Five Great Last-Gen Games You Probably Didn't Play

The new generation of consoles is now in full swing, but it’s still worth remembering the plethora of brilliant games that graced the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. What follows is a list of my favourite games from the last generation that - usually due to a lack of proper marketing from their publishers - went unnoticed by the majority of gamers.

Blur

Blur was sadly the final racing game from the highly talented team at Bizarre Creations, best known as the creators of the Project Gotham Racing. Apparently bored of the realistic approach of PGR, Bizarre Creations opted to develop a vehicular combat game featuring real-life cars and locations - think Mario Kart for grown-ups.

There's more skill involved here than in Nintendo's racer though - instead of picking up a random box and having the game choose your power-up based on your position, all of the pick-ups are laid out on the track. It's down to you to collect the most useful one for you. There's also the added strategy of being able to store up to three power-ups at once, so you can plan out attacks and manoeuvres in advance.

It’s got really slick visuals too; UI elements have a cool neon design and power-ups are shown floating behind your car, allowing you to keep your eyes on the action at all times. While the single-player mode leaves something to be desired, multiplayer is great fun. I've spent hours playing splitscreen tournaments with friends, and the game still provides intense competition for us four years after it was released.

Singularity

Before Activision made the talent-wasting decision to assign Raven Software the task of developing DLC for Infinity Ward's Call of Duty titles, the studio had accrued a name for themselves by creating classic games like Soldier of Fortune, Star Wars Jedi Knight II and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. The last of their standalone efforts was Singularity, a first-person-shooter in the vein of BioShock.

Singularity sees you playing as Captain Nathaniel Renko, one of a group of US soldiers sent to a desolate ex-Soviet Union island called Katorga-12 in order to investigate an electromagnetic surge that damaged an American satellite. Things go badly from the off though, as another surge crashes their helicopter and causes Renko to begin ‘phasing’ between present day and the date of a massive accident in 1955. In the ‘50s, Renko saves a scientist named Nikolai Demichev, and upon returning to the present he finds that Demichev has taken over the world. Cue an intriguing and unique sci-fi/Cold War adventure.

The gameplay is similar to that of BioShock, with the player able to deploy a number of time-manipulating powers using something called, imaginatively, the Time Manipulation Device (TMD). On top of the TMD's various combat abilities, it's also used for some light puzzling. With fun gameplay, an interesting time-travel storyline and a creepy atmosphere, Singularity is definitely one to check out.

The Saboteur

We're sadly continuing the trend of studios' final games with The Saboteur. This open-world, WWII action title was developed by Pandemic Studios, the talented minds behind Star Wars: Battlefront, Mercenaries and Destroy All Humans!.

Set in Nazi-occupied Paris, The Saboteur puts you in the role of Sean Devlin, a heavy-drinking Irish (yay for stereotypes) racecar mechanic. Sean is cheated out of winning a race by Kurt Dierker, a Nazi colonel,  so he and his best friend, Jules, take revenge by sabotaging Dierker’s car. To cut a long story short; Jules is executed, Sean escapes, and from that moment he vows to avenge his friend by killing the Colonel.

The first thing that drew me to The Saboteur, beyond my affinity for WWII games, was the art style. Nazi-occupied areas of Paris are presented in black and white, while certain objects such as character’s eyes, light sources and, of course, Nazi propaganda boldly stand out. Once an area has been cleared of German occupation (usually by destroying outposts), it fills with its original colour - it’s a striking effect that brilliantly shows the impact you make on the city.

It’s not just style over substance, either. The game’s beautiful setting is great fun to traverse, with Assassin’s Creed-like parkour that allows you to climb almost anything you can see, including the Eiffel Tower itself. Pandemic’s games were always good at giving the player choice when it came to enemy encounters, and The Saboteur is no different; the player can choose if they would rather take down an enemy base by sniping targets from the rooftops, planting explosives, going in all-guns-blazing, or taking the stealthy approach by donning a Nazi uniform.

The game is a bit rough around the edges - its story isn’t exactly thought-provoking, enemy AI is pretty dumb and there are a few glitches to be found. However, if you look past those issues you’ll find that The Saboteur is fantastically fun and varied open-world title.

Spec Ops: The Line

Now on to the most recent game on this list, Spec Ops: The Line. Created by Yager Development and released in 2012, this military third-person-shooter sees you playing as Captain Martin Walker as he - alongside Lieutenant Alphanso Adams and Staff Sergeant John Jugo - traverses Dubai after it’s been hit by the worst series of dust storms in history. The storms have resulted in the city being left half-buried in sand and declared a ‘no-man’s-land’ by the UAE.

Walker and his team are searching for Colonel John Konrad, a decorated commander who volunteered to help with the relief efforts in Dubai. They are sent to confirm the status of Konrad and radio for extraction. On the team’s journey into the wasteland, Walker is forced to make several extremely difficult decisions that can affect Jugo and Adams’ feelings towards him as their leader, culminating in one of the most shocking and satisfying endings I’ve seen in a video game.

Their descent into madness is excellently presented; the team start out their campaign as typical gruff soldiers, but as the atrocities begin to stack up they begin to lose their cool. Calm commands quickly become frantic and explicit yelling. It’s a small touch in the grand scheme, but it works to display the psychological effects of war better than most games, and made the characters feel that much more human.

You won’t find much new here on the gameplay side of things. Spec Ops is pretty much your bog-standard third-person military shooter with some light squad-based tactics thrown in for good measure. The only other differentiator is the game’s use of sand which can be used to kill enemies if they’re stood in the right place - for example, underneath a skylight that’s holding back a large amount of the grainy stuff. It’s effectively no different to shooting a big red barrel, but it’s satisfying nonetheless.

Chances are that many PC players already own Spec Ops: The Line as it’s been on sale plenty of times alongside other 2K titles such as XCOM: Enemy Unknown and The Darkness II (both of which are also worth playing) . For those that haven’t yet given this bold third-person-shooter a try; do so, you won’t regret it.

Vanquish

Finally we reach the last game on my list of underrated gems, Vanquish. You probably wouldn’t surprised to hear that this bat-shit insane third-person-shooter was developed by Platinum Games, the studio behind perhaps the most ridiculous action game of all time, Bayonetta. What might surprise you is that it had the same director as Resident Evil 4, arguably the first game to get third-person-shooting right.

At first glance you could be forgiven for thinking that Vanquish is just a generic sci-fi shooter, and story-wise it pretty much is. However, after just a few minutes you’ll notice that the gameplay is anything but; a typical enemy encounter in Vanquish will see you sliding around on your knees (with the help of jet-powered boots), popping off some headshots in slow-motion, doing a few somersaults, then hopping behind cover for a quick smoke.

Platinum’s partnership with Shinji Mikami resulted in a perfect fusion of insane over-the-top action held together by incredibly responsive controls. Getting to grips with the controls can take a bit of time, but soon everything clicks into place and the combat becomes a graceful, almost ballet-esque affair. Except with robots and rockets instead of tutus and pirouettes.

There’s only so much I can say about the game in text. Most of the game’s epicness can only be understood by playing it yourself; on several occasions during my playthrough, I couldn’t help but laugh in awe of the craziness occurring on the screen. The only real downside, other than the forgettable story, is that the campaign can be completed in around five or six hours. Still, while it lasts, Vanquish is one hell of a ride.