average FPS game that lurked beneath the gravity gimmicks. That you couldn't actually 'die' also meant Prey was far too easy, while the multiplayer was horribly laggy. Perhaps worst of all, its most significant technological leap - the portal - was trumped by a little known game of the same name by Valve down the line.

Ryan King