Depends on what you like. If you like shooters (and since Halo 3 is a definate buy I'm guessing you do like shooters) I'd suggest Gears of War and Lost Planet. Both are excellent and actually have some semblence of story. If you're into RPGs, I'd suggest Oblivion, and the upcoming Mass Effect and Assassin's Creed. Oblivion, by the way, is the hands down best RPG on any console, or the PC, period. I dare anyone to argue otherwise. (And don't hand me that garbage of "Oh Halo would kick Oblivion's butt". Halo is a shooter, Oblivion is an RPG. You're comparing apples with oranges.)

I voted Elite for several reasons:

1) those who deny that it is quieter have probably had their eardrums halfway ruptured by playing Halo 2 with the sound turned to max. The Elite IS quieter, and there really isn't any denying that (don't quite understand why people would, it's not that critical a point to start with)

2) theoretically, it fails less (although that's debatable). It DOES come with an extra heat sink for the GPU but it's not clear if that heat sink actually helps or not. In any case, my Xbox Elite hasn't failed yet

3) more storage space and a lot of extra goodies, like an HDMI cable.

The only bad thing about the Elite is its cost and the fact that you may or may not need 120gb of storage. If you're a super-causal gamer, who plays at most 1-2 games on your Xbox during any given year, and never downloads or even goes onto Xbox LIVE, then the Premium is better, since that extra $100 for the Elite would go to waste. But if you plan on doing any kind of downloading of any form, the Elite might still be worth it.

and as for price get a friggin day job...its not that expensive..i go to college 4 days a week and work the other 3 days a week and have half the rent n cable n electric and water and cell phone to pay and i can still afford it so stop ur cryin about the price.d0pestar

I think the problem that people are saying here is why should they pay $15 a month, when there's no visible benefit for doing so. Everyone who's ever argued that Blizzard somehow "needs" the $15 a month should Google a game called Guild Wars. It's an MMO that, oh my God!!!!, doesn't charge a monthly fee. Really. And it's doing just fine, it's not going out of business or anything. So, obviously Blizzard doesn't HAVE to charge us a monthly fee. So why do they?

The obvious answer is: "because we pay it." The sad fact is that there are 9 million idiots out there who are willing to pay $15 a month and so Blizzard charges us $15 a month. If people stood up and said, "hell I'm not paying that much for this," they'd quickly change their policy, but unfortunately there's no shortage of fools in this world.

And yes I technically could afford to pay $15 a month, but I just don't want to. Because it's so pointless. It's like saying, "why don't you just take $15 out of your pocket each month and burn it? You can afford to..."

Look, I'm just saying that for $15 a month the game should be godly. The updates should come fast and furious, the expansions should be free or like $5, and the game itself shouldn't be full price, maybe like $40. Right now I'm not seeing where that $135 million a month is going. I really can't. As far as I can tell it's going straight into the pockets of the developers as they laugh their heads off at the idiotic WoW players all the way to the bank.

Bioshock has the more engrossing storyline, if you ask me. And it's waaay creepier, if that matters to you. Also, Bioshock is a shooter whereas Oblivion's mostly a hack and slash. I won't make your decision for you but I'll list out your pros and cons:

Oblivion

Pros:

Gigantic game world
Damn near infinite replayability
Tons of side quests
Decent main storyline

Cons:

Game world can be a bit empty, even though they've improved it since Morrowind
Can take days to finish the game. Even months sometimes. I've played it for a year and haven't finished. But that may be a good thing, depending on how you look at it.


Bioshock

Pros:

Creepy setting
Incredible storyline
First person shooter (if you like those)
If you liked System Shock 2, you'll love Bioshock

Cons:
If you hated System Shock 2 you'll hate Bioshock
Smaller game world compared to Oblivion
Not many side quests (none, in fact, unless you count getting achievement points)

It's up to you. Personally, I'd say get them both. I did :)

OK, well, here goes.

There are 9 million or so subscribers, yes? And each of them pays, what, around $15 per month? So, that means that Blizzard's making, what, $135 million per month? You do realize, that's about as much as, like, the CEO of Dell makes. Now considering just how much mulah Blizzard pulls in every month from WoW, what are they doing with this cash? You'd think the expansion packs would be free, I mean you ARE paying $15 every month for it, but no. Not only are they not free, they're, what $40? I saw one at a local game store going for the full price. $60. That's right, 60 big ones. Ridiculous? I'd say so.

And don't give me that garbage, "oh they need the monthly fee to maintain their servers!" Rubbish. Guild Wars charges exactly $0 per month, and they maintain their servers just fine. And what about Starcraft, or Warcraft III, two other games from the same company? Has Blizzard required you to pay $15 each month to play online for those games? No. So why do they do it here? Let's just face it, they do NOT need the monthly fee to maintain their servers, they don't need it to add new content, they don't NEED to charge you $15 a month at all, they just WANT to. And 9 million people just pony up, like the good sheep they are. Baaaa.

And, having put down 60 big ones to get WoW, plus another 80 for both expansion packs, assuming you didn't get ripped off and pay 60 each, what do you get for your money? A cartoonish, boring game where all you do all day is grind, where the storyline is boring and bland (they should just remove the "RPG" part of MMORPG, role playing games are supposed to be you playing a role in a story, but not for WoW).

And, since you're paying $15 every month, you'll probably feel the obligation to play. After all you're paying every month, so you're wasting your money if you're not on 24/7, right? That's just rubbish. I don't want to feel obligated to my game. I purchase a game because it's fun. I don't want to purchase a monthly obligation.

Finally, you'd think that for $15 a month you'd be getting some kind of service. That's usually what monthly fees are for, right? You pay a monthly fee for the privilege of living in your apartment/house. You pay a monthly fee for the privilege of having internet access. Or for your gas and heating, or for your water, and electricity ... these are all services that have a visible effect if you pay for them. But what do you get for your $15 a month? Some say, "you're paying for the privelege of playing WoW on Blizzard's servers." Oh really? I could pay $50 once, and I could play all I want on Guild War's servers, and I DON'T have to pay a monthly fee. So why do I have to do it here? Clearly, there should be SOMETHING other than the privilege of playing on the WoW server that you get in exchange for your monthly payment. What is it? I have no idea, and that above all else is why I will never play WoW.

I don't own a 360 myself (yet) but a friend of mine had his break 3 times, and each time it took him approximately 2-3 weeks to get his back. Thankfully he had a PS3 to tide him over while his 360 was in the shop, but lots of people aren't that lucky I guess.

Don't worry, they'll send it back eventually :).

Why is this a choice? Why not get both?

If you're like me, and have played Icewind Dale, Icewind Dale II, Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate II, Knights of the Old Republic, Knights of the Old Republic II, AND Jade Empire, then you're probably going to want to go with Mass Effect. After all, nearly all of the games I just mentioned garnered extremely high reviews for their depth and story. Bioware is famous for its story-telling ability, and I believe that Mass Effect will be no different. Mass Effect will also probably be more graphically impressive. In the end, it has a massive vistas, forbidding planets, and a storyline from the best of the role playing game creators.

Assassin's Creed is going to be excellent graphically as well. Assassin's Creed takes its gaming in a new direction, what with its "everything's climbable" system. In addition, Assassin's Creed is more "interesting" in terms of story, since space operas are an old hand in the industry, whereas I haven't seen many games about arab assassins running around the holy land during the middle ages assassinating crusaders.

In the end I still recommend getting them both, but if you must make a choice, it really depends on what kind of player you are. Since you've given me these two as a choice, I'm going to assume you're more cerebral than most console gamers, having chosen two RPGs instead of, say, two shooters (no offense to shooter fans out there. Hell, I'm a shooter fan, I guess that says something about me). Because of that, because you've chosen two RPGs, I'm going to assume that you're choosing games not just for their graphical impressiveness but also for depth and story. You probably want a game where you care about your character, and about the NPCs, and although you like some blasting of baddies, you also like having a cohesive, well-thought-out story to go along with it.

If that is the case I'd suggest Mass Effect. From arguably one of (if not simply THE) best role playing game makers in the industry, Mass Effect is sure to have a storyline that won't disappoint. Add on top of it impressive looking gameplay, a massive map, and of course ridiculous graphics, and it would seem that Mass Effect would be the game of choice for you.