New 360 Owner: Recommend Some Games

[Pirate]

Likes:
• Pick-up-and-play games
• FPS
• Hack and slash (God of War type stuff)
• Racing (more Burnout than Gran Turismo)

Dislikes:
• RPGs
• Strategy
• Puzzle

Show me the way, bothers.

[Taxi]

I don't think you can go wrong with Halo 3. (Although I don't have my copy yet... )

Games I have played and can recommend:

Forza 2
Rainbow Six Vegas
Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved (Xbox Live)
GRAW (I don't have GRAW2 for the 360, just the PC, and I don't like it as much.)

[Wilson]

There is a burnout game so that's an option. Forza 2 may be a little to realistic if your into arcade racers. Need For Speed: Carbon is a good racer that's a little more arcadey than something like PGR4. Dirt and PGR4 look amazing but may be a little too realistic.

I'll second Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved (Xbox Live)

Crackdown is a great FPS.

[MooglePorn]

There's nothing like God of War on 360 that's good, unfortunately. Maybe Conan... but no.

As for FPS, Call of Duty 2 and 4 are amazing, Rainbow Six Vegas is awesome and different (slower paced, tactical). F.E.A.R. is cheap now and an amazing FPS. The Darkness is awesome if you want an FPS with a great, cinematic story. The Orange Box is a must own for Half-Life 2 and Portal.

Racing... Project Gotham 4, enough said. Buy it. Now. If you want more simulation, Fozra or Forza or whatever is more your bag.

Pick up and play? I guess you mean like small casual games? That would Live Arcade, the best of which is Geometry Wars, Lumines... well, Lumines is puzzle... hmmm. I honestly think a lot of XBLA is crap and regret almost every purchase I made on there, so be wary. The first marble game is good though, Marble Blast Ultra I think is the name.

BioShock is the best game on the system. Crackdown is really, really fun.

I think that's about it.

[sub780lime]

Call of Duty 4
Halo 3
Bioshock - definitely Bioshock - top of the list
Gears of War

[billnye97]

Originally Posted by MooglePorn

There's nothing like God of War on 360 that's good, unfortunately. Maybe Conan... but no.

As for FPS, Call of Duty 2 and 4 are amazing, Rainbow Six Vegas is awesome and different (slower paced, tactical). F.E.A.R. is cheap now and an amazing FPS. The Darkness is awesome if you want an FPS with a great, cinematic story. The Orange Box is a must own for Half-Life 2 and Portal.

Racing... Project Gotham 4, enough said. Buy it. Now. If you want more simulation, Fozra or Forza or whatever is more your bag.

Pick up and play? I guess you mean like small casual games? That would Live Arcade, the best of which is Geometry Wars, Lumines... well, Lumines is puzzle... hmmm. I honestly think a lot of XBLA is crap and regret almost every purchase I made on there, so be wary. The first marble game is good though, Marble Blast Ultra I think is the name.

BioShock is the best game on the system. Crackdown is really, really fun.

I think that's about it.

What Moog said with the exception about Xbox Live Arcade. Pac Man Championship Edition is awesome. It takes the original feel of Pac Man and updates it. Highly recommended.

[Taxi]

Hmm. I have lots of games from Live that I like. Especially some of the classics like Joust and Dig Dug, Uno, plus Assault Heroes and that poker game that I got for free.

You can always try them before you buy them, so maybe you're just a little to quick on that "buy" trigger Moog?

[MooglePorn]

There's games on XBLA I like, I just never play them. It's not really worth the money, even $5 or $10, if I play them for an hour and quit.

The only one I have put a ton of time into is Lumines, but PH listed puzzle as a no-no.

[esc]

Halo 3
Gears of War
Guitar Hero II

Texas Holdem (XBL)
Bomberman (XBL)

[Astrakan]

• Pick-up-and-play games
Not sure what you mean by this exactly... Games without a storyline? Or games that are easy to learn the mechanics of?

Crackdown is a game with somewhat of a story, yet its sandbox mentality makes this a pick-up-and-play game for me. It never makes me feel like I need to remember what I was doing or why.

There's not much of a learning curve in terms of controlling the character either.

• FPS
Disclaimer: I have not yet played Bioshock or The Orange Box. I imagine both are very worthy to be mentioned in this category.

Recommendations here depends a lot on what kind of shooter you prefer: slow or fast.

In the slow-paced category you can't go wrong with Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter and its sequel. These can be played in either 1st or 3rd person. Another gem in this category is Rainbow Six: Vegas, which is strictly 1st person.

In the faster paced category you've got Call of Duty 2 and Call of Duty 4 (forget about 3) which are two of the best FPS games currently available.

And if you're cool with 3rd person shooters I highly recommend Gears of War. This is my favourite game so far this generation.

There's obviously also Halo 3. While I prefer all of the aforementioned games to it, there's no question this is a quality game if you enjoy faster paced sci-fi 1st person shooters. The replay theater alone is worth the price of admission.

• Hack and slash (God of War type stuff)
Like Moogle says... not sure there is too much hack-and-slash stuff available on the 360... There's Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on Live Arcade, also the original Prince of Persia with pretty new graphics.

This is also not one of my kind of genre, so there may be something out there that I'm not aware of.

• Racing (more Burnout than Gran Turismo)
Burnout: Revenge is supposedly good, but I haven't tried it. Ditto to Project Gotham Racing 4, which is closer to Gran Turismo than Burnout, but it's still classified as an arcade racer and not a simulator.

Now... Up until the release of Forza 2 I also firmly considered myself more of a Burnout racer than a GT racer. Then my brother made me try Forza 2 and there's something about it that just clicked. I think the ability to tweak the difficulty (in a few different ways) at any time prior to each race is the main thing. I often find myself trying to play more sim-like, without ABS breaks or steering-line (a coloured line painted on the road showing when to break and the best path) or one of the other help features. But then when that becomes too difficult, I turn on one or more of the features, and the game becomes fun.

So, if you're the least bit interested in racing, I'd at least rent Forza 2 and take it for a spin.

• Others
This is my own category for you.

If you like stealth games, you can't go wrong with either Splinter Cell: Double Agent or Hitman: Blood Money.

Prior to Splinter Cell: DA I had not played any previous SC games and from what I hear this is a different experience than the previous chapters, so if you really enjoyed those you may want to rent this first. But I really liked it.

I'm usually not big on sports games, but Fight Night: Round 03 is great fun. Especially in 2-player mode (offline or on), but the career mode is fun too. And how can you resist creating Rocky Balboa in build-a-boxer mode for your career?

Xbox Live Arcade favourites include Cloning Clyde, Wik, Eets: Chowdown and Zuma. I've also bought a couple of traditional tabletop games like Backgammon, Hearts and Texas Hold 'Em.

With Live Arcade the main thing is to just download and try whatever seems fun.

KM

[Wirehed]

Zuma drops to 400 points today, so that's probably worth picking up if you're interested.


I'm more of a Burnout fan as well, but Forza 2 is one Hell of a great game.

Gears of War is great, probably better than Halo3. I haven't played Bioshock or the Orange Box yet.

FEAR is a pretty great shooter and at a lower price point now.



(ok, go ahead and make fun)
Casual gaming is what I generally have time for these days, so I own a ton of Live games and I've really never felt they weren't worth the money.

I also bought Scene it! since I figured it would be a fun party game. But it's WAY too easy. It turns into a dash to see who can slap the button faster to answer the question, or just distract the other player. Hopefully they release downloadable questions in the near future that offer a much higher difficulty level.



All the classic games are great fun. Pac-Man CE is a great update.
The poker game is fun to a point. It moves a little slow, but if you like Hold 'em, it's a decent game.

[Moonraker]

Originally Posted by Wilson

Crackdown is a great FPS.

Crackdown is a third person shooter and still very fun to play.

[umainebearman]

If you like shooters I can't see anyone NOT owning, theres just no excuse. -

Rainbow Six:Vegas
Call of Duty 4
Those 2 I'll never trade in.

Gears of War should be gone through at least once. If your first experience with a Bezerker doesn't hook you theres something wrong with you. The multiplayer isn't as great as I'd hoped and theres no real replay value.

Bioshock - Yeah best games I've ever played.

FEAR was ok on the PC and I played it a bit at a friends house on his 360.... not very exciting. Maybe a rental. There are great shooters on the 360, FEAR isn't one of them low price point or not.


Need for Speed Prostreet - I just recently picked this up. I like you am not a big sim racing fan. The NFS series have always gotten my $ going back to NFS 2: SE for the PC. Ahhh Mcleran F1 how I miss you. I haven't got real deep into it yet but what I have played is fun.

Guitar Hero 2,3 and Rock Band - Now some people just are not good at these games but damned if they don't keep playing them. You will suck guaranteed when you star on easy but once you start nailing songs you will be hooked. These are my pick up and play games.

XBL Arcade has the original DOOM! I've had a blast playing this and going through it coop with friends.

[sub780lime]

Originally Posted by Moonraker

Crackdown is a third person shooter and still very fun to play.

Crackdown ends up being a really addictive game and while it gets a little repetitive as you level up and then jump online with a friend, you can have fun for hours.