The Joys of Choosing

Well, I finally did it. I bought a PS3 today. Of course, the only bad news is that it won't arrive until sometime between Thursday and next Monday. I hadn't planned on buying any game system, preferring instead to catch up on PS2 and GameCube games. Fortunately/unfortunately, last I week I saw blogs all over the Internet reporting that Wal-Mart would be having a super-amazing-deal on PS3s on Saturday. Buy a PS3, get a $100 gift card. Effectively, that almost gives you two new games of your choice for free. It's a great deal, especially since Sony has repeatedly stated that they will not be dropping prices this holiday season. The one-day sale started at 8. Thinking there wouldn't be a rush on systems, I took my time and made it to Wal-Mart at 8:15 or so. They were gone. I think I saw a woman leaving with the last one as I entered electronics. : (

In my frustration at having missed such a good deal, I scoured the Internet when I got home searching for another one. Luckily, Dell.com had a coupon code for 15% off all electronics, including PS3 and 360 systems. While not quite as good as the Wal-Mart sale, it still got me a PS3 for $340, which is basically like getting a free game.

The problem, though, is that I'm completely undecided as to what game to buy. Let me run through a short list of what I'm considering. Please, please give me some input and help me decide. I'll probably mess around with downloading demos, videos, and maybe buying one PSN game first. But I'll want a full retail game soon enough. Here we go, in no particular order.

1. Fallout 3 - I loved the quirky humor and apocalyptic setting of the first two games, and these turned me on to computer RPGs in general. However, I tend to play a lot of huge, lengthy RPGs/strategy games. Maybe now would be a good time to change pace.
2. Bioshock - It just made it's way to the PS3 last month after over a year of exclusivity on the 360. I have to eventually play the game that everyone still references. However, everyone has pretty much played and talked this one to death, so maybe I should play something new and fresh.
3. Call of Duty 4 - Similar to Bioshock, I really want to play the FPS that got so much critical acclaim. But it's older and might drop in price after World at War is released. On that note, maybe World at War (if it looks good).
4. Metal Gear Solid 4 - This is probably the game I actually want the most for PS3, despite its flaws, but I kind of want to play MGS3 first. So maybe I'll wait on this one.
5. The Orange Box - I've always wanted to play the Half-Life series and see what all the fuss is about, and I don't think I can call myself a gamer without playing Portal at some point. However, the PS3 version is supposedly the most glitchy of the 3 versions, although I've heard it's not so bad.
6. Far Cry 2 - I mainly see this as a good way to branch into a different genre of games, FPSs, which I rarely play. The things I've read about Far Cry 2 have been positive, and it's pretty new, but I'm more excited about some of the others.
7. LittleBigPlanet - Last, Sony's promise of changing gaming and allowing users an unprecedented degree of freedom. I think LBP looks cute and charming and very fun, but I'm worried I would only use 2/3 of the game. I would definitely play all of the developer-created levels, and I would play as many user-created ones as seemed worth my time. But I highly doubt I would invest much time in creating levels. I've pretty much never done that with other games.

So, that's my short list. Leave a comment and let me know what game you think I should purchase first. Ultimately, I'll choose whichever one I think I'll have the most fun with, but I'd like some other input too. And if you think of a game that's not on this list, let me know. I could easily have missed something great. So write me a comment. I need help.

Note: GTAIV is not on this list on purpose. I've never finished a GTA game, so I think I'll probably skip this one.