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Defender on Live Arcade

Sometime today.

Defender will be this Wednesday's Xbox Live Arcade release, Microsoft's announced.

Midway's classic shoot-'em-up will feature classic and enhanced graphics options, offline and Xbox Live multiplayer including co-operative modes, as well as the requisite online leaderboards and unlockable achievements.

The game will sell for 400 Microsoft points (GBP 3.40 / EUR 4.65), with a trial version to download if you're not sure about whether you can be bothered with it.

Those of you who normally stay glued to your screens for the 8am GMT launch time might want to sit tight though, with MS bloggers admitting that it might be a little while before it's there.

Gamerscoreblog, which carries the Defender announcement, said "this one's coming hot out of cert [the certification process], and we're still aiming to bring it to you on Wednesday".

"However it's probably not going to hit at our traditional time of 0800 GMT, but our team is working really hard to get it to you as early as possible on Wednesday."

At the time of writing the game had yet to appear on Xbox Live Marketplace.