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It's my birthday next tuesday, and as usual my mother has no idea what I want. Was thinking of picking up Halo Wars again, but I don't know how active the online community is so I might not get my (mother's) money's worth for the campaign and skirmish alone. Also considered Dead Space because I never even started playing on Impossible difficulty and the game was fun as hell anyway.

Not sure about Dead Rising 2, because I never played the original and I don't know how long it'll keep me occupied for.

tl;dr: I need a (Xbox 360) game that I'll get a lot of playtime out of, preferably with strong single-player content. Online play would be nice but not necessary.

If your into RPG's Arcania just came out.

Next Tuesday is when Fallout: New Vegas is released.

how about Borderlands?

Cheese, if it's between New Vegas and Gothic 4 then do the right thing and go for New Vegas. I've recently been playing Risen and while it's a good filler for RPGing between Bethesda games it really can't compete with them. But I know you're a BioWare junkie so maybe you ought to skip both. In that case, go for the new Castlevania. The gameplay is great and there is plenty of it.

Yeah, I'm not that into Bethesda games and Risen is banned here.

Castlevania is certainly an option, but the only other entry in the series that I've played was Simon's Quest (on a dare). I know it's supposed to be the lowest point in the series, but the memories are so painful...

Got a good review on Good Game (a tv show over here), so I might rent it at least.

I just downloaded the demo for Arcania off Live, it's not bad if i'm honest, I played Gothic 2 to death, that was a great game. The demo at least, seemed to struggle with the engine at times, getting some bad frame rates and weird graphical glitches. Whether or not this is resolved in the full game or not, I can't tell you, but on the off-chance they haven't, I wouldn't pay full whack for it.

New Vegas looks like it'll be the top RPG on the Xbox for a while imo. Depends how Fable 3 does i suppose. Which is another option for you

I really don't see the appeal in New Vegas, it looks exactly the same as 3 ( which is to say, like gak) and fallout 3 wasn't that great to begin with...

Fable is just a no go, twice has peter molyneux tricked me, there will be no third time.

Dead space isn't out here for months, and it would be truly perverse if it was out earlier in australia. I did just pick up dead rising, but I've not played it enough to say whether I would recommend it yet. Personally, I wouldn't recommend halo wars; but then I'm not really a fan of RTS games.

Dead Rising 2 will definitely give you more than your money's worth in terms of the sheer amount of content and the hours of play that the game provides.

Just keep in mind that it is a fairly difficult game, and there are still time limits and survivors that you'll have to deal with. You may want to spend five dollars on Dead Rising 2: Case Zero from the marketplace to see if you really like the concept of the game. Personally, I think that it's loads of endless fun. As the tagline goes, creativity kills.

Well, it's my birthday today, and my mother got me Halo Wars dirt cheap. Got plenty of money from relatives, so I could grab a brand-new copy of DR2.

Will definitely look into Case Zero first. How many hours will I get out of it?

I got about 6+ hours of enjoyment out of it. That's really not bad, considering the price of the game. Also, keep in mind that your progress in Case Zero contributes to your progress in the actual game (though the levels that you can gain are limited to five), should you decide to buy it.

Since Dead Rising 2 relies a lot on replayability, the more of a completionist you are, the more enjoyment you'll get out of it. Expect to play through the game a lot in order to hit max level. Since the game is a mix of both freeform play and a timed schedule, there are a lot of different ways to go about getting through the game, a lot of things that you'll miss the first few times around (including numerous different endings), and a lot of secrets to find on any subsequent playthrough. There's also multiplayer, which extends the life of the game by quite a bit.

Case Zero is simply a taste of the main game (the weapons you can find and make are very limited compared to the actual game, and you're limited to one small area), but it's definitely the most enjoyment I've ever gotten out of five dollars.

Soladrin wrote:I really don't see the appeal in New Vegas, it looks exactly the same as 3 ( which is to say, like gak) and fallout 3 wasn't that great to begin with...

I guess you never played it, right? Reminds me of this review for New Vegas on Amazon . . .

Listen my dudes : Fallout : New Vegas is one of the most boring games I've ever played, worse than Dead Rising 2!!! Sllow movement, ugly graphics, stiff character models; characters talk ALOT as if this is some lame RPG game, WHEN IT'S NOT!!! -- IT DOESN'T EVEN HAVE AN ONLINE MULTI-PLAYER!!! This game isn't the possible GOTY people say it is!!! Just a stale rip-off of BORDERLANDS, which has multi-player and is a 99999x better game!!!

If you read this review and you still buy this : Your existance will be forever banned forever from The Palace of Wisdom, forever.

Good day, broskies.

Soladrin wrote:Fable is just a no go, twice has peter molyneux tricked me, there will be no third time.

This, however, is spot on. But, somehow, I feel more trusting now . . . NO NO FIGHT IT.

@Cheese: Halo Wars is something I played for about twenty minutes before nearly falling asleep. How are you enjoying it? (Full disclosure, I never could get into any Halo game.)

Arcania IMO. I just got Dead Rising 2 and pretty much want to return it. It's fun but... I could have spent my money better.

Well, we can all pat ourselves on the back for avoiding Crackdown 2.

Chrysaor686 wrote:Dead Rising 2 will definitely give you more than your money's worth in terms of the sheer amount of content and the hours of play that the game provides.

Just keep in mind that it is a fairly difficult game, and there are still time limits and survivors that you'll have to deal with. You may want to spend five dollars on Dead Rising 2: Case Zero from the marketplace to see if you really like the concept of the game. Personally, I think that it's loads of endless fun. As the tagline goes, creativity kills.

I have to agree with this assessment of the situation dead rising 2 is most definitely the best choice.

Decided to rent DR2 instead. Enjoying it so far and hacking through crowds with combo weapons is a blast, but the savepoints are really unforgiving.

[quote=Manchu@Cheese: Halo Wars is something I played for about twenty minutes before nearly falling asleep. How are you enjoying it? (Full disclosure, I never could get into any Halo game.)

Well, my friend, I can report that New Vegas is absolutely superb.

Cool. Might check it out at a later date.

Have the animations and voice acting been improved this time around? Fallout 3 was shockingly bad in those aspects.

Voice acting is amazingly improved. Graphics are exactly the same. Neither was s huge problem for me in Fallout 3, as the sense of freedom was so overwhelming--even when compaed to Morrowind and Oblivion. Unlike Fallout 3, New Vegas is very true to the previous titles. There are lots of little improvements that you can really appreciated if you logged a lot of hours into Fallout 3 but more shallow gamers will take them for granted (as they do everything). I still think Castlevania: Lords of Shadow wins "game of the year" 2010 in my book but only because New Vegas is based so thoroughly on Bethesda's work with Fallout 3. If Bethesda had released New Vegas as Fallout 3 in 2009, it would easily have been "game of the decade."