Early 2008 shaping up good for XBLA

By Dan Zuccarelli . February 21, 2008 . 11:40pm

I've been pretty vocal about my love for Xbox Live Arcade. While there's certainly been some stinkers in there, with a new game every week there's been more than a few must have titles released for the platform… and most priced between 5 and 10 bucks. The smaller nature of the games has allowed some riskier and more niche titles to come out for the system, from original titles like Space Giraffe to second-chance at success stories like REZ HD. Not to mention titles like N+.

 

The inclusion of multiplayer over Xbox Live in most of the appropriate titles has also been a huge bonus. I think at last count I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 XBLA games on my harddrive. While there's no doubt some clutter with some of the "classic" games chosen (I'm looking at you Root Beer Tapper), for the most part the games are worthwhile. And a free trial for each game!

 

Microsoft knows that XBLA is a huge bonus point for the 360, and it looks like they're still going all out in 2008. There's already been a few announcements of upcoming titles and the look to cover both the mainstream and the niche.

 

From their recent press release:

“Braid” (Number None Inc.). Developed by Independent Games Festival Winner and experimental game designer Jonathan Blow, “Braid” is a platform experience that bends all the rules with the manipulation of time. “Braid” will launch this spring.

 

“Castle Crashers” (The Behemoth). “Castle Crashers” is the second title currently in development by award-winning independent developer The Behemoth, creator of “Alien Hominid HD.” The role-playing game (RPG) adventure will let up to four players hack, slash and smash their way together through a visually stunning hand-drawn landscape. “Castle Crashes” launches this summer.

 

 “Defense Grid: The Awakening” (Hidden Path Entertainment LLC). “Defense Grid: The Awakening” is the definitive tower defense game experience designed specifically for Xbox LIVE Arcade and launches this summer.

 

“Go! Go! Break Steady” (Little Boy Games). An Xbox LIVE Arcade exclusive, “Go! Go! Break Steady” is the debut title from independent developer Little Boy Games. The combination music and puzzle game combines break dancing with novel gameplay and launches this summer.

 

 “Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness” (Hothead Games). The first video game collaboration between Penny Arcade creators Mike “Gabe” Krahulik and Jerry “Tycho” Holkins and legendary game designer Ron Gilbert, “Penny Arcade Adventures” is an RPG-adventure game set in a highly stylized 1920s universe filled with bizarre characters, outrageous combat and adult humor. The first episode of the game launches this summer.

 

Braid looks to be a pretty complex puzzle game based on controlling time wrapped around a cute little 2d platformer. You can see a developer walkthrough of some of the ideas here.
 There are a lot of interesting ideas at play here, and looks to get pretty indepth. Interesting to say the least. 

 

Castle Crashers is a game I've been anticipating ever since it was announced, since I'm such a huge fan of Behemoth's work on Alien Hominid. It kicked ass in Flash, on the PS2 and XBLA.Castle Crashers takes the same graphical approach but incorporates 3 of your friends for the twitch-based action. I'm beginning to wonder if the constant delays on this title are in place merely to drive me crazy.

 

There isn't much known about Defense Grid yet (at least not that I could find) but I'm going to wager a guess and say it's going to be an XBLA version of the browser classic "Desktop Tower Defense." I could be totally wrong on that by the way, but I'm going with my gut. 

 

Go! Go! Break Steady both looks and sounds like a Boom Boom Rocket Rhythm game. Hopefully not just like Boom Boom Rocket, since I never really got into that one. Oddly enough, the first time I looked at the title I thought it said Go! Go! Break Study and thought it must be a localized version of a Japanese brain training game.  I still that's a good idea by the way. We have a hands-on report from GDC08 on the title.

 

Little can be said about the Penny Arcade game that the guys from Penny Arcade haven't said already, but if their trademark humor is intact I'll forgive the fact that it's set in some weird wild west time period. I would've preferred something current day where they get sucked into a videogame or television or something. Kinda like that cartoon Reboot. Regardless, I trust the guys from HotHead Games (including Ron Gilbert of Secret of Monkey Island fame) to make a kick-ass game. Gilbert is an unsung game script writing genius. 

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