Xbox Horde | All things Xbox, from game reviews to movie adaptations

Indie Game - Beat Hazard

Do you have a fetish for those side scrolling shooters like Gradius from back in the day? Do you enjoy dodging space asteroids and blowing up things with your space bombs? Well this indie game delivers on this premise. This is where you go 'B-but there are like a million games like this! What gives?!' Well hold it right there. This game goes a few steps further. It has no official soundtrack – the music is whatever you put in from your Xbox 360 or PC.

Now thing is, it not only doesn't have an official soundtrack, but no levels either. Instead, each level is populated based on what song you are playing with the game at the time. The more complicated the beat, the more powerful your ship gets in the form of power ups.

So it's like Audiosurf, but with bullets.

Then again Audiosurf is like the game Frequency's spiritual cousin. But the game literally fills in the gaps based on what songs you play. This also can make a mission very hard depending on the song. The game is set in space, but also utilizes bright flash colors non stop. I don't want to say it's seizure inducing, but it (can be) is seizure inducing. The pretty colors, even to my decent eyes, were brilliant when first starting but within five minutes, my eyes were spazzing out. Maybe if I played the game in pitch black darkness the colors wouldn't be so intense. I mean the bullets and attacks started to bleed together and get lost from all the flashing on screen. That was the only negative.

But if you can get past that, you can get this awesome title for 80 Xbox Live points.

Indie Games: Fez

If it never came across, I'll say this now: I love platformers. Blame childhood indoctrination. Super Mario Brothers. Donkey Kong. I simply love them. At their simplest, they are good, challenging fun. So when I saw this game, Fez, I had to try it. And wow, I though this would be a 2-D game. It pans to the 3-D and you start thinking Paper Mario in mechanics.

But the story, and those resemblances fall away once you get in far. With a chip-tune soundtrack, the main character Gomez believes they live in a full 2-D world. The character then realizes that there is a 3-D portion to his reality. Unlike Paper Mario, the camera limits you to four classic angles, reminiscent of older 2-D platformers. But unlike Mario's often tongue-in-cheek plot, Fez's plot is more existential as Gomez begins to question the nature of his reality as he is guided through many puzzle-like levels.

The design is beautiful, showing their crafted detail and the levels get challenging as again, you are limited to those four camera angles. Hours will be spent trying to figure out if you should go this direction or not, collecting cubes to complete the level. The game sucks you in with its slow introduction of game elements until you realize that it's 3 a.m. and you are still trying to get through a level. You mind will be worked in this game, which is always a good thing.

This rather inventive throwback to old school platformers costs 800 Xbox Live points.

Indie Game - Cave In: Miner Rescue Team

Cave In is, at first glance, a simple game. You are one of two selectable miners digging into dark, dangerous caves trying to save people trapped in the dangerous caverns. Armed with your block pushing and explosive setting skills, you go further and further down to save the day.

But the game likes to variate how you save each trapped person. Puzzles variate from strategic bomb laying, pushing blocks of like colors against each other, destroying each other in a chain, to artfully dodging obstacles by creatively moving blocks in places.

It helps that your character is brightly lit up so that you can tell them apart from the 3D terrain as some levels are set in complete darkness, only allowing for you to see a few inches ahead of yourself with your mining helmet light. It helps that the lost people call for help when you are near, making the search easier.

The camera (player view) makes this rather difficult though as it shakes, the floor crumbles and debris falls from the roof, giving the feel that the place is going to fall on top of you at any given second. JohnnyDeath Games has managed to give you a sense of urgency in doing your task while variating things so the games doesn’t get boring. And it doesn’t even cost a lot from the Xbox Live store, considering the high 80 (and very tricky) levels to be found.

This easy-to-get-into (but hard to master) game is only 400 Xbox points.

A website displays how lame some male Xbox players can be

We are going to skip a game this week and talk about in-game etiquette. See, Xbox has a thriving online community of players where you can group up with complete strangers and play either cooperatively or head to head with one another. Xbox Live is its name and despite MMOs proving how ugly this premise can be, gamers are masochists and do this anyway. It is almost expected to within moments of playing online with others that you begin to resent even getting that headset. Some will bother to be polite, but most won’t. And woe be to you if you even remotely let on that you are a female.

Mind you, I stated outright I was a female in a popular MMO of the time and emerged relatively unscathed.

But going by this site – if MMOs are perilous, then Xbox Live is a bottomless pit of man children unsure of how to address a female without:

Hitting on them
Being condescending to them
Saying creepy stuff to them
Generally being a jackass to them

Ladies…sometimes no matter how skilled, polite or even decent you are to people, the Xbox Live population seems to be a strange beast, at one moment calling ladies insults, asking for favors or wanting to be friends. Though this can be seen as another sign of ‘I don’t want to be on this planet anymore,’ sometimes seeing what the often unflattering responses online for what they are – people who clearly lack people skills – it can be amusing. Amusing in that ‘oh you sad, sad child’ way.

Indie Game -ROTOR

Have you always had an overwhelming desire for remote controlled planes? Did growing up during the 80s-90s leave you wanting a plane from the million infomercials that aired repeatedly all the time so much that you begged your parents to buy you one right then and there? No? Me neither! And even if I did want a tiny copter to fly to my delight, I doubt this game is it.

ROTOR is a game set in some Mirror’s Edge looking universe where the colors are all flat and you wield this little copter doing objective based missions in said city. The premise sounds fun, and you can even customize the colors of the city to your liking. There are even three different types of challenges: Accuracy, Waypoint, and Orb Collect (ie. don’t get lost, hit a bunch of checkpoints and collect orbs).

Nothing horrible: until you realize how unwieldy the copter is and how unforgiving the game difficulty is. The controls, despite having a tutorial, are not intuitive and you feel like gravity has a lot more pull than it should. Add in the steep learning curve to the missions – there is no easy mode muhahaha! – and a player can expect a good long series of failure and frustration at this game. You will get annoyed. Even a patient sort like me got rather annoyed rather quickly.

But there is a positive in all this. Its 80 Xbox Live points to relive your masochistic dreams of crashing over and over again. Yeah, go on and do that, toy plane fans!

Indie Game - Cute Things Dying Violently!

You love puzzle games right? Have you gotten burned out on the cuteness that is Angry Birds? Does the game Happy Wheels make you cackle in evil glee? Then here is a game that combines the best parts of both of these games called ‘Cute Things Dying Violently’.

Yes it is what is says on the tin. Cute things, round armless wandering lemmings are milling about trying to get into an elevator. You, the hand of fate is trying to help them into that elevator safely and securely. But then those huggable love triangles (or deadly spikes), trap switches and buzz saws get in the way. The cute things are helpless and need your help.

This game is hilariously cruel. There are stages where saving each one of them is next to impossible (in fact some require you to sacrifice a cute thing to finish the level). When they walk around they say rather cute things – and die in a splatter of blood on the game surface to remind you that indeed you allowed a cute thing to die. The commentary left in the form of tips found on the levels start off helpful but get snarky the further on either encouraging you to be a murderous monster or to feel bad for letting the cute things die. There’s even side challenge missions to rack up trophies; usually ending up in a very gory mess.

For 80 Xbox points, this game is hilarious bloody fun. A game where absolutely nothing bad happens. You sadist, you.

Indie Game - Weapon of Choice

Like the fast pace of shooters? Hate the stale feeling most give you as of late? Have you simply found nothing to tease your trigger finger? No, not like THAT. Well there is an indie game that’s been rolling the circuit since 2008 but has being sadly over looked.

For 400 Xbox points you don’t just get a shooter. You get a love letter to all shooters. First off you play as an operative (you have many choices as to which from the onset each with their own specific move set and weapons). And boys are the weapons simply crazy! Some like the jetpack weapon is what it says on the tin – it is a jet pack for flying that can in midflight be directed onto to harm enemies. Or the spider pack that allows for the player to climb over obstacles both things not normally seen in a shooter.

The monsters those match this with their grossness. Flinging snot, puke, and even poo these aliens are not of the cuddly E.T. kind. Monsters hang with everything all out ready to reinforce their rule onto humans.

The game also boosts Near death recovery; this is where you are in a near death situation such as a near bullet grazing too close to your head or a claw diving in exceedingly fast towards your general vicinity. The game instead of letting the instagib happen slows itself down, allowing you a spare extra seconds to move out of your emanate death. The game also has varying story progression paths that affect which ending you receive – not often you get a shooter with effort put into multiple endings. Add on the hand drawn artwork and you have a fun shake up to the shooter on your hands.

Indie Game: Machiavelli's Ascent

Never a game since playing Echo the Dolphin in my childhood has made me appreciate underwater setting as this interesting game, Machiavelli’s Ascent. This game is not set in a world of political intrigue or intrastate bartering and clandestine social rules as the name sake implies; instead it deals with a jellyfish named Machiavelli.

Said jellyfish’s sole goal is to rise higher and higher to eventually reach the ocean surface. I a game with gorgeous visuals, and an equally beautiful sound track, the goal is actually (unlike a more Machiavellian plan) rather simple. The jellyfish is surrounded by bubbles, each that when touched generate a melody. The jellyfish cannot float up along; Machiavelli has to touch each one to keep propelling to the ocean surface. While doing this, various items along the way can be hit to unlock achievement.

Though it seems I was wrong; there is a bit of Machiavellian delight to be had here – the bubbles over time space out or become harder to reach, making it harder for the jellyfish to keep going. All you can do it keep floating and hope. Made by Developer Naturally Formed Studios, they made it so the game is both soothing yet an addictive challenge. Finding bubbles isn’t made to be stressful; then again if you miss one it is almost impossible to recover your momentum to the top!

This indie game is rather addictive despite its soothing exterior. At only 80 Xbox points, this gem can contribute to your game collection.

Indie Game - Dead Pixels

Are you jonesing for an old school mash up…with zombie killing actions? Then look no further than Dead Pixels. Take River City Ransom, insert zombies by the bucket loads, put on some cool grainy film effect and you have yourself a curious send up of the screen brawl crawler.

The game doesn’t just stop there. The levels themselves are randomly generated so each play time though has the scenery look different. Now, if that grainy film effect bugs you, you can simply turn it off. But why? It adds to the B zombie film feel of it. The game also takes its cues from other B movie based games such as Resident Evil’s earlier limited ammo system. This makes it so your main character has to conserve and gage which weapon is best to use (if at all) in a situation. And considering the zombie horde is constantly closing in, you best plan on choosing things on the fly!

Also this game allows for character customization. When I say customization, I mean that you can tune your character to have high weapon power, high hit points, or with faster movement speed. So every play through you can be Speedy McGee out running the zombie hordes. Or you can be a Brick House outlasting them. Or you can go all out slaughter house and destroy them utterly into a cloud of red paste. The customizability makes this game worth many a play through.

For 80 Microsoft Points, this zombie game isn’t that shabby.

Indie Game- Zombie Crossing

For a game called Zombie Crossing, you would expect street signs in blaring yellow everywhere pointing out that yes, indeed this area has zombies. So many zombies in fact, that the need for caution signs was gravely needed for the few survivors that would encounter said signs. Unfortunately, the artistry of said signs will never be seen as most of the action takes place atop the tall buildings above the zombie infested streets.

This is not a racing game either (as most games with Crossing in the title implies; or anything to do with Animal Crossing) but a tower defense game. That is you place strategic sniper on the rooftops of various tall building/towers/skyscrapers, preventing persons/troops/zombies from getting past a set path from their starting point to their end point.

It’s a rather simple game; prevent the zombies from going past all your buildings for as long as you can and you win. Over time you can even gain research upgrades and whatnot, but in the end it’s a simple horror themed tower defense game. The music is okay, generic rockish theme that is sorta muted for being a soundtrack to a game about fighting off the undead. Then again the undead are little more than a bunch of black with yellow outlined paper cut out figures so YMMV on the scary component.

Now, if you want more than simple troop placement, you may want to walk away. But if you are a BIG fan of tower defense type fair, then have at this indie title – it’s only 80 Xbox points.

To be fair – you can snipe in this game. That makes it slightly not so boring.

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