Okay people…I am finally getting myself an Xbox 360. There are two games I know I have to get:
Halo
Call of Duty 4
Yes, I know…I’ve never played Halo. What other games are necessary for the Xbox owner? You know…blow your socks off cool?
Don’t forget the required Mass Effect and Fable 2. 
One of us, one of us, horray Solai is slowly falling victim to the hive mine. 
Besides Mass Effect, I’d have to say Bioshock is a must play. One of the coolest games I’ve ever played.
Thanks for the recommendations! I discovered something awesome about getting into the 360 world late in the game (bah-dum-dum)…I can get these games for peanuts. I just picked up Assasin’s Creed for 10 bucks at Gamestop used. Halo has been ordered…I think I payed 8 bucks for that and Bioshock is generally under 20 bucks.
No need to repurchase Mass Effect as I own it on the PC. Fable II will be procured in the future and Call of Duty will be part of my next round of purchases.
The guy at Gamestop was really into Street Fighter IV. Any thots? At $60 bucks I think I can wait on that one for a while. He was also pushing Resident Evil which just makes a little sick…do I really want to play zombie games? I’ll go as far as the Doom franchise, but that is about my line.
I’ve not played Street Fighter IV as I’m not a fan of fighting games so I can’t comment on that one. If you don’t have it for the PC The Orange Box is a steal simply for Portal. A lot of people love Fallout 3 and Gears of War. The only games I actively play outside of my RPG’s are Rock Band 2, the Guitar Hero games (but they get pretty expensive if you don’t already own one as you have to have the instrument controllers), and all the Star Wars games especially Lego Star Wars and The Force Unleashed.
So I don’t have an Xbox but one of my favorite XBox games (Braid) just got released for the Mac a few weeks ago. I really love it and would highly recommend it – worth the $15 in my humble opinion.
What Kind of games are you into? Games that I personally like on the 360 are:
The orange box: great collection of games if you haven’t already played it on the PC.
Oblivion: Western Fantasy RPG. Older game but still holds up well, and is now cheap. Plenty of choices on building your character.
Fallout 3: made by the same developers of Oblivion. An action style of RPGing set in Post nuclear war US in alternate world where the Culture of the fifties didn’t progress onward.
Bioshock: First person shooter with some interesting game play and story.
Mass Effect: Self explanatory.
Mega man anniversary collection: an original Xbox game, but you can pick it up for under five dollars and it has all the classic mega man games. Will play on the 360.
Fight Night: Don’t know if you are into sport games, but the latest version is incredibly addictive, and a lot of fun.
Fable 2: fun fantasy game as mentioned by Sean. I would warn you it is more of a game you play for fun than any challenge. There is no difficulty since you can’t die. If you lose health, you just get a scar.
The Chronicles of Riddick-Dark Athena: Contains Athena and a re-mastering of the original Xbox’s “Butcher Bay.” These are prequel stories to Pitch Black, and while I am not a fan of the series, these games are awesome and mix Stealth with shooting and great voice work.
Burnout: a racing game that is a lot of crazy fun. Can be found for very cheap.
Lost Odyssey: A very interesting JRPG that actually provides a challenge.
Beautiful Katamari: A quirky Japanese game that is unbelievably fun. Basically you start as a pint sized son of the king of the universe, and you roll around a ball that starts off a one cm big, but it can get as large as cities and the world as you roll things up. I know it sounds weird, but it is strangely fun.
Dead Rising: an incredibly replayable game that involves your character trapped in a mall in a sort of “Groundhog Day” scenario where you use stuff in the mall to mow through hordes of zombies. You can find this one for cheap to.
I could go on, but it would help if I knew what genres you were interested in. Also, there are some good Xbox arcade games available.
'splosion man! Download it! <Ahhh-nold voice> Do it now!
Seriously, I haven’t had this much fun in a long time. Perhaps it recalls the classic games of yore (and by yore I mean late 80s early 90s) but it is really clever which gets big kudos in my book. There is even a free trial so you have zip to lose.
Do it! Do it now!
Just for the sheer cleverness alone, grab one of the Lego Star Wars games. The older ones are likewise cheap at Game Stop. And I know it’s pretty sedate as far as all the newer games go, but I still love Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb. You get to be Indy, hat, whip, and all, with the original music score urging you on. A craaapload of fun.
I bought the Lego Star Wars compendium and have now played through once. Doing a second sweep in freeplay to pick up all minikits, red bricks and true jedi status. Very relaxing, a great game to play for those with limited gameplay time.
New XBLA title Defense Grid: The Awakening gets the thumbs-up from me. A good-looking, nice-playing tower defense title. Won’t redefine the genre, probably isn’t the be-all end-all, but certainly a very good version, far better than the cheap cash-ins flooding the market, lots to do, roughly 25 different levels, multiple challenges for each level to beat, and all only 800 MS Points.