Recommend me some games for the Xbox 360...

My son received an Xbox 360 from his uncle for Xmas this year. So while he and his sister are happy playing Kung Fu Panda and Lego Indiana Jones, my gf and I are looking for some ideas for games more to our taste to play when the kids are in bed.

(Yes, OK, ha ha, very funny. Can we get our minds out of the gutter now? )

I've been out of the gaming loop for a couple of console generations (last one was an N64) and haven't bought a PC game since the early days of Windows XP. So I'm looking for recommendations from my fellow gamers. What is cool? What is not? What will dethrone Planescape: Torment as the greatest game ever?

Some insight into my tastes might help with the recommendations.

First-Person Shooters: I loved Half-Life to bits. Played it to death for years on end. So I'll be getting the Orange Box. Is there anything else that I should check out from this genre that compares to HL? Are the Medal of Honor games good? I was also a huge fan of Operation: Flashpoint, so something on that scale would be cool too.

Role-Playing Games: I said it already - imho, Planescape: Torment rocked my world. I also loved Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I'm looking with eager eyes at Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Is it cool? Are there any other great rpgs on the 360?

Space Shooters: Both Freespace and Tachyon: the Fringe were staples for me back in the day, as was X-Wing: Rogue Squadron. I love flying around in spaceships blowing stuff up. A large, immersive setting and a cool plot are also a must. I am stumped in this regard, though. Anything good out there?

Horror Games: I loved Clive Barker's Undying and Shadowman. I love a game that can creep me out and make me scream like a little girl. So I am thinking of checking out Clive Barker's Jericho. My gf is a huuuuuge zombie fan too. What else is out there that would get us all goose-bumped and tingly in the small hours?

Those are my main areas of interest. My gf is very into Tomb Raider as well (she bought Legend yesterday and I'll get Underworld for her when the price comes down a bit). I have also heard good things about (iirc) Mass Effect and Bioshock. Gears of War looked cool but I have heard that it gets repetitive.

Anyway, hit me with your recommendations, either in the above categories or any other game that you think is supercool!

(As an aside, we weren't aware of the gift before Xmas morning and haven't upgraded to an HDTV yet. The games we do have - Kung Fu Panda, Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider: Legend - look great and play fine on our 32" flatscreen SDTV but we are keen to move to HD anyway. This just gives us added impetus. We should get an HDTV sorted out in the coming week, but if there are issues with any games on an SDTV, feel free to mention them in the meantime.)

(As another aside, if there is already a thread that covers this kind of thing in one place, feel free to spank me and point me in the right direction. You'll save time and I'll get a free spanking. Everybody wins!)

Oblivion for sure. It's coming up on 3 years and I still play the heck out of it.

On the contrary, I found Oblivion to be horribly boring and repetitive, but there seem to be a lot of mods out for it, which might make it cool (not sure, those exist for the console version, though).

I just played and finished Mass Effect recently and found it to be a very great game. Some parts of it are also repetitive (well, what game doesn't have those), but all in all... awesome RPG with a great evolving story and lots of nifty bits and pieces in between.

Bye
Thanee

Mark Hope said:

First-Person Shooters:

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Definitely Bioshock... also consider Call of Duty IV: Modern Warfare.

Role-Playing Games:

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Definitely Mass Effect... also, I hear good things about Fable II and Fallout 3.

Space Shooters:

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Unfortunately this is something of dead genre, particularly on the consoles. But weren't Freespace/Freepace II great games?

Horror Games:

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I hear good things about Dead Space, and Resident Evil V is out soon and looks amazing from the previews.

Disclaimer: don't have a 360... I've played the PS3/PC versions.

While Mallus is wrong on virtually everything he says virtually everywhere in ENWorld (), he's almost always right in the video game forum. So - what Mallus said.

I own Bioshock, Mass Effect, Fable II, and Fallout 3 for my 360 (others for my PS3), and they're all quite good (well, Fable II less so, but if you liked the first one then you'll like this one for sure, I'd say). Note, though, that the far superior version of Mass Effect is on the PC.

The Gears of War series (1 & 2) is pretty good, if you like shooters. (And, again, the far superior version of GoW1 is on the PC, not 360.)

I found Oblivion to be wretched and boring (with poor controls on top of that), but lots of people liked it so it might be worth looking in to. (And yet again - same as above. Superior verson on PC.)

Halo 3, if you liked the first two (it's more Halo 2.5 or even only "2", since Halo 2 was more like Halo 1.5, heh). Too short and disappointing single-player game, AFAIC.

Other 360 games I own (and consider decent, at least - especially if you get 'em used):
- Blue Dragon: a respectable JRPG
- Dead or Alive 4: the DoA series of fighting games is my favorite, so I'm not all that objective here. Not as good as the best one in the series (DoA2), it's still decent. Too bad the 360 controller is wretched with fighting games, 3D or otherwise. *sigh*
- DoA Extreme Beach Volleyball 2: Okay, I don't recommend this... it's very bad. (I got it for <$10 and the only redeeming feature is that it has video game boobies. That's not much of a feature.)
- Dead Rising: find only if cheap. Very repetitive and short, it's a lot of fun for short periods because it's you, a mall, and zillions of zombies. Zombies!
- Eternal Sonata: A beautiful (both in graphics and sound) JRPG.
- Forza Motorsports 2: An okay racing game (though the PlayStation's Gran Turismo series blows it out of the water). If you like racing games, though, get it used.
- Infinite Undiscovery: A so-so JRPG. By Square-Enix (yay!), but definitely not their best work (boo!) (as it has been for all their work on MS's platforms). Stick with their Sony releases.
- Just Cause: A poor-man's GTA mixed with Mercenaries. Fun to run/drive/fly around and blow things up for a short while. If you get it, get it cheap.
- Lost Odyssey: A much-better JRPG that's kind of reminiscent of the Final Fantasy series. If you happen to like that sort of thing, this is the one JRPG to get (along with Tales of Vesperia, actually)
- Lost Planet: Extreme Condition: Bleh. Not a great shooter. Got it because I got the special edition for, like, $5.
- Perfect Dark Zero: An okay FPS. Notable for being the beginning of Rare's downfall into mediocrity. Four player split-screen with bots, though.
- Saint's Row: A GTA rip-off, but fun and over-the-top.
- Tales of Vesperia: The next in the line of the Tales JRPG series. I'm a huge fan, and thus not objective. FUN, IMNSHO!

Mark Hope said:

First-Person Shooters: I loved Half-Life to bits.

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Since you skipped Xbox, I'd say the entire Halo trilogy will still do you good. You can get 1&2 cheap enough used, give them a try and then move into the next-gen Halo3. Gears 1 was great, I didn't care for 2, but that's me.
Call of Duty 2 was great, Modern Warfare is widely acclaimed though I didn't care for it. Bioshock for sure.

Role-Playing Games:

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Oblivion, Mass Effect, Fable 2
(and again, Fable 1 and Morrowind are Original XBox games that are good and cheap. As well, Knights of the Old Republic is original Xbos and great. and I loved Jade Empire)

Space Shooters: Anything good out there?

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Nothing springs to mind, maybe something on Live Arcade...

Horror Games:

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Everyone I've talked to says Jericho sucks, never found anyone that liked it. Silent Hill has a few games on XBox and 360, and if your gf likes zombies, than Dead Rising is a must. Left4Dead was so-so for me.

Thanks, guys - some great suggestions here and valuable insight. Thanks!

Arnwyn, can I ask what is it about the PC versions of some games (Oblivion, Mass Effct, Gears of War) that makes them superior to the console versions? Is the gameplay different? The stories? Controls? Or is it the fact that a high-end PC can out-perform a console?

Mallus, yeah, I haven't seen anything resembling a good, old-fashioned space sim in ages. The Freespace games (1 and 2 and the expansion) were just fantastic. Some killer mods out there for them as well. Sigh. Might be time to break out the old PC, fire up the GeForce3 and go scrag some Shivans

OK, as a tangent, do any of you folks know of some games that might be cool for a seven year-old girl who loves ponies and fairies and singing and dancing and pretending to be a princess? I'd guess that would be more Wii territory, but I figured I'd ask on my daughter's behalf. She is generally pretty happy just riding Epona around the fields of Hyrule in Zelda: Ocarina of Time, but she might dig something similar on the 360.

Mark Hope said:

Arnwyn, can I ask what is it about the PC versions of some games (Oblivion, Mass Effct, Gears of War) that makes them superior to the console versions? Is the gameplay different? The stories? Controls? Or is it the fact that a high-end PC can out-perform a console?

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A little bit of each. Here are specifics for those that I know:

Mass Effect: vastly improved controls (especially that one vehicle... whatever its name is)
Gears of War: better controls, along with entirely new content (the only place to fight a signficant cool boss battle, for example)
Oblivion and Fallout 3: mods, mods, mods (i.e. loads of brand new free content); slightly better controls for Oblivion.

Arnwyn said:

Mass Effect: vastly improved controls (especially that one vehicle... whatever its name is)

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The Mako's not a vehicle, that's a player torture device. It's a testament to the general awesomeness of the game that despite the annoying Mako controls and repetitive side-quests where you had to drive around in the thing, I still played through the game three times. I really hope they replace it with a shuttle in Mass Effect 2.

drothgery said:

The Mako's not a vehicle, that's a player torture device. It's a testament to the general awesomeness of the game that despite the annoying Mako controls and repetitive side-quests where you had to drive around in the thing, I still played through the game three times. I really hope they replace it with a shuttle in Mass Effect 2.

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I'm not an "extreme" Halo fan, but I did love the series and world, so take it for what it's worth...

The Warthog controlled FUN. It worked good and did what you wanted generally and when you flipped it, was still fun, IMO.

meanwhile, Mass Effect and Halflife-2, their vehicles are (as you say) just torture for me. I just wish they'd play the warthog and copy it.