Front Mission Evolved.
Mainly got it because of a 3 for £10 deal. Heard it was disappointing but I actually ended up enjoying it, maybe I just needed change of pace with a mech based game.

Space Rangers 2, actually, from this very site.

I had some reservations about how the world might feel--I worried it would be like Gal Civ 2, which for me never had much character--but I've enjoyed it so far.

And my graduate studies have suffered accordingly this weekend...

James Bond Bloodstone and Singularity.

Both underrated and enjoyable. Bond is a fun, overblown action game, Singularity is a gripping shooter with a Bioshock vibe.

I'm assuming you're speaking speaking of the various multiplayer server shutdowns (e.g. Halo 2). I'm not aware of any games that you can't play singleplayer on in XBox 360 or Live, if there are any I'd love to hear about them, though.

This is why I'm against not having LAN play/servers available in games and why I think games like MW2 suck. I would never support these games no matter the platform. People still play Unreal Tournament and that's 11 years old.

I do not see why the no LAN server thing is any worse on XBox than on PC, many of the games are available on both. I recommend people do not buy these games, period.

As far as Deathspank or some similar Arcade title is concerned, yeah when the hardware is gone, so is the game. Though I do believe cracked XBox 360s do exist and aren't that terribly hard to do, they are also pretty easy to detect, though, so most people who want to play on Live don't seem to engage in that.

They shut down the entire Live services for original Xbox games, from what I understand. They had some arcade games on that system and some paid DLC for games like KotOR and Chaos Theory. As far as I know that stuff can never be downloaded again.

And yeah, like I said a cracked system might have the ability to run backups, I haven't really looked into it. Still, if you won't buy a SecuROM game where all you have to do is swap an exe file then I doubt you're counting on a hacked Xbox.

I must say the Divinity 2 has turned out to be much better than I expected. I am completely enjoying the game.

Currently not playing such a game.
The last one was Assassins Creed 2, which i expected to be as boring and repetitive as the original. Surprisingly, not as much.

Fallout (1) just gets better and better. It takes a game of rare quality to overtake the game in its series that you played first - like Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike almost instantly replacing Street Fighter II in my affections - but I just can't deny that it seems better than Fallout 2 in almost every single way. I think a lot of it is down to how the start of F2 is pretty crappy. You have that ant temple bit which is just a boring chore, then some feeble side-quests in Arroyo before you get started, then the first village you come to is a bit of a mess and does little to get your interest up.

F1's beginning is also its weakest part, but it's pretty brief and nowhere near as gruelling and disconnected from the rest of the game as F2's. I think my biggest complaint so far would be how about 20% of the NPCs you can engage in conversation (i.e. not the ones that just have floating text when you talk to them) seem to have a relatively innocent dialogue option that will make them attack you, turning the whole area against you in an instant. It also seems easier to accidentally break the narrative due to the non-linear style. I ended up meeting one of the big bad guys relatively early in the game before he'd even been foreshadowed at all. I could ask him about things my character hadn't even heard of yet, like FEV.

I bought Final Fantasy XIII a couple weeks ago. I had just randomly decided that I wanted it. I didn't really go in with high expectations, but what expectations I had were surpassed.

I know that quite a few people (especially long-time fans of the series) didn't really like the game, but I seriously have not played a game this awesome in long time. I'm loving the story and the gameplay. So yeah, this game is surpassing my expectations, and I've still got a long way to go.

Wow, you don't even have the slightest urge to punch Hope in the face and to tell Vanille that you're going to all play a game of "see who can stay quiet the longest"? I admit that certain characters in certain moments, like certain Sasz/Zasz (whatever it is) scenes later on, are really well done and very believable and convincing, but generally it was too far down the slippery slope of becoming a J-Pop video that was foreshadowed in VIII and X. And the fact that the "world" is basically a piece of string that you run along - with no backtracking at all, sometimes even within the same area.

That said, I do agree that the battle system was oddly compelling after a while and it could be damn hard, forcing you to think of new ways of playing. And you have to hand it to them, they do come up with a whole new, unique world each time (X-2 and various VII spin-offs aside) and the battle systems always feel new and fresh. As much as I like the series, it's odd how Dragon Quest gets away with almost complete stagnation and is far more popular in Japan than Final Fantasy.

Oddly enough, I've never found Vanille or Hope to be really annoying. I understand why they could be-- Vanille's high-pitched voice and incredibly odd accent and Hope's ridiculous emo-trip-- but it never really bothered me. It might just be me, and who knows, maybe when I play it through the second time it won't be quite as great, but I'm enjoying for now.

Also, I don't really mind the game's linearity. I wouldn't mind it to be a little more open, but it doesn't bother me too much.

Arnt they making a part 2 to FF13 that is actually like a FF game with stuff like exploring and towns?

Recent played and finished Singulairty which was quite linear but fun and definately worth playing through :)

Drakensang is also really good, played the demo and bought it straight off :)

Yes, reaver894, they are making a Final Fantasy XIII-2, but I don't know much about it.