Number 10: Fatal Inertia

Sonic and Knuckles in metal form

     The bottom of this list seemed to be the hardest position to figure out. In the end it came down to this game and the infamous Perfect Dark: Zero. What made me choose this Unreal powered futuristic racer was one simple question; which game gave me more satisfaction per amount of frustration. I came up with this solution by realizing that although I probably have sinked many more hours into PDZ (mostly due to the lovely bot matches) I generally enjoyed this game a lot more. Even though I never finished the career mode, I never had to stop a higher difficulty playthrough due to a damn bridge not loading (nice coding Rare).
     Fatal Inertia is a fairly basic futuristic racer. The gameplay relies heavily on combat, not unlike what is found in the popular wipeout series. A key separation between this and its contemporaries is the organic environments that can be an advantage and hindrance to your racing. There is also some nice customization features to be found in the four different types of ships, each of which have interesting sets of advantages and disadvantages.

reminds me of crimson skies

    "Fatally Average" is how IGN felt about this game, and personally I feel that may be a little harsh, but not by much. This was the first exclusive Xbox futuristic racer since 2002's disappointing "Quantom Redshift". Unlike that game however, this was not a Microsoft developed game, nor did it have former developers of wipeout on its team. Rather, it was made by "Koei", known for Dynasty Warriors,Dynasty Warriors, and Dynasty Warriors (thank you X-Play for that joke). Overall, the game was fortunate enough to avoid the big issue Redshift had, in that this game is actually playable throughout the entire experience. It also avoided Redshifts selling point in that the Audio/Video presentation isn't the best for the time. You can also tell the game clearly wasn't complete, as graphical pop-ins are extremely clear, glitches show up from time to time, and the controls clearly don't make use of the controller properly.

Magnet Cluster was always my personal favorite

     I purchased this game at Gamestop used for around $5 in late August of 2011. I also bought PDZ and Enchanted Arms that day (pretty nice variety I gotta say). One really sweet memory I had with this game was it being the first game I hooked up to an HDTV about a month after I bought it. I played on a 20in Standard Definition TV for the first 9 months of owning my 360 (though I did get to play on an HD one briefly in July of that year). Seeing the colors in this game flourish made me get a bit more respect for it. Of course, once I saw games with far more coats of polish at that LCD screen I saw the game for what it truly was, but even then it had its own charm. As I mentioned earlier, I never ended up unlocking everything in this game, as it was one of those "get into a groove for a few days and then put it down for a month or two" games for me. I remember getting into grooves around a year after I bought it and then in late winter of 2013. I believe it also ended up being the final game I ever played on my 360 before I sold it to Gamestop. All in all, I ended up having one good time with this mediocre but charming little racing game.