Puzzle Quest heading to XBLA

Puzzle Quest is on its way to Xbox Live Arcade!

That's because D3Publisher of America has announced its intention to get on board with all this new-fangled downloadable game tomfoolery, with Mad Tracks, RocketBowl and Puzzle Quest the firm's first efforts.

They're all down for "later this year". We only hope it's not too much later.

Puzzle Quest, which we reviewed recently, is already out on DS and PSP, and while both are perfectly serviceable (nay, perfectly wonderful), the game deserves a home console audience too.

"But what is it?" you ask, being an Xbox 360 owner who doesn't go in for these stupid childish handhelds. "Does it have guns in it?" No it doesn't, but it does combine the tile-matching fun of Bejeweled with the statistical genius of a well-thought-out RPG.

As lots of you will already know, there's a PC demo to try out, although there's still no sign of an actual PC version for release. One thing we might be able to infer here is that the Xbox Live Arcade game will include online multiplayer - the PC demo mentions it, but neither of the DS and PSP versions offer it.

Mad Tracks, meanwhile, has been mentioned on here in the past, and is already available in demo form on the PC. RocketBowl, finally, is aiming to be Live Arcade's first bowling game.

"What ties all of D3PA's titles together are not genre or size of game or developer, but an unsurpassable element of fun," says Yoji Takenaka of D3PA, who sounds very sincere.

"We look forward to capitalizing on Xbox Live Arcade's wide reach and ease of use to bring gamers unique titles that fit the bill of delivering the highest enjoyment factors."

Details on pricing and releases was not immediately available, but our griffon's level 18 now so they better watch it.