No I’m not dead and yes I’m still gaming. Life’s been hectic at the Duke household, so I haven’t had time to really dive into full fledged games. Thankfully, Xbox Live arcade has a bunch of pick up and play games that I’ve been dabbling in. Here’s what I’ve been playing lately.
Aegis Wing – Every single Xbox 360 owner should have this game. It’s a free download and quite a bit of fun. Aegis Wing is an basic old school, side scrolling shooter designed for multi-player (both online and offline) and there are tons of people playing at any time, so getting into a 4 player match is a snap. There is a single firing button and you can collect 4 different special weapons (Guided Missiles, Laser Beams, EMP Bombs and Shields). Each ship can attach one another and become a gun turret capable of firing 360 degrees. Each time a player attaches to another player, the special weapons become more powerful. When all four are attached, the special weapons are enormous and take up almost the entire screen. It’s an easy decision; Download this game and have fun. You’ll be able to beat the game in less than 30 minutes, and you’ll come back time and again.
10/10 It’s Free and fun; that sounds perfect to me. If we were paying for it: 6/10
Boom Boom Rocket – I was very excited when I heard about this game. It’s a rhythm from the creators of Geometry Wars (which is thankfully coming soon to Wii and DS!) in which you set off various super colorful fireworks in timing to classical music. The problem is the difficulty of the game. It’s far too easy on the easy mode, even for novices. Then the Medium mode comes in and kicks your ass if you’re not an experienced player and forget about hard mode unless you’re a glutton for punishment. There is a typical face off type multi player mode, an Endurance mode which endlessly loops the song and gets faster and faster and a Kid mode which you can just slam on any button you desire to set off the fireworks. Unfortunately, there’s just not enough variety here (Only ten songs total) to warrant a purchase. Download the demo and play through the 3 songs they include. That should be enough.
4/10 Very Pretty, but very shallow as well. It’s certainly not worth the 800 Microsoft Points (Aka $10)
Catan – This game just baffles me. It’s a simple board game with almost no graphics but it’s one of my favorite games on Xbox Live. The game begins with 19 Hexagon shaped pieces randomly placed on the board. These pieces can be Wood, Brick, Wheat, Wool or Ore. Then a numerical value from 2-12 is assigned to each of the pieces. Players then take turns placing two settlements on the corner of a Hexagon and a road leading from that settlement. Each house must be two spaces from any other house, and must be connected to another settlement via roads. Players then roll the dice and any settlements touching a piece with that number then get the resource. After the roll, the players turn starts. Catan is just as much about trading with other players as it is about the luck of the roll. In fact, it’s nearly impossible to win a game without some clever trading of resources. It’s one of those easy to learn, difficult to master games that will keep you coming back again and again. Single player games take about 20-30 minutes and Live games take anywhere from 30 minutes to a couple hours, depending on how experienced the other players are. Download the demo and play a couple games. It should hook you. The only downside of this game is the lack of offline multiplayer. I’m not sure how they’d pull that off, but it would have been nice.
8/10 It’s just plain fun and it’s nice to have a huge community ready to play any time you want. Plus, cleanup is a breeze and you’ll never lose any pieces. Worth every one of my 800 Microsoft Points.
Carcassonne – My current favorite Live Arcade game. Carcassonne is another board game, but this one only involves tiles. It is a very simple game to play, and there is a beautiful balance to that. It’s simple enough for a child, but there is enough strategy to satisfy even an expert chess player. The game is played by simply placing one of 72 tiles at a time on a grid board and matching up the edges. This will create roads and cities which must be completely enclosed before points are awarded. Once the roads and cities are completed, the points are doled out to whoever has placed a settler on the structure. The larger the city or the longer the road, the more points are awarded. Only one settler can be placed on any road or city, but multiple cities or roads can be connected, thus enabling the crafty player to place a city piece or road piece just off to the side of an almost completed structure, then attach them and share the points. It’s impossible to illegally place a piece on the board, so you can’t really mess up. The game is over after all 72 tiles are place on the board. Then unfinished cities, roads and monasteries as well as farms are tallied up and the remaining points are doled out. The game takes about 10-20 minutes to play and it’s one of those games that will be different each time you play. Online and offline multi-player are available as well as the free Rivers expansion pack.
9/10 Tons of fun and easy for anyone to pick up and play. Enough strategy to keep hardcore players coming back over and over. I’d gladly pay the 800 points again and I’ll be buying the future expansion packs as soon as they are available.
PAC-MAN Championship edition – If you think it’s just another PAC-MAN game, you’re very wrong. It’s the first true evolution since Ms. PAC-MAN and it deserved a better name than Championship edition. This PAC-MAN comes with a total of 5 different game modes, all of which are timed at either 5 or 10 minutes. The thing that really sets this game apart from the original PAC-MAN and Ms. PAC-MAN is the ever changing board. Rather than having the entire board filled with pellets, a pattern of pellets will be on each side of the board. Once you’ve consumed each pellet on one side of the board, a piece of fruit will appear on the opposite side of the board. When you eat that fruit, it sends a shock wave to the other side of the board which changes the shape of the board and places a new pattern of pellets. This ever changing board along with increasing speed really makes the game feel fresh. With a total of 5 different play modes, this is a must download for anyone who’s spent more than $10 in quarters on PAC-MAN or Ms. PAC-MAN through the years. Just download the demo and you’ll see what I mean.
8.5/10 The only things keeping this from a perfect score are the lack of an unlimited time mode and the techno music which gets annoying very quickly.
That's it for now. I'll be back soon.
Mahalo,
Duke