Yay

Along Came A Spider - 400 MS points. Along Came a Spider is a brilliant platformer. You play as a spider crawling along silk levels. You can climb on any white thread surface, including walls and on the underside of platforms, which already lends itself to some great level designs. But then your spider climbing ability is combined with the ability to create bungee-like threads from the corner of any platform, and the levels open up into some ingenious possibilities.

As if to tease you, three flies are hidden in each level that will take some quick fingers and all of the spider's abilities to collect, adding some healthy replay value to an already great game. The visuals, while not bad, aren't exactly anything special, so at first I was wary of the price. Though the more I played the more I became immersed in the level designs, and the minimalist art style grew on me. Definitely at least check out the trial, because Along Came A Spider will provide an unmatched platforming experience.

Kaotik Puzzle - 240 MS points. The best way I can think of to describe Kaotik Puzzle is as the Super Smash Bros or Marvel vs Capcom of puzzle games. Kaotik Puzzle is a head-to-head puzzle game for two players competitively, but that's not where the comparison comes from. There are 7 characters to choose from, each of whom moves blocks around in different ways. There's a Bejeweled character, Bejeweled Twist, Puzzle League, and many others. Essentially, it's like a grudge match between different puzzle game formulas. Or, if you don't like any of the preset characters, you can customize your own choosing from 5 ways to move the blocks and 9 patterns for clearing them, allowing the game to become just about any puzzle game you could want it to be. Even if you can't find someone else to play against, there are five AI settings to play against that can offer quite the formidable challenge. If you're a puzzle fan then Kaotik Puzzle is pretty much a required download.

Office Politics - 80 MS points. Office Politics is a tough game to review. At the game's core, it's a pretty basic adventure game simulating such exciting office tasks as making copies and filing memos. But it's much more than that. It's a game that takes the term "interactive storytelling" to heart to make for a memorable satire of corporate culture. Perhaps that's because the game's developer, Ted Hung, created the game after (it would seem based on this game) getting fed-up with corporate politics and left to start making indie games. You play as Jennifer, the new intern at Incomputech, as she struggles through five days on the job.

Hung lists Maxis as one of his past employers, and there are elements of The Sims that are evident in his work. As Jennifer works, you have to balance her hunger, thirst, exhaustion, and need to go to the bathroom with the workload from her job. If any of those get too low, her stress level increases to the point where she quits. The story and characters are the real stars of the game, and unfortunately a lot of the game's exceptional humor and charm isn't getting through in this review because I don't want to spoil anything. Every second of the game is filled with little in-jokes and subtle (or not so sublte) jabs at corporate culture that, having spent some time in cubicles myself, had me smiling the whole time. If you've ever worked in corporate environment, or even just love the movie Office Space, you'll find a lot to love in Office Politics.

Edit: Office Politics developer Ted Hung has just contacted me with some unfortunate news. Apparently the name "Office Politics" conflicts with an existing trademark, and as a result has vanished from the Xbox Marketplace. All is not lost though as the game will return with a new name, hopefully in the very near future.

Twin Blades - 240 MS points. Twin Blades is a side scrolling hack-n-slash game with tons of zombies ripe for the killing. To defeat the hordes of undead you'll control a scythe and gun wielding nun. For each zombie you kill you collect a zombie heart, which can be used at the end of each level to upgrade your health, scythe, or gun with various attachments like flamethrowers, ice beams, and grenade launchers. You have a magic meter that governs your ammo, with more powerful weapons draining ammo very quickly. This mana drain is balanced by the fact that each zombie killed with your scythe regains a small amount of mana (which that amount too can be upgraded) to encourage a balance between close-range and distance combat. You'll also find different zombie types, like bullet-immune armored zombies, that further keep the game from getting repetitive.

The art is top notch with detailed backdrops, exceptionally animated zombies, and unique death animations for each of your weapons to make each kill a small reward. The first few levels started a little slow with not many zombies around to kill, but by the fourth level the zombie count ramps up adding more challenge but also more possibilities for upgrades. I should mention that Twin Blades is also available for iPhone, with a reduction to both cost and artwork resolution, but this is the type of game that definitely benefits from a joystick and buttons over a touch screen.

Battle Beat - 400 MS points. Battle Beat plays out like a cross between Plants vs Zombies and a rhythm game. Before each stage you setup your rows of troops, each with specific skills and ranges that make row placement a very important decision. There are four rows, with each tied to a particular face button on the 360 controller (or, the guitar controller if you want to get the full Battle Beat experience). During each stage there is a beat counter at the bottom of the screen, and you must attack the charging enemies with button presses in time with the music.

When at its best, Battle Beat draws you into the music like a trance that will have you blasting enemies with rhythmic combos. There's a lot of style to Battle Beat, from the excellent 2D graphics to the humorous "story" setting a backdrop for the game's rhythm combat. I do wish that there were more songs to play through, but even without song variety it's still a game well worth checking out.

Square Off - 240 MS points. Wait a second, didn't this game get reviewed already? Well, yes and no. Occasionally I need to base my impressions of a game on the trial version, and Square Off was one such game. It was a fun shooter with great animations and tons of personality. But, as so many shooters do, I was worried that it might become repetitive during extended play sessions so I stuck it in the "Ay?" category. The developers were kind enough to send me a copy of the game, and I said that if that if my opinion of it changed I would post a new review. Well, I'm posting a new review.

Square Off plays like a twin-stick shooter, with one stick for movement and the other for aiming, but differentiates itself by still using a fire button where other shooters will have you automatically firing at all times. This puts an emphasis on more precise shots that is both more challenging and more fun than other twin-sticks out there. Each new level has a different layout, with some favoring wide open spaces while others have more tunnels for close-range combat. This thankfully keeps the game from falling into the repetitive traps that I originally had worried about. But what ultimately won me over was the multiplayer mode, which offers both 4-player co-op and deathmatch on a single system. Co-op is great because the number of enemies thrown at you is truly massive, so the help is much appreciated. Deathmatch is my favorite though, since the game's emphasis on accuracy leads to competition that is based much more on skill than on spamming attacks. There is one odd quirk that I've noticed that is a bit of a downer, and that is the online leaderboards. Unless I'm the only person who's ever played the game, they don't seem to be working properly yet since currently I'm the only name that appears on the high score chart whenever I check. I'm assuming that a future update will eventually solve the issue, but it's worth mentioning since online leaderboards are one of the features highlighted in the game's description. Leaderboards aside, Square Off is a shooter well worth checking out, especially if you have a couple of friends that want to get in on the action.

Ay?

Cubism - 80 MS points. Cubism is an interesting 3D jigsaw puzzle game. You are given jigsaw pieces and must fit them around a cube (or more complex shapes in later levels) to advance. The difficulty curve is a bit inconsistent, with easy levels scattered among devious levels in a seemingly random mix. The reason for this is that the base cube tells you which color goes on each side already, with the main challenge coming from fitting them in the right direction. In later levels there are multiple colors on each side to add challenge, but every once in a while there will be a level with a picture cube instead of colors. It is these picture levels that drop the difficulty level to zero since they not only tell you which side each piece belongs on, but the orientation of the piece as well. But picture levels aside, it's a great jigsaw puzzle game.

Sumo - 240 MS points. Sumo is a multiplayer twin-stick shooter with the unique addition of a shove move to push away opponents. There are a number of game modes to compete in, with the star being the sumo mode where you get points for knocking opponents into the walls. This is where the shove move is used primarily, though it can be used in any of the other deathmatch modes to help disorient the other players. Since the game is multiplayer focused there will always be four opponents in each match, with AI bots filling in for any missing players. But the AI is no replacement for human opponents, so I'd say it's best to check this one out if you have friends to play it with.

Elite Trivia - 240 MS points. Elite Trivia is a trivia board game. Players answer a question on each square they land on, with the player claiming that square if the question is answered correctly. At the end of the game, the player who has claimed the most squares is the winner. It's a hard sell in competition with excellent free trivia games like 1 vs. 100, but trivia buffs who don't want to wait on Microsoft's schedule will enjoy what Elite Trivia has to offer.

Creed Arena - 400 MS points. Creed Arena is both a top-down and first-person shooter in one. By default the game plays from a top-down perspective, with the controls that of a typical twin-stick shooter as enemies come pouring into each arena. But with the press of a button you can change the camera down to right above your shoulder giving you FPS controls to fight against further away opponents. The controls in each mode are about what you would expect if you've played just about any game in either genre, though I did find that aiming was much easier from a top-down perspective since you don't have to account for aiming on a Y-axis. There's also multiplayer to bring some friends along to fight in the arenas, which is far more fun than going it alone. Overall, Creed Arena is an average shooter that doesn't do anything wrong, but aside from swapping perspectives (which isn't as useful as I would have hoped) it doesn't do anything to stand out either.

Nay

Gem Chase - 240 MS points.
Oichokabu Online - 80 MS points.
Speed - 80 MS points.
Full Contact Racing - 240 MS points.

Updated Games

Avatar Aquarium
Superspace
Rail Gun Charlie
Ikariods
Bomb Disposal Expert
Planet Delta
Fireworks Screensaver
PushCrates
Colotristar