3. Infinity Ward - Consider all of the World War II titles where you play that lone hero swarmed by horde after horde of enemies. Infinity Ward cut through all that garbage to be one of the first titles to make you actually feel like you were just another soldier in the grand scheme of the madness that are the battlefields amidst a war. Call of Duty as well as Call of Duty 2 are perhaps some of the finest games I have ever played since I gave the original Medal of Honor a shot back on the original Playstation. But what fascinates me is that even though I picked up COD2 when I picked up my first 360 a few years ago, I still catch myself playing it every so often. That is when I’m not playing Modern Warfare or dreaming about the digital rapture that Modern Warfare 2 will be. While there are better games out there, Infinity Ward has distilled what makes fast paced action titles fun, all while placing us in the shoes of a soldier fighting towards a genuine greater good – even if it feels like a summer blockbuster film sometimes. Call of Duty 4 makes Xbox Live Gold feel almost necessary, an easy $50 dollars a year to play a game online that can easily cause you to remember when you said you would go to bed just in time to see the sun cresting over the horizon.
2. Epic - Cliff Bleszinski is a pretty cool guy. One time he made this game with a really cool cover mechanic that, while he didn’t expressly create, certainly refined to perfection. Gears of War, Gears of War 2 and its eventual sequels Gears of War 3, 4 and 5 are hallmark exclusive titles for the Xbox 360. It is one of those franchises that is so good, I wonder if Microsoft will ever let it die. As the original came out, the story campaign gave way to a multiplayer component that has since become one of the most played on Xbox Live. Horde mode, which allows players to form teams against computer controller waves of opponents, has further spurred the online popularity of Gears as teams of humans continue to work together in an attempt to best the AI of the Locusts. Numerous titles consistently utilize the Unreal Engine and for good reason – games end up looking damn sexy when done properly in Unreal. While Epic has also released Unreal Tournament III, it can’t exactly be regarded as successful as Gears, but it does stand well as an arena shooter. Utterly, it can be argued that Gears, with its visceral brutality and addictive multiplayer, is definitely a system seller and ultimately maintains the important that Epic has in regards to Microsoft.
1. Bungie - If you didn’t see this one coming, shoot me an email. Okay don’t. But without Bungie and Halo on the original Xbox the sad fact of the matter is that there probably wouldn’t have been a Halo 2 or Xbox 360 to play Halo 3 on either. By snatching up Bungie and the killer-app that Halo was at the time, Microsoft may very well have ensured its survival in the game industry through its first steps into the wildness. Knowing they had to offer something that wasn’t Dead or Alive 4 or Munch’s Odyssey, Halo fit the bill and has continued to do so for the past several years. Halo 2 stepped in filling the multiplayer void that Mechassault couldn’t fill when Xbox Live was still in its fledgling days only to be followed up by Halo 3, which is still one of the upper tier Live titles being played today. Additionally, the sheer amount of lore that still hasn’t been touched on in the Halo universe and the fact that Halo 3: ODST in on the horizon with Halo: Reach coming in about one years time, anyone could easily be led to believe that Microsoft has definitely gotten it’s moneys worth when it comes to Bungie. This doesn’t even account for the vast amount of content that Halo is still releasing in droves. On top of that, Halo is getting it’s own destination on Xbox Live with Halo Waypoint for all your Halo related needs. Conclusively, I would venture to say that without Bungie, the original Xbox would have effectively cut its lifespan in half, if not less and there may very well have never been an Xbox 360 or Microsoft Game Studios. Bungie stands, to this day, as the keystone that made it all possible to lift the Xbox, as a viable gaming platform, off the ground.
