Grand Theft Auto: Stilwater
You are, of course, a nameless person who joins the Saints in an attempt to put them atop the gang hierarchy. That's the story in a nutshell. It is, yes, really similar to GTA: San Andreas. But visually, the game is pretty impressive. The occasional framerate hiccup does not take away from how good the game looks. The city of Stillwater looks vibrant and alive. You have ghettoes, you have nice upscale neighborhoods, you have arenas --- it all looks really solid. The audio is also quite good. The voice acting is quite good, which is a sad rarity in gaming.
The weaponry is, well, it's also just like GTA. Rocket launchers, machine guns, et al are used liberally in this title. The driving is really quite fun as the cars all handle rather well. No flying vehicles in this first title, but since this one sold decently, I imagine a sequel will include that in it. And the non-mission activites are actually really good and well-done. Insurance fraud is a bizarre choice for minigames for a gang sim, but it does a good job of showcasing the somewhat over-the-top ragdoll physics. My personal fave was mayhem, where you simply had to cause as much as havoc and destruction as possible in a short span of time. When people say the game borrows heavily from --- heck, let's go all-out and say they pay homage to --- GTA, words don't do it justice. The numerous radio stations with an eclectic (albeit inferior) collection of music is there. The conservative talk radio station ("WMD. K-BOOM") actually had some laugh-out-loud moments with their oblivious hosts. The really, REALLY bad hyper-sexed Wendy's rip-off ads got cheesy quickly, as did the other attempts at crude but "edgy" humor, but I'll give the talk radio guys lots of credit for some terrific dialogue and genuine humor.
This is, presently, the best sandbox title on the 360 (Just Cause is its only competition and, let's be honest, it's not really competition). It's not a classic and will easily be surpassed by future titles, but for now, it's a fun diversion with enough enjoyment packed in it to entertain you until GTA actually comes out and gives Volition ideas for S.R II.