Games to get -
1. Alan Wake was tons of fun, I played and beat it twice in a row - have never done that with any other game
2. FPS - Halo, GOW . . . Xbox is the FPS console, so you can't go wrong here
3. Halo Wars was pretty fun and something to consider if you like RTS games
4. Crackdown - Tons of fun. Not as good as GTA games, but a good sandbox game that is fun to blow things up in
5. Mass Effect series . . . not my cup of tea, but apparently they're some of the "best games ever" - according to game informer
6. Arcade games (d/l the demo, see what you think, these may not be xbox exclusive):
1. Castle Crashers . . . tons of fun. Tons
2. N
3. Braid
4. Limbo
5. Worms 2 Armegeddon - if you have friends over who played that game with you in college
6. Battlefield 1943 - this is a must have. if there were more Achievement pts available I'd still play this game
As for a 250GB console - do you care about noise? Do you care about console longevity? Do you plan on buying a lot of Arcade games? If the answers to those questions are yes, then buy the 250GB console. OR just plan on upgrading the HDD at a later time, you can always add it later.
Installing games to the HDD does the following: Game runs from the HDD, therefore there is no CD spinning during game play - Quieter, and your ODD will last longer.
You of course have the option of getting memory sticks to give you more space available . . but I don't think you can run games from those, or save and store Arcade games from them.
My suggestion: get the 4gb 360 and make sure you get the yr subscription to Xbox Live . . . see how you like it, save up . . . upgrade to 250GB HDD at a later time.
Walmart has a black-friday door buster 4gb model that comes with Mass Effect 2 and Modern warfare 2 for $199 . . . pretty darned good deal if you live in the US.
