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Well, technically my wife bought it with her bonus. :) Xbox360, the 60gig hard drive, extra controllers, and picked up a few games:

1) Halo 3 (I have a bunch of friends with it, and they love to play multiplayer)
2) Bioshock
3) Mass Effect
4) One of the Xbox GTA's that's been ported (San Andreas?).

I borrowed the original Halo, Perfect Dark Zero, and Lego Star Wars II for the time being. We never had an Xbox. Any recommendations on Xbox games (preferrably, because you can get many cheap) that have been ported to 360, or 360 games in general?

My wife is a huge console junkie (we have a PS2, a Wii, and a DS for everyone in my house BUT me) and so is my 12 year old son.

I think you can buy Psychonauts and Indigo Prophecy off Xbox Live, check under Xbox Originals. Both are worth it.

Xbox 1 games:
Ultimate Spider-Man. -  probably my favorite xbox game.
Beyond Good and Evil.

Xbox 360 games:
Saints Row. - A lot of people hated it, I absolutely loved it.
Gears of War.
A Splinter Cell game.
Rainbow Six: Vegas 1 or 2 if your friends have it. The coop is really fun.
GTA4

You could probably grab Marvel Ultimate Alliance to play coop with your wife, great beat em up with slight RPG elements, and probably find it used for like $15 or so..

PHANTOM. DUST.

That is, if you can appreciate a good game. With Morfiend's Spiderman suggestion, I don't know what to tell you (HAH!)

You can get BG&E on the 360 from Xbox Originals also I think.

Also: Culdcept Saga (http://www.gamestop.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?product_id=65088).

Thanks -- we're going to hit up a Gamestop or Gamestop equivilant next week, and I know the kid will love the Ultimate Spiderman game. I had heard one of the recent X-men games was pretty good, does anyone know which one?

I hear Ultimate Alliance is a classic.

Ultimate Spider-Man is a fantastic game for what it offers, which is pure fun. No spiky haired emo girlie-men, sorry. Just a lot of really good web swinging in a free roaming world, and fun boss fights.

I think I just convinced myself to play through it for the 4th time.

DEAD RISING.

DEAD RISING.

DEAD RISING.

Dead rising.

Xbox games:

Crimson Skies (available on XBL)
Fable (I liked this game, others.. didn't)
Jade Empire (see above, it's Kung Fu KOTOR, but not as good)

As for the X-Men games, I enjoyed X:Men Legends 2.  The whole series of Legends, Legends 2 and Ultimate Alliance are basically all the same shit.  UA just didn't inspire me at all. 

Some 360 games, I enjoyed:

Forza 2
Beautiful Katamari
skate
Culdcept Saga
Castle Crashers looks like it would be a lot of fun local multi.  I liked the trial.


Mass Effect and Bioshock you have, which I liked.  I'm not much for straight shooters on consoles, but these are hybrids. Assassin's Creed is worth a gander at.  Some people really liked it, I thought it was just OK.

Burnout Revenge.  Gamestop sells it for $20 and I've gotten way more than $20 worht of fun out of it (as long as you enjoy arcade racing games and smashing shit)

Rent Dead Rising before you buy. Some people love it, some hate it (me). I really don't have any new suggestions, others have beaten me to the punch.

I just bought Fable off XBL, and it's actually not bad. I can see what annoys people about it, but it's probably the Molyneux game that's closest to the Molyneux promises, which isn't saying that much.

I picked up Crimson Skies last week for 1.50 at Gamestop, can't beat that. Looking forward to giving it a shot.

Orange Box on X360 is fun if you don't have it on any other platform.

I'll just second the Mass Effect suggestion.

NHL 08 if you like hockey games. I can't speak to the quality of the new crop yet.

Call of Duty 4 is a pretty decent shooter. You get the newer maps for free with the Gold Edition....or you could ask whoever is at the counter for one of the flyers with the free maps code.

Call of Duty 4
Marvel Ultimate Alliance
Guitar Hero II & III
Rock Band
Viva Pinata
Mass Effect
Halo 3
Lego Star Wars (the one with all the episodes)

Have been games my son and I have enjoyed on the xbox 360, we have also loaded up KOTOR I & II, Harry Potter (can't remember which episode), and Star Wars Battlefront II.  I think those were all xbox games, but have patches to let you play them on 360.

Don't forget to check out stuff on the free trials and free downloads, lots of stuff to find there.

Saints Row - Great overlooked game.  Honestly I'm looking forward to its sequel more then GTA series, the last one just felt too much like work instead of fun.
Call of Duty 4 - Can get 3 as well if you want a cheap ww2 game, still gets alot of online play too.
1 of the Burnouts - Does it really matter which one, I don't know.
Dead Rising - If you like killing zombies in unique ways heres your game.
ESPN NFL 2K5 - The last great football game made, fuck you madden.
Fight Night 3 - Its boxing, not alot of choices in that genre.
Bully - Fun sandbox game.

360 recommendations:
Dead Rising (rent or demo first)
Burnout Revenge
Lego Star Wars: Saga (2-player co-op - get this over Indy)
Marvel Ultimate Alliance (4-player co-op)
Saint's Row (if you like GTA)
Dead or Alive 4 (a legitimate cheap buy for a button-mashing beat-em-up forthe family to play around with - only buy cheap though)
Guitar Hero 3 - worth looking into a GH game.
Scene It! - a fun gameshow type game - again for the family, though you need a decent amount of film buffage for it, so maybe not so goo for the chilluns.
Earth Defence Force: 2017 - great 2-player progrssional co-op game.

XBLA:
Worms
Bomberman + expacks
Uno
Gauntlet

I'll check out my XB1 games in the next day or so and recommend some there as well. I started buying a fair few for the same reason you're quoting. Plus they look quite spiffy upscaled.

X-Men legends 1 and 2 don't work ont the 360 though.

I like Carcassone off XBLA.

My daughter likes Viva Pinata a lot, though I actually think it's a bit frustrating and also the basic weirdness of the concept puts her off when it comes time to go past just taking care of the Pinata garden. (You're basically supposed to harvest the little critters by sending them off to Pinata Central so they can be sent to parties and bashed open. It's kind of a strange allegory to farming, I think.)

Currently my "get list" is:

Lego Star Wars: Saga (we borrowed Lego Star Wars II and my wife LOVES it).
Rock Band
Worms (I love worms).
Ultimate Spiderman
Marvel Ultimate Alliance
Gears of War.

I think that's about as much money as I'm able to spend for a bit. :)

You disappoint me.  :sad_panda:

Thanks for reminding me...this one is in the bargain bin now, and I been meaning to give it a whirl.

For cheaper older games:

NHL 2k7 (way cheaper than buying the latest EA version, and still a great hockey game)
Download Jade Empire of XBL if you haven't played it, and like the Bioware style RPG
most other stuff already mentioned.

Is Jade Empire really worth it? I like Bioware RPG style, but even from people who do, I heard a lot of criticism.

I'm a Tom Clancy fanboy (except Splinter Cell.)

Rainbow Six Vegas 1 and 2 are great as are GRAW 1 and 2.

I picked up Tiger Woods 09 on Sunday and have logged about 15 hours playing time so far. It is fun as hell.

I've been waiting to hear something just like this. Good stuff.

Nobody said Kameo, I'm suprised. Its platinum / classic or whatever its called today. Made by RARE, fun if you like their games. Otherwise Jade Empire is worth picking up if you enjoy adventure-RPGs. I liked it.

If you liked Star Wars, grab Lego Indiana Jones too.

It's alright. It's got a few very good moments, but the combat becomes ultra-repetitive.

2nd on the Kameo, totally forgot about it, but my son and I would have a blast playing it (he mostly did the levels).

Call of Duty 4 on Xbox Live is fun, just be quick with the mute or to leave some obvious screw up matching (dumping us on a Asian host game was not fun), but you get to do prestige mode where you basically re-level.

I think its worth it at the price point ($20?). The combat is more real time than their d&d games, which was a nice change. Also, I really enjoyed the little details like the minigames. Really though, it's a Bioware game, so its about enjoying the story.

I think thats a pretty good list for what he is after. Its nice and well rounded, and offers quite a lot of fun. Hes got some "hardcore" in GoW, some coop in MUA and Lego SW, and some family in Rock Band.

Phantom Dust bears repeating.  Culdcept Saga makes me want to chug scotch until I can forget everything.

Castle Crashers also bears repeating.

I'm writing a thesis right now. :) It'll take me six months to finish Mass Effect and Bioshock. Other than GoW, those are all for the family.

Okay, and Rock Band. Especially now that you can get Skullcrusher Mountain. (I did "Still Alive" -- well out of my range -- for a group of friends last weekend, on someone else's Xbox. None of them had played Portal or even heard of the song and found it hilarious.)