This list is much longer than I intended, but I do play a lot of games. I was supposed to have one list for everything that happened this year, music movies, games, websites, and so on. I have to do the other things later, though, so here's the long games list. Let me know what you think of my picks, the full list is after the jump. Downloadable Game of the Year Band of Bugs (XBLA) Band of Bugs is still my top-played Xbox Live Arcade game. I have really enjoyed Fire Emblem in the past, but it is a pretty heavy game. Band of Bugs is the perfect casual turn-based tactical game. It's colourful and has wonderful variety, a great selection of multiplayer modes and a stellar level designer. Band of Bugs was also the first game to fully utilize the Gamescore policy and add an extra three Achievements with downloadable campaigns, which were also great. Honourable Mention Carcassone (XBLA), Super Metroid (VC) Carcassone is the perfect port of a board game to a video game. Super Metroid finally getting re-released was also a great gaming experience for me, as now my Metroid collection is complete.

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Back to the regular programming. I've met my goal of getting 10,000 Gamerscore within a year of acquiring my Xbox 360 console. I was actually hoping for a bit more of a challenge to hit it, but borrowing BioShock and then getting The Orange Box, Assassin's Creed and now Mass Effect made it easy. I've still got a ton to do on Assassin's Creed, but Mass Effect is so captivating. I've swayed at times since some of Mass Effect's side quests get a little repetitive, but the story really gets involving and the conversation is great. I actually love the combat, too, but I know some people don't like it as much as I do. If you are looking for a 3rd person shooter, it's not Mass Effect. It's an RPG despite how it was hyped. Enough of that, though, I'll finish ...

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It's a good thing I completed BioShock when I did. I picked up The Orange Box, along with another product which I'll blog about later, on Friday. This is basically the final nail in the coffin for Project Gotham Racing 4, not that I could afford it anymore if I wanted to. I need to play some more of the demo, just for fun, to see if I really want it or if it was just a phase thing. Regardless, I'm not even looking at it right now, this set is so good. Well, let me re-phrase that, Portal is so good, I actually haven't even played any of the other games yet. Like most people who are getting this, I think, I have never been into Half-Life before, but that's part of the appeal of this set. As soon as my family got a PC that was more than capable of running Half-Life, my hardware-challenged friend, Harry, started bugging me to buy it. I never did, and since I never had an original Xbox, I never paid much attention to that re-release, either. As soon as I saw Portal a number of months ago, though, this set became a must-buy. I don't know, but the general attitude before release about Portal seemed to be skeptical. For me, I was just purely excited. Having finished it twice, beating the Advance levels and being more than half way though the Time, Step and Portal Challenges, I think it's safe to say I'm satisfied. Well, as everybody's been saying, except for the length.

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