Introduction

I bought my Xbox 360 almost 18 months ago, but the year prior to that was quite a struggle.

A lot of issues come up when you consider the affordability of an Xbox 360. I chose to budget myself, yet I didn't want to lose anything by spending less. And so the research began in January 2007. I had price checked, literally, hundreds of sites by the time I began to narrow my focus to just a few. I had to factor in so many things, such as Shipping&Handling charges as well as seasonal bargains that would no longer exist by the time I had gathered enough spending ability.

My list of essentials began to shrink with time, with my overlying goal soon entailing the gather of as many resources as possible with an expense of less than $800. I might remind you, at this point, that the average price of an Xbox 360 at that time was about $400, so it wasn't as easy as it would be nowadays.

I needed to have two controllers (costing about $100 together), a Play-n-Charge Kit ($25 that I didn't want to spend on batteries later), and my own television set (a $100 hard-to-find beauty that I suggest you take a look at).

Do the math, and you'll realize that I was left approximately $175. With that much I couldn't even afford to have three new games. The level of frustration was so high now that I almost decided to buy a good camera instead.

But I collected myself and brought forth a new level of dedication to the cause. It wasn't so bad, I thought, and I wasn't to give up on an idea I'd been working on for 8 months. So began the research into which games I wanted.

I quickly decided that I would try to get one good game for each of the major genres: FPS, RTS, RPG, Action/Adventure, Racing, Sports, and Music. The only obvious choice to me was to purchase Halo 3. Yes, marketing and advertising does work when the hype train starts to roll.

Other games were more difficult to find. Racing went to Burnout Revenge. Action/Adventure went to Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (included in the package I bought.) On and on the list went, but I wanted more.

That is when, by strange chance, I discovered a preview for Portal. I fell in love instantly. The innovateness of Portal is subtle but undeniable. After Portal, I read a review for The Orange Box. Suddenly, Halo 3 was out the window forever and The Orange Box reigned supreme.