With the money we’ve saved on our Xbox 360s, we thought we’d take some time out to look at what we can do with the saving. This year we’ve already had a few blockbusters hit with Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2, Lost Planet and Crackdown. We’ve set aside some time in the office this week to play some of our favourites on Xbox 360 to see what we’d buy with a spare £145.

Gears of War has been blowing our minds all over again for starters. There is nothing out there on any games console that even approaches the visual impact of Gears of War. We’ve started playing it in co-op and it’s like playing it for the first time all over again – you can never get tired of the torque bow.  GRAW 2’s release also prompted some replays of the Tom Clancy games that hit at the end of the last year including Splinter Cell: Double Agent and Rainbow Six Vegas. We’re really looking forward to the next Splinter Cell game, which will be exclusive to Xbox 360.

Later this year, we’ve got even more games to look forward to – Halo 3 will be rounding off the trilogy with one of the most expansive adventures yet. Forza Motorsport 2 will be here for racing fans and customisation-crazy motor heads who want the most realistic experience yet. Mass Effect will be leading the role-playing adventures out this year with an epic sci fi world to explore and, coming from the team who made Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, that’s no bad thing.

Xbox Live Arcade has been prompting some classic replays too – we’ve been delving into Doom for some co-op play over Live. Puzzle game addicts in the office have mistakenly fired up Zuma and even now are hooked on the world rankings leaderboard in an effort to improve their position. With Castlevania: Symphony of the Night out this week, Luxor 2 just around the corner and Catan and Castle Crashers giving new blood to Xbox Live Arcade in the future, it’s never been better.

Xbox Live has become such an integral part of my gaming experience that a Gold subscription would be a must with the spare cash. Downloading demos of the latest games is one great thing – trailers in high def too. But it’s the feeling of reward for everything I play as I rack up the achievements on my gamer card that really feels great. With the help of you guys on our friends list the team will be working on many more achievements for the games we’ve been playing. And with the launch of the Live service on Games for Windows this year, we’ll be able to play with more of our friends than ever before.

After almost a decade of writing about games, there’s never been a more exciting time to me to be playing them – new blockbusters and classics, on Xbox 360.

By Mark Eveleigh, Xbox.com Editor. Gamertag: Making Sparks