The 25 Most Underrated Games Of the Last Console Generation

Year Of Release: 2011
Platform: PS3, Xbox 360

There's no getting around what Child Of Eden is: an on-rails shooter. It's a straightforward, colorful, interactive experience that lets you blast shifting creatures and abstracts. It was not – nor ever was going to be – the mindblowing 1:1 Kinect must-have that would revolutionize motion gaming. Not that many people played it, but not a lot know creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi's previous games (Rez and Lumines mostly) that well, either. Still, for as simple as it is in concept, there's one major thing Child of Eden's blindingly chromatic synesthetes have going for them: they're unequivocally aesethetically like nothing else out there.

Year Of Release: 2012
Platform: PS3

Conceptually Tokyo Jungle sounds either like a meme or an extra bizarre Japanese game show: pit all fauna great and small against each other in the post-apocaplyptic Tokyo ruins and see who survives. Video games rarely let players experience the fear and panic of Darwinist survival, but when you're just a lowly hog (or baby chick, or pomeranian) and all manner of massive predators about, day-to-day survival is hard enough – let alone the propagation of future generations of your species. As it turns out, Tokyo Jungle is a punishing roguelike that's hardly the weird animal fighter we all thought it might've been, and it's all the more special (and stressful) because of it.

Year Of Release: 2005
Platform: Xbox 360

Condemned was one of the first horror games of the seventh generation, and a full eight years later not many others came close to measuring up. The premise is creepy enough – you're a forensic detective investigating an unexplained outbreak causing the local homeless populuous to go insane – to say nothing of the Seven-ish psychlogical elements. Beyond that, the game's POV combat, intense, intimate melee violence and enemy AI that would hide, play dead and generally do whatever it could to scare the living shit out of you all add up to a one-of-a-kind genre experiment that more people should've played. And one that'll still make you jump.

Year Of Release: 2009
Platform: PS3, Xbox 360

The Bionic Commando reboot is about as unlikely a game that could've been. Developed by the now-defunct Grin, they took Capcom's mechanical armed hero Nathan Spencer, made him an ex-prisoner (with dreads) voiced by Faith No More frontman Mike Patton and, well, that's probably weird enough right there, considering Spencer previously had a slim build and clean-shaven looks and red hair. (Speaking of weird, Spencer also has [SPOILER!!!] his wife's essence in his bionic arm for some reason.) Despite the fact that the game didn't quite fit (and that it often felt like an earlier, looser, sloppier Ninja Theory title that never was), Grin nailed one thing about Bionic Commando: thanks to an amazing set of dynamic animations, effortlessly swinging Spencer through a fully 3D environment was nothing short of near-Icaran bliss.

Year Of Release: 2013
Platform: PS3

A few years ago, the unthinkable happened: Hayao Miyazaki's famed animation company Studio Ghibli (responsible for Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away and countless others) teamed up with Dragon Quest developers Level-5 to make a gorgeous JRPG with an original Ghibli story. The result is exactly what you'd expect: a sumptuous, charming fairy tale with all the personality of a Miyazaki classic and all the guts of a great traditionalist Dragon Quest. There's even some Pokémon-type monster collecting. Niche? Sure, and Ni No Kuni sold accordingly. But as far as artistic collobarations in the medium go, it's hard to get much better.

Year Of Release: 2011
Platform: PS3

Sega's Yakuza series has always struck a very strange tone between the mundane, the absurd and the dramatic, but it's a great cultural simulation befitting a certain Japanese lifestyle. It's always been good, too – but with Yakuza 4 the story expanded beyond just the perspective of gokudō-with-a-heart-of-gold Kazuma Kiryu to include the exploits of three other characters all somehow involved within the underworld of Kamurocho, the series' Shinjuku-based red light district stand-in. Equally goofy, violent and wonderful, if you've ever had any interest in the inherent honorifics of Japanese organized crime, Yakuza – particularly the fourth installment – is a great time. Now where's our Yakuza 5!

Year Of Release: 2012
Platform: PS3

Don't write Papo & Yo off as a South American Ico. Although it's surreal qualities and style of puzzle adventure gameplay are similiar, Papo's intent is more overtly metaphorical. More specifically, the game – which chronicles a young boy's friendship with a gentle beast who turns into a raging monster after eating addictive frogs – is an allegory for designer Vander Caballero's relationship with his alcoholic father growing up. It's also one of the most gutwrenching games ever made. Don't say you weren't warned.

Year Of Release: 2008
Platform: PS3

Another Sega PS3-exclusive that languished in obscurity, Valkyria Chronicles took the trappings of anime melodrama and placed them in an alternate history WWII-esque strategy game that's as deep as it is affecting. Its extreme niche appeal relegated sequels to portable platforms (only one of which came out in the US), but the original remains a powerful standalone that's still worth tracking down.

Year Of Release: 2010
Platform: PS3, Xbox 360

Bioshock is, perhaps much more than just in theory, way too big a franchise to appear on a most underrated list of any kind, yet Bioshock 2 is consistently overlooked. Why? The given reasoning is that usually that it's too much of a rehash of the first game, just playing as Subject Delta, the original Big Daddy, instead of Jack. Yes, it still takes place in Rapture and, apart from a lot of improved mechanics, the gameplay is quite similar to the original. Where this sequel trumps both the first Bioshock and Infinite, though, is in its narrative execution: Sofia Lamb's "Family" of plasmid freaks is a brilliant antithesis to Ryan's objectivist politics, and, even more interestingly, Delta's perspective creates a fascinating dysfunctional familial drama that plays out beautifully underneath the endless shooting galleries.

Year Of Release: 2011
Platform: PS3, Xbox 360

El Shaddai is the kind of game that could only be Japanese: a loose retelling of the Jewish religious text the Book of Enoch (Enoch being Noah's great granddad, who incidentally looks like a 1980s European fashion model), El Shaddai follows the mostly-unofficial biblical hero's centuries-long journey to stop a great flood – yeah, that one. On his way Enoch is helped by designer-jeans-clad wearing Lucifer who periodically checks in with God on his cell, even as Enoch himself is doing his best Dante (Capcom's Dante, that is) impression against a series of ever-changing environments that range from Dali-esque inverted abstractions to futurist-retro cityscapes. Bizarre doesn't even begin to describe it, and you'll never know where it's going next.

Year Of Release: 2008
Platform: PS3, Xbox 360

Tom Bissell once wrote that Far Cry 2 "stares at you with lidless, reptilian eyes," utterly unfeeling and unforgiving. It's best not to attempt topping such a description, but this very unorthodox FPS may be the most deliberately hateful – and polarizing – shooter ever. As a malaria-stricken mercenary in African blood diamond country, eveything is constantly, unyieldingly trying to kill you. Enemies respawn endlessly. Your guns jam. You're under the constant threat of malaria attacks. You're involved with corruption no matter who you choose to work for, and in the everyday acceptance of such evil as a survival mechanism, the game is really at its heart a study about being a monster. Far Cry 2 may not be "fun" in the traditional sense – it is far too horrifying and tense for that – but it is exceptional in its metaphorical exploration of a very stale genre.

Year Of Release: 2010
Platform: PS3, Xbox 360

Often considered the poor man's James Bond Mass Effect, Alpha Protocol failed to wow almost anyone upon release because of its at-times buggy combat. Look past that though (a good recommendation is to play with melee and stealth instead of shooting everything in sight) and you'll find a fascinating and all-too-short spy game. Between oblique moral choices, NPCs with dynamically changing opinions of you and (most importantly) very limited time to hem and haw over decisions you might screw up in the heat of the moment, this one remains a highly unique (and wryly funny) take on the Bioware formula.

Year Of Release: 2011
Platform: PS3, Xbox 360

Bulletstorm feels like a frat boy exercise on its surface. In reality, the game is actually too smart for most players, who didn't click with People Can Fly's brilliant kill-for-style point system (the more explosive and ridiculous your streak of kills, the better equipped you could make yourself for the next fight). This is pure graphic arcade exploitation at its finest, wrapped up in a hilariously immature yet very self-aware story that also happens to be smart enough to double as a commentary on the pointlessness of revenge tropes. It wasn't Gears, so it didn't sell, but the puerile Bulletstorm is far and away more interesting than your average shooter.

Year Of Release: 2012
Platform: PS3, Xbox 360

Binary Domain looks like a strange, somewhat generic sci-fi shooter where you shoot a lot of Terminator-looking robots. These things happen, it's true, but the draw of Binary Domain is a bit smarter than all that. As the only development offshoot to date from Sega's Yakuza team, Binary Domain is a strange geo-political genre yarn that asks some pretty interesting questions about the nature of existence of being human, vis-a-vis Blade Runner-esque themes, to begin with. (The game opens with an invasion onto the Japanese homeland by a multinational team of UN peacekeepers who want to bring in the head of a robotics firm for questioning under violation of a non-android Geneva-style ethics treaty and gets weirder from there.) Apart from the game's hifalutin ideas, it's also a damn good shooter that just happens to have some of the best dynamic damage modeling and scarily adapative AI of the generation. Best of all, you can pick this one up for pennies on the dollar, since no one played it.

Year Of Release: 2010
Platform: PS3, Xbox 360

Kane & Lynch 2 is grotesque exercise in player-driven aesthetic misery. It's an ugly game in all possible ways, from the desperation and depravity of its "heroes" to the pixellated, grainy noise graphics, modeled after guerilla Youtube culture. That's the point, too: after Lynch and Kane get mixed up in a misunderstanding with the wrong people in Shanghai, it's pretty clear that things were never going to end well for anyone. This kind of hopelessness wouldn't be out of place in a Cormac McCarthy novel – too bad most people couldn't get past the game's shooting mechanics.

Year Of Release: 2010/2013
Platform: PS3, Xbox 360

Deadly Premonition may seem to be nothing more than a quirky Japanese homage to Twin Peaks but over the course of this lengthy, bizarre murder mystery it somehow gains its own (decidedly original) identity. One of the better, weirder stories you'll find in games of the seventh generation, at times horrifying, hilarious and heart-rending. (Plus Agent York is among the most affably wonderful protagonists of the medium.) Pick up the Director's Cut on PS3 for some extra interpretive narrative elements and textures that make the game look much less like something that came out on the Dreamcast.

Year Of Release: 2009/2011
Platform: PS3, Xbox 360

While Gran Turismo, Forza and anything made by Criterion usually gets the lion's share of the racing genre glory, Codemasters' Dirt series, initially a tribute to the late Colin McCrae, is just as deserving of a spot at the podium. In particular, the second and third installments of this wonderfully detailed offroad rally series are some of the best (and least-talked about) racers ever. Dirt 2's sheer attention-to-detail in gripping different types and consistencies of mud, gravel, loose earth and the like is still incredibly impressive (not to mention the effects the various terrains had on any given vehicle's traction control, which in turn was informed how various under-the-hood settings, like how stiff your suspension is). Dirt 3 lessened the terrain types, but added snow and, on a level of pure fun, gymkhana challenges – sort of an obstacle course for rally drivers. (Both games also have fantastic damage modeling and an amazing aesthetic presence.) Rally may be a niche sport, but these detail-and-physics oriented games are too good to pass up. Bring on Dirt 4!

Year Of Release: 2011
Platform: PS3, Xbox 360

Just what is Catherine? It's part morality tale, part life sim, part nightmarish puzzle game. Following on a bored, commitment-phobic 30-something named Vincent after he accidentally cheats on his long time girlfriend Katherine, this utterly outlandish HD offering from the Persona team was overlooked largely because it was a full-priced Qbertish game. Sort of. Aside from the puzzles in Vincen't sheep-populated hell (don't ask) getting insanely taxing, though, Catherine is so strange and original you won't want to put it down. What other game lets you sulk around the neighborhood bar, having existential conversations about relationships and psychology with NPCs (while getting drunk on good whisky)? There isn't one. Don't let the puzzles scare you – go play this.

Year Of Release: 2012
Platform: PS3, Xbox 360

Shoot-em-ups aren't supposed to have well-written or interesting stories, but they're also not supposed to (or at least not expected to) be familial tragedies that ruminate on misery of existence, nor cynical explorations on the ethics of war and revenge. Sine Mora is all of these things, and it just happens to be wrapped up in a really fantastic horizontal shooter, to boot.

Year Of Release: 2010
Platform: PS3, Xbox 360

Castlevania isn't exactly a series with a low profile, nor is it one lacking in any legacy. Regardless, when MercurySteam's 3D entry in Konami's long-running vampire hunting series hit in 2010 reviewers mostly ignored it, writing it off as a bad God of War clone (it's no small task to find a review that sounds like the writer actually played more than the first few hours). It's true that Lords of Shadow's combat borrows a good bit from Kratos, but it's also a game that's not afraid to take its time in introducing you to what makes it "Castlevania". As you get deeper into the game (which is about 20 hours long, by the way), the adventure elements reveal themselves with deliberate pacing that allows you to soak in the absolutely stunning art direction – Gabriel's dodging controls are also arguably the most elegant ever seen in a game. By the time you get to the "castle" area, you'll have all the moves and tricks to know this is undoubtedly proper Castlevania – and you still have a long way to go. Bonus: Patrick Stewart. Still not interested?

Year Of Release: 2010
Platform: PS3, Xbox 360

Did someone say Nier? Well, unfortunately no. (Or if they did, few people heard it.) But there is much more than meets the eye to Square's seemingly average-looking action RPG, about a cro-magnon-looking man on a quest to cure his disease-ridden daughter. After an hour or two, the game opens up with some very, very unexpected mechanics (through a snobby magical book, no less) and its self-awareness only grows from there, producing one of the most cleverly actualized games – and one of the most entertaining critiques of common video game tropes – of the generation, if not of all time. It doesn't hurt that the characters all more or less completely subvert archetypes. Surprises abound. Not to be missed.

Year Of Release: 2011
Platform: PS3, Xbox 360

Another criminally overlooked game by the mad Japanese designer Suda 51 (see also Killer 7 and Flower, Sun and Rain), Shadows of the Damned is what might happen if you threw Resident Evil 4 and From Dusk Till Dawn in a blender and asked Suda direct the resultant pureé. Dark, violent and crass, the adventures of demon hunter Garcia Hotspur and his sidekick demonic-gun (who affects a nice Paul Bettany accent) on a quest to rescue his girlfriend from Hell is as goofily, endlessly engrossing (and sometimes graphic) as it is tightly polished, thanks to a little help from RE's own Shinji Mikami. Entertaining is too light a word for a "road movie" comedy like this – one that sold just under 100,000 units worldwide.

Year Of Release: 2012
Platform: Wii

La-Mulana is what would happen if a really hardcore designer decided that Indiana Jones should be a particularly opaque Metroidvania-style adventure game. The ruins are vast, you can die at the drop of the hat, devious traps abound and there too many hellishly arcane puzzles to solve to count. (Seriously, you'll never finish this game without resorting to a FAQ at least once.) You may not have heard of La-Mulana, but if adventure is your thing, you won't want to put it down (you can also get it on PC). Besides, you can't go through an entire console gen without mentioning the Wii at least once, right?

Year Of Release: 2010
Platform: PS3, Xbox 360

Vanquish makes every other action game in the universe seem slow and dull. Seriously. The reason is simple: you have #$%*ing rocket boosters on your knees that let you zip across a battlefield in a matter of seconds. You can also use the inherent powers of your DARPA-enginreered battle suit to slow down time. The game is also befitting of the Platinum, whose insane action MO keeps them as one of the most consistently interesting developers out there. If all that wasn't enough, this is a sci-fi title from Shinji Mikami (his previous project before working with Suda on Shadows), and it's not a game you can just breeze through. The action is absolutely top-notch, though you should really just play it for the hilariously tongue-in-cheek script, a sendup of every American Gears-ian genre trope you can think of. Is this Platinum's best? Easily.

Year Of Release: 2012
Platform: PS3, Xbox 360

Games like Spec Ops come along once in a blue moon. At a glance, the game may look like just another military shooter – spend any decent amount of time with this disturbed Heart of Darkness allegory and you'll realize that it has to be. The brilliance of Spec Ops doesn't come so much from its morality or lack thereof, but in your complicity by playing it. Here you're given the exact sort of achievement-laden killstreak environment seen in every big budget shooter, only instead of reveling in its spectacle, it forces you to examine the underlying senselessness of its – and the genre's – ideology. Spec Ops may not have the seething indifference of a game like Far Cry 2, but it's going to make damn sure you know that as long as you continue buying into the military shooter's principals, you're going to be part of the problem. Probably the most literary game of this exiting generation, and hands down an instant classic. Don't take it at face value.