Sure have!

Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat

Basically it's a continuation of the CoD series, which is namely a 1st person shooter. Thankfully they've moved on from the World Wars, and have brought the next title into the next generation. The single-player mode is entertaining, but the real catch to this game is the online gaming - it's compared to Halo 3, and personally I enjoy CoD4 more so. You basically have to work up through the ranks online, where you unlock new abilities (perks) and use them to gun down enemies en masse - if you're good enough. The maps aren't vast, nothing near the levels of Halo 3, but they're solid and make for decent online gaming (though snipers can sometimes prove problematic when they gain the perfect angle on the kill zones throughout).

For those who enjoy online shooters, this is probably a must-have. It's new, it's fresh, and the gritty, realistic nature (mostly) of the gameplay makes it worth while struggling to beat enemies and win matches. In the end it all comes down to choice, and personally I would choose a realistic military game over a futuristic sci-fi, any day of the week.

Ratings:

[*]Story (7.5/10): Nothing special, just your routine run-through-missions type storyline fighting against a rising terrorist presence in foriegn countries, but the added effect of switching between multiple characters adds to the excitement of the game - even if it can get a little confusing here and there. The set up to the single-player was good, and I enjoyed watching the coup from the eyes of the President to be killed; a nice touch watching the shot and everything. I wasn't overly impressed with any specific part of the storyline, though the S.A.S missions were my favourites - especially the first Cargo ship mission, when things start to break apart. Scripting can be a little heavy, though all in all I don't mind a bit of forced gameplay - so long as it works toward enhancing the experience (such as adding to the movie-esque feel of a fade-out from a cutscene), and not making a player go anywhere against his/her wishes (namely the scripted tree falling to cut off your path), which gladly doesn't occur very often. The end of the single-player left me feeling unimpressed, though all of the emotional connection the developer wanted the player to feel was there in aces.

[*]Graphics (7/10): The graphics aren't quite what they promised, I don't believe. When I tested the BETA, namely multiplayer, the developer said they had toned down the graphic quality... which, seemingly, they didn't, as it still looks exactly the same. The weaponry is good, very detailed, and the environments are interesting - especially being able to shoot away portions of walls to get to your enemy and hit him with your gunfire. The cutscenes are worth watching, and I found myself really getting into how well they scripted them.

[*]Replayability (10/10): Not so much the single-player, though that might be a good calling point, but mostly for the multiplayer. If you're like me, basically an Xbox Live fiend, then you should get this game solely to play it online. I, personally, enjoy this game online more so than Halo 3, and I enjoy experimenting with the many different perks (abilities you unlock as you gain online ranking) in order to see how well I can use them against my enemies. So, if you want a fun, engaging shooter with decent online play, CoD4 is your game - buy it.

[*]Innovation (4/10): Simply: About damn time I didn't have to see World War I and/or II again.

I love Mass Effect thus far, the only thing I find irritating is the elevators and the fact that you cant skip the landing cinema.

Assassin's Creed in my opinion was pretty disappointing. I haven't played through the game completely yet, and I don't really have the desire to. Lately I've kind of just been picking it up here and there but I usually bore pretty quickly of it.

The story is odd to me, and it seems unnecessary. Why not just be able to play as the assassin and that's that? There's this whole unnecessary story that seems out of place.

The attack animations are pretty cool but they get boring, fast. How many times do I want to see the same variation of moves done, over and over? Not many... The enemies seem to be pretty much identical with very little variation, and they all have the same moves. Assassinating a guard in the middle of a busy street with nobody seeing you is fun, but if you've done it once you've done it a million times because nothing changes.

The climbing aspect of the game is pretty cool but unfortunately that excitement wears off quickly too once you realize that you're just climbing the same buildings, over and over again. After you've climbed a few towers you quickly realize they're all based on the same few set of models. Then when you get to the top of the tower and look out over the city, it's pretty cool at first. But at least on the 360 version, it seems the details of the graphics are nearly completely removed so that it seems you're looking at little more than a 3D model.

The Assassin's Bureau where you go to get info on your missions is the exact same in every single city down to the number of leaves growing down along the wall. The "save the citizen" missions make you feel more like you're doing a job than playing a game and having fun. They involve a citizen surrounded by a group of guards who are harassing the citizen, you kill the guards and the citizen is freed.

The method for getting into each town (at least the first few towns) seemed the exact same to me. The guards won't let you into the town, and there's some scholar who's being harassed by guards outside the town. You save him, he allows you to "blend" in with other scholars allowing you to march right into the town along side them. It got to the point after the 3rd or 4th city where I was instinctively looking for the scholar who stood out amongst the townspeople in his white robe, knowing that's how I'd gain admittance into the town short of killing the guards.

Killing guards... Killing the guards is pretty fun at first, especially when you assassinate them. The problem with fighting guards is, it's as difficult to fight 2 or 3 guards as it is to fight an endless stream of them. The guards surround you in a group of about 5 or 6 and attack you one at a time. This seems cool at first when you're surrounded by all these guards and you're fending them off one by one. But quickly you realize you could take on the whole town at once the way the fights go.

So, that's pretty much my interpretation of Assassin's Creed thus far having played through probably about 75% of the game. There are some really fun aspects of the game, such as running around the towns jumping from rooftop to rooftop, pissing off all the guards and fighting until you basically get bored of it. I got the game as a present, so I can't complain too much considering I didn't have to pay for it, but just a few hours into it I was wishing I was playing Mass Effect instead. If you do want to play the game, which I would regardless what anyone said until I actually played it for myself, I'd suggest renting it. It seems like you could do everything you'd possibly want to do with the game in a week's time easily.

You should send it to me, lol.

I beat Mass Effect. I liked it alot. I might want to get CoD 4 next, dont know though.

I'm still standing by my statement that Mass Effect is Kotor, just with different names and locations; and also that Assassin's Creed is more enjoyable when you know what's going on - such as this game being the first of a trilogy, where you end up playing Desmond (the kid in the future) in parts two and three. Granted it is repetitive, and granted it could have been a lot more, but I think they'll address such issues in the next installments... fingers crossed.

I still think CoD4 is the best buy your money can get you - as long as you have Xbox Live.

I've been hearing great things about CoD4 from a whole bunch of my buddies that play it on Live.

I agree 100% about COD4 I got the game about 3 weeks ago or so, and I'm still playing it at least every other day. I really like the way their multiplayer system is setup. You start out at level one, and kills and other various tasks grant you xp which causes you to slowly level. As you get higher in level you gain new weapons, new abilities (called perks), and new challenges which you can gain xp through. It's almost RPG-like how you setup your character "class" which consists of their weapons, and perks.

The maps are almost all enjoyable no matter if you like to find that perfect sniping spot, or if you're the guy like me who runs around killing everything and usually ends up dead several times throughout the match. The game's just pure fun, that's all there is to it.

The campaign mode was criticized as being too short, but I don't necessarily agree with that. You don't buy COD4 to play through some extensive campaign, you play it to play on Xbox Live. That being said, the campaign mode was pretty fun and I enjoyed it. The last game I played through before COD4 was Halo, another shooter. But the experience is so vastly different. I love Halo 3, but COD4 is just completely different in almost every way.

The campaign mode plays out almost like a movie. In the first stage where you're fighting through a cargo boat, when the boat starts to sink you really almost feel like you're watching a movie, and there are several scenes like that throughout the game.

There are a few features that I wish were included in the multiplayer aspect of the game. Video, it would be awesome if you could go back and watch your matches and see where the other players are hiding, see what you did right/wrong etc.

As for Assassin's Creed Vance, like I said there were parts that were pretty fun. The problem was everything was so repetitive, you're doing the same things over and over again, and after the first few times they're just not fun anymore. The fact that you can play as the bartender in the next games seems cool, at least it opens up a whole slew of possibilities. But the game just fell short in so many ways, there were so many opportunities for the game to be amazing, instead it was just OK.

Oh I agree Vicirus. I enjoyed those as well. I've just been waiting for an RPG for the 360. I'm looking at getting either Assassin's Creed or CoD 4. I don't have Live though.

If you don't have Xbox Live don't buy COD 4, rent it. The campaign mode isn't long enough to be worth $60 if you're not going to be playing on Live. I really don't think Assassin's Creed is worth the coin either to be honest, I really think you could easily get away with renting it and get everything out of it if you've got it for a week or so.

As for RPGs have you ever played Oblivion? Definitely worth it if you're looking for a solid RPG and have never played it, you can pick it up for $25-30 now too.

I stand by my statement that Oblivion is one of the single greatest games ever made. Amazing RPG, amazing game.