Where my dilemma lies is my inability to choose either Mass Effect and Call of Duty 4. Both games I want, but at the moment have only enough to purchase one. Mass Effect is a game that I've been anticipating for months (Well pretty much since X06), and with every piece of gameplay footage, screenshots and TV commercials, I get more and more excited. Not to mention it looks amazing from both an artistic and technical standpoint. Plus it's from Bioware which is an extra bonus knowing they've made nothing but quality products.

Call of Duty 4 on the other hand is a game that I wasn't fully sure of, and it would've been nice to gain access to the multiplayer beta so I could see if I'd enjoy it or not. The main reason why I'm very interested in Call of Duty 4 is it's time period. No more World War II setting (which has plagued the first person shooter genre for years and still is). It's Modern day, with modern weapons, and with a modern back-story. After playing CoD2...a good game, it was about damn time. Now with Call of Duty 4 already out and Mass Effect just around the corner, what game do you think I should buy first? Or wait til I have enough money for both?

In other things, Xbox Live Arcade recently released Carcassonne for free which before has a cost of 800 points($10). At first glance, Carcassonne didn't appealing to me at all especially when I started playing the trial. So now that Microsoft decided to make it free, I said OK, I'll give it another try. To my surprise, it's oddly addictive once you understand what you're supposed to do. It's like a cross between a puzzle and RTS game as you're trying to claim land, build castles/monasteries, and roads for points. I can confidently say that it's currently one of, if not favorite XBLA titles to date.