Xbox One X vs PS4 Pro: Which is the best 4K console?

The PS4 Pro and Xbox One X mark a shift in console gaming. Gone is the idea of generations in favour of an iterative hardware model. At least, that’s what it looks like.

Both machines will support all existing PS4 and Xbox One titles respectively while adding plenty of new features and hardware improvements.
Let’s be very clear: these consoles are very different offerings that aren’t exact side-by-side rivals. While they both offer 4K gaming, they fill different parts of the market due to their different pricing. Still, a side-by-side look at specs never did anybody any harm, did it?

Xbox One X vs PS4 Pro – Price and release date

PS4 Pro launched in November 2016, retailing at £349.99. Sony’s upgraded console is pretty good value considering its specs.

The Xbox One X, meanwhile will launchon 7 November for £449/$499. That’s not a massive leap up from the PS4 Pro, but it is still a jump that some people might not be willing to make.

Pre ordrer: xbox one x from : Amazon US 
pre order : xbox one x from : Amazon UK

Buy Ps4 Pro from : Amazon US

Buy Ps4 Pro from : Amazon UK

Xbox One X vs PS4 Pro – Processor

Xbox One X: 8-core, 2.3GHz processor

PS4 Pro: 8-core, 2.13GHz processor

PS4 Pro is using an improved version of the original model’s chip with a slightly boosted clock speed. The Pro now runs at an impressive 2.13GHz, while the vanilla console lags behind at 1.6.

The One X meanwhile, has stolen a bit of a march on the Pro and has a slightly faster processor, but the real meat comparison lies in the graphics comparison.

Pre ordrer: xbox one x from : Amazon US 
pre order : xbox one x from : Amazon UK

Buy Ps4 Pro from : Amazon US

Buy Ps4 Pro from : Amazon UK

Xbox One X vs PS4 Pro – Graphics

Xbox Scorpio: 6 TFLOPS, 326GB/s, 12GB GDDR5

PS4 Pro: 4.12 TFLOPS, 218 GB/s, 8GB GDDR5

First, some jargon-busting: TFLOPs stands for trillion floating point operations per second, the simplest way of measuring graphical horsepower. GB/s is the bandwidth of that memory, which tells you how quickly the GPU can move frames through the memory and out to your display. The more memory, the more high-resolution textures the GPU can quickly access at any one time, increasing performance.

The PS4 Pro possesses 8GB of GDDR5 with an additional 1GB of RAM set aside for handling background processes. The Xbox One X nets a full 12GB of GDDR5. Both consoles will share their memory between the GPU and CPU, although how much each gets is unknown.

Pre ordrer: xbox one x from : Amazon US 
pre order : xbox one x from : Amazon UK

Buy Ps4 Pro from : Amazon US

Buy Ps4 Pro from : Amazon UK

How will this affect gaming?
Technical jargon aside, this difference in graphics power will make a difference when it comes to both consoles’ 4K chops. Microsoft is aiming for full, native 4K at 60fps, while not all PS4 Pro games meet that specification. Some games run at 30fps in 4K, while others manage full 60fps performance at full, native 4K. The rest are a combination of games that only run at 30fps/4K, or render at sub-4K and use clever upscaling techniques to appear 4K.

All Xbox One games will run better on One X, whether or not they’ve been specifically updated to do so. You’ll be able to play One X games at Full HD, too, with the choice as to whether you want to downscale from Ultra HD resolution for ultra-sharp graphics, or run games at 1080p for better performance.

This is notably different to the PS4 Pro, which has a habit of hiding these settings from you unless you’ve specifically opted to run their console at Full HD only.

Pre ordrer: xbox one x from : Amazon US 
pre order : xbox one x from : Amazon UK

Buy Ps4 Pro from : Amazon US

Buy Ps4 Pro from : Amazon UK

Xbox One X vs PS4 Pro – Games and content

Microsoft has also confirmed Xbox One backwards compatibility will roll over to the One X. The service currently has more than 300 titles, which is nothing to sniff at.

There will be no One X-exclusive titles with the exception of experiences that support certain virtual reality peripherals – support for which still remains unconfirmed.

Like UHD Blu-rays? Xbox One X will support ’em, along with Dolby Atmos. PS4 Pro only supports HD Blu-rays and there’s no Dolby Atmos support. But both consoles will support the HDR 10 standard on both.

Pre ordrer: xbox one x from : Amazon US 
pre order : xbox one x from : Amazon UK

Buy Ps4 Pro from : Amazon US

Buy Ps4 Pro from : Amazon UK

Xbox One X vs PS4 Pro – Conclusion

Since launch, the PS4 Pro has come into its own with an assortment of improved specs and the newly implemented Boost Mode. Introduced in PS4 update 4.50, this new feature amps up the performance of all PS4 games to varying degrees, enhancing some titles by almost 40%. It’s the best PS4 iteration on the market today, although it’s not entirely worth it for those without a 4K display.

Xbox One X is still several months away, but Microsoft clearly has some ambitious plans in the pipeline with new features, and IP yet to be announced for the console.

However, the kicker is just becoming obvious. The Xbox One X will launch for £450/$499. This puts it some way above the PS4 Pro, but not by a gigantic margin. If you were already saving for a 4K games console, this could change your plans. Especially if the 4K Blu-ray player is something you were thinking over.

Pre ordrer: xbox one x from : Amazon US 
pre order : xbox one x from : Amazon UK

Buy Ps4 Pro from : Amazon US

Buy Ps4 Pro from : Amazon UK

Rockstar releases second official trailer for Red Dead Redemption 2

Rockstar last week issued a tweet indicating that they would have an announcement today regarding Red Dead Redemption 2 . True to its word, the publisher delivered with a new trailer and a few additional details regarding the game’s story. Rockstar was light on specifics but the trailer supplied bits and pieces as well.

Many fans, including myself, thought that RDR2 would star John “Jack” Marston Jr. If you recall from the first game, after main character John Sr. is killed by Edgar Ross and his posse, you end up continuing as Jack in a free-roam mode.

The game will be an all-new tale. Instead of continuing with Marston, Rockstar has decided to introduce a new player character who goes by the name Arthur Morgan.

Rockstar states, “Red Dead Redemption 2 [is] the story of outlaw Arthur Morgan and the Van der Linde gang as they rob, fight and steal their way across the vast and rugged heart of America in order to survive.”

The video also shows us that Morgan is a real mean SOB. At one point, he tells a kid (maybe in his teens) who is watching his mother cry over his dead father’s grave, “Maybe when your mother’s finished mourning your father, I’ll keep her in black, on your behalf.”

While it seems that Morgan is a new character, it is possible that he has been around all along. After all, he is running with Dutch and his gang. Dutch was more than a friend to John Sr. He was like a surrogate father to him after he escaped from the orphanage and taught him how to be an outlaw. Morgan may have even run with Marston before the opening of Red Dead Redemption but I’m just speculating.

I guess we’ll find out the whole story when we play it on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 next spring.

11 VIDEO GAME SECRETS THAT TOOK YEARS TO FIND

In the olden days, programmers could hide something in the code of a video game and be confident that it would never be revealed. But with the advent of the Internet, players are sharing tips, hints, secrets, hacks, and cracks at a breakneck pace. When new games are released, forums light up trying to find these secrets. Most of them get revealed within days, if not hours. But some programmers work a little harder to keep their Easter eggs from public view.

In this feature, we’ll pay tribute to those especially tough nuts. These are secrets that hid just out of reach long after the game was released, waiting for some enterprising soul to hunt them down and loose them on the world.

GoldenEye - ZX Spectrum Games

Proving that FPS games could work on consoles, GoldenEye was one of the Nintendo 64’s standout titles. Developer Rare hid all kinds of funny glitches and extra game modes in the game, many of which were found when the N64 was still a going concern. One, though, didn’t get discovered until 2012 – fifteen years after the game’s release.

Apparently Rare had a team working on exploring the possibility to emulate titles from the British home computer ZX Spectrum (launched in 1982), and the code they used was incorporated into GoldenEye. Instead of removing it for release, they just patched over it and shipped the emulator still on the cart.

Marathon Infinity - Hangar 96

Before Bungie became the Xbox’s MVP with the Halo games, they won gamers over with the Marathon series. These first-person shooters boasted lots of occluded lore, but the mystery of Hangar 96 took years to unveil.

The game has three “dream levels” where, if the player makes incorrect choices, he’ll be shuffled off to. In those levels, they can find terminals with cryptic codes on them that reference Hangar 96. If they extract hex codes from other monitors in the game’s first and last level, they can transform it into a compressed file to unlock a new multiplayer level set in that hangar.

Donkey Kong - Programmer’s Initials

A developer hiding their initials in a game’s code is one of the most common Easter eggs, dating back to Adventure on the Atari 2600. Many of these hidden credits are relatively easy to find, but the guy who coded Donkey Kong for the little-used Atari 400 home computer secreted his away so well that they weren’t discovered for 26 years.

To get Landon M. Dyer’s initials to pop up on the title screen, the player must die with a score that includes a certain combination of digits, lose their last life by falling, and then set the game to difficulty level 4. Who would have ever figured that out? Well, somebody eventually did!

Batman: Arkham City - Calendar Man’s Riddle

Rocksteady’s first Batman game, Arkham Asylum, was notable for the presence of a hidden room that took nearly a year to be discovered. This room had a map that turned out to give clues to the next game, so it’s not surprising that when the sequel came out players were desperately hunting for similar secrets.

Arkham City managed to withhold its biggest secret for three solid years, which is a miracle in the modern gaming world. If you set the date on your console to the day that Rocksteady was formed, you’ll get a message from Calendar Man that dropped some hints for the next game in the series, Arkham Knight.

Bubble Bobble - Not-Random Randomness

Taito’s Bubble Bobble is one of the most beloved games of the 80s arcade era, a charming and remarkably complex platformer with 99 levels and a ton of hidden secrets. There are so many unusual things that can happen during a game that, for over a decade, players thought it was all triggered completely at random. But when the game’s ROM was dumped over ten years later, hackers discovered that it’s way more complex than that.

Bubble Bobble keeps track of tons of player actions – how many bubbles you’ve blown and popped, how many times you’ve jumped, et cetera – and uses those to determine the power-ups that appear. It wasn’t until the late 1990s that all of this stuff was puzzled out.

WaveRace - Blue Storm Snarky Announcer

Many of the hidden secrets on this list were found simply by bizarre brute force. Take the hidden announcer in the 2001 GameCube game WaveRace: Blue Storm. At no point on any of the game’s menus is it indicated that another voice is available, but one intrepid player somehow figured out in 2009 that if you change an audio option so it appears to just be fog and then input a modified version of the famous Konami Code, it’ll replace the game’s standard announcer with a guy with a bit more ‘tude.

Why this wasn’t present as a regular game option is anybody’s guess, and it’s amazing that it was even found at all.

Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past - Chris Houlihan Room

This one is interesting, because fans knew about it before the game was even released. In 1990, Nintendo Power magazine ran a contest in which one reader would get their name included in an unannounced NES game. That game turned out to be the first Zelda on the Super Nintendo in 1992. However, it wasn’t until the early 2000s that the winner, Chris Houlihan, got his public recognition. His name was on a plaque in a hidden room that it’s virtually impossible to access, requiring the player to glitch Link’s location to wind up there.

Splinter Cell - Double Agent Seal Rescue

Sometimes gamers need a little extra help to uncover these long-buried Easter eggs. Splinter Cell: Double Agent came out in 2006 and by 2010, one of the game’s designers was so frustrated that nobody’s found his hidden treasure that he made it public to the world.

It’s not surprising that it stayed a secret for so long, as players had to enter co-op mode and perform a variety of bizarre tasks, including using specific vending machines in order. If you do that, you’re treated to an insane fetch quest involving freeing five talking seals from captivity. You even have to romance one of them.

Trials HD - Riddle

A motorcycle racing game doesn’t seem like a prime genre to hide secrets in, but RedLynx’s 2009 Xbox Arcade title Trials HD packed a riddle so convoluted that it took a coordinated network of players several years to finally figure it out.

Many of the game’s tracks contain background art that references famous numerical sequences, the works of Leonardo Da Vinci, binary code, DNA sequences, and more. All of this is incredibly easy to miss as you ride by at high speed trying not to wipe out. The community eventually had to turn to an employee of RedLynx for help, and he provided the missing pieces in 2012 to finally assemble the solution.

Halo 3 - Birthday Message

Here’s another one from Bungie, who probably need to put a tighter leash on their programmers so they stop goofing off with hidden secrets. Halo 3 was released in 2007 to rave reviews, but in 2014 developer Adrian Perez mentioned that he had hidden a secret in the loading screen of the game for his wife that nobody had found.

That set fans of the series on a rampage to discover it, and one YouTuber found out that if you set your Xbox’s clock to December 25th and depress both thumbsticks while the game is loading, it will pop up a new screen with a ring on it. You can zoom in on the rotating ring to see that “Happy Birthday Lauren” is engraved on it. It’s not a big secret, but it stayed hidden for seven years.

Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out - Bald Bull

The classic NES boxing game is all about pattern recognition and understanding how opponents telegraph their attacks. Amazingly, one of those cues went completely undiscovered for a staggering 22 years!

When you fight Bald Bull, the typical strategy is to interrupt his Bull Charge (which will kill you instantly) by punching him after the third hop. In a 2009 interview, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata revealed that there was an easier way – by watching the background, you can see a person in the audience take a picture with the camera flash. When the flash goes off, deliver a body blow to knock Bald Bull down for the count.

The 25 best FPS games to play right now

Lock and load

Okay, this list was never going to be easy to compile. As one of the most popular, eclectic and influential gaming genres, nailing down the list of the best FPS titles to just 25 games is an almost ridiculous task. So to help narrow things down, we made some hard and fast rules. Read them before you move on.

Number 1: The games have to be first person, and shooting has to be the predominant game system (hey, the clue is in "FPS"). So no Gears of War, and no Resident Evil 7. Number 2: This list is about currently best, not historically most important. To keep this list accessible, we're only including games you can play right now on current-generation consoles, instead of having to hunt down a PS2 at a garage sale. Have no fear: we haven’t forgotten the influential games that came before. They have their very own slide that explains their importance to the genre before we get started. See if you agree with our choices, as we progress toward revealing our number 1.

25. Honorable mentions

Let's start with the influential FPS games that didn't quite secure a place on the list. If you side-step the genre's wireframe origins – expanded in our 43-year history of first-person-shooters – let's start with the granddaddy: the original, 1993 Doom. While not the first FPS, developer id's shooter is a masterclass in intelligent, cleverly-paced level design, alongside deceptively strategic gunplay - while also establishing id as the premier gun 'feel' craftsmen in the industry.

In terms of its mainstream appeal and cultural crossover, the next most influential shooter was probably Goldeneye, which proved that FPS could truly work on a console, delivering the most cinematic action game of its era. Rare's shooter hosts one of the most legendary multiplayer modes in history. Oddjob is still banned, though. 

The split-screen multiplayer template evolved with Goldeneye's unofficial, next-gen follow-up, TimeSplitters 2. Headed up by key members of Rare’s Goldeneye team, TS2 is a history-spanning, thematic pick 'n’ mix campaign skewering movies - and even Goldeneye itself - with endless, brilliantly observed pastiche. Add another terrific multiplayer offering plus the staggering depth and imagination of its Arcade challenge leagues, and you have a game way, way ahead of its time. 

A less obvious choice, but a game that expertly stole – and re-assembled – the genre's greatest mechanics, is PS3's Resistance 3. With echoes of Half-Life 2, Chronicles of Riddick and Halo, this overlooked sequel is like a greatest hits package of FPS gaming's 40-year-history. A brilliantly structured campaign journey, fueled by inventive, satisfying weapon design, and serious fun. David Houghton

24. The Darkness 2

Release date: February 7, 2012

Format: Xbox 360, PS3, PC

What is it? A love story. A wonderful, touching tale of a former mobster who is trying to come to terms with the loss of his girlfriend while murdering his enemies using a combination of chunky automatic weapons and demonic tentacle powers. Often both at the same time. How many other games, for example, let you pick up a goon by his feet and blow him in half with a shotgun? Or to rip him in half with your tentacles like you’re pulling the wishbone at Christmas? Or shove your tentacle down an enemy’s ass and pull out his spine? Not many. Not many at all. But yeah, The Darkness 2 is a love story at heart. And it’s still playable on PC, so you have the chance to play one of the most creative, touching, and utterly sickening shooters ever made. Go do that.

23. Call of Duty: Black Ops 3

Release date: November 6, 2015

Format: Xbox One, PS4, PC

What is it? Call of Duty began as WW2-era shooter focused on recreating the tense drama of war. Since then, we've had CoD games set during the Cold War, Vietnam War, modern day, even the far future and outer space. Black Ops 3 is the current Goldilocks of the CoD legacy, which is to say it sits somewhere in the middle and manages to feel juuuust right. Not too futuristic, not too held back by the past, Black Ops 3 infuses smart design with fluid gameplay to create something that feels unique and powerful without straying too far from its roots. Choosing a specific character gives competitive multiplayer a slight MOBA feel, while the campaign re-introduces four-player co-op to the series. And of course, let's not forget our undead friends lurking in the Zombies mode, which gets an entire city in Black Ops 3.

22. LawBreakers

Release date: August 8, 2017

Format: PS4, PC 

What is it? A Vs. multiplayer FPS that takes into account a detailed, working knowledge of the last 20 years of arena shooters, so that it can understand all of the rules and conventions before tearing them up and reimagining them into something new. Its nine asymmetric character classes deliver radically contrasting gameplay experiences - each feels like they could be the protagonist of a different (brilliant) game - but all are bonded by their scope for fantastic, unexpected, tactically kinetic gameplay. LawBreakers is a shooter as deep and clever as it is immediately, air-punchingly exciting, dense with possibility and scope for player growth, while also immediate, gratifying, and easy to initially pick up. 

And that growth certainly doesn't begin and and with the player. LawBreakers is also one of the best-maintained 'live' games we've seen in a long time. Developer Boss Key is taking a refreshingly pro-active, communicative, community-minded approach to the game's upkeep, pouring constant updates, tweaks and additions into it alongside its already revealed roadmap of (free) expansions for LawBreakers' opening months. 

21. Far Cry 4

Release date: November 18, 2014

Format: PS4, Xbox One, PC

What is it? In essence; Far Cry 3 goes to the Himalayas. Switching out the sunny not-so-perfect tourist destination of Rook Island for the vertiginous Kyrat, Far Cry 4 adds even more deadly bells and whistles to an already solid foundation of murderous exploration. Even more flora and fauna is ready to be plucked and skinned, and entire ecosystems are just waiting to be ruined as you quest for a new wallet. The story of Ajay Ghale is almost incidental to the combination of stealth and action on offer in Ubi’s intimidatingly huge open world. Whether you want to send a drone hovering over an enemy camp and tag all enemies individually before picking them off one by one with brutal melee takedowns, shoot a tiger out of its cage from a safe distance to watch it tear your foes to pieces, or literally crash down the gates on the back of an angry tusked Babar, it’s entirely up to you. However you play, Far Cry 4 is a heady cocktail of death and destruction. Drink up. 

20. Star Wars Battlefront

Release date: November 17, 2015

Format: PS4, Xbox One, PC

What is it? Sure, Star Wars Battlefront 3 is a first-person shooter. It’s also a near-simulation for some of the most iconic moments in the Star Wars universe. This game feels more like an arcade creation than the grand, stoic visions offered by the best of Dice’s Battlefield games, but you still get the studio’s hallmarks here: class variety, specialized weapons, and gorgeous graphics. Each of those elements have just been filtered through the lens of the beloved sci-fi universe. The level of detail is incredible, and it’s a must-try for Star Wars fans. You get to play as Boba Fett. Who doesn’t want that?

19. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Release date: August 24, 2012

Format: Xbox One (backwards compatible)

What is it? Ever since its debut as an expansive Half-Life mod, the Counter-Strike series has constantly stayed on top of the competitive shooter scene. And though CS:GO is now the de facto way to play this Terrorists vs. Counter-Terrorists FPS on PC, it originally started life as a modernized port for consoles. CS:GO is all about tension: there are no respawns during rounds, so once you die, all you can do is watch and anxiously hope that your team detonates/defuses the bomb or rescues/retains hostages successfully. Each map is meticulously crafted to allow for myriad tactics requiring varying degrees of skill, and the lovingly modeled guns in your expansive arsenal all have minutiae in their firing rates and recoil that can only be learned through experience. CS:GO's skill ceiling is practically in the stratosphere, and it puts equal emphasis on cooperative teamwork and heroic moments where you get all the glory.

18. Bioshock Infinite

Release date: March 26, 2013

Format: PC, PS4, Xbox One (latter two in BioShock: The Collection) 

What is it? Look, I know. The original Bioshock is a better game. But this is the best FPS list, and whatever your feelings about it as a sequel, the fact is that Bioshock Infinite is just a better pure shooter than either of its predecessors. They might have had guns and first-person viewpoints, but the shooting was never their focus. They were immersive, narrative-driven, systemic RPGs with shotguns. 

Infinite though, is the real deal. Opting for a more direct, action-driven approach, it fully commits to exploring the full scope of Bioshockian powers and gunplay in the aim of pure combat. By the time you have a full set of Vigors, you'll be playing one of the most expressive, versatile, option-packed FPS around, one that seamlessly blends a fast, kinetic emphasis with a wider, strategic battlefield plan. Tooled up, and applying the creative thought encouraged by Infinite's often sprawling, multi-levelled arenas, you'll often feel you're on playing part-FPS, part-RTS. And it'll never be anything less than exhilarating. 

17. Borderlands 2

Release date: September 18, 2012

Format: Xbox 360, PS3, PC, Xbox One, PS4

What is it? How to describe Borderlands 2… you could say it's the underlying principles of the first Borderlands wrapped up in a more pristine, funnier shell. Or you could call it World of Warcraft: The First-Person Shooter. With its heavy emphasis on loot, loot, and more loot, Borderlands 2 drowns players in a sea of guns with varying abilities and stats (including a gun that shoots swords, and a gun that literally goes "pew pew!" every time you fire it), conveniently color-coded by rarity. The colorful cast of characters breaks away from the traditional "fighter, wizard, rogue" archetypes, and each hero is memorable in their own right. Especially Krieg. Oh Krieg, you crazy barbarian poet. Sure it's still a bit of a slog to play through if you don't have any buddies going co-op with you, but at the end of the day, this sequel still stands as the zenith of the Borderlands formula.

16. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege

Release date: December 1, 2015

Format: PS4, Xbox One, PC

What is it? Rainbow Six Siege has quietly become one of the best multiplayer shooters around, combining the intensity and replayability of Counter-Strike with the unique abilities and personality of Overwatch (albeit with a more grounded cast). The real star of Siege is the impressive destructibility of your environment: walls, floors, and ceilings can all be fired through and ultimately destroyed, so you need to smartly choose which flanks to cover and which walls to reinforce, lest someone blast through them with sizzling thermite. You and your squadmates choose from a variety of highly skilled Operators, each with their own specialties that can complement each other for a rock-solid team comp, though your propensity for sneaking and aiming a gun are what matter most. Every round becomes a tactical, incredibly tense game of cat-and-mouse, as one team protects an objective while their opponents try to scout out danger and survive a breach. 

15. Battlefield 3

Release date: October 25, 2011

Format: Xbox One (backwards compatible), PC

What is it? The games in DICE’s venerable franchise have gone to many places and time periods, but Battlefield 3 is the most exhilarating of the modern day games. Playing host to some of the most beautifully designed multiplayer maps ever, there’s nothing quite like throwing yourself into the cacophony of grenades trying to storm the subway station during a Rush match on Metro. The grand vistas of Caspian Border set a dramatic backdrop for players to test their skills in a jet cockpit or behind the wheel of a lumbering tank. Deathmatch on Noshahr Canals is a quintessential test of quick thinking and quick hands. And the Close Quarters DLC maps may have shrunk the size, but the intensity of defending control points in Ziba Tower is unmatched.

14. Superhot

Release date: February 25, 2016 (PC) / 3 May, 2016 (Xbox One)

Format: PC, Xbox One

What is it? Time only moves when you move. That's the elevator pitch for Superhot, a cerebral shooter from a small, independent studio out of Poland, and it's a perfect distillation for what makes Superhot so intoxicating. Trapped inside a series of minimalist representations of office buildings, elevators, and restaurants, you'll scour rooms for guns and improvised weapons to defeat waves of red, crystalline enemies - but as long as you stand still, you'll have plenty of time to plan your next move.

This turns a typically twitch-based genre into a far more contemplative puzzler built around the improvised chaos of a stylized, cinematic action sequence. An enemy fires his gun and you dodge the oncoming bullets, watching the red trails whizz you by. You pick up a nearby ashtray and chuck it at his head, stepping forward so time allows it to travel through the air. You snag his gun as it flies out of his hands and shoot him in the stomach, his body exploding into a thousand glorious pieces - but another guy comes around a blind corner and smacks you with a bat, forcing you to start over. Figuring out each level's interlocking pieces is thrilling; watching your run play out in real-time like some kind of John Wick-inspired demon is downright euphoric. 

13. Metro: Last Light

Release date: May 14, 2013

Format: PS4, PS3, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC

What is it? A stealthy, crunchy shooter that mixes great combat with horror and supernatural elements, Metro: Last Light manages to create a vibe all of its own. Its retro-apocalypse styling is a grittier, more desperate take on Fallout as Russian survivors of a nuclear war scrape out a living in Metro tunnels. That set up means a range of inventive and fun weapons like pneumatic rifles and semi-homemade machine guns. Giving the combat a hard edge, expect to be rewarded for being strategic when it comes to wise weapon choices. It also does really good stealth as you creep around perimeters popping lightbulbs with silenced weapons to create pools of darkness to hunt in. Great scares await you too, with a mix of mutant monsters and ghost-filled flashbacks where the spirits of those who died let you know just how unhappy they are about it. 

12. Halo: Reach

Release date: September 14, 2010

Format: Xbox One (backwards compatible)

What is it? Halo Reach is a pre-packaged tragedy. We already know that the Covenant ravage the planet Reach and the UNSC outpost there. We know that the desperate struggle to survive there directly leads into the many misadventures of the Spartan known hilariously as Master Chief. Before the spinoff to the Xbox’s signature series came out, it was also known that this would be the last Halo created by Bungie Studios. Knowing all these things before playing this excellent shooter is no preparation for how stirring it actually is in practice. While Halo Reach couldn’t foster the same sort of powerful multiplayer community as Halo 3, it did perfect the Halo story campaign. Trading the experimental structure of ODST for the set piece design of the original trilogy, Reach is the best expression of Bungie’s knack for making complicated shooting galleries. Every new stage in Reach feels dynamic, asking you to adapt to swiftly changing circumstances and ordinance while maintaining an air of drama but never succumbing to the tedium that inevitably crept into Master Chief’s adventures. The game was so damn good it was impossible not to get choked up at the ending, even when you knew it was coming.

11. Left 4 Dead 2

Release date: November 17, 2009

Format: Xbox One (backwards compatible), PC

What is it? Bonding usually calls for either beer or a mutual dislike of something, but who needs those when Left 4 Dead 2 is around? Valve’s zombie-ridden game relentlessly punishes those who shrug off their comrades’ assistance. No heroes (*cough* overconfident buffoons *cough*) here: voyage on ahead or get left behind, if you go it alone you’ll definitely meet a bloody end. What zombies lack in fortitude they make up for in numbers, but special infected ensure you never let your guard down, as it takes only one overlooked Smoker to knock your entire team for six. The Versus mode turns the tables by letting you deviously play as the special infected, disrupting the survivors’ efforts to escape whilst giving you insight into exactly how these major infected function. Which, incidentally, plays perfectly into your future sessions as the survivors. Brilliantly crafted, Left 4 Dead 2 is a drop-dead simple concept, executed perfectly. 

10. Wolfenstein: The New Order

Release date: May 20, 2014

Format: PC, PS4, Xbox One

What is it? Wolfenstein gets it. Wolfenstein: The New Order understands the core appeal of FPS. It understands why the genre matters, and how vital it is, both intellectually and on a pure, instinctive level. Wolfenstein knows that the soul of FPS lives where ludicrously high-powered weaponry meets speed, ferocity, and tactical smarts. And so it loads you up with some of the biggest, most gratifying guns in the genre's history, points you at an enemy that undeniably deserves punishing, and lets you go. And dear God, is it clever about the way it goes about it. 

There's the high-risk, high-reward combat model, where cover will help, but cowering is suicide. There's the facility for open-ended stealth, not so much to sneak past, as to strategically explore and set the right conditions for victory before you unleash Hell. And then there's the narrative, and sumptuously detailed world-building, which manage to infuse the comic book action with real humanity and genuinely affecting pathos, ensuring that you never, ever forget why you're pasting those fascists against the wall. 

9. Bulletstorm

Release date: February 22, 2011

Format: PC, PS4, Xbox One (latter two via upcoming Full Clip Edition remaster) 

What is it? Never has a game so intelligent tried so hard to look like an idiot, or been so screamingly funny with it. On Bulletstorm's surface, you'll find a brash, knowing, don't-give-a-fuck attitude, sitting on a layer of the most gloriously creative cursing you've ever heard in a video game. Beneath, you'll find one of the densest, most detailed, widest branching FPS systems ever devised. 

It's the Skillshots that do it. A vast, stacking, interconnecting roster of named killing methods (which cover everything from shooting an enemy in the balls to lassoing him and then kicking him into a murderous plant), that can be comboed near-endlessly, to create gloriously brutal takedowns. Extravagant kills mean more points, and more points mean more ammo to kill with. But more than anything, it's all a hilariously gratifying, ceaselessly rewarding, creative challenge in itself. You really don't know how fun a shooter can be until you've whipped a goon into the air, shot him up the ass, and then slid underneath to knock him out of the air with a shotgun, raining whatever's left upon the spikes below. 

8. Battlefield 1

Release date: October 21, 2016

Format: Xbox One, PS4, PC

What is it? Battlefield 1 is a WW1 shooter that showcases a terrifying amount of carnage. It’s got all the familiar BF modes that we’ve grown to love, including Conquest, Rush, and Domination, but this game adds the formidable Operations mode that takes the push and pull of war to new heights. This game works so well as a multiplayer shooter because of how finely it’s balanced - there’s no class, weapon, or tactic that gives an unfair advantage over others. By their very nature, WW1 weapons lack true precision, and make up for this via brute force and close-quarters effectiveness, so this really levels the playing field online. The maps are brilliant too, and they constantly change as the bombardment of explosives and ruined vehicles scar the landscape. Single-player is pretty enjoyable too, with the emotional war stories giving a sampler of the various fronts WW1 took place on. Overall, it’s an immense package.

7. Halo 3

Release date: September 25, 2007

Format: Xbox One (backwards compatible)

What is it? Without question, Halo’s finest multiplayer hour. Reach might have the best campaign, but three trusted friends and a copy of Halo 3 will last you a lifetime. From the taught challenge of 2v2 Team Slayer on Blackout, to the sprawling, multi-disciplinary test of 4v4 Last Resort, every game of Halo 3 has moments of singular brilliance you’ll remember long after the match has finished. The maps are immaculate, full of cunning blindspots and brilliantly-plotted flashpoints. Every melee hit has an crunching urgency that makes the swaggering takedowns of Halo 5 seem laughably superfluous. And few things in gaming satisfy like slicing up enemy vehicles with the SPARTAN laser, or a surprise triple kill with a shotgun. The best first-person shooters are all about feel, and Halo never felt better than this. Whether you’re online in the Master Chief Collection, or connecting two 360s for a LAN party, Halo 3 is the most fun you can have without taking your Kevlar off. 

6. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered

Release date: November 4, 2016

Format: PS3, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PC

What is it? Arguably the shooter that inspired almost every other game on this list. Call of Duty was doing well enough for its first three World War 2-inspired games, but it was the jump to modern times that started its growth towards global domination. Putting present day weapons into Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s well-tuned shooting mechanics created a devastatingly lethal shooter, with bursts of gunfire dropping enemies with brutal efficiency. However, it was the story and characters that really gave this its impact. It might not be quite what you’d expect from a big manly shooter, but Captain Price and crew were relatable and human. The fact you cared about them, and what happened to them, elevated this above just shooting until everyone’s dead. And then there’s the multiplayer which, ten years ago, set a template that CoD (and plenty of other games) are still using today. 

5. Overwatch

Release date: May 23, 2016

Format: PC, PS4, Xbox One

What is it? Leave it to Blizzard to instantly restore my faith in a genre that I was ready to give up for good. Starting with the fundamentals of a class-based multiplayer shooter, the studio proceeded to sand off every little rough edge left over from games like Team Fortress 2. It then replaced whatever personality it lost in the process with an instantly beloved cast of MOBA-inspired heroes. Seriously, if you've been on the internet at all since May 2016, you've almost definitely seen at least one piece of Tracer fan art. It's impossible to divorce Overwatch's winsome characters from the game's appeal, but don't let them overshadow the endless smart design choices that Blizzard made for its first foray into action gaming since, er… Blackthorne? Now stop lollygagging and get on the damn point.

4. Half-Life 2

Release date: November 16, 2004

Format: Xbox One (backwards compatible)

What is it? It's the one that lets you fight alien fascists by launching toilets at their heads. It feels trite to praise the many individual advancements of Half-Life 2 (physics-based weapons, keenly intelligent enemies, and characters that feel like more than walking quest-givers, to name a few) because pretty much every video game ever has tried to do the same ever since. Just compare popular games from before Half-Life 2 and after Half-Life 2 and its influence will be made immediately clear. But while many foundational games are a bit of a chore to play these days, Half-Life 2 continues to hold up remarkably well. It's just as fun to launch an explosive barrel into a room full of helmeted goons now as it was in 2004. No really, try it!

3. Titanfall 2

Release date: October 28, 2016

Format: PS4, Xbox One, PC

What is it? Bloody brilliant, that’s what Titanfall 2 is. The weightlessness that comes with perfectly mastered wall-running makes you feel like you’re doing some sort of deadly ballet, letting you sail past your foes at impossible speeds, catching them unawares. The unforgettable BT-7274 and unbridled creativity dominate Titanfall 2’s campaign, whether it involves you switching between decades in the blink of an eye, walking through a moment frozen in time, or simply ripping other Titans apart when you step into BT-7274. Rewarding you for using the environment to your advantage, you can feel the moment when you start thinking differently, realising the possibilities a map offers. Whispers of Quake-like, physics-twisting shenanigans in its multiplayer mode have emerged too. You can bunny-hop and strafe-boost to your heart’s content, plus grenades can catapult you to the other side of the map. A heap of possibilities are constantly being discovered, keeping Titanfall 2 awash with creativity.  

2. Destiny 2

Release date: September 6, 2017

Format: PS4, Xbox One 

No-one expected Destiny 2 to be as good as it is. And we really, really love Destiny. Instantly making the first game look like a set of prototypes, Destiny 2 improves in every area. Actually, scratch that. It evolves, taking the seed of the first game's MMOFPS idea and building a whole new, entirely richer, deeper, and broader experience around it. Now existing in a fully fleshed world, full of humanity, character, detail, and story, Destiny 2's campaign alone is enough to justify it. Entirely more curated, crafted, and built of great, in-the-moment narrative and set-piece design, it is a hell of a good Halo game. 

But it's only the start. With a simplified, streamlined levelling system running through every one of Destiny 2's vastly expanded activities - from story-driven side-quests, to spiralling, multi-part Exotic Questlines, to treasure hunting, to exploration, to in-world lore hunting, to the brilliantly creative new Strikes and puristic, tactically reworked Crucible PvP - every single thing you want to do, however you want to play, will push you forward. And then there's the far more freeform approach to load-outs, further energised by more creative and expressive weapon design. And the new Raid, which is frankly extravagant in its ambition and imagination. Look, there's too much to talk about here, so just read our Destiny 2 review, okay? 

1. DOOM (2016)

Release date: May 13, 2016

Format: PC, PS4, Xbox One 

What is it? Doom is it. The pinnacle of FPS. Doom is everything that the genre is about, distilled into one, glorious, searing, defiant roar. It’s a force of will. An expression of creativity, speed of wits, and the ceaseless, yet thoughtful, discharge of really big, cool guns that make demons explode real good. No other game excels so completely in the arts of moment-to-moment, incendiary spectacle and intricate, cat-and-mouse, environmental awareness. Doom's guns aren't just new ways of killing. Each is a multi-pronged key fitting a different situational lock, affixed to a different face of the whirling, ever-shifting Rubik’s Cube of Doom's none-more dynamic combat. 

But that it delivers this alongside a multiplayer offering that finally brings the dream of Quake’s lightning-fast arena brutality to console, and a set of level design tools as powerful - yet fun - as the peerless SnapMap, secures its status as the top of the all-time greats. If you need to give anyone a lesson in what FPS is all about, you will not find a better or more complete one than Doom.