Having finished up Halo 3 a while ago, I had gone back to plugging through Marvel Ultimate Alliance and toying around in Crackdown. I picked up BioShock, and then sold a few games to grab Guitar Hero III, but when it was sold out (pretty much everywhere), I bought The Orange Box instead.
Bioshock is an amazing game. It's full of style, with an incredible visual narrative. The story is pretty good, and it's fun to let it unfold around you. The super powers are a really cool twist, but I find it really hard managing resources and I've reached a point where I can't keep bullets on hand for my various weapons quick enough.
The Orange Box is probably the best value in video games of all time.
It contains Half Life 2, Half Life 2 Episode One, Half Life 2 Episode 2, Portal, and Team Fortress Classic.
Now I've finished about 3/4 of Half Life 2 on two different systems (the original X-Box and the PC), but I'm going to give it one more shot. It looks incredible on the 360, and my sweet TV makes it all the better.
Portal is an incredible game. It's really short taking just over 2 hours to complete totally, but it's ridiculously fun. This would have made a terrific XBox Live Arcade title.
Finally there's Team Fortress Classic 2. I've let my Live Gold membership expire, but this game may be enough to get me back on there. It looks like it's a load of fun, and the really cool graphics which look torn from the pages of a comic, are a welcome addition.
There's still a lot of really great stuff available for the Xbox 360. Assasin's Creed, Call of Duty 4, Beautiful Katamari, and of course Guitar Hero III are all on my “must play” list. I'll probably give a few other games a whirl if I can find them really cheap (like Simpsons, Conan, and Tomb Raider Anniversary).
The next game I'm likely to shell out cold hard cash for is Rock Band, which was supposed to get released on Tuesday, but will now arrive in Canada on December 20th. That sucks, but it gives me some time to get some stuff done so that I can dedicate the holidays to rocking out I guess.