So... I caved.

[Cless]

At the beginning of the current generation, I never imagined I'd be an owner of one of these. How could I resist a deal that included a new premium console (with HDMI) and five recent games (BioShock, The Orange Box, Forza 2, Marvel Ultimate, and Two Worlds) for $400 ($450 after shipping/taxes)?

Granted, most of the games it came with don't really interest me and will soon be sold as they still have resale value that could effectively bring the price I paid for the system to ~$200-$250 including the games I do keep. Pretty good deal because I was actually intending to pick one up as soon as the premium alone hit the $300 threshold.

Anyway, I just finished BioShock, which was fantastic. It was easy though because I was playing it on easy mode (wasn't terribly confident because I don't have much experience with FPS games, and especially with dual analog controls... which still feel pretty wonky when I'm in a pinch). I may soon give it another run on a middle tier mode. Never came dangerously close to running out of healing items, and never died once...

I may sell all the other games that came in the package, although a small part of me is telling me to keep the Orange Box. I also have Eternal Sonata which I pre-ordered last month and got the bonus face plate I wanted (woohoo!). Been thinking about what to get next... maybe Dead Rising, Crackdown and Blue Dragon. Though the Blue Dragon demo was awful and really brought down whatever anticipation I had for it, but I'm told what I disliked about it was mostly rectified in the full release. Will probably pick up Mass Effect next month, as well.

[revenile]

Bioshock for the win man, I ordered the pc version for 45 bucks 11 days after launch and have never enjoyed a shooter as much.

[Kajitani-Eizan]

what, you're not going to finish any fights? there are many fights to be finished, after all.

[Joseph]

Keep Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. It's a great Action-RPG.

[Cless]

It's bundled with Forza 2 (which I don't think I want), and in the same disc case. I couldn't really get into X-Men Legends II, but I'm not sure how similar they are...

[Magicpaint]

Good choice.

Bioshock is a great, great game, and the 360 library is definitely the healthiest of the big three as of now.

[Riketz Karlom]

Seriously, you went with the best choice out of the next gen consoles. They even had the decency to release a Naruto game with a language option for the voices.

[Leroy]

Cless, send me a friend request, my GamerTag is PixyJunket360.

Do you do any multiplayer? I play Bomberman online a lot.

I just finished Bioshock over the Christmas break. It's such an amazing game.

If you already sold The Orange Box, I'd say to at least give it a rent somewhere down the line to play Portal, it's amazing (and effing hilarious). The Half-Life 2 games are pretty sweet too if you liked Bioshock, they're also very story-driven FPS games. Team Fortress 2 is great but it's multiplayer only and it's very hard to play online if you're an FPS novice.

The demo for Blue Dragon sucks, hard. The game itself is great, it's definitely an SNES RPG in HD clothing.

[Cless]

I'll add you next time I boot the system. I don't have Live Gold at the moment though, being a bit of a cheapskate since online MP isn't really my thing.

I kept Orange Box but haven't gotten around to playing it. Only games I have at the moment are Bioshock, Crackdown, Eternal Sonata and Orange Box. Two Crappy Worlds is on the way (sold the new one I got with the system for 40 bucks, getting a used one from gamefly for $10. Whee, profit!).

[Leroy]

Portal is fairly brisk, it took me about four hours. Give it a shot when you get the chance.

Have you gotten into any Arcade games yet? It's probably my favorite part of the system so far (even though it's been pretty shitty in the last couple of months). Pac-Man: CE is the best Pac-Man game in a decade and the best one ever, to be honest; it was the best $10 I've spent in 2007. Geometry Wars was the best $5 I spent in 2007, it's just addicting, I bought the full Wii game as well. I got Carcassone for free but after playing it, I would have gladly paid for it, it's a lot of fun.. it's better online but the single player is still enjoyable.

There's some really good stuff already coming in 2008:

Castle Crashers
Ikaruga
Omega Five
Quake Arena
Radiant Silvergun (rumored)
Rez HD
Rocketmen: Axis of Evil
Trigger Heart Exelica

[Carnivol]

Pac-Man: CE is the best Pac-Man game in a decade and the best one ever, to be honest; it was the best $10 I've spent in 2007.

Totally agree! Pac-Man CE is fantastic.
Although I think comparing it to other Pac-Man games when speaking of its epic awesomeness is something that'll easily make people turn the other way by default.

How's the XBLA version of Bomberman?
I've wanted to get it for some time, but since I don't play much online on my 360 these days and spend a lot of time far away from it, I haven't really had time to bother

[Leroy]

Totally agree! Pac-Man CE is fantastic.
Although I think comparing it to other Pac-Man games when speaking of its epic awesomeness is something that'll easily make people turn the other way by default.

I assume you mean the mediocre to horrible Pac-Man World games, but Pac-Man Arrangement, Pac-Man Vs. and Pac-Pix have all been fantastic. Pac-Man Vs. just came out for the DS and it works a lot better there without having all the controller trading and wire tangling.

How's the XBLA version of Bomberman?
I've wanted to get it for some time, but since I don't play much online on my 360 these days and spend a lot of time far away from it, I haven't really had time to bother

It's decent. The look of the game is rather uninspired but they stuck to the core gameplay. Some things don't work as tight as they should including the speed of kicking and punching bombs, the detonators have a slight delay and stopping a kicked bomb is wonky. But, it's online Bomberman which makes it insanely fun. My friends and I usually set Tuesday night as Bomberman night.

[Carnivol]

I think the "worst good" (if that's even an expression) game on XBLA is Worms.

Worms is fun, as always, the achievements in it are okay, the fact that you can get additional content packs for it is okay (though, I don't think the price for them is that good), but the fact that the game is so barebones and even features a smaller arsenal than the original worms is something that is a bit upsetting and a rather big turn-off :/


Guess I'll jump in and get Bomberman Live sometime later (I was actually hoping to score it for free through the friend referral program thingy, but the guy I was going to do it with before the offer expired failed at doing his part :p)