I don't know if you have a PS3 or not, but i'll include non exclusives as well.

Racing: Forza Moror Sport 2 (Best racing game ever, I don't like racing games in general but I love this)

FPS: Halo 3, Gears of War, Gears of War 2, Call of Duty 4.

RPG: Mass Effect, Lost Odyssey, Fable 2, Fallout 3

Fighting: Soul Calbur 4, Virtual Fighter 5

Survival Horror: Bioshock, Dead Space

Simulation: Viva Pinata (Looks lame but it's alot of fun)

Action: Devil May Cry 4

XBOX Live: Braid (My Vote for Game of the Year!), Castle Crashers, Geometry Wars.

I too am loving fable 2. Never played the first and kept my expectations in check. It seems like north american gamers want the instant gratification game, where they can plow though 50+ hours of the main campaign going from point A to B to C with their hands held the whole way. The campaign may be short if you do NOTHING else at all compared to say MGS4 but it's got alot more meat to it, the game isn't 60% cut scenes or dialogue.

The graphics and colors of the game are amazing, the world is so detailed. The combat is fun and very very cool once you get the hang of the different moves and combos. I personally love it when I get one of those slow motion fancy kills, just awesome! The side quests are absolutely amazing too, they have the detail and flavor of the best main story quests of most games. To just play though the main game once from start to finish is a shame. My favorite thing is helping out the towns I come across, solving their little problems and coming back to see how much I've changed things. There are towns where there were no towns before, crime infested cities have completely turned around, tiny shacks morph into massive productive farms, temples go from single building to massive centers that rival the vatican. It's great. And if you want to see how interesting things can really get read my "My demonic child ate my wife" post.

I just don't get why people rush though a game and then say it's crap without even entertaining the idea of exploring it a bit more. Maybe it's a culture thing and maybe that's why European reviews have been so much higher than the north american ones.

I personaly would not get a PS3. Fanboys will say that the lineup is looking up and quote a ton of great games but the thing they overlook is that these are the same games that Sony was hyping up 3 years ago even before the PS3 was released. When you compare game lineups the 360 has already completed it's first 2 waves of games and has a policy of not anounces a game if it's more than 1 year away, while sony keeps hyping everything that's in production for their console.

I'll give you the pros for PS3: Blu Ray player if you want it (Even though blue ray sales are still really really low, most people get their HD content online). A few good exclusive games Ratchet and Clank, MGS4, Little Big Planet, Resistance 2 might be decent, but to me that's far too few to recommend buying. And finally Sony has made it clear that a price drop is still a long way away so you won't have to worry about buying the console only to watch it go on sale the next week.

Reasons I would not get a PS3: None of the current models have backwards compatability. Game lineup is thin (Like I said the best games to look forward too like killzone and FF13 were anounced before the console was released and are still a ways away). Other console's exclusives are less likely to move to PS3 then vice versa. Example: Bioshock came to the PS3 this month but sold only 30,000 coppies it's opening week and was #44 on the sales chart, on it's OPENING WEEK. That's pathetic, and a serious detterent for anyone to put resources into coding cross platform after a game's timed exclusivity is up.

Personally I have been thinking about getting a PS3 for a while now but 3 conditions had to be met. 1.) backwards compatability, 2.) final fantasy 13 is released 3.) Lord of the rings comes out on blu ray. Unfortunately Sony decided in their infinate wisdom to stop making backwards compatible units, Final Fantasy 13 is coming to the 360, and Lord of the Rings is nowhere in sight (added to it blu rays poor showing even after winning the format war I might just wait for it to be available online somewhere). Now I really dont' know if I'll ever pick one up.

Mod edit - Very interesting post but PLEASE use the sticky or your blog for Fable 2 discussions.

So I just got back from being gone to the spire for 10 years. I decide to go back to my family to see how they are doing (I knew my son would be grown up now). So I get back into town and I can't find my wife! It says Karren is still there and shows how she feels towards me but she's nowhere to be seen, I've spent hours looking for her.

Anyways, I go into my house to see my son and I swear I created a demon spawn. My allignment is good but my son looks like the kid from the movie Omen (Seriously black circles around his eye and just the creepiest look). What's more is that he doesn't say or do ANYTHING, he just stands at the edge of his bed looking at it. NOTHING at all, never moves never says anything, if I walk into him and push him he moves but that's it. I've pushed him into the corner between his bed and the stairs but now everytime I walk up the stairs I see his demonic eyes looking at me, it's creepy.

So i've come to the conclusion that I've spawned a demonic abomination and it ate my wife while I was gone. There is no other explanation! The question now becomes what to do about it.

I've tried killing it but the game won't let you kill children. I've already taken another wife, the furniture sales woman who I like alot better anyway and bought a new and nicer house for us to live in. I can't sell my old house because it's still occupied. I've lowered how much I give my old dead wife to 0$ (Who the game still says is alive even though she doesn't exist anymore). So hopefully after enough time is up her ghost will devorce me and bugger off so I can sell my old home. Any other ways of getting rid of demonic offspring?

I too was blown away with the last level. The stars are a bit of a stretch to get, some are too much so in my case (Especially since you have to start over if you finished the first world without getting it). And really nothing specail happens other than actaully catching the princess (Seeing her blow up in the process) and then having the stars in the opening area take on the form of a chained princess.

The one thing I never got was the knight in the last level. Who was he supposed to represent? When the princess got away I was like WTF, she's not supposed to get away, we invented the atomic bomb. But if you get the stars the ending changes and she never gets away, which seems like that is what's supposed to happen (We catch her, detonate the bomb and scew ourselves over).

Of course this thread will contain many spoilers, yada yada, don't read if you don't want to see what happens after you get all 8 stars yada yada.

So I was thinking about the meaning of the princess chained above the world and I was supprised to find that I coudln't find anything about people's interpretation on what it means so I thought I'd offer mine.

To me collecting the final 8 stars is the "True" ending to Braid, even though it may be almost irrelevent gameplay wise it symbolizes the final product of Tim's work. The biggest point about the 8 stars is what you have to do to get the last one, aka finally come into contact with the princess. And by coming in contact with the princess she explodes and you are rewarded with the 8th star. Obviously the princess being the atomic bomb and by coming into contact with her it represents the first detonation of the atomic bomb.

After that the princess (AKA Ms. Atomic Bonb) is seen chaned above the earth, to me the chains represent humanity finally mastering atomic power (Obviously) but the fact that she is chained above the earth seems like a metaphor for the threat of nuclear war hanging above all our heads now that we have successfully created the atomic bomb. Anyone else agree?

Seems like a perfect ending to me, after everything we go through, The different stages representing different phases in Tim's life which acted as "Building Blocks" for his mind and intellect to which he drew upon to develop the bomb. And at the end finally reaching the princess and detonating the first atomic bomb, what we get is the constant threat of nuclear war hanging over our heads for the rest of humanities history, which can never be undone.