Weekly Xbox Indies - 12/5/09
Yay
- Relic Raider - 400 MS points. Relic Raider puts you in the shoes of an Indiana Jones wannabe as he runs through ancient ruins collecting artifacts and avoiding killer mummies. Each level consists of several rooms, which are only opened after you've walked around the entire outside of the room. By walking around rooms you need to find the relic, key and exit of each level to progress. There are also rooms containing bonus treasures that add to your score providing incentive to unlock every room before moving on to the next level. Unlocking every room is also a risk though because of hidden enemies in some of the rooms, which can punish you for your greed. It's a simple arcade-style design, but is still a lot of fun.
Ay?
- Squirm - 80 MS points. Squirm brings Tron's lightcycle game to life. If the Tron reference is lost on you, imagine a competitive version of Snake. Play either by yourself against 3 AI opponents or against 3 human players to block them into a corner. There are several levels to play on and a number of multiplayer modes, ranging from last man standing to trying to block off the largest area.
- Boom Chick Chick - 80 MS points. Boom Chick Chick bills itself as a single-stick shooter, taking aiming control away in favor of focusing on avoiding enemies. The auto-aim actually works really well, though perhaps a little too well because the game is made incredibly easy as a result. There are three weapons to choose from, offering different firing ranges to hit enemies that are either close or far from you. There are also power-ups like chainsaws and replenishing health to reward your zombie-slaying exploits.
- Starbase Epsilon - 80 MS points. Starbase Epsilon is a frantic multiplayer strategy game that has you competing to collect the most resources. Those resources are then used to build bots that are deployed to planets so that they can collect even more resources allowing for better bots. There's always that next tier to reach for, sucking you and up to three friends more into the game the more you play.
- Words in a Word - 240 MS points. Words in a Word is an anagram game like the popular web game Text Twist. The controls are a bit odd and take a while to get used to, and there's no way you'll get some of the words (poinds? really?) but it's still a fun game design.
Nay
- ARC Ninja Edition - 80 MS points. Do you like F-Zero, but just kind of like it and not really want to play it that much? Well then ARC Ninja Edition is for you. Antigrav Racing Champtionship is a great indie game, but this version with a fraction of the courses isn't worth it. Just get the full version.
- Musicus - 400 MS points. Musicus is a music game that I feel has a lot of potential, but isn't coming together yet. You play through songs in a tunnel, and collect colored blocks to construct different instruments in the song. It sounds fun, but in actually playing it the game breaks down into too many random elements. Add on a weak and fairly random song list consisting of William Tell Overture, The Nutcracker, and several J-Pop songs, and Musicus fails to live up to what it could have been.
- Rebound - 240 MS points. Rebound is a game of keep-it-up with your paddle hitting balls into the air to juggle them. It's like Arkanoid or Breakout without any blocks to destroy, which is about as fun as it sounds.
- Snake Maze - 80 MS points. Snake Maze has you guiding a rat through randomly generated mazes. Randomly generated mazes are good, but not when you get to watch them being constructed, in which case you can easily see the correct path. There's also a racing element against a snake going through the maze with you, which will bite you and take away points if you try to pass it.
- Spooky - 80 MS points. Spooky is a ghost herding game similar to Flock and last week's game Wool. The ghosts have varying behaviors, but none of them are conducive to actually herding them within the ridiculously short time limit of each level.
- Matrix2 - 400 MS points. Matrix was a pretty bad puzzle game when it was released earlier this year, and the gameplay hasn't changed a bit in Matrix2. Lines fall like Tetris pieces, and you need to build a row of boxes with them. Miss even one box in a row, and it can't be cleared, which is a problem when none of the falling pieces fit together in ways that allow you to build an entire row of boxes. Even at 80 points, this would be a falling blocks puzzle game to avoid, and at $5 it's just a joke.
- Christmas Tree - 80 MS points. A Christmas tree decorating game. Children will be amused with it if they're too young to be trusted with decorating a real tree, but after Christmas is over you'll probably delete this one.
- Buttons - 80 MS points. Oh good, another Simon memory game clone. If you're going to get this type of game, get Lodestar 1000, otherwise just leave it alone.
- Globe Clicker - 240 MS points. Having been raised in the US public education system, my geography knowledge is absolute crap. So I was in full support of Globe Clicker, a well made educational geography game. Then the game asked me to find Honduras in North America, which even with my fairly pathetic geography knowledge I know the difference between North and Central America.
- Holiday Trivia - 80 MS points. Don't let the politically correct name fool you, this is just a Christmas trivia game. Young children may enjoy it for a while, but like the other Christmas games this one won't hold much appeal after the holiday is passed.
- Sqong Christmas - 80 MS points. Sqong was an Arkanoid clone with some nice physics gameplay mixed in. Sqong Christmas is that same game with Christmas presents replacing the blocks in an attempt to cash-in on holiday cheer. If you're going to get Sqong, go with the original, as it's more fun and just generally a better constructed game.
Updated Games
Bobby Says - Dance with me!
Johnny Crush
15 Puzzle
Sudoku X
XCross
Beat Hazard
Minigolf Mania
Biology Battle
BitStream - price drop to 240 MS points.
Wool
A Perfect Massage
Jumper Robot
NaviFairy
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 5 December 2009
· Comments (3)
Other stuff like this: indie, Xbox 360, Xbox Live, xna
Hi,
In Sqong Christmas defense and mine (Since I really enjoy Sqong), I just have to disagree completely with your review.
First of all, I LOVE these sorts of games e.g. brick games as Arkanoid, pong versions and so on.
Even though one of the levels of Sqong Christmas has the same looks and principle as Arkanoid (Hitting boxes with a ball) it’s definitely not the same feeling to it. In Arkaniod it’s all about getting rid of boxes but in Sqong it’s about simply using the boxes to get the multiplier rising. At least that’s how I see it!
Neither is the Mode in Sqong Christmas where you hit the presents the same as the mode in the original Sqong where you hit the colored boxes. The present mode in the Christmas edition might be inspired by the one from the original and look about the same, but trying to catch those boxes rather than just hitting them, is definitely another type of game play.
The second game mode in Sqong Christmas, which I can imagine you haven’t even tried, is not even close to similar to the second game mode in Sqong.
In my opinion Sqong Christmas is a great version of Sqong. It starts out a little softer compared to Sqong which is very appreciated by my youngest daughter who thought Sqong was a bit too hard. Even my wife has joined us a couple of times while playing the Christmas version which is absolutely great!
Finally I just want to add that I think Globe Clicker is a great game as well. I haven’t noticed any problems with the places so far but that’s all I can say. It’s a cool idea and a real shame if there are places that aren’t correct!
/ John
Thanks for your input John. I still stand by that the original Sqong is the better game, but I'm also not arrogant enough to think that my feelings on a game are the only ones out there. I try and write my Xbox indie game reviews based on how well the game stacks up against what is already available as well as overall enjoyment of the game. Since the latter criteria is completely subjective it's always good to get a second opinion.
As for Globe Clicker, I was loving the game, and planning to make it the featured game in the "Yay" category, until I saw the geographical error. Considering that the game is essentially a geography edutainment game, for it to be teaching incorrect information is inexcusable.
Hey, I just thought I should point out that Central America is part of the North America continent. http://www.google.com/search?q=central+america+part+of+north+america