Must-have games for xbox360

Phoenix Park

I realise this might have to be moved somewhere by a mod, but i can't find a thread that this seems suitable for.

Have the xbox360 a couple of months now. Previous console was a SNES so things have moved on (and certainly for the better)!. Anyway, there are so many options i'm trying to narrow things down a bit.

The xbox came with COD MW3. I don't really like it, its fairly slow and i find it a bit tedious being on foot all the time..crouch..stand up and shoot, crouch again, run to the next area of cover etc. Obviously there is a lot more too it for those in the know, and i'm sure it comes into its own playing through xbox live, but i can't really get into it. So i bought Batman Arkham City. Loved this game, much more interesting. I liked stalking the bad guys and taking them down, the different weapons..swinging around. Anyway, after finishing the main story of that one i got Halo:Reach a few days ago (cheers to MackDaddi for the recommendation on here). Thought this was superb, quite like Batman only even more fun and i liked the quick pace of it, using the different vehicles/ larger variety in aliens compared to COD where everything seemed the same. Have almost finsihed the solo campaign of Reach so will want something new unless i go online with this one..

So my question is where to next?. I'm not keen on sports games. I like American football but have previously played Madden and find it a bit complicated and it doesnt really excite me. Games that seem to be highly rated on here are Bioshock, Skyrim and Mass Effects 2. Would Mass Effects 2 be too like Halo:Reach?. I have looked on YouTube and it looks a bit similar only maybe a bit slower moving with a lot of dialogue..
Skyrim i have also looked at, it seems massive..i'll save that for later. I think Resident Evil 5 is available on xbox..any good?

Obviously i could try Batman Arkham Asylem and another Halo game as i likes the other ones so much, but as a newcomer to xbox i'd like to branch out and see what else is out there.

If this needs to be put in to another thread than thats fine, i'd appreciate any suggestions on where to go from here, cheers.

I have avoided playing online so far as...can this be done in silence out of interest?. Might sound strange but living with my other half it would be awkward putting on the headset conversing with people playing a game when theres only the two of us here if you know what i mean!

EDIT: i have just highlighted the above games to show what i have liked so far.

chin_grin

I'd highly recommend the Assassins Creed series.

JustAddWater

Red dead redemption is a classic ... Also GTA series are excellent too

houseplant

chin_grin wrote: »

I'd highly recommend the Assassins Creed series.

I haven't played any of these yet. Do you recommend starting from the first game of this series or can I just pick it up from the latest game?

chin_grin

houseplant wrote: »

I haven't played any of these yet. Do you recommend starting from the first game of this series or can I just pick it up from the latest game?

To get the most out of it, I'd pick it up from the first. I found the story line very interesting (even if you're not in any way religious.....Don't worry it's not "preachy" either!).

ShadowHearth

dead space 1
dead space 2
bayonetta
fallout 3
fallout new vegas
bioshock 1
bioshock 2
dantes inferno
borderlands goty
warhammer 40k space marine
Forza 4 ( if you are in to racing sims )
dark sauls
alice: madness returns

thats just from the top of my head

plasteritup

ya the gtas if you havent played em are a must,fallout 3 is a great game aswell.

Phoenix Park

Thanks to all so far

chin_grin

ShadowHearth wrote: »

dead space 1
dead space 2
bayonetta
fallout 3
fallout new vegas
bioshock 1
bioshock 2
dantes inferno
borderlands goty
warhammer 40k space marine
Forza 4 ( if you are in to racing sims )
dark souls
alice: madness returns

thats just from the top of my head

+1 for Dead Space one and two. Will scare you sh!tless! The first one anyway, the second is more action-orientated. But has some great scenes (the eye bit....eugh!).

Instead of Borderlands I'd suggest Rage. Pretty much the same game! :pac:

gizmo

houseplant wrote: »

I haven't played any of these yet. Do you recommend starting from the first game of this series or can I just pick it up from the latest game?

This is a tough one. The story and characters are really laid out in the first game so you'd be completely lost if you just jumped into Assassins Creed 2 without any prior knowledge. Unfortunately the first game isn't on par with the sequels at all in terms of content. Sure the cool movement is there but there's very little variety in terms of missions and side quests. You can, however, get through the game by completing a relatively small number of these so I'd recommend doing that and getting through it as fast as possible so you can play the rest of the series.*

As for other games, well a couple off the top of my head would be:

Mass Effect 1. (Do not start on ME2. )
Alan Wake
Bulletstorm
Vanquish
Bayonetta
Dead Space
Enslaved
Red Dead Redemption
Darksiders
Gears of War series
Ninja Gaiden 2

Remember there are demos for almost all of these games on XBL so make sure and give them a shot before buying.

Also, there's also a ton of XBox Live Arcade games you should try such as:

Shadow Complex
Limbo
Super Meat Boy
Castle Crashers
Bionic Commando Rearmed
Hard Corps Uprising
Rez

There's loads more to choose from, all of which have demos too, so go nuts.

*Alternatively you could just look up the story for the first one on Wikipedia but I really don't like the sound of that personally

Cherry_Cola

Essential games for me anyway would be:

The Orange Box - 5 games in one and can be picked up for around a tenner these days, no brainer reall
Red Dead Redemption - Best single player campaign I've played in ages.

Dead Space - Great survival horror.

Fallout 3 and Skyrim are both fantastic and contain hundreds of hours of play in each. I haven't played New Vegas yet but I'm sure it's great too.

I picked up the new Madden the other day only and have really gotten into it. I'm only getting into American Football in general at the moment but have found it easy enough to pick up.

Gears of War games are meant to be great too, though I've only really played the first.

Sephiroth_dude

Tales of vesperia if your into RPG'S

Gandalph

I'm in the middle of Dead space 2 at the moment after loving the 1st one, I am a bit of a horror nut though.

I would prob reccomend Devil May Cry 4 its a bit old now but its a nice pace action game.

Mass effect 2 is very good but if you dont like the long dialogue sequences it can be very tedious.

Skyrim is the greatest game I have played in awhile, fallout 3 is also amazing

jaykhunter

Bro u might consider going to gametrailers.com, head to the review section, sort by console and highest rated. U can watch ~5-7 min reviews of games, they've never steered me wrong. No better video review site in the world IMO !

Red dead, mass effect series, dead space 1&2 and I enjoyed the fable games too. Great time to get a console, and gaming in general!

Also might be worth ur while googling game of the year awards for the last few years. GT do em as well

Welease

Portal 2.. wasn't expecting much.. but played it as the wife had bought it for me..

Excellent game.. One of my favourite games so far, only downside is that it doesnt take long to finish..

Phoenix Park

Thanks all, that gametrailers site seems to have plenty of info. Dead Space seems to be highly rated. The clips i've watched of it look great, i'll go with that one next i think. So many options, Vanquish and Bayonetta look really manic too, in fact loads of the suggestions seem worthwhile so its hard to decide!

corcaigh07

like somebody else said, dont ignore some of the quality games on xbox live, and since you havent been playing games since the SNES, there are some games and ports from yesteryear that should appeal along with new classics. i'd recommend trying demos of all of these:

Trials HD
Shadow Complex
Worms 2: Armageddon
Any of the Sonic games
Banjo Kazooie maybe, form the N64 days.
Beyond Good and Evil HD
Resident Evil 4 (a better game than Resident Evil 5, its available in the games on demand section)
Dead Rising:Case Zero
Marble Blast
Peggle
Plants Vs Zombies
Gunstar Heroes
Chime

there is loads more quality on XBLA, thats just a sample. Depends what you are into. The Sonic games and Gunstar Heroes are the pinnacle of the 16-Bit gaming era and were released on the Megadrive, they may appeal to the last time you used to game. very cheap titles too, 400 points each, less than 4 euro.

ShadowHearth

Phoenix Park wrote: »

Thanks all, that gametrailers site seems to have plenty of info. Dead Space seems to be highly rated. The clips i've watched of it look great, i'll go with that one next i think. So many options, Vanquish and Bayonetta look really manic too, in fact loads of the suggestions seem worthwhile so its hard to decide!

You just have to get dead space 1. I have it on Xbox, but I newer came around to finish it off as i don't like playing horror survival games at day time, but with misses back at 18:00 I have no chance playing it

So on steam sale I got dead space 1 + dead space 2 for 9.99eu! 2.5eu for dead space 1.... Best ever money spent!

5.1+ dark room, no misses in sight. I jumped so many times! At one stage I went: damn pc mouse+ keyboard make it way too easy! After chapter 4 or 5 I was down on all my savings, supplies, bullets... Just because of panic attacks lol

If anyone need horror survival game or just really good quality game, then dead space is a must.

Sl!mCharles

Condemned is another great one imo.

And Mirror's Edge. You could pick both up for about 7 euro each these days as well

Sasquatch76

Sorry to hijack the thread, but what are the must-have games that are exclusive to 360? The Gears of War and Halo series I guess... any more?

ShadowHearth

Sasquatch76 wrote: »

Sorry to hijack the thread, but what are the must-have games that are exclusive to 360? The Gears of War and Halo series I guess... any more?

well, its matter of taste.

halo and GoW are biggest franchise to be exclusive to 360, thought for me the only exclusive that is well worth it - forza series.

Trevor451

Gears & Halo are not really xbox exclusives. Halo 1 & 2 both have PC versions along with the first gears of war.

LostBoy101

These are my favourite games off the top of my head

Mass Effect 1 + 2 (I would recommend start from 1)
Assasins Creed Series
Tom Clancy Double Agent + Tom Clancy Conviction
Kane and Lynch Dead Men
Bully
Just Cause 1 + 2

As you can see I like games that have decent story lines as I get hooked to them fairly quickly. I dislike playing online multiplayer games like COD and Battlefield as they bore me really quickly.

Landoflemon

I would recommend Alan Wake, I had been excited about it for years before it came out and it didn't let me down. I traded it for Red Dead Redemption after completing it, but a year later I bought it to do the campaign all over again! It's quite an engaging narrative, great lighting effects and atmosphere, no tacked on multiplayer, and genuinely tense.

However, seeing as it's coming out on PC in February, I'll think I'll be buying it all over again!

yoyo

Crackdown 1 is very very good, and can prob be picked up cheap nowadays. The second was boring but 1 is a must have!

Nick

LostBoy101

Landoflemon wrote: »

I would recommend Alan Wake, I had been excited about it for years before it came out and it didn't let me down. I traded it for Red Dead Redemption after completing it, but a year later I bought it to do the campaign all over again! It's quite an engaging narrative, great lighting effects and atmosphere, no tacked on multiplayer, and genuinely tense.

However, seeing as it's coming out on PC in February, I'll think I'll be buying it all over again!

I wasn't impressed by Alan Wake, all you have is a weapon and a torch. Storyline was interesting but the gameplay didn't work out for me.

Landoflemon

LostBoy101 wrote: »

I wasn't impressed by Alan Wake, all you have is a weapon and a torch. Storyline was interesting but the gameplay didn't work out for me.

Of course all of these suggestions are going to be subjective, I believe the game was criticised for the limited variation of the gameplay, I just happened to click with it. It did not sell particularly well either, in part no doubt due to it being launched within 4 days of Red Dead Redemption which was one of the most anticipated games of the year.

Don't forget you weren't limited to just one torch, there was a choice of 3 :-)

gizmo

Sasquatch76 wrote: »

Sorry to hijack the thread, but what are the must-have games that are exclusive to 360? The Gears of War and Halo series I guess... any more?

Flicking through the wiki list of console exclusives and filtering out the rubbish leaves:

Alan Wake
Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts
Crackdown
DeathSmiles
Fable 2/3
Forza series
Gears Of War series
Halo series
Lost Odyssey
Too Human (I did say rubbish)

In terms of XBLA exclusives there's:
Shadow Complex
Super Meat Boy
The Adventures of Shuggy
Dishwasher Samurai
Trials HD
Ms / 'Splosion Man
Rez HD
Ikaruga
ilomilo
Perfect Dark HD
Geometry Wars
South Park Let's Go Tower Defense Play!
The Maw
Lucidity
N+
Comic Jumper
Guwange
The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom
Radiant Silvergun
Torchlight
Bangai-O HD
Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet
The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile

May have missed one or two but they're the ones that immediately spring to mind.

johnny_ultimate

I always find it amusing that the least Japanese-centric console of all time has such a high proportion of great Japanese games (the natural successor to the PS2 in that regard). It's the best shmup (scrolling shooters) console since the Dreamcast. Would highly recommend giving Death Smiles a go for some frantic high scoring fun. If you like that, the more challenging DoDonPachi Resurrection is a natural progression. The import friendly Mushimesama Futari v1.5, however, is probably the best of the bunch. Ikaruga, Bangai O-HD and Radiant Silvergun also see the world's finest 2D developer Treasure remaking and reimagining their classics in glorious HD.

I'd also advise anyone to play Bayonetta and Dark Souls (although not console exclusive) - together probably the highlights of a console generation. They're both challenging in their own way, and require effort to get the most out of them. But the rewards are unmatched, except by timesinks like Street Fighter IV!

klose

Gears of war trilogy is a must, great campaigns and really fun online! Worth its money for campaigns alone.

Ive dead space and im about 20 mins into it and im quite literally too scared to play it anymore haha

Retr0gamer

If you want something interesting then I'd suggest Deadly Premonition. It's not for everyone since it's very cheaply made and the gameplay can be terrible at times but if you stick with it it's one of the best written games around with a fantastic storyline. Way better than Alan Wake imo.

Also for some dumb but great fun blasting get Earth Defense Force 2017.