4) Daytona USA (Xbox 360)
Finally, everyone could get an arcade perfect port of Daytona USA, after having to wait almost 20 years. Daytona is a fun and extremely playable racing game, and whilst is only has three circuits, they are very well designed, and there are options to play them in different ways, such as mirrored. SEGA included some good extras, such as a remixed sound track and a challenge mode with several tasks to complete for each track. Up to 8 player online play makes it one of the best racing games available, the only downside being the total lack of any offline multi-player -no split screen option, not even a system link mode. When Xbox Live does one day vanish, I will hate not being able to play this in multi-player.
3) BlazBlue series (Xbox 360, PS3, PSP)
Whilst I'm trash at these games online, I did like them from a single player experience -there are plenty of modes on offer, and the story modes are really big -each character has several endings to discover, some serious, some funny. The games have a lot of good ideas more fighting games could do with, like in-depth tutorial modes, and it is one of the prettiest 2D games I've seen in recent years, the character sprites are highly detailed and the 3D backgrounds look good. I'm glad I checked this series out and wish I had done sooner.
2) Star Wars Rebel Strike (Gamecube)
The single player of Rebel Strike really didn't impress me at all, I think the on-foot sections and awful, but the big saving grace for this game is the co-op -which includes all the missions from the previous game (a.k.a. the good ones). I hadn't played this in a while and flying down the Death Star trench still has the same thrill all these years on. The Battle of Endor mission has yet to be bettered in video game form, and some of the bonus missions like the asteroid field one are also good. I would really like to see some kind of revival of this series.
1) King of Fighters XIII (Xbox 360)
SNK got it mostly right with this release -it is what KoF XII should have been, and has more characters, new stages, a proper story and several extra game play modes that weren't present in the previous game. The graphics are beautiful, with excellent looking sprites, some of the best SNK have ever done. More moves have been added, and there are new options to use in a fight like the Neo Max moves. Whilst the online is a step up -as in it's actually playable, unlike before -it still needs work, but I have gotten many good games in online. Hopefully SNK will get back on track with this, and I look forward to seeing what they are going to make next.
