Christmas is upon us; prices are being slashed, games are being released and adverts are in your ear telling you what will make your children happy. A visit to your local game shop will be probably leave you with more questions than answers; “What games does he play?” “What do her friends have?” and the ever frustrating “What’s your budget?”

I’ll be posting a series of short articles talking about the various strengths and weaknesses of the two machines competing for your Christmas money. Cutting through the retail talk and high street lingo and giving you a simple, measured breakdown of the whys and hows of both and, hopefully, lead you into making the best decision for you or your loved ones this Christmas.

The first thing you’re bound to consider? The price of both machines – but even that requires a little bit of exploration.

Here are some games which come at reasonable and also discounted prices which would still give you the thrill you would expect from the much expensive packages. I have outlined some of the cheap Xbox 360 games which are still outstanding and exciting.

The Darkness II
This interesting Xbox game features Paul Jenkins, an award winner and comic book writer, who narrates a tightly integrated story with dark humour and hardcore tenderness. Paul is credited with other works such as Hellblazer, Incredible Hulk and Wolverine. It has a Quad-Wielding gameplay which enables the players to grab, throw and slash objects while the enemies fire two weapons simultaneously with their demonic arms. That adds a completely new dimension to the FPS niche. The game’s distinctive graphic-noir style makes one feel like they are playing a graphic novel. (more…)

The Evil Within is not your normal action adventure game. It’s gruesome, dark and actually really spooky. You’re a detective and after seeing many of your peers encounter gruesome deaths, it’s up to you to find out what’s gone on.

You wake up in a world of walking dead, and the detective life is gone and it’s now about survival. There’s an evil force out there and you’re the only individual that can stop it, or can you? We don’t want to give too much away, but the graphics are actually quite superb, while the small details have really been given care and attention.

The sound effects will have you shimmering in your boots, and there are plenty of surprises in store. It’s a world of dead people, brutal killings and blood galore, so it’s certainly not one for the faint hearted.

This is the latest game instalment of the popular Marvel comic book to film series. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is brought to you by Activision and Beenox who have developed the game even further from its previous version.

In The Amazing Spider-Man 2 you can take on all the films villains and many more with an opportunity to play as Spider-Man’s alter-ego Peter Parker. Adding more depth to the game you can dig deeper into the story line investigating all elements of the game villains motives.

The Manhattan city scape is much larger than the first game and features a “Hero or Menace” system that rates the way you play and your attitudes towards stopping crime in the city.

New web abilities give the player a wider arsenal of attacks for their enemies with the option to upgrade their skills throughout the entire game.

So if its main missions, side missions or general web slinging your interested in, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 shall be out on May 2nd 2014 on Xbox 360.

It almost feels strange calling the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360 old consoles, and even though they have both now been replaced, there are new titles to look forward to on the ‘old consoles’.

Thief is not just set to b a big hit on the new consoles it’s also expecting good sales on the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 too. The game was released on the Xbox 360 yesterday and it will be interesting to watch sales, yet another big game to watch out for is Rambo.

That was also released earlier this month and though the reviews so far have not been great, is shows that game developers are not yet ready to give up on the old consoles. The fact is there is still a large audience out there using Xbox 360s and PS4s, and new titles will continuously be released over the coming months.

It could all come to the end later this year, however, with many people expected to turn in the ‘old consoles’ and buy a new next generation console. So make the most of the new titles that are out there, because after this year there may be none left.