Sylosis

Combined Assault is a classic SOCOM game, it has it's highs, and definitely has its lows.
The singleplayer section of the game is just as entertaining as the rest of the Socom franchise games, it has an in-depth story and an array of weapons and objectives that will keep you occupied whether you play it through on admiral or ensign.

The Combined Assault multiplayer is really why people buy this game; it is yet another xbox-live challenging game with an excellent online lobby service.
However, this is essentially just a add-on for Socom 3, because you can play people who are playing Socom 3 online, and not much has changed in terms of gameplay or graphics.
Even so, it is still worth playing and getting addicted to, as there are cool things that you don't get in Socom 3, such as medikit's, armor, shotgun attachments for the M4A1.

The good points include a great online community and addictive, progressive gameplay;
The bad points include frequent lag, occasional cheaters, and camping bastards.

Call of Duty 2 for the 360 has many different aspects which makes it very hard to review. Firstly, this is quite an old game and because of that, the unlockable achievements are very simple, yet hard to unlock.
If you are thinking of buying this game and you DO mind about the gamer points then get ready for some seriously long gameplay and feeling so frustrated that you want to smash in your 360 with your controller. This is because nearly all of the points are unlocked via Veteran difficulty (extra hard) in single player.

The graphics are pretty good for a reasonably old game, especially the smoke particle effects which are so sexy! The AI are pretty clever aswell; attacking while you're reloading, throwing back grenades and laying down suppressing fire for each other are a few examples.
The gameplay is awesome with a great variety of interchangeable weapons and at points in the game you can get so sucked into it that you find yourself screaming and shouting at the enemy.
During about 90% of the game you are with allies, which is a good thing because they do help you alot, especially on Veteran difficulty.

Like i said before, you might aswell go straight into this game on veteran difficulty, unless this is the first first person shooter you have ever played. It is very hard and you do find yourself dying and getting stuck on certain points, almost every 10 minutes, however there are a good number of checkpoints and the loading time is almost negligible (about 5 seconds) and you get an insightful quote by a famous person.
But with enough effort and determination you will slowly but surely progress through the game and after you complete every level and you get the gamer points, you feel so satisfied and it was so worth it.

The online multiplayer is ok, however you have extreme difficulty trying to get into the same game as a friend. It is good, and quite hard and is something that you would maybe play once every now and again but i can't see many people getting properly into it. Worth a go but not worth buying xbox live for. So overall, if you're in for a challenge and you've got about 20 hours to spare this game is great, and you get a load of points from this game aswell.

Crackdown has many great aspects that make it fun to play, easy to pick up and hard to complete, which are most of the criteria of the best games around.

At a glance crackdown may seem like one of those superhero games like spiderman, but it is so much more; the details of the cities are so intricate and the idea of upgrading different abilities in different ways because of your special suit is a new and refreshing idea and a good change from just happening because you are a super hero. The abilities are well thought out and are increasingly hard to upgrade with their being 4 levels and then the maximum level which takes a long time to get them to. Some abilities are a bit easier than others to upgrade such as agility but i feel it is just right because having good agility is essential for progressing a lot in the game. On that point the agility orbs are well placed and finding them gives you a sense of achievement, especially with the hidden orbs.

The driving is pretty good for a game that doesn't use it particularly much at all and i loved the way the agency vehicles adapt to your driving skill and improve in performance and looks as you're driving level upgrades.

The guns and shooting effects are pretty good, they could be better but it is good which helps as you need your guns a lot during the missions. The explosions are fantastic and once you've fully upgraded explosives the effects are amazing and are quite addictive and you find yourself deliberately blowing up innocent civilians just because you want to see something blow up and there aren't any gangs around. However the lock on system can get a bit annoying as you have to use it every other minute and it does take quite a long time to properly lock on, especially with headshots. Also i feel they could have expanded the weapon base because as soon as you have the heavy machine gun, the cluster grenade and the homing launcher, that's all you carry around and they do get a bit boring.

The missions are extremely samey, where it gets to the point that you just get as close as you can and pummel the boss with the homing launcher. The last couple of bosses are a bit challenging because it takes such a long time to get to them but only takes a maximum of a couple of hours.

The whole game length is pretty poor because defeating the bosses does not take long at all, the only thing that might take a bit of time is upgrading the stats to the maximum, but once you've defeated the bosses there's not much point anyway except to get the achievement.

Great game for short bursts of fun and also an added bonus was that most of us got the halo 3 beta test with it. Good game but don't expect the game to last longer than a couple of weeks of moderate playing.

Forza Motorsport 2 is the latest addition in the realistic but fun Forza driving series. Unless you are a serious collector, i recommend buying the standard edition because the limited edition that i bought only gives you three extra cars (which are pretty bad) and a booklet which contains some information on the game, which i don't think is worth an extra 10 pounds.
The game is very good in the way that it is very realistic (although sometimes cornering at such high speeds seems a bit dodgy) and I can't imagine the game without complete simulation damage on, anti-locking braking system off, traction control off, Manual transmission (it may seem hard at first but once you get the hang of it, it is so rewarding and I now cannot imagine playing the game on automatic at all), I am still on medium purely because i am not good enough to do hard and i can't be bothered to redo every race like forty times.
The game length is very impressive, it seems like a daunting task to be able to reach level 50 because i have been playing for so long and i am only on level 32, but i still haven't reached the half way point in the game.
I like it how the races slowly get harder and are very hard by the time you get to the professional series, they also get longer which is frustrating when you crash on the last lap but is very rewarding when you finally do one that has been bugging you for ages.
In the game you get to choose which continent's cars you start with, i chose European but there is also American and Asian aswell. This adds new content if you want to restart the whole game again.
You also have to be very tactical about some of your decisions during the first stages of the game, because you don't have much money and sometimes you might have to save your money so you can buy a car so you can enter a certain race which might mean you have to do a few races starting at the back of the grid. One peice of advice i would give to anyone who has recently started playing or are about to, as soon as you reach level 20 do as many endurance races as you can, even if you have to put the difficulty down to easy to do it because you get so much money for doing them and you get lots of driver points for doing them so you will be able to enter more races in certain series.
I think i have said enough about the gameplay, so now for some of the other features it has to offer.
The auction house, this is a relatively good idea because sometimes you can end up with some really good bargains but to be brutally honest there are too many cars for sale that people have painted so they are way more expensive than normal (but they're designs are sometimes ridiculously good so take a look now and again and you might find something you like).
They have really pushed the boat out on customising your car in this game, you can buy pretty much any upgrades which will affect the performance of the car in any way including spoilers and superchargers :P. Painting and customising your car could not have been made any better in this game and if want proof of that go on to the auction house that I have just mentioned and take a look at some of the crazy designs other people have made. Or if you don't have the game yet, go to http://forzamotorsport.net/default.htm and check out the forums for some of people's designs.
Multiplayer is awesome on Forza 2, especially if you have at least 3 other friends on Xbox Live because then you play Cat and Mouse, where there are two teams, on both teams you have a mouse who is in a mini, and a cat who is in a very fast car and the aim is for the mouse from your team to cross the line before the other mouse (no other rules). - Highly Recommended.

Overall a great game if you like realistic games and if you don't mind having to do races over and over again. (Not for fans of burnout :P)

I have to say that Bioshock is almost definitely the best singleplayer game i have ever played. The game just continues to amaze me and i keep finding things that i have never found before and doing things that couldn't even imagine even though i have almost completed it twice.
The graphics are stunning, and the fact that the game is set in 1960 means that there is plenty of colours and great and inventive designs and so you never get bored of the amazing scenery. And i can't mention graphics without saying how goddamn outstanding the water effects are.
The storyline (don't worry there'll be no spoilers here) is so good with twists and new plots everywhere that keeps you guessing and makes you want to play it even more to find out what happens; you can really tell how much effort they have put into developing the storyline and adapting it to the other creative aspects of the game.

I don't think there'll ever be another game that is quite as original as Bioshock for a very, very, very; long time.

Where to start? Well gears of war is most definitely the best game so far that has reached the current gen consoles. I will give you a relatively short, but sweet review of why GoW is imo GOTD.

Starting with the single player, it is just the right length; most surely not too short and not too long either (which is probably more annoying, I mean come on; who doesn't have 10 games in their collection that are so long that they have been dumped?). You feel like you have accomplished something incredibly awesome when you complete in on insane and the final cut scene just tops it off. The AI are pretty clever, but nothing particularly special except for when they work in groups. The programming is very good however at some points you do feel like you are just repelling 'waves' of enemies. Co-operative play is brilliant, especially when you know the person you are playing with; but is still fun if you don't and an easy way of making online friends.

The multi player; all you need to do now is ask ANYONE who has ever played Gears of War online especially ranked for a minimum of 10 hours and they will tell you how intensely amazing this online experience really is. You actually sometimes feel like you are in the game because of the unreal sound effects and incredulous visual effects (roadie running aka holding A, with the volume on max on an HDTV will blow you away). Obviously it is not perfect, no online games are because there are always people will ruin the experience for others even when there is no gain for them to do so. However, most of the time the people you meet are friendly (unless you provoke them) and are all healthily competitive.

The best graphics, the best sound effects, the most originality, the best online, the best offline. The best game of this decade and will be looked back on as one of the greatest of all time, undoubtedly.