And while the colorful, kid-friendly graphics were easy prey to those that declare Mario nothing but a baby game, it was better to look at than some launch Xbox 360 titles. Nintendo did their damndest to squeeze every bit of power out of their little white box, and it showed. This was a perfect compliment to the brilliant level design, with Miyamoto proving once again why he’s been so successful for so long. Even 3 years later no one comes close to pulling off what they did in SMG.

While the sequel was more of the same for the most part, was that really so bad?

This is platforming perfected, friends.

Halo Reach

A lot of gamers are probably looking at the head and wondering why we chose to list Halo: Reach over its predecessor, Halo 3. After all, Halo 3 was responsible for some of the best multiplayer action available on any console title to date. It was also responsible for a great matchmaking system as well as the Forge feature that changed the way Haloholics played the game. However, when you look at Halo 3 and then you look at Halo: Reach, it almost feels as though Halo 3 was just a precursor, rather, baby step, to get to something even more defining in the series and that is…Reach.

Of course, some will speculate that without Master Chief, Reach loses some of its luster or pull due to the iconic branding that MC has on the Halo franchise, but the truth of the matter is, Reach is still going to sell a lot of units and it will do so deservingly.

That’s not what this list is about though, this list is to explain why Halo: Reach will help define this generation of consoles and why gamers will look back to this point 10 years down the road and remain in “awe” of what they potentially missed out on. You see, Reach is taking everything that Halo 3 did perfectly well and placing it on an untraceable HGH substance that brings it to that next level. Not only has Bungie recreated the iconic universe through a new engine, but they’ve also expanded Forge to a depth that is hard to even comprehend without actually getting your hands on the product.

Furthermore, Forge has the ability to take what games like Delta Force: Land Warrior did for PC gamers in terms of map creations and bought it to the Xbox 360 in a vast world with many environmental elements ranging from mountains to rivers. Reach doesn’t stop there though, as Bungie has also included Firefight from the ODST release into the mix. When you think about that and you add onto it the matchmaking system and online co-op to complete the Halo storyline, it starts to become very difficult to think of a game with a richer feature set.

Sometimes it’s difficult to justify spending $60 on a video game due to the potential of poor replayability, campaign length, and overall quality, but when gamers look back, Halo: Reach will shine as the title that is probably worth 2-3x its asking price and it will deliver on the entertainment per dollar spent as well.