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What are the best games that are set in a realistic world on Xbox One?

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Considered

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Jun 20, 2018

Last
Updated

13 Games Considered

Best games that are set in a realistic world on Xbox One	Price	Platforms	Genre
-- Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands	$59.99	Windows, XBox, PS	-
-- Grand Theft Auto V	$41.95	-	Action-Adventure
-- Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain	$15.99	-	Action
-- Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition	$29.99	PlayStation 4, Xbox One	Third-Person Shooter, Action-Adventure
-- Just Cause 3	$25.75	-	-

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

Top Pro

Rarely a dull moment

Whether you're whipping around on a dirt bike toward your next mission, or storming a fort with your team, you're constantly in motion. Even though you can slow down a bit should you choose to, the game encourages a faster-paced experience and makes it a ton of fun. See More

Top Con

The enemy AI has only one setting

The AI in this game will consistently push toward the player. Essentially all you've got to do is get them into a corridor or other narrow space and mow them down. See More

Specs

Top Pro

Truly an open world game

Ghost Recon Wildlands lets you do anything you want, any time you want. You can rush right toward the final boss if you decide to. You can complete missions by blowing people up with drones from a safe distance, or by storming the gates. Do the missions you want to, leave others to rot. Everything is up to you. The landscape is vast, and if you can see it, you can probably get to it. This allows you to experience the gorgeous environments through exploration. There are also rewards for exploring, such as new weapons or upgrades, giving you more goals to strive for. See More

Top Con

The cover system is terrible

When you bump into terrain, you take cover behind it. While the theory behind this is fine, the execution is very unreliable and clunky. Even when it manages to work, cover offers little to no protection from your enemy. See More

Top Pro

Great customization

In Ghost Recon Wildlands, the customization is not limited to just character facial features. It also has an extensive customization system for weapons and clothes. When creating a character you can set the face, gender, hair, hat, top, tattoos, pants, and shoes. All of these can be changed in the loadout menu at any point in-game. You can also modify your weapons and gear extensively. When you begin customizing a weapon, it will split into pieces, letting you select and adjust each one. This includes triggers, sights, scopes, grips, stocks, barrels, and any other attachment. You can also change the colors and designs of both weapons and gear. It really lets you play exactly the way you want to, which is always more satisfying. See More

Top Pro

Detailed environments provide great immersion

Ghost Recon Wildlands is set in Bolivia, and the game makes you feel like you're really there. It's one of the most varied places on earth, and each area feels wildly different from the next. It ranges from lush, green forests, to barren deserts, to both urban and rural cities. The distinct feel, architecture, and culture of Bolivia will serve to pull you even deeper into the game. See More

Grand Theft Auto V

Top Pro

Freedom to do anything you want

Even aside from the many missions, there are dozens of other things you can do. This includes activities like playing tennis, going skydiving, watching a movie in the cinema, managing your businesses to earn tons of money, going hunting in the mountains, or just simply exploring the map while taking in the sights. Whatever you decide to do it's very easy to lose track of time. Mostly because it feels like a giant sandbox where you're allowed to do anything and simply have fun. See More

Top Con

Multiplayer is overrun by hackers

During online play you'll encounter hackers who have infinite money, can spawn any vehicle of their choice, and many other things, which reduces the fun quite a bit. What's even worse is that by interacting with the hackers you can get banned immediately without any additional investigations on the developer's part. See More

Specs

Genre:Action-Adventure

Top Pro

Great story wrapped around in biting and relevant social commentary

GTA V's story portrays the many reasons why criminals still exist in modern society, focusing on serious topics like corruption, greed, hypocrisy, and even the abuse of power. However, it's not all serious since it has its fair share of wacky moments, satirizing many aspects of modern society. This includes social media, consumerism, and even our growing inability to focus on important issues. All of this creates an engaging and thought-provoking story. See More

Top Pro

Massive world

It's very easy to get lost in GTA V's world both figuratively and literally. It's partly because of the sheer size of 35 square miles, allowing you to spend hours just walking, driving, or even flying around the map. It's also because of the many beautiful sights you get to see, causing you to often stop and take it all in. So it doesn't matter if you're walking along a beach packed with people, biking around a dimly lit city, cruising down a highway next to the ocean, or just hiking on the forested mountains, GTA V's world feels like a real place you can explore endlessly. See More

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Top Pro

Allows players to create their private military company

Throughout the game, you will be trying to rebuild your private military company. Your base of operations is the "Mother Base", which is a giant structure similar to an oil rig. You can expand it and add new facilities such as Research and Development. You'll also be managing your personnel, allowing you to recruit (capture) enemy soldiers and assign them work in their area of expertise. This can be research, development, various upkeep tasks around the base or earning resources out in the field. All of these things truly make you feel like you're running a PMC. See More

Top Con

Micro transactions make multiplayer pay-to-win

You can buy bundles of in-game currency, which can be used to gain an advantage in multiplayer. This makes multiplayer not fun for the players who don't intend on spending extra money. It also makes it boring for the ones who spend the money. Both of these things negatively impact the longevity of the multiplayer. Some of the bundles go for $79.99, which is more than the game's price. It's sad seeing Konami milk their fans with microtransactions like this. See More

Specs

Co-Op:Single Player

Top Pro

Freedom in approaching a mission

Metal Gear Solid V gives players multiple choices on how to approach a mission. You can choose to use stealth, taking out enemies only when it's absolutely necessary. You can run in guns blazing, killing everyone on sight. You can get on a high vantage point and take out everyone with a sniper rifle. Or you can call in air support to do all the work for you. The choice is up to you and the game doesn't penalize you for sticking to a single way. This helps keep the gameplay fresh for a long time. See More

Top Con

High learning curve

MGS V can feel really overwhelming at the start. First the controls have various nuances such as different ways of crawling. Then you get a bunch of mechanics thrown at you, such as stealth, base managment, etc. It will take quite a while until you can fully enjoy the game. See More

Top Pro

Large assortment of weapons and tools

MGS V has a lot of weapons, including pistols, shotguns, machine guns, and sniper rifles. There are both lethal and non-lethal variants, allowing you to find something suitable for any playstyle. There are also many tools such as the Fulton device, which allows you to capture enemy soldiers and animals, sending them to your base. It's a ton of fun experimenting with new gadgets. See More

Top Pro

Reflex system helps you stay unnoticed

Time will slow down for a short time if you're spotted by an enemy. This allows you to take them out before they can sound the alarm or alert other soldiers. This is quite refreshing compared to other stealth games, where messing up means an immediate end to being stealthy. See More

Top Pro

Enemy AI adapts to your playstyle

The enemy will pick up on your habits and react accordingly. For example, if you use tranq darts to knock enemies out, they will try to wake up their comrades at first. Do this for a couple of missions and they'll immediately run to sound the alarm when they spot someone knocked out. This way the game expertly keeps you out of the comfort zone, having the later missions feel as tense as the first. See More

Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition

Top Pro

Great cinematic cutscenes

Beyond Lara's personal story, the overall presentation of the plot is gripping in how cinematic it is. Some of the set pieces are wild, like Lara falling from impossible heights into the sea at the start of the game and managing to survive. The way she thinks herself out of tough situations is also impressive, such as with the way the camera follows her with closeups as she wriggles her way out of traps or takes down enemies who seemingly have the upper hand over her. The direction and acting are similar to those in action movies, telling a grand and intense story. See More

Top Con

No dedicated servers for multiplayer

The multiplayer is peer-to-peer where your connection depends on the quality of one of the people in the lobby, who is the host. This means that you have to deal with lag, rubberbanding, and frequent disconnects when the host's connection is bad. Having dedicated servers could have drastically reduced this problem. See More

Specs

Genre:Third-Person Shooter, Action-Adventure

Top Pro

Stealth sections shine

Instead of going in guns blazing during combat, you can take a strategic, stealthy approach. You have plenty of opportunities to quietly take out bad guys if that's what you'd rather do. You can either rack up carefully-aimed headshots with your bow and arrow, or sneak up behind enemies and choke them out one at a time. Silently traversing tight quarters all while taking everyone out unseen is quite enjoyable. See More

Top Con

Excessive violence and gore

There are times when the violence is way too over-the-top. During cutscenes when Lara gets injured such as by falling and getting brutally impaled, the blood and gore can be extremely uncomfortable. To make it all worse, Lara's screams of pain are bloodcurdling and visceral, really making you feel for her. Even if you're used to violence in games, some of the scenes in Tomb Raider might be difficult to watch. See More

Top Pro

Exciting third-person shooting combat

The combat in Tomb Raider works really well and feels great, challenging you to stay active. You start off with only a bow and arrow, gradually working your way up to guns and bigger weapons like rocket launchers. Shooting with guns or arrows feels satisfying with plenty of feedback, especially the hard kick from the game's many different shotguns. The enemy AI is aggressive without feeling cheap, keeping you moving from place to place as you take down everyone in your path. When an enemy gets too close, you can use whatever Lara's holding in her hand, like her gun or an arrow for a bloody, cinematic finishing move. Combat is fast-paced and fun, constantly keeping you on your toes. See More

Top Con

Generic and predictable finale

The way that the story concludes is disappointing because you can see it coming from a mile away. Throughout the game, you learn a lot about the cool history of the island you're stranded on as you fight for a way to escape and get back to civilization. You might think that the ending lives up to all the historical intrigue in a creative way. Sadly, the finale goes about the way you'd expect it without doing anything new. It's boring and cliche, feeling a lot like a lost opportunity to do something different and unique. See More

Top Pro

Lara Croft's origin story feels authentic

This reboot of Tomb Raider tells a thoughtful, personal story of how Lara Croft became a seasoned explorer. She's wide-eyed and curious at the beginning of the game, growing into a more confident character as the plot progresses. Once she is left to fend for herself on the island she's stranded on, you see her fear and vulnerability over the unknown, and in how she struggles to learn how to hunt and survive. Each of her accomplishments are memorable because of how hard she fights to reach her goals. By the end, you have a full story of how and why Lara transforms into the iconic character many know her as from the previous games. See More

Top Con

Not enough tombs to explore

It's odd that this is a reboot of Tomb Raider without the tombs. There are a handful of tombs here and there, but you won't find the amount that you may expect, especially if you're a fan of the series. The game mostly focuses on the combat and parkour segments without giving you the chance to go raid tombs for unique treasure. More tombs with puzzles to solve would have been nice as a side activity to break up the regular gameplay from story missions. See More

Just Cause 3

Top Pro

Entertaining over-the-top action

Just Cause 3 is all about going crazy in its open world environment. To help with this, your character has a wide variety of weapons, including assault rifles, rocket launchers, and even a limitless supply of C4 explosives. You can stand on top of a plane as it flies over an enemy base and rain down fire and death down on it with your RPG. Or you can attach a C4 charge to everything you see, and watch the world's most colorful fireworks simulator. You even have a grapple gun that allows you to perform various hilarious shenanigans. This includes connecting two helicopters with a rope, causing them to spin out and tangle into a massive explosion. Whatever you decide to do, it's guaranteed to be over-the-top action goodness. See More

Top Con

Poorly optimized

Sometimes you might get sudden fps drops, even when there's practically nothing happening on screen. It can make playing the game very difficult, which is especially annoying during very intense moments. See More

Specs

Top Pro

A really fun way of getting around

To explore have a wide selection of vehicles available to you, including bikes, sports cars, tanks, helicopters, and airplanes. However, all of the vehicles combined are nowhere near as fun as the combination of your grapple gun, wingsuit, and parachute. This combination gives you one of the most fun open-world traversal methods to date. You use the wingsuit for gliding, the parachute for gaining height and accurate steering while the grappling hook helps you latch onto various vehicles such as helicopters. It takes a while to get used to, but once you do, you'll probably not look back at regular vehicles. See More

Top Con

Story missions feel tedious

Just Cause 3 severely lacks story mission variety, having mostly tower defense and escort missions that start getting really repetitive after a while. As a result, you might find yourself hoping a story mission ends sooner, so you can get back to the free-roam and destroy-at- your-own-leisure aspect. See More

Top Pro

Massive open world

The total area of JC3 is 400 square miles (1,000 km2), which makes its world one of the largest in gaming. You can explore rural settlements, military bases, grassy plains, dense forests, damp subterranean caverns, and even snowy mountains. There's so much to explore it almost never feels like there's an end to it. See More

Assassin's Creed

Top Pro

Impressive cities to explore with buildings to climb freely

The medieval locations of Jerusalem, Damascus, and Acre are beautifully done. The levels are massive for their time, with well-designed areas from the era such as towers, open plazas, and religious buildings. You can climb anything, anywhere, and run along the rooftops as much as you want. Scaling the tallest places gives you an amazing bird's eye view of the city and the mountain ranges beyond, along with a vantage point to plan out how to assassinate your targets. The realistic architecture makes Assassin's Creed feel like a true period piece set in the Holy Land. See More

Top Con

Altaïr isn't all that compelling

As the main protagonist, Altaïr is kind of boring. His voice acting is emotionless and he doesn't really grow as a character. He does what his superiors tell him to do and just goes along for the ride in the story. You won't get to know much about him as a person, only the things that revolve around his role as an assassin. Getting to see more of him beyond the main story would have helped to flesh him out some more. See More

Specs

Genre:Stealth, Action-Adventure

Top Pro

Excellent soundtrack

The game's soundtrack is top notch. It has a blend of medieval-sounding instruments with modern sci-fi synths, making the tracks unique. The echoing choruses and unsettling backtracks give a sense that you're on a tense, but mysterious mission to assassinate the templars in the Holy Land that the game takes place in. There's a measured thoughtfulness and caution that you pick up on as well, almost like the songs themselves mimic you as you stalk your targets while you blend in with the crowd. It's such a cool experimental sound that the composer, Jesper Kyd, manages to pull off well, keeping you engrossed as you play and listen. See More

Top Con

Confusing ending that lacks closure

The ending is weird. There's a sudden twist that happens with no real explanation, and it seems to happen just to shock you. The final wrap up also leaves out a lot of information about this twist, leaving things open for a sequel. You more than likely will end up confused by the whole thing. See More

Top Pro

Intuitive stealth gameplay

The stealth mechanics feel natural and fluid in how strategic they are. While tracking your targets, you blend in with each city's citizens or climb up to the tops of buildings to perch there and avoid getting spotted by the templar or their guards. You can either wait for the perfect opportunity to strike with a hidden blade up your sleeve that silently assassinates your target, or you can go all-out and have a sword duel with them if you'd rather take a more aggressive approach. After they're dead, you make your escape and become incognito again. Everything goes together nicely in a way that feels satisfying. See More

Top Con

Repetitive main missions

The main missions are all structured the same without much variety. You're assigned a target to kill, you go to the specified city, you get a few means of tracking them down, and then you assassinate them. It's the same formula for every single target until the final mission. The only thing that breaks the monotony is that you get to choose your approach on how to kill your target. Pretty much everything else falls into the same routine that drags on for too long. See More

Top Pro

Interesting story of Assassins versus Templars

The story in Assassin's Creed is full of intriguing ideologies and philosophies. It's a familiar tale of liberty and freedom on the Assassin side and law and order on the Templar side, but it still feels fresh. Playing as Altaïr, it's up to you to assassinate certain templar targets who oppress the masses and horde power for themselves. As you take them down, you learn about their views on controlling the populace, encouraging you to question if the assassins are truly on the right path. Thankfully, the game doesn't tell you what to think, leaving you to draw your own conclusions. See More

Final Fantasy XV

Top Pro

Great interaction between the main characters

It was enjoyable to watch how the main characters dealt with the story as it progressed from fixing a broken car on the way to a wedding, to avenging the destruction of their home to eventually saving the world and dealing with the issues along the way. What stuck out the most though was the interactions between the characters while just playing the game. They will make comments while fighting battles, banter with each other while riding in the car or on chocobos. They even make comments when you are trying to catch fish. These small interactions between the characters were a great detail is not always found in other games. See More

Top Con

The magic system is a downgrade from previous Final Fantasy games

In most Final Fantasy games, magic spells are unlocked by leveling a character up or acquiring them through other means, such as nodes on a level grid, equipping gear that can teach a spell, or from items found in the game, such as Final Fantasy VII's materia system. Final Fantasy XV reduces the magic casting to collecting fire, ice and thunder energy from nodes near campsites, and them filling up flasks with the energy in various combos, and sometimes drops from enemies, to be able to create a spell. The ability to add what you want to a flask does allow for the creation of strong spells or spells that end up being cast multiple times, but it ends up being limited by the resources you have. The worst part though about the magic system is that casting the spells is done by throwing the flask like a grenade causing an explosion of the spell, damaging friend and foe alike. The only way to prevent friendly fire is the Ring of Resistance accessory, which is obtained from paid DLC. It should also be noted that the ring only protects from the initial affects of the spell, which means the party can still be paralyzed from a thunder spell if they are standing in water. See More

Specs

Genre:Action Role-Playing

Top Pro

You can fly a car

When the right upgrade parts are found, the Regalia is given an additional travel mode of flight. While the controls take some getting used to and might result in death, hopefully amusing death, it does allow for an interesting new mode of travel. See More

Top Con

The world can feel empty at times

The majority of Final Fantasy XV takes place in the area known as Lucis. Lucis is comprised of one main town, a beach resort, and various little outposts that mainly serve as places to get food, gas for the car, rest, and obtain hunts. The lack of multiple large towns makes the world feel rather empty at times compared to previous Final Fantasy games. The feeling of emptiness is further enhanced by some areas having few monsters encounters while exploring. See More

Top Pro

Lets you choose which weapons to use to best suit your playstyle

There is a wide range of weapons that Noctis can equip, such as greatswords, lances, short swords and even guns. Four different weapons can be equipped to Noctis at once and when in battle, the weapon being used can be switched with the press of a button. This allows for you to select weapons that might be beneficial for certain fights, or for a preferred playstyle, and switch between them with ease when the situation calls for it. See More

Top Con

Core character development for Noctis' companions isn't in the main story

The weak story in Final Fantasy XV links back to Noctis' companions--Ignis, Gladio, and Prompto--and how you won't get to know the guys all that well unless you play the paid DLC. You have to reach certain points in the story before these DLC stories are available, and without the context in this content, you won't have a solid understanding of the main characters beyond the tropes they represent. Aside from a few heartwarming moments in the story, it's all too easy to dismiss Prompto as a happy-go-lucky guy with little depth to him. It isn't until you play through his DLC, Episode Prompto, that you get to know him in ways that should have been in the main story. It's a poor business decision that prevents the story from standing on its own two feet. See More

Top Pro

Impressive visuals

Final Fantasy XV is an epic game that knows how to put on a show with its visuals. Some of its best moments are visually awe-inspiring, standing out from other games through sheer ambition and huge proportions, like fighting boss battles against enormous foes. Even during regular battles, if you're at low HP and you need to finish off a group of enemies, you can summon a giant, god-like being to instakill the enemies at the cost of not gaining any experience points. The summon animation for the thunder god Ramuh is amazing, with the whole sky shifting to a violet lightning storm as the huge deity comes down from the sky, using his scepter to rain down crazy amounts of lightning to kill everything in your path. Instances like these are more of the norm instead of the exception, making for some unforgettable scenes throughout the game. See More

Top Con

Weak story

Because the Final Fantasy series is known for its great stories, it's frustrating that the one here is badly executed. There are a lot of payoffs in the plot that the writers intended to be dramatic and emotional, and yet you probably won't feel the full impact of them since the buildup to those moments is lacking. There's too much missing with Final Fantasy XV's storytelling, all but abandoning the plot to land on its face by the end credits. See More

Top Pro

Powerful soundtrack

The soundtrack in this game is grand and inspiring, going the extra mile to help plenty of moments stick out in your memory alongside the music. The prologue alone gives a great preview of a fiery level you'll reach later in the story, playing the song "Hellfire" with an energized chorus singing over a strong mix of percussion instruments. Music for regular boss fights, called "Omnis Lacrima", is as whimsical and intense, with a determined chorus singing in Latin over frenzied violins, pianos, and brass instruments. Certain story sequences are heartfelt with "Love Lost" playing in the background, featuring wind instruments and pianos that are strong enough to affect you emotionally. The music overall does a great job of elevating the plot with its huge sense of scale and emotional impact. See More

L.A. Noire Remastered

Top Pro

Interrogating witnesses and suspects is a fun challenge

During investigations, you interrogate suspects in a cool, interactive way. After collecting clues, you use your notebook to decide which questions to ask witnesses and suspects. You read their facial expressions, body language, and their tone of voice to judge if they're telling the truth or not. Using your instincts to guess correctly gets the person to open up more, giving you the information you need. If you get it wrong, they shut you down and you're out of luck. The technology used for facial expressions gives you a lot of leeway to truly spot the shifty-eyed or nervous liars just like in real life. See More

Top Con

The finale is bland

After all the excitement and gritty realism in the story, the final mission and the ending are a real drag in comparison. The momentum from the plot gets sucked out at the end as you play through an uninspired and predictable sequence of events. It looks too much like the developers phoned this part in for the sake of having an ending that wraps up everything nicely. See More

Specs

Genre:Detective Action-Adventure

Top Pro

Incredibly realistic facial expressions

Every single character in the game looks true-to-life because of how their faces look and move. The developers used some neat motion scanning technology to capture the voice actors' faces as they gave their lines. You get to see every wrinkle, every shift of their jaw lines, and every twitch of their mouths as they speak and emote. There's so much attention to detail that it looks like you're watching a movie with real people. It's really stunning and stands out as a great example of advancing technology in video games. See More

Top Con

Not a lot to do in the big open world

L.A. Noire's open world in Los Angeles is huge, but there isn't much to do in it. There's a bunch of space that's just there for the sake of it. Sure, you can take on really short cases as side missions that you find around the map, like taking out bad guys that are about to rob a place, though that's about all you can do. Including period piece locations like jazzy clubs or laid-back diners to visit whenever could have been a lot of fun. See More

Top Pro

Great story set in 1940s Los Angeles

The detective drama in L.A. Noire is creative and intriguing. Playing as an honest cop named Cole, you get to see the magnitude of crime and racial tension in Los Angeles in the years after World War II, told through the stories of the authentic cast of characters you meet. As a cop, you solve crimes and nail crooks, moving up the ladder in the police department. Each of your investigations take you all around the great rendition of the city in the 1940s, rich with the styles of cars, fashion, and music from the time period. It's a unique experience and setting that not many other games explore. See More

Top Con

No real consequences for failing to solve cases

Even if you continually mess up with the cases, you still get promoted in the police force. You could be the worst cop ever, making terrible decisions and getting yelled at by your superiors. But then in the next cutscene, your bosses tell you what a great job you did and that you're moving up to a more important department. It doesn't make any sense and gives you no reason to do your best during investigations. See More

Top Pro

Detailed crime investigation gameplay

Investigating crime scenes is great because of the attention to detail in each mission. Looking over murder victims for patterns in their wounds, for example, gives you an idea of how or why they might have died, which you then jot down in your handy notebook that keeps track of all the information you collect. Observing tire tracks, bloody murder weapons, business cards, and even picking through trash cans leads you to new clues to find and paths to follow. It's up to you to pick out which details may or may not be important, keeping you in control of where each investigation leads. See More

Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition

Top Pro

Really good open world set in Hong Kong

The open world setting is great. Modern-day Hong Kong is pretty unique for a video game, and thankfully it's a true-to-life recreation of what the metropolis looks like. There's a perfect mix of traditional temples, for example, with taller, Western-style glass buildings that you'd find downtown. You can go just about anywhere, whether it's on foot or taking a car for a spin down the roads and highways, with plenty of side quests and mini-objectives to find and complete. It's a good-looking world that's designed well and filled with a good amount of content. See More

Top Con

Not worth it if you already played the original Sleeping Dogs

Aside from the added DLC, there isn't much of an incentive to pick this up if you played the regular Sleeping Dogs. The graphical upgrades are okay, but might not be worth shelling out the extra money. See More

Specs

Genre:Action-Adventure

Top Pro

Great story that deals with plenty of gray moral issues

The story in Sleeping Dogs is done well, touching on some very human issues. Playing as Wei Shen, an undercover cop, you pretend to join certain gangs in Hong Kong in order to spy on their operations. You're technically not supposed to care about the members of the gangs, but Wei ends up growing close to them, genuinely wanting to help them and be a part of their lives. This conflicts with his role as a police officer, causing him to play both sides while he figures out his priorities and who he's really loyal to. It's an intriguing dynamic that lets you get into Wei's head and his emotions. See More

Top Con

Unpolished

There are a lot of strange quirks about the game that make it feel and look janky. Controls aren't particularly seamless, with Wei's walking and running animations looking off, and driving animations feeling too loose and unrealistic. Even with the polished graphics for the Definitive Edition, they still look low-effort and low-budget, a lot like the rest of the game. One thing here and there isn't too bad, but adding them all up, they can end up as a bunch of distractions. See More

Top Pro

The Definitive Edition has all of the DLC included in one package

Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition comes with everything added to the original game. This is pretty good for new players who have yet to experience Sleeping Dogs at all, or maybe for someone who played the original game years ago and didn't want to buy the DLC. See More

Top Con

Feels too similar to other sandbox open world games

If you've played a bunch of other open world games in a modern city, then Sleeping Dogs will probably feel too familiar to you. This is fine if you really enjoy these types of games and you're looking for something similar. For anyone else who wants something fresh from the genre, the samey gameplay mechanics, tons of icons dotting the map, and mission structures may end up boring you instead. If you're feeling burnt out from these types of games, you may want to steer clear of this one. See More

Top Pro

Well-implemented hand-to-hand combat with cool environmental finishing moves

The hand-to-hand fighting system is rock-solid with some neat finishers you can pull off. Punches and kicks are snappy and responsive, with a good amount of weight behind your button presses to really make you feel involved in every fight. You can grab opponents and maneuver them however you want, mainly with guiding them over to the nearest shutter cage, window, the edge of a rooftop on a high building, and so on. Finishing your enemies off with these environmental finishers is tons of fun: you can throw them off a building, ram their head into glass, or slam down a shutter over their heads. It's a brutal spectacle that makes the combat here stand out from other games. See More

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood

Top Pro

Interesting story of Assassins versus Templars

The story in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood is full of intriguing ideologies and philosophies. It's a familiar tale of liberty and freedom on the Assassin side and law and order on the Templar side, but it still feels fresh. Playing as Ezio, it's up to you to assassinate certain templar targets who oppress the masses and horde power for themselves. As you take them down, you learn about their views on controlling the populace, encouraging you to question if the assassins are truly on the right path. Thankfully, the game doesn't tell you what to think, leaving you to draw your own conclusions. See More

Top Con

Multiplayer is pretty much dead

Unfortunately, the multiplayer is all but abandoned by the player base. Even though the multiplayer itself is really cool and fun, you won't find too many people playing it these days. Since the game originally came out in 2010, it's quite old now, and it doesn't help that the devs don't actively update it anymore. The Assassin's Creed multiplayer base in general is also splintered between this game and later installments with online play. So if you're a new player trying to get into things, don't be surprised if it takes a long time to find a match. See More

Specs

Genre:Action-Adventure, Stealth

Co-Op:4 Player Online

Top Pro

Intuitive stealth gameplay

The stealth mechanics feel natural and fluid in how strategic they are. While tracking your targets, you blend in with each city's citizens or climb up to the tops of buildings to perch there and avoid getting spotted by the templar or their guards. You can either wait for the perfect opportunity to strike with a hidden blade up your sleeve that silently assassinates your target, or you can go all-out and have a sword duel with them if you'd rather take a more aggressive approach. After they're dead, you make your escape and become incognito again. Everything goes together nicely in a way that feels satisfying. See More

Top Con

Weak final boss with cheap gimmicks

The final boss isn't very compelling. Thematically, for the story, it makes sense for this battle to be the last one, but it's just not interesting from a gameplay perspective. There's something ridiculous about the antagonist that makes it hard to take the fight seriously in the first place, diluting the meaning behind the battle. The way you fight this particular villain isn't that fun, either, because of the gimmicks that the boss uses. The whole thing is really a lost opportunity. See More

Top Pro

Excellent soundtrack

The game's soundtrack is top notch. It has a blend of religious motifs with modern sci-fi synths, making the tracks unique. The echoing choruses and unsettling backtracks give a sense that you're on a tense, but mysterious mission to assassinate the templars in the Renaissance setting that the game takes place in. There's a measured thoughtfulness and caution that you pick up on as well, almost like the songs themselves mimic you as you stalk your targets while you blend in with the crowd. It's such a cool experimental sound that the composer, Jesper Kyd, manages to pull off well, keeping you engrossed as you play and listen. See More

Top Con

Feels like more of the same of Assassin's Creed II

If you played Assassin's Creed II, then you may find that Brotherhood is too similar. The assets are completely reused, with the only major difference being that this game is set in Rome. There are a few new mechanics like getting to create and manage your own brotherhood of assassins, but it's not all that intriguing outside of how overpowered they can be when you call on them to help you in a fight. It feels too much like Brotherhood treads on familiar ground in Ubisoft's push to annualize the franchise, which began here with this game. See More

Top Pro

Impressive recreation of Rome to explore with buildings to climb freely

The city of Rome is beautifully recreated in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. The map is massive for its time, with well-designed areas from the era such as towers, open plazas, and religious buildings. You can climb anything, anywhere, and run along the rooftops as much as you want. Scaling the tallest places gives you an amazing bird's eye view of the city and the mountain ranges beyond, along with a vantage point to plan out how to assassinate your targets. The realistic architecture makes Assassin's Creed Brotherhood feel like a true period piece set in Renaissance Italy. See More

Top Pro

Innovative multiplayer with online co-op for up to four friends

The multiplayer in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood offers a unique experience. It mixes the series' stealth mechanics with cat and mouse gameplay through a few different multiplayer modes. Manhunt is the most interesting one, where you play one round with one team of four as the hunters and the other team of four as the hunted. The hunters have to kill as many of the opposing team as possible in the allotted time, whether it's through pure speed that offers fewer points, sneaky doses of lethal poison for tons of bonus points, and plenty more. The hunted, if they spot their hunters, can use certain defensive abilities like smoke bombs and disguises to outsmart their opponents, stun them, and then run away. Other modes like Wanted offer a pure PvP experience with you against the full lobby of other players, where you try to stay hidden while making kills. For all gameplay modes, there's the neat, but chilling effect of hearing whispers as an opponent gets closer to you; trying to distinguish which way they're coming from while staying hidden. This and the sheer unpredictability of the gameplay makes the multiplayer incredibly addicting and fun. See More

Assassin's Creed II

Top Pro

Intuitive stealth gameplay

The stealth mechanics feel natural and fluid in how strategic they are. While tracking your targets, you blend in with each city's citizens or climb up to the tops of buildings to perch there and avoid getting spotted by the templar or their guards. You can either wait for the perfect opportunity to strike with a hidden blade up your sleeve that silently assassinates your target, or you can go all-out and have a sword duel with them if you'd rather take a more aggressive approach. After they're dead, you make your escape and become incognito again. Everything goes together nicely in a way that feels satisfying. See More

Top Con

Generic premise of a revenge story

The revenge story has been done to death, and Assassin's Creed II doesn't really add anything new here. From the beginning of the plot, you see some of the major cliches that often pop up in these types of tales. And while Ezio's cause is just, it's hard to care on an emotional level about his mission to kill Italy's high-level templars. But if you're not one to care too much about stories in games, then you probably won't even notice that anything's off. See More

Specs

Genre:Action-Adventure, Stealth

Top Pro

Interesting story of Assassins versus Templars

The story in Assassin's Creed II is full of intriguing ideologies and philosophies. It's a familiar tale of liberty and freedom on the Assassin side and law and order on the Templar side, but it still feels fresh. Playing as Ezio, it's up to you to assassinate certain templar targets who oppress the masses and horde power for themselves. As you take them down, you learn about their views on controlling the populace, encouraging you to question if the assassins are truly on the right path. Thankfully, the game doesn't tell you what to think, leaving you to draw your own conclusions. See More

Top Con

Repetitive main missions

Ezio's mission to kill a list of templars lacks flavor and variety. The gameplay boils down to the same formula of picking a new target, going to the city where they're located, finding out information on them, and then assassinating the templar. While it's cool that you get to explore new places and interact with a variety of characters along the way, it's easy to see behind this veneer to the boring and repetitive nature of the missions. It's one of those things that can kill your enjoyment of the game. See More

Top Pro

Impressive cities to explore with buildings to climb freely

The Italian locations of Florence, Forli, Tuscany, and Venice are beautifully done. The levels are massive for their time, with well-designed areas from the era such as towers, open plazas, and religious buildings. You can climb anything, anywhere, and run along the rooftops as much as you want. Scaling the tallest places gives you an amazing bird's eye view of the city and the mountain ranges beyond, along with a vantage point to plan out how to assassinate your targets. The realistic architecture makes Assassin's Creed II feel like a true period piece set in Renaissance Italy. See More

Top Pro

Excellent soundtrack

The game's soundtrack is top notch. It has a blend of religious motifs with modern sci-fi synths, making the tracks unique. The echoing choruses and unsettling backtracks give a sense that you're on a tense, but mysterious mission to assassinate the templars in the Renaissance setting that the game takes place in. There's a measured thoughtfulness and caution that you pick up on as well, almost like the songs themselves mimic you as you stalk your targets while you blend in with the crowd. It's such a cool experimental sound that the composer, Jesper Kyd, manages to pull off well, keeping you engrossed as you play and listen. See More

Assassin's Creed III

Top Pro

Interesting story of Assassins versus Templars

The story in Assassin's Creed III is full of intriguing ideologies and philosophies about the American Revolution. It's a familiar tale of liberty and freedom on the Assassin side of the American colonists and law and order on the Templar side of the British, but it still feels fresh. Playing as Connor, it's up to you to assassinate certain templar targets who oppress the masses and horde power for themselves. As you take them down, you learn about their views on controlling the populace, encouraging you to question if the assassins are truly on the right path. Thankfully, the game doesn't tell you what to think, leaving you to draw your own conclusions. See More

Top Con

Terrible ending with unnecessary sequel bait

The ending is pretty bad, both because of the writing and lack of meaningful closure. Before fans knew to expect the Assassin's Creed franchise to get milked to death by Ubisoft, they thought they'd get some real explanations here about the more supernatural elements outside of the historical period piece parts of the story involving Connor and Haytham. The sad thing is that all the writers did was throw more questions than answers to players, and "wrapped up" plot points with shocking yet unnecessary events. It's a disappointing ending to say the least. See More

Specs

Genre:Action-Adventure, Stealth

Top Pro

Cool naval combat out on the open seas

Naval battles with your own ship and crew are an exciting new addition to the franchise. There are a good handful of missions where you get to navigate a huge frigate out in the open waters, getting hands-on with the full mechanics of steering while firing off cannons at enemy ships. There's a full crew aboard with you, helping to give plenty of liveliness to your surroundings as they shout in anger and cheer in victory as you go along, along with dynamic weather like raging storms that adds to the realism and intensity. It's a lot of fun and serves as a nice way to break things up from the usual stealth missions on foot. See More

Top Con

Multiplayer is pretty much dead

Unfortunately, the multiplayer is all but abandoned by the player base. Even though the multiplayer itself is really cool and fun, you won't find too many people playing it these days. Since the game originally came out in 2012, it's quite old now, and it doesn't help that the devs don't actively update it anymore. The Assassin's Creed multiplayer base in general is also splintered between this game and the other installments with online play. So if you're a new player trying to get into things, don't be surprised if it takes a long time to find a match. See More

Top Pro

Innovative multiplayer with online co-op for up to four friends

The multiplayer in Assassin's Creed III offers a unique experience. It mixes the series' stealth mechanics with cat and mouse gameplay through a few different multiplayer modes. Manhunt is the most interesting one, where you play one round with one team of four as the hunters and the other team of four as the hunted. The hunters have to kill as many of the opposing team as possible in the allotted time, whether it's through pure speed that offers fewer points, sneaky doses of lethal poison for tons of bonus points, and plenty more. The hunted, if they spot their hunters, can use certain defensive abilities like smoke bombs and disguises to outsmart their opponents, stun them, and then run away. Other modes like Wanted offer a pure PvP experience with you against the full lobby of other players, where you try to stay hidden while making kills. For all gameplay modes, there's the neat, but chilling effect of hearing whispers as an opponent gets closer to you; trying to distinguish which way they're coming from while staying hidden. This and the sheer unpredictability of the gameplay makes the multiplayer incredibly addicting and fun. See More

Top Con

Too ambitious for its own good, leading to awkward technical limitations

Assassin's Creed III seems like it should be able to do more than it does. Since it's set during the American Revolution, you'd think that there would be huge, iconic battles that you'd get to be a part of. Those battles are present, but mechanically, they're so scaled down to the point where they're mostly linear missions that take you from point A to B. You can tell that the devs had grand ambitions for fights where you navigate Connor through hundreds of soldiers, but that just didn't make it into the actual game. Everything seems stilted instead. See More

Top Pro

Strong opening and first few hours of gameplay

The opening mission up to the end of the first act are incredible. It's a strong first impression where you play as a well-dressed and well-spoken man named Haytham, sneaking through a fancy theater during a performance in order to reach a target. The music is a perfect blend of atmospheric, tense sounds for stealth and the right tone for the high-class setting you're in. Following that setpiece, the next handful of missions where you play as Haytham are a wonderful setup for the rest of the story. There's also a bold and clever plot twist at the end that's more surprising if you played the previous games in the series. Even though this setup is almost too good, since the rest of the game doesn't live up to the quality here, it's still great in its own right, doing its job to hook you into the story. See More

Top Con

The setting isn't that great for climbing around on top of buildings and exploring

Getting to play in a colonial American setting sounds cool, but it's not all that fun from a gameplay perspective. The wooden buildings are quite small and basic, even in the big cities of Boston and New York. Scaling them doesn't take much effort, and it doesn't reward you with a huge, beautiful view comparable to previous locations like Florence and Rome during the Italian Renaissance. The game tries to make up for this by introducing ways to parkour through the woods by climbing trees and jumping across them, as well as new hunting mechanics, though these mostly feel like consolation prizes. Despite the unique history in these places, they're weak settings to play through. See More

Top Pro

Intuitive stealth gameplay

The stealth mechanics feel natural and fluid in how strategic they are. While tracking your targets, you blend in with each city's citizens or climb up to the tops of buildings to perch there and avoid getting spotted by the templar or their guards. You can either wait for the perfect opportunity to strike with a hidden blade up your sleeve that silently assassinates your target, or you can go all-out and have a sword duel with them if you'd rather take a more aggressive approach. After they're dead, you make your escape and become incognito again. Everything goes together nicely in a way that feels satisfying. See More

Top Con

Connor is a polarizing main protagonist

Even though it's easy to understand Connor's story, his personality isn't all that interesting. He's pretty stoic and is rarely moved to emotion, which is fine on its own, but it doesn't translate well to a video game instead of, say a novel, where he's completely transparent in his feelings even if he doesn't show them. Since all you have to rely on are his outward appearances, it's easy to get bored with him despite sympathizing with his plight. He's a fine character and plenty of people like him, though he's not as beloved as other characters in the series like Ezio from Assassin's Creed II. See More

Assassin's Creed Revelations

Top Pro

Intuitive stealth gameplay

The stealth mechanics feel natural and fluid in how strategic they are. While tracking your targets, you blend in with each city's citizens or climb up to the tops of buildings to perch there and avoid getting spotted by the templar or their guards. You can either wait for the perfect opportunity to strike with a hidden blade up your sleeve that silently assassinates your target, or you can go all-out and have a sword duel with them if you'd rather take a more aggressive approach. After they're dead, you make your escape and become incognito again. Everything goes together nicely in a way that feels satisfying. See More

Top Con

Feels like more of the same of Assassin's Creed II and Assassin's Creed Brotherhood

If you played Assassin's Creed II and/or Brotherhood, then you may find that Revelations is too similar. The assets are completely reused, with the only major difference being that this game is set in Constantinople. There are a few new ideas like playing as Ezio as an old man after having followed his life story since he was a cavorting teenager in Florence, and new tools like a grappling hook that makes traversing much quicker. It feels too much like Revelations treads on familiar ground in Ubisoft's push to annualize the franchise, making the game seem rushed and uninspired. See More

Specs

Genre:Action-Adventure, Stealth

Co-Op:4 Player Online

Top Pro

Innovative multiplayer with online co-op for up to four friends

The multiplayer in Assassin's Creed Revelations offers a unique experience. It mixes the series' stealth mechanics with cat and mouse gameplay through a few different multiplayer modes. Manhunt is the most interesting one, where you play one round with one team of four as the hunters and the other team of four as the hunted. The hunters have to kill as many of the opposing team as possible in the allotted time, whether it's through pure speed that offers fewer points, sneaky doses of lethal poison for tons of bonus points, and plenty more. The hunted, if they spot their hunters, can use certain defensive abilities like smoke bombs and disguises to outsmart their opponents, stun them, and then run away. Other modes like Wanted offer a pure PvP experience with you against the full lobby of other players, where you try to stay hidden while making kills. For all gameplay modes, there's the neat, but chilling effect of hearing whispers as an opponent gets closer to you; trying to distinguish which way they're coming from while staying hidden. This and the sheer unpredictability of the gameplay makes the multiplayer incredibly addicting and fun. See More

Top Con

Multiplayer is pretty much dead

Unfortunately, the multiplayer is all but abandoned by the player base. Even though the multiplayer itself is really cool and fun, you won't find too many people playing it these days. Since the game originally came out in 2011, it's quite old now, and it doesn't help that the devs don't actively update it anymore. The Assassin's Creed multiplayer base in general is also splintered between this game and the other installments with online play. So if you're a new player trying to get into things, don't be surprised if it takes a long time to find a match. See More

Top Pro

Interesting story of Assassins versus Templars

The story in Assassin's Creed Revelations is full of intriguing ideologies and philosophies. It's a familiar tale of liberty and freedom on the Assassin side and law and order on the Templar side, but it still feels fresh. Playing as Ezio, it's up to you to assassinate certain templar targets who oppress the masses and horde power for themselves. As you take them down, you learn about their views on controlling the populace, encouraging you to question if the assassins are truly on the right path. Thankfully, the game doesn't tell you what to think, leaving you to draw your own conclusions. See More

Top Pro

Excellent soundtrack

The game's soundtrack is top notch. It has a blend of Eastern European motifs with modern sci-fi synths, making the tracks unique. The echoing choruses and unsettling backtracks give a sense that you're on a tense, but mysterious mission to assassinate the templars in the setting of the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople that the game takes place in. There's a measured thoughtfulness and caution that you pick up on as well, almost like the songs themselves mimic you as you stalk your targets while you blend in with the crowd. It's such a cool experimental sound that the composer, Jesper Kyd, manages to pull off well, keeping you engrossed as you play and listen. See More

Top Pro

Impressive recreation of Constantinople to explore with buildings to climb freely

The city of Constantinople, which in the present day is known as Istanbul, is beautifully recreated in Assassin's Creed Revelations. The map is massive for its time, with well-designed areas from the era such as towers, open plazas, and religious buildings. You can climb anything, anywhere, and run along the rooftops as much as you want. Scaling the tallest places gives you an amazing bird's eye view of the city and the mountain ranges and ocean beyond, along with a vantage point to plan out how to assassinate your targets. The realistic architecture makes Assassin's Creed Revelations feel like a true period piece set during the rise of the Ottoman Empire. See More

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