Weekly Xbox Indies - 7/10/09
Decapitated birds and robot warriors grace the Xbox Live Marketplace this week. Of course this week also brings it's fair share of slide shows and game clones, but I'll let you know which ones to avoid. And don't forget to check out the updated games to see which games have gotten feature upgrades. Of special note is Little Racers that is having a Twitter contest where you can vote on which new features they should add. There are plenty of developers out there that could learn a lot from Milkstone Studios.
Yay
Bennu - 400 MS points. Bennu has a weird premise that has something to do with a headless bird and Egyptian gods, but all you really need to know is that this is one awesome game. You swing around with your grappling chain matching the color of your ball with colored blocks to clear the levels. The puzzles are inventive and fun throughout, and there is a level of polish in Bennu that is seldom seen in these XNA games. And don't forget to try the game in co-op, where swinging with a friend opens up a ton of new puzzle possibilities.
Gamerbots: Third-Robot Shooting - 400 MS points. This is an impressively robust shooter. With customizable character appearance, fully customizable weapons, and 7 character classes, Gamerbots has more options for its online multiplayer than some retail games. It even adds some nice new gameplay features that the big-budget offerings could learn from, like the ability to switch which of your character's shoulders to look over on the fly to help with aiming around corners. I just hope that this game gets a strong online community for matches, it deserves to be played.
Karnn Age Lite - 200 MS points. A few weeks back I took a look at Karnn Age, and though it was a fun Smash TV style arcade game, it wasn't deep enough to make it a "must-have" game. Now Karnn Age is back in a Lite version for half the price, and it is completely worth getting this time. Essentially the game is exactly the same with all of the levels, weapons, and over-the-top enemies of the last release. The only difference is that there are now only 3 level theme songs instead of the original 9, which is enough to lower the file size so Microsoft can allow a 200 point price. If you want some mindless, old-school fun, Karnn Age Lite is your game.
Ay?
Lotus: Stellar Conflict - 400 MS points. Lotus is a space shooter that may take a while to get comfortable with the controls, but once you get past that hurdle it can be a lot of fun. It's a slower and more deliberate take on the space shooter genre but, given the wealth of generic shooters already out there, it is a welcome change of pace. My biggest concern is the fact that the game froze on me twice while playing the tutorial level, forcing me to reset my system. But the game is still fun enough to avoid getting stuck in the "nay" pile despite its crashing issues, so that says something.
RotorMania - 200 MS points. RotorMania is hard. It's like a cylindrical Rubik's puzzle where you have to line up columns of the same color. It's great fun for a select few, but if you're one of the many (like me) that seem to be unable to solve a Rubik's cube, then you're going to have a tough time breaking into Rotormania.
Nay
Roid Riot - 200 MS points. Roid Riot is a space dogfighting game that puts you and a whopping one other player in the middle of an asteroid field to fight it out. It's interesting that the slower pace worked so well in Lotus (above) but here there isn't a whole lot going on and it just feels...bland.
Eye-Ball - 200 MS points. Hey look, it's yet another Pong clone. This one differentiates itself by replacing the ball with an eye, and the paddle with an index finger. So at least it's got the disturbing factor going for it. If you want a version of Pong with a painfully slow paddle and a constant pulsing heartbeat in the background, then this is your game.
Gallery: Landscapes - 200 MS points. It's a photo gallery of generic landscapes. It claims to have 200 landscapes, but a Google search for scenic landscapes can give you over 2 million. If you buy it you are part of the problem.
Urban Art Gallery - 200 MS points. I didn't realize that "urban" meant "suggestive silhouettes of girls," but according to the Urban Art Gallery it does. I'll give this a little more credit than the landscape gallery above because I feel like these might actually be original artwork. But still, a series of pictures that can only be viewed on your 360 isn't worth paying for in my opinion. The fact that there isn't a single guy picture doesn't help matters.
Game Training Vol 1: Dexterity - 400 MS points. Imagine DDR using a controller. Now imagine that it uses every button the controller, including both analog sticks and 4 directions on the D-pad. Now imagine that the button presses don't correspond to the rhythm of the music playing in the background. Sound fun yet? At least the music is good, but the gameplay is not.
World Clock - 200 MS points. It's just like a regular clock, only you can also look at what time it is in places that you aren't. Nifty, but unnecessary.
Updates
Nuke Your Neighbor
ZenHak
Cubix Classic
The Perfect Match
Spirit Whirled
Little Racers - Check out their Twitter contest where you decide what they add next.
Easter Bunneh
Puzzwords
Miner Dig Deep
NaviFairy
Posted to Video Games on 10 July 2009
· Comments (4)
Other stuff like this: Bennu, community games, indie, xbox 360, xbox live, xna
When they update community games, how is one supposed to find out if one doesn't happen to read these fantastic review roundups? (And then for that matter, to get an update, does one have to delete the game and redownload or is just redownloading sufficient?)
@AndyHat
I'm really mad at Microsoft for how they implement the updates for community games. Nowhere on the Xbox Live Marketplace does it say which games have gotten updates, and when you load up a game it won't tell you if there is an update available. And then to actually update a game you need to first delete the old version from your system memory then download it again from the marketplace.
The best way to stay on top of game updates, and the way I do it for these articles, is to check the XNA Creator's Club game catalog (http://catalog.xna.com/en-US/gamescatalog.aspx). It lists updated games right along with new releases, so if you compare it's latest releases to the "New Releases" tab in the Xbox marketplace you can see which games got updates. Yeah, it's a convoluted process, and Microsoft can (and should) do much better.
Microsoft is going to be giving the community games section of the marketplace a facelift soon when it renames them as "Indie Games," and I'm hoping that they clean up the game updating process along with some of their other new features, like allowing us to rate games right on the marketplace.
Thanks for the link. At least that'll make it possible, if not easy, to check which games I need to update.
You can also get a list of last updated games on http://xboxindies.com .
BTW, thanks NaviFairy for the mention on our promotion attempt. Sadly it hasn't got any feedback so it's a failed one.