f13.net

Ok.  I am a late adopter. A buddy from work just upgraded to a HD set, so I got his old TV for free. Now I have a set with working component inputs.

So I bought a 360. Yeah, yeah, PS3, blu-ray, etc. I don't have an HD set, and by the time I've saved for one, I'll be able to afford a damn PS3 as well.

I have obtained the following titles so far:

Assassin's Creed
Bioshock
Mass Effect
skate.
Dead Rising
Viva Pinata (for the kid, and because, well, it's sandboxy.)

On my short list are:

Fallout 3 CE (on preorder)
GTA 4 (not a PS3 exclusive, right?)
Saint's Row or Saint's Row 2
NCAA Football 09
Gears of War

Is there anything else I should seek out? Seriously, like MUST PLAY type stuff.

I'm looking for a copy of the Katamari game for the 360 online tonight (local GS didn't have it).

So beyond that, what else?

Force Unleashed

Call of duty, any of them really.  3 is dirt cheap 4 is out and still gets most of my playtime.  5 (world at war) comes out next month and so far really loving the multiplayer beta.

Dead Space.

Is the multiplayer beta public for CoD5?

I'll echo the CoD4 is great fun, the Lego Star Wars was fun for me and the kid, Guitar Hero or Rock Band is great fun too.

Not public, invites in waves.  Just have to have an account on the callofduty website to be considered for an invite.  I think if you preorder you get it too but not sure. 

Since I'll have a 360 to babysit for the winter, I'm interested in old (cheap cheap) titles. I really don't want to put money into it, since I'm just borrowing it for a few months.

I'm thinking of maybe Dead Rising. My dad's a huge shooter fan so I might actually get CoD4 if he doesn't have it, as a gift when he gets back. Most of the other stuff on Slack's list I'd buy on PC.

Well, for old and cheap you can get some Xbox titles like Phantom Dust and Indigo Prophecy.  I hear Crackdown is fun but I haven't bothered to get a copy yet.

Lego Star Wars Saga is dirt cheap (Lego Indiana Jones is newer and Lego Batman is brand new) and quite a bit of fun, although admittedly I mostly play it with my kid. :)

Make sure to grab both Saint's Rows and play the first one first.

Wow. I'm starting to realize that even with the few suggestions here, the titles I currently own and the ones that are on my short term radar will keep me busy for months if not an entire year.

I have no idea how far along I am in Mass Effect, but when I tried to switch gears to Bioshock and Assassin's Creed, I got all messed up trying to recall how the controls work for each one.

Admittedly, I probably shouldn't be playing a new title super late at night after drinking and whatnot, but dang.

I am just excited that my wife likes the ability to download old arcade games. I'm going to have to practice up on Galaga (no trackball is unfair to some) so she quits pwning me.

Your list is missing Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and The Orange Box.

Both better on PC and why would you buy Oblivion right now when you can get Fallout flavored Oblivion next week?

LEGO Star Wars will keep you busy as a fucking beaver if you try to 100% it.  I think I'm at like 75%.

I'd skip Oblivion entirely.  If you want to play something that old, at least go for Morrowind or Gothic... and do it on the PC.  The Japanese are still masters of console RPGs, even on the 360.

I agree, but Oblivion is still Oblivion - a nice time waster :-P
And, if we're talking about PC's here, then most of those games are better on the PC.

Dead Rising and EDF 2017

Both available cheap and both are must-plays.

He has Dead Rising,

EDF? Wuz that

Erf Defenz Furse

But I don't.

Reading comprehension --

I had a ton of fun with Crackdown, too - worth checking out, especially since it's also cheap now.

Those were the two at the top of my list.

3 and 5 are Treyarch (not as good). 4 is Infinity Ward (awesome).

Also, get Orange Box and Halo 3. 

I've heard nothing but good about the CoD 5 multiplayer so far, and it's still too early to call. CoD3, however, was trash.

Skip Orange Box, I assume you already have it for PC, but really, don't play it on the Xbox, I can't think of anything more lame than a Valve console title.

My bad.

I'm also trying CoD5 beta later today; I registered on their site and got a key.

Well, considering how inflated review scores are for big games, COD 5 is going to have to be somewhere on the magnitude of a consensus 9.5 for me to purchase it.  With the other stuff coming out, I can risk missing a passable game based on the assumption that people with a track record of making trash will continue to make trash.  COD 5 can't merely be good; it has to be better than COD 4, or the community will just go back to COD 4 (which you can get now, for cheap).  I am not in the beta, but I am having a hard time imagining Treyarch putting out the better game.

GOW was a fun and fast-paced multiplayer shooter, and GOW 2 will probably be fun as well.

They aren't calling it COD5. They are calling it COD: World at War. I imagine the next Infinity Ward release will be COD5 and Treyarch will be making titles that fall outside their continuity to preserve the quality of the main branch of the brand.

Ah, good point. So yeah, you can register at the call of duty site and get a free beta key for CoD: WaW ;)

That's a pretty esoteric distinction.  They're calling it "Call of Duty" because they want people who played COD 4 last year to think this is the next iteration.  If it was the same game and just called "World at War" I bet its sales would be halved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty_5

wiki calls it 5

Check back when they announce Call of Duty 5 and we'll see what non-authoritative sources will point their COD 5 links to.

For now, that indicates nothing.

Also, another argument is that they want to do games that use a similar engine and aren't a major push forward to have subtitles instead of monikers like V, VI, VII, etc.  (GTA III, GTA: VC, GTA: SA anyone?)