Bulletstorm (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) could have been an obnoxious waste. It could have been a one-trick game that successfully turned first-person shooting into a game of high scores (those scores based on a player's creative, sometimes-grotesque aiming of bullets into enemy legs, butts, heads or groins—or the aggressive placement of enemies onto the sharp edges of cactus needles and tangles of electrified wires, to name just a few quantifiable acts of in-game violence).

But Bulletstorm was something better than what was Tweeted; it was a memorable action-adventure starring a begrudgingly likable drunk space pirate and his friend-turned-half-killer-robot. The plot wasn't surprising or that far removed from Aliens and other sci-fi pulp, but the gameplay was charmingly varied to the end, making it the most fresh shooter in ages. —Stephen Totilo