I think it was RE4 actually, you start in an old town with not-really-zombie people trying to mob you down with farm tools. We sucked at aiming that bloody pistol with the joystick and got mobbed every time, admittedly we were kinda playing it wrong, I noticed we would have used the furniture to block doors and windows a bit later.
The CoD game was Modern Warfare 2, and yes, even when you get the hang of the auto-aim thingy, it sucked a lot.
The quad-bike game was
Pure which wasn't bad (my friends enjoyed it) but It wasn't my cup of tea.
Now that you mention Mario games, I also played on a Nintendo64 (edit: or it was a GameCube?, can't remember) when I was still on school. And Mario Cart was the only game we keep on playing, it was silly but enjoyable, at least if you are with friends, I'm not sure if I would play such games alone. Now my friend sold the N64 so no more carting.