Sandman is online, how is everyone around here doing? I'm doing fine, at least gamingwise (in the real life I've had some issues) anyway recently I decided to give a bit of a take on online multiplayers, why? well I've been playing a couple games that strongly focuses on this. and well I will dedicate this to some of the best I've seen on xbox live. On my PC I only play same old Quake III and Age of empires 3 online, so I'll try and break it down like this:

Genre: the genre I'm describing

Best Online competitive Experience: my favorite game for the genre (and a runner up)

Best Onlive Co-op Experience: favorite co-op for the genre (and a runner Up)

Best feature/idea: self explanatory

Good idea poor execution: a game that had the idea but executed not as good as it sounds

just plain wrong: a bad game

Remember, before you start burning me all around this is my opinion nothing else...heck there are enoughs "sandmans/doubalfa" around here to make it clear.

FPS

Favorite Competitive Game: Halo Reach; easy to tell why, Halo reach has what every online game needs, a load of game lists with enough variations to tell one from another easily, theatre, content share, customization, map editor, customizable games, a strong community and solid gameplay, I feel epic every time I'm on a warthog with two other guys. (runner up: Battlefield Bad Company 2)

Favorite Co-op Game: Borderlands, it's easy to tell you why Borderlands is my favorite, the entire campaign is made for co-op and is not a short one, the more players the harder it becomes and the more things everyone around gets, all 4 classes are balanced out to work as a team and as a killing squad, and the random generated enemies adds a touch of fresh to the mix. (runner up: Left 4 Dead)

Best Feature Idea: Customization, Rainbow six Vegas did this just right, you generated your own character, which worked in many levels, from mobility to camouflage to loadout, every soldier play style was revealed by looking at them plenty of armor and a shotgun? that guy wants to get really close, fast and silenced weapons? sneaky bastard, this made Rainbow Six Vegas so addicting to rank up (there were no perks or killstreaks here).

Good Idea poor Execution: Bioshock 2, weapons, plasmids (powers) and tonics (perks) all mixed together sounds incredible, too bad the game had lag and balancing issues everywhere or this could have worked perfectly.

Just plain wrong: Perfect Dark (arcade) no online game should be allowed to have that much auto-aim plain and simple.

TPS.

Favorite competitive game: Gears of War 3, a few days out I know, hype? negative I never hyped this game, but the online component serves how Gears of War and Gears of War 2 should have, the dedicated servers really helped here, the symetrical maps work great as usual and the weapons pick ups are great (huge power? low ammo) the gameplay really nailed it, so from here on it can only get better (runner up: Star Wars Battlefront 2 [I always played it on Third person])

Favorite Co-op game: Splinter Cell Conviction, this game split the game into two a 6 hour unique co-op campaign, and several modes meant for two players such as Infiltration, Survival and Manhunt the game implemented the SP mechanics flawlessly, Gears of War 3 almost takes this, but in the end I really feel more natural in Conviction co-op (runner-ups: Gears of War 3 and Army of Two the 40th Day)

Best feature: Revive your teammate..it's just invaluable, up to the point that most co-op games have some form of doing this.

Good idea poor execution: Army of Two had 2 teams of 2 players trying to kill each other with enemies all over the place and contracts to perform, in the end the impact detection and other connection issues broke all of this.

Just plain wrong: Dark Sector, the online gamemode had some form of kill the enemy/enemy team who happen to have/be a super powered soldier. this was simply wrong.

At some point I'll post part two which will include Fighting games and Action/Adventure!