Weekly Xbox Indies - 9/25/09
Yay
Fishing Girl - 80 MS points. Fishing Girl is the most charming and adorable fishing game you will ever play. The pink blob/hamster thing has become separated from her boyfriend, and needs to reach him with her fishing line so they can be reunited. You start with a small rod and small lure and get money for each fish you catch. That money can be used to buy new rods, for longer casting distance, or new lures to catch bigger fish, which in turn earns you more money. There's also a time limit to the game, with each fish caught adding a little more time to the clock. The game takes a turn from charmingly fun to dangerously addicting once you realize that each time you win the game new items are added to the shop for the next playthrough. With a simple but stunning art style on top of all of that, Fishing Girl is among the best indie games on the Xbox.
On A Roll - 240 MS points. On a Roll is a platformer starring an polka-dotted ball rolling through levels and collecting stars. The gameplay harkens back to Sonic the Hedgehog on the Genesis with speedy ramps and curving levels combined with segments of more precise platforming to collect all of the stars and defeat enemies. Some parts of the game feel a bit odd, with the ball not flying off of ramps as you might expect, but it doesn't take long to adjust and doesn't detract from the overall fun of the game. If you're one of the millions of fans that decry the fall in Sonic's quality over the years, then On a Roll is exactly what you're looking for.
Pixel Man - 80 MS points. Pixel Man is a no-frills platformer with intentionally blocky graphics. The first five or so levels are some of the easiest in any game to date, but don't let them fool you. By the time you get to level 16 of the games 30 stages you'll start to wonder just what kind of sadist created this game. It gets hard, very hard. As if it's taunting you the game gives you infinite lives, making you say to yourself "one more try" after every missed jump. And once you do conquer each of the seemingly impossible later levels, the feeling of accomplishment is completely worth the effort.
PyroManic-Solo - 240 MS points. PyroManic is a puzzle game that puts a more active spin on the genre. Colored balls drop from the ceiling and you need to shoot them with the appropriate face button. Pulling the right trigger shoots a beam to repel the colored objects to give you more time, and building a high combo lets you pull both triggers to unleash a mighty rainbow beam that destroys any color. Any game that lets you fire massive rainbow beams is already good in my book, and thankfully the rest of PyroManic's puzzle gameplay is solid on top of that. I am curious about the title though, and whether a PyroManic-Multiplayer might be on the horizon.
Ay?
VectorForce - 80 MS points. VectorForce is a top-scrolling shooter with a unique weapon upgrade system at the core of its gameplay. You can hold two weapon upgrades, and either fire both weapons at the same time or fire them as a single weapon taking attributes of both. For example, collect homing shots and a laser to create a homing laser, or combine missiles and a spread shot to create spreading missiles. It's a great idea, and very well implemented here. What holds VectorForce from getting a full recommendation is the difficulty. It's modeled after "bullet hell" shooters, but unlike those that have intricate bullet patterns for you to navigate between, in VectorForce it's just a random mess of bullets everywhere that is often impossible to avoid.
Velocity - 80 MS points. Velocity is a puzzle game involving rolling a ball through mazes by bouncing it off of walls. The puzzles are fun, and new elements like rotating walls and teleporters keep the game feeling fresh, but the red and black graphics distract from an otherwise fun puzzle game. I get that the game is supposed to be set in Hell, but does that really mean that every level needs to have a fire image as the background against very dark colored levels in the foreground?
War Ships - 240 MS points. War Ships is an Xbox version of the classic game of Battleship. You know the game, place your ships then guess random grid squares until you've sunk all of the opponent's ships. There is a little bit of variation from the Battleship that I am familiar with, since you get different amounts of missiles each round, and there is a minesweeper-like radar in the game telling you how many nearby ships there are if you miss. But at the end of the day, it's Battleship, and I'm sure you already know whether you want to buy that for your 360 or not. At the very least, War Ships is $7 cheaper than the official version of Battleship in XBLA.
Nay
Tartaros - 240 MS points. Tartaros is an FPS that manages to take all of the excitement out of the genre. It is missing several genre staples that were present in even early FPS games, like an animation for when you shoot your gun, or any enemy animation beyond walking (attacking, turning, showing that they have been hit, etc). Animation in general is lacking in Tartaros, and it saps all of the personality from the game. Even if you love the FPS genre, I can't really recommend Tartaros.
Astro Taxi - 240 MS points. Astro Taxi is a frustrating game. You fly a taxi around cityscapes that look straight out of MSpaint, and try to pick up and drop off passengers to various platforms in the level. You can't have the taxi's landing gear out while moving around, and you can't land without the landing gear, and the switching between the two will cause constant frustration and crashing of the taxi. Even when your landing gear is out you also need to be descending at a slow enough speed in order to land without crashing, which is made more frustrating by the fact that you can't move from side to side when landing. Astro Taxi seems to be a game built on frustration.
Astero Defender - 80 MS points. Astero Defender is a very basic twin-stick shooter. There are three game modes that will have you fighting waves of aliens, dodging asteroids, or rescuing space men. There are no sound effects in the game and as a whole it has a very half-finished feel to it.
Chillax HD - 80 MS points. Chillax HD provides you with a series of pictures and sounds from four themes: rainforest, countryside, sea shore, and stormy night. The sounds are fairly generic, but also admittedly relaxing.
Updates
Nasty
Sky-Defender - price drop to 80 MS points.
Matrix
Xeno Arena - price drop to 80 MS points.
Colotristar
Weapon of Choice
Plows in Hell - price drop to 80 MS points.
PercussONE - price drop to 240 MS points.
Horn Swaggle Islands
Sudoku X
Starfighter - price drop to 80 MS points.
Avatar Drop
CardArcade
CaveIn - Miner Rescue Team
Karnn Age - price drop to 240 MS points.
Phillip Muwanga's Hexy Trench - price drop to 80 MS points.
NaviFairy
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 25 September 2009
· Comments (1)
Other stuff like this: Fishing Girl, indie, On A Roll, Pixel Man, PyroManic, Xbox 360, Xbox Live, XNA
At least for Fishing Girl, you can play that online... >_> Don't know about the other ones. :P