I just got xbox live to work, and its rediculous how many great games there are. Just through B, there is 1942: joint strike, Aces of the galaxy (looks just like star fox 64!), Assualt Heores, Assualt heroes 2, Battlezone, Bomberman, Boom Boom Rocket, Banjo Kazooie and Braid. All these games look awesome (boom boom is colorful and I love games like that, and I used to play battlezone on the computer) and its only through the first two letters of the alphabet! I am betting it will be like this the whole way though I know pac man, geometry wars and castle crashers are in there at least. I am also a huge Banjo Kazooie fan so the BK remake is going to be awesome! All these games are also $5-$20, so I will be able to afford them all at some point :D

Xbox live arcade is like a super sweet version of sega saturn with banjo kazooie. And thats just awesome!

Hehe, don't forget the free XBLA games. Aegis Wing is a pretty decent SHMUP, and Undertow (when you could download) is not bad either.

Right now, I have to say that with Ikaruga alone, it pwns PSN all the way! xD

Indeed , XBLA is simply fantastic, really great variety of games, yes, some are a bit dodgy but their top games really are top notch

Games like

Rez HD
Ultimate mortal kombat 3
Ikaruga
Geomatry wars 1 & 2
Doom
Castle crashers
Streets of rage 2

And you can pick up pretty good games for peanuts, Doom , Golden axe, Track and field, Sonic 1, Sonic 2, Streets of rage 2, Double dragon, TMNT arcade 1989 are all only 400 ms points (Bargains)

Oh, and of course theres 3 big games to come in the shape of

Banjo N64 remake
Duke Nukem 3D
Portal: still alive

All in all XBLA is brilliant and they now have what? must be close to 180 xbla games no? and 2 sometimes 3 games released every week........ Quality service

Thanks for your recommendations. I am going through the whole list now. I'll post which games I plan to buy when I am done.

I bought these:

- Alien Hominid HD;
- Bionic Commando Rearmed;
- Bomberman Live;
- Castle Crashers;
- Galaga Legions;
- Ikaruga;
- TMNT II: The Arcade Game.

Pretty much all of them are exclusives with reviews over 80%+, and they're all awesome!

Try Bionic Commando and Uno, those games are good.

I thought

Banjo Kazooie
Geometry Wars 2
Vigilante 8
Worms
Geometry Wars
Aces of the Galaxy
Pac man championship edition
castle crashers
braid
Portal: still alive
1942: Joint Strike
Boom Boom rocket
Elements of Destruction
Gripshift
Rez Hd
Bomberman Live
Assault Heroes 2
Doom
Galaga Legions
Every Extend Extra Extreme
Ikaruga
Mr. Driller Online
N+
Small Arms
Metal Slug 3
Heavy Weapon
Golden Axe
Castlevania Symphony of the night
Battlezone
Mega Man 9

looked good. Are any of those bad games?
yungmagic- is uno fun for 2 players?

^ GripShift and Small Arms are boring after a while. Also, consider trying Shred Nebula, it's not that bad!

Its super amazing!

 good list, but golden axe is a very short game, abput 80 minutes or something. I just had to get it, because I played it like shit on my genesis back in the days.

Catan is fun, if you like such games. The original Soul Calibur should be nice, too. And of course, the original Sonic!