Version tested: Xbox 360
The Xbox Live Indie Games channel is now over a year old, and more than 700 games have made their nests amongst its nurturing branches. While it would be nice to say that the service has blossomed over time, that wouldn't be entirely accurate. The good stuff is arguably better than ever, but there's still an awful lot of pointless dross clogging up the shop window with joypad massages and other daft widgets.
There's still a lack of the sort of truly innovative games that sum up the homebrew ethos - the Canabalts, Darwinias and Samorosts - with most indie devs still preferring to trial their wares as Flash games on websites rather than making use of Mr Microsoft's indoor market hall. Of course, when even the best-selling Indie Games are apparently only shifting a thousand copies or less, you can hardly blame them.
That's not to say that gems can't still be found among the swill, however. Since it's been a long time since Eurogamer cast a critical eye over the Indie Games selection, consider this a roundup not only of the more interesting new additions, but the cream of the crop from last year as well.
Abaddon
- Price: 400 Microsoft Points
A mixture of tower defence and fast-paced shooter, at least according to the pre-download teaser text, Abaddon can't be faulted for lack of ambition. The basic aim is to protect your mothership - Abaddon - by flying around it in one of several infinite-spawning clone fighters, blasting incoming enemies. Each enemy destroyed drops green plasma currency, which can then be used to upgrade and repair the armaments on Abaddon itself. There are four game modes, with goals ranging from survival to intercepting enemy transporters.
Restraint is clearly not an option in the manic shooter/tower defence hybrid, Abaddon.
It's an impressive achievement, technically speaking. Control is fast and responsive, and while the visuals still have a homebrew edge, it's far in advance of most of the Indie Games it rubs shoulders with. It even boasts co-op play.
It's also packed with ideas, often to the game's detriment. Rather than concentrating on a few key gameplay features and honing them to razor-sharp perfection, it just keeps throwing things at you until it becomes more than a little overwhelming. Simply upgrading the Abaddon while blasting the bad guys and collecting currency is a hectic juggling act, but when you factor in unlockable ships with their own unique abilities plus power orbs that can be collected, combined and swapped, it's just too much info to digest.
The problem isn't helped by the fact that new elements are not always intuitively presented. The control map is a little odd and even basic option-navigation feels distractingly obtuse, with menus nested within menus, each selected with a different stick.
It all feels like a game where new bits were added as ideas came along, until the original core concept was groaning under the weight. While praise is due for actually managing to implement so many additional concepts while most of its rivals struggle to master the basics, a little more focus would have made the premium price point easier to swallow.
6/10
Arkedo Series 03: PIXEL!
- Price: 240 Microsoft Points
The Arkedo Series is a monthly offering from Arkedo Studios, the three-man French outfit responsible for cult DS hit Big Bang Mini. This latest is a collaboration with Pastagames, and despite a few quirks too far, it's well worth a look.
Following on from JUMP! and SWAP! this time our hero is a charmingly pixellated cat called, well, Pixel. Gameplay is pure old school platformer - you guide him through lo-fi blocky worlds made of glowing blue pixels, using his powers of run and jump to reach the exit. Even the enemies can be defeated the traditional way, by jumping on their heads.
The only real twist to formula comes at the end of the levels, where you must use a magnifying glass to find the clue that will unlock the door. Once found, you zoom into the pixels and must follow an arrow marker to actually reveal the way out of the level.
Clearly, originality isn't PIXEL's greatest weapon, but charm probably is. This is a lovely-looking game, simple and immediately enjoyable, and a lot of care and attention has gone into the visuals. Plenty of indie games use old-school graphics in order to mask their tiny budgets, yet Arkedo has a knack for producing cheap games that look impeccably stylish. You could easily put this alongside any Xbox Live Arcade title without it looking shabby in comparison.
7/10
SlideColors
- Price: 80 Microsoft Points
A cheap and cheerful puzzler, SlideColors is about as inspired as its self-explanatory title suggests, but it brings enough Rubik inspiration to the table for it to justify its impulsive price.
SlideColors - because that's what you do, see.
While gameplay revolves, as usual, around the shifting of coloured gems, the twist this time is that you can only move entire rows and columns at a time. In the main puzzle mode, this is the source of much forward planning, as you work out the sequence of moves that will move the gems to their colour-matched cell without ruining the pattern. Clear Blocks, meanwhile, only lets you progress once you eliminate all the blocks on the board with a metallic edge.
Trouble is, the game isn't exactly tough. There's no sense of urgency, and not much can go wrong, so it's unlikely to get the brain buzzing or the heart racing. It's only Puzzle Mode that offers any long-term challenge, and even that will be a breeze for anyone weaned on the genre's more famous offerings.
So SlideColors is no Hexic or Puzzle Quest, and the Match 3 genre rivals only the twin-stick shooter for indie developer over exposure, but with immaculate presentation and a simple concept realised in style it's an above average pocket money diversion for laidback gamers.
6/10
I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES 1N IT!!!1
- Price: 80 Microsoft Points
Speaking of twin-stick shooters, here's a venerable Indie Games mainstay that deserves its lengthy stay in the Top Rated chart. Look past the deliberately obnoxious l33t-speak title and you'll find a pure arcade rush, a game that tips its hat to the glories of gaming past as it spirals off into alcopop-fuelled mania.
Heavily reminiscent of the equally bloodthirsty (though not quite as demented) Crimsonland, and making no secret of its hereditary debt to Robotron, you rattle around a large arena, keeping the encroaching undead at bay with a range of fun weaponry. At least, you do to start with.
As the impossibly catchy theme song warbles away, strobe lights flash, words flicker on the ground and suddenly you're battling the angular serpents from Snake. Later still, the music becomes ominous and you're transported to space where the game becomes a riff on Asteroids. And so the game goes, mutating just as you're settling into a rhythm, mixing and matching ideas and visuals from all over the place. You can also have up to four players, to placate your Gauntlet cravings.
The peerless smart-stupid mayhem of Z0MB1ES, easily the best thing on Xbox Live for less than 100 Points.
Like any great three-minute, three-chord punk song, this is a celebration of the genius of mindlessness. You just blast and survive as long as you can, but that doesn't mean it's a slapdash affair. Control is pitch perfect, the pacing is excellent and there's a playful understanding of what makes a shooter appealing woven into every delirious minute. The lack of online leaderboards is a shame, since this is a high-score drive experience through and through, but it still offers a ridiculous amount of sugar-rush fun for such a low price.
8/10
Mithra: Episode 1, Chapter 1
- Price: 240 Microsoft Points
Easily one of the most visually impressive games on the channel, Mithra is a full 3D adventure game in the classic style. Guiding the captive alien Tag around the planet Gi, escape is your obvious aim, with a little help from the cute gelatinous blob, Vee.
Mithra's remarkable 3D adventure - proving that Indie Games has more to offer than shooters and puzzles.
Movement is a little stiff, and button prompts can be a touch fiddly to trigger as you wriggle around some of the smaller environments, but that's really the only clue that you're playing a homebrew game, so polished are the other features.
Clever inventory puzzles, NPC interactions, even a bit of physics - it's all in here, and delivered with full voice acting, no less. Developer Afiction Games has even included a surrogate Achievements system, along with unlockable goodies. Originally released at 400 Points, but now available for 240, it's an essential download for adventure game fans.
Sadly, it seems that financial woes have stymied production on the next instalment of this ambitiously epic tale, but don't let that put you off this often-brilliant opening section.
8/10
Squid Yes! Not So Octopus!
- Price: 240 Microsoft Points
The wonderfully titled Squid Yes! Not So Octopus! (or SY!NSO! to use it's even more wonderful acronym) is an admirably tight survival shooter. The aim is to score as close to nine points as you can, which sounds easy until you realise you only score one point for every minute you survive, and earn only tiny decimal fractions for every enemy destroyed. Oh, and you've only got one life.
The psychedelic visuals are pure Minter, but the game itself owes more to the varied modes of Geometry Wars 2. This isn't a twin-stick game, however, so your only defence is to keep moving forwards and around, blasting as you go. As is typical for this crowded sub-genre, the game piles on more and more enemies, and does its best to distract you with a barrage of lights and neon. If you can make it over three minutes, I salute you.
SY!NSO! doesn't say much for the inspiration, or lack thereof, on the Indie Games channel. Like most of the games in this list, its influences are brazen and its ambitions are hardly lofty. But it is enormous fun, especially for those with a taste for twitchy one-more-go arcade shooters.
7/10
Gerbil Physics
- Price: 80 Microsoft Points
Use a variety of bombs, ropes and disintegrators to demolish towers of cute gerbils, so that they all end up below the red line. That's the easy-to-grasp aim of this slim but enjoyable physics puzzler.
Quick! Enjoy Gerbil Physics before PETA hears about it.
The game takes a while to warm up, and with only 24 levels that's a shame, but the design is fiendishly cruel, always giving you the bare minimum of tools to get the job done. Frugal deployment of your arsenal, as well as a little bit of luck, is the key to success. Despite the simple setup, your task is complicated by structures that must be left untouched, or enormous heavy blocks that require serious effort to shift.
There's no time limit though, so you can dawdle and tinker, and even wait for more elaborate demolitions to wobble and collapse in their own time. The physics sometimes feels a little slow and floaty, and it can be frustrating when sheer bad luck ruins an otherwise perfectly executed plan, but most of the time it hits that puzzle-game sweet spot with impressive consistency. The satisfaction of placing your last bomb in just the right place, and watching that final gerbil sail into the air, compensates for any minor concerns raised by the low budget framework.
Obviously, it's not got the same depth, longevity or polish as World of Goo or even Crayon Physics, but it's yet another example of how the "oh, go on then" 80 Point price-tag can turn a pretty good game into a compelling purchase.
8/10
