Today marks one month with my Xbox 360, which makes it timely to reflect on my experiences thus far. When I brought it home from Christmas festivities, I found the system easy to hook up: the same A/V cables as my original Xbox worked, requiring less rewiring, and a nearby AirPort Express I'd previously installed provided the wired connectivity that my Wii gets wirelessly. I didn't appreciate the need for this additional hardware and cabling.

But once the connection is made, the Xbox's superior online experience is immediately evident. Though Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) games may not be superior to WiiWare, the availability of free demos for both downloadable and retail games gives any gamer hours of free entertainment. I immediately queued up 57 downloads, playing one while others continued in the background. Eventually I turned the system off and let the remainder continue into the night.

However, the transition from Wii to 360 has not always been easy. With the Wii being the only current-gen console in my household for more than two years, I've grown accustomed to its innovative and intuitive controls. Though I was excited to finally have hands-on experience with all the 360 titles I'd heard so much about, I found their controls both daunting and archaic. I actually have to push buttons to make things happen? How quaint! One look at the complex control scheme for Dead Space, and I quit. It's not that I'm incapable of learning detailed controls, but my gaming preferences have shifted sufficiently that I prefer pick-up-and-play approaches.

It's no wonder, then, that a month later, I've yet to put a single disc in my console. In a recent episode of the Major Nelson podcast, the observation is made that a new Xbox owner who downloads the top XBLA games will be set for awhile. Such has been my case. Not counting freebies like Dash of Destruction and Aegis Wing, I without hesitation bought Bionic Commando: Rearmed, Pac-Man Championship Edition, and Portal: Still Alive. A demo of Braid assured me it, too, was worth purchasing, and I was delighted to discover a remake of the original Apple II game Prince of Persia. It didn't take me long to beat Bionic Commando and Portal, but I still play Pac-Man every day. I knew these games would appeal to me more than Halo, BioShock, or Mass Effect, and so far I was right; for less than $50 USD, I've gotten hours of accessible and replayable entertainment value. But what's surprising is that, after reading reviews or playing demos, the six retail games I originally listed as reasons to buy an Xbox 360 are now ones I have no intention of buying. And, given the use I'm currently getting out of my 360, I don't see that I need to, either

The 360 is more than just games, of course. I've never purchased movies or television shows via iTunes, but upon a friend's recommendation, I did buy an episode of Scrubs from Microsoft's Video Marketplace. I also registered Rivet (upgraded this week to v2.0), a Macintosh program that lets me stream most audio and video from my Mac to my 360 (though I had to upgrade my OS to Leopard before Rivet would run). I like that the New Xbox Experience allows me to peruse the Xbox Marketplace from my computer at work and queue downloads for when I get home; it provides more opportunity and immediacy for acting upon various news and thoughts I come across during the day.

Without many multiplayer games or even a Gold membership, I've not yet engaged in any online competitions, but that's okay. I've always enjoyed sharing the couch with my fellow gamers, and I don't know that I'd enjoy the remoteness of online play.

In the meantime, I am a very happy, if unconventional, Xbox 360 gamer.

Of the previous generation of game consoles, the Xbox earned the least of my attention. I'm not a fan of first-person shooters or of sports games, so its appeal was sorely limited. I enjoyed the few exclusives I tried, such as Shenmue 2 or Panzer Dragoon Orta, but in my book, two games generally do not warrant the purchase of an entire console.

It's been easy for me to exclude the Xbox's successor from my current entertainment setup, as my main criteria was that I would only purchase an Xbox 360 that came with a hard drive, and I would not spend over $300. But now, the current and limited availability of the discontinued 20 GB Xbox Premium 360 meets those minimums, which has me reassessing my purchasing decisions.

Considering that my library still has unopened or unfinished Wii and PS2 games, buying an Xbox 360 does not make a logistical sense, as it will not add hours to my day. But I'm becoming unable to deny that it has enough games to justify wishing my day had more hours — especially since many of them are RPGs, which we previously discussed the 360 is prime for. Here are the retail titles that I'd be first to try:

1. Lost Odyssey — an RPG from the creator of Final Fantasy and with old-school gameplay mechanics.
   
2. Blue Dragon — the last RPG to consume 80+ hours of my time was the eighth installment of Dragon Quest, a franchise I've supported for 20 years. Blue Dragon uses the same visual designer as Dragon Quest, and the same composer (Nobou Uematsu) as Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger. Sounds like a winning combo to me.
   
3. Silent Hill 5 — another entry in a series I've always enjoyed letting me scare me crapless.
   
4. BioShock — as noted earlier, I'm not a fan of FPS, but the environment and mechanics of this game sound intriguing.
   
5. Fable II — I always wanted to play Peter Molyneux's first game in this series, but never got the chance.
   
6. Dead Or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball 2 — the first DOAXBV was just silly, and the sequel sells for only $10.
   

Even more so than the above big-budget titles, the downloadable content for the Xbox 360 draws me in. My time is limited, and the short, fun games offered by the Xbox Live Arcade are reminiscent of a simpler time in gaming history.

1. Bionic Commando Rearmed — I have fond memories of Capcom's NES original, and the Game Boy Color remake. As with Mega Man 9, I'm interested to see what they do when revisiting this classic.
   
2. Lode Runner — I grew up playing the original on my Apple II, which was one of the first games I bought for the Virtual Console.
   
3. Portal: Still Alive — I bought the "Still Alive" single and am eager to try the game to which it originally lent itself.
   
4. Braid — both the ChatterBox and Major Nelson podcasts have spoken highly of this game, saying it's a puzzle in a platformer as much as Portal is a puzzler in a first-person shooter. As much as I enjoy classic games, I'm also all for new experiences, and Braid sounds like it could be one.
   

Other arcade-style games I'm eager to try include Crystal Quest, Tron, Discs of Tron, Jetpac Refuelled, Marble Blast Ultra, Space Giraffe, and Pac-Man Championship Edition.

I've done my part to convince myself to buy an Xbox 360; now it's your turn. What games best represent this generation of gaming and can't be found anywhere but on the 360?