Our 2011
Game of the Year coverage continues throughout this week as we look at some of the top titles that hit the Xbox 360 this year. Today, we focus on the cream of the action game crop and award this year's Best Action Game to
Saints Row: The Third:
TeamXbox Best Action Game of 2011:
Saints Row: The Third
Publisher: THQ | Developer: Volition
It should be no surprise that our action game of 2011 was
Saints Row: The Third. After all, the games very design seems to focus around putting players in a crazy, over-the-top action scenario and then trying to one-up that with the next mission. Any game that starts you off with a bank heist, moves you on to an airplane escape, and then dumps you into the middle of a freefall firefight within 30 minutes of starting one that you know is going to give you that adrenaline rush.
However, the real beauty of
Saints Row: The Third is that the action doesnt stop when the storyline ends. Volition hands you an arsenal throughout the missions, and provides you with a sandbox to use them at your leisure. Whether you start small with gunfights in the middle of the street or try to provoke the military by directing air strikes on top of their checkpoints, the games open world environment always gives you the tools and the venue you need for mass destruction.
Hand the controller to a friend, and theyll soon be gleefully shooting rockets down at traffic from the top of a building. A few minutes later, theyll discover that they can hijack tanks and run cars over. After that? Driving around the city in a hoverbike. When a game throws this much non-stop action at you, its a shoo-in for our Best Action Game award.
Here's what some of you had to say about
Saints Row: The Third:
"I've never really liked these types of games but tried this and have hugely enjoyed it. It doesn't take itself at all seriously and is just fun. Excellent game." --
Trebell
"The game is still an absolute blast." --
UK_Jason
"I finally went and picked this up. Its absolutely fantastic. It was a bit strange at first, as it did seem like the game cut a lot of things back from SR2, but the more I play, the more I realize what an improvement the game is" --
Mome_Wrath
Of course, Saints Row: The Third wasnt the only fantastic action game to come out in 2011. Our honorable mention for Best Action Game goes to Batman: Arkham City. Developers Rocksteady set the bar when they created not only one of the finest Batman titles to date but one of the finest action games with Arkham Asylum, and they surpassed themselves in the sequel. Batman: Arkham City makes you feel like you
are Batman with a host of gadgets, slick locomotion, and an engaging combat system that ensures beating up the mentally ill never gets old.
