z-what?

A summary of reviews from zblog, quick one-sentence notes to scan if you want an opinion about a game without having to read a novel.

Retail games to buy and treasure

The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion – One of the best ever, worth a try even if you're not an RPG fan.
Rock Band 2 – Even better than the first, with improved on- and offline co-op play and over a thousand songs.

Retail games worth renting or even rent-to-buy

Guitar Hero III – A decent one- or two-player game, but with a steeper difficulty curve than its predecessors.

Retail games to avoid

Guitar Hero: World Tour – All the challenge of GH III and none of the freedom of Rock Band.
Madden 10 – Typical EA Sports franchise, new "features" with half-assed implementation.
NCAA Football 10 – Little bits of fun interspersed with nagging problems that haven't been addressed for years.
Rumble Roses XX – Why people shouldn't worry about sex in games: when the game stinks, who cares about the skin?

Arcade games to buy and treasure

Carcassonne – Excellent strategy game, fairly well implemented on the 360.
Catan – Faithful to the original, fun against the AI or other people.
Mutant Storm Reloaded – Action game with interesting scoring options.
Novadrome – Driving game with interesting twists.
Peggle – A pachinko-like game that sucks you in and devours time.
Puzzle Quest – An RPG with Bejeweled-like game play.
Ticket to Ride – Another well-done port of a classic board game.
UNO Rush – A new take on a classic card game, done surprisingly well.

Arcade games worth buying

Arkadian Warriors – Nice RPG with co-op option.
Every Extend Extra Extreme – Hard to explain, very enjoyable.
Family Game Night – Decent ports of classic board games, not a bad option if you don't mind shelling out for each game individually.
Lost Cities – Interesting card game.
Pac-Man Championship Edition – Another classic port done well.
Soltrio Solitaire – Nice game with plenty of additional game packs if you're a solitaire fan.
UNO – A card game that converts easily to 360 play.

Arcade games to buy with a gift card

3 on 3 NHL Arcade – Cute, reasonable achievements, doesn't take long to learn.
3D Ultra Minigolf – Not a bad diversion.
Castle Crashers – Nice little button-mashing RPG ... not so nice if you want something more than button-mashing.
Coffeetime Crosswords – Nice idea, very poor implementation, tolerable if you have a USB keyboard sitting around somewhere.
Feeding Frenzy – Nice little kid-friendly game.
Galaga – Faithful port of an arcade classic.
Gauntlet – Decent; not sure why they didn't port the infinitely-better Gauntlet II instead.
South Park – More button-mashing.
Worms – Nice idea, gameplay and controls build frustration faster than fun.
Xevious – Another good port of an arcade classic.
Yosumin! Live – A quirky puzzle game.

Arcade games not worth getting for free

Ecco the Dolphin – Not sure why they even bothered with this.
Magic: The Gathering – Completely wasted opportunity.
Paperboy – Like too many arcade classics, hastily put together and shoved out to XBLA.
Worms 2: Armageddon – Apparently they took everything they learned from Worms and threw it away.
Yaris – And the worst part is that it's always been free.