Xbox Indie Games Review - Towers

I'm a huge tower defense fan and man is this game hard!

This is your basic tower defense game and if you're reading this and are a fan of the genre you should probably just buy it now. Towers does an awesome job on incorporating new and old ideas to the mix. Build towers, kill baddies, all the stuff you expect in the game is there but the way you place towers is pretty cool. There are trees placed around the level and you can only place a tower where a tree is (or has previously been) so this adds a bit more strategy to the game. Hardcore tower defense fans will enjoy the difficulty of this game but it will scare newcomers off who don't completely understand everything. There's a variety of towers (6+ or so) that all do your basic tower defense stuff. Slow, poision, splash and air are all present so you'll catch on pretty quickly if you know your stuff.

The difficulty of the game is something that I felt challenged me and made me try strategy after strategy until something worked. I never felt like anything was frustrating but having to find the 'perfect strategy' in order to beat a level can get tedious after 10+ attempts. The game was updated and the ability to change the difficulty level was added but I haven't played it since the update so I can't give my opinion on the different difficulties.

If you like the genre, buy it. If you like a challenge, buy it. If you've never played a tower defense game before, you should probably start with something more forgiving.

Rating - 8.5/10

Xbox Indie Games Review - Leximo

The general premise of this game is to make words (either randomly or specifically if that's one of your objectives) with single letters falling from the top of the screen.

When you first start out you'll actually try to spell things because you get points by making words. Eventually you'll find out that there's no benefit to taking your time (unless you need to spell a specific word) so you start button mashing moving from left to right in order to just fill the board nearly full then hit the button that finds words for you. You'll get a larger combo bonus when more words are found so my game plan was to fill the board as full as I could, while I was still safe from losing, and then let the game search for words as I watched the points rack up. Watching the game sort through all of the words it finds is enjoyable because it's presented very well and the 5 or so most recent words are shown on the side of the screen so you can see what's being found. The game has a lot of polish into it but don't expect to play it like a word game.

The general idea of the game is cool but I'm not sure there's any hype or want for this type of game. If you have a dollar to burn and want to try something completely new then this might be a game worth trying.

Rating - 7/10

Xbox Indie Games Review - AvaGlide

I should probably start off saying that I never played Pilot Wings but I'm told this is a lot like it.

In AvaGlide you control your avatar flying a glider and there's 3 different game modes you can play.
-In Ring Rush you're suppose to fly through rings to increase your time and collect stars in between those rings for extra points.
-Delivery Dash has you dropping crates off on platforms to score points. The crates react to physics so you have to be careful in your drops otherwise they'll roll right off the platform!
-Star Smash has clocks to increase your time and gold/silver/bronze stars to increase your points. Score as many points as you can before you crash or the time runs out.

The game controls very smoothly and if I ever flew a glider I think it would control exactly the same so it does a good job of simulating that experience. There's also 'air lifts' around the place that help send you back in the air so when you start running out of juice they'll give you some extra oomph. Everything is score based and it also has global high scores so that should add a lot of replayability and record breaking attempts. :)

Rating - 9/10

Xbox Indie Games Review - Lethal Judgement

As a developer myself I'll probably be a little harsher on this review than most. A few criticisms first.

1) I have a pretty old controller and my joysticks don't always revert to 0,0 (no movement) so there were plenty of times that my ship would automatically float to the back of the screen while I was paying attention to other things happening. Developers usually give a 'leeway' that prevents this from happening but that wasn't present here.

2) Title safe problems. By this I mean that some stuff is cutoff by the edges of the screen (like the life bar and boss health bar in this game) and you're actually able to fly off the edge of the screen on the left hand side. I thought this was a pretty big issue because plenty of times I was forced back from lots of enemies or bullets and then my ship disappeared and sometimes I would hit enemies that were also off screen. A big no-no in my books.

3) WAY too much going on. Sometimes there would be rocks falling from the ceiling that look like you have to dodge them but they're just there to look pretty. They're very distracting because my first reaction is to dodge them then I get shot by something that does actually hurt me. I know plenty of shooters do this next one but it seemed too distracting/slow in this game. Some enemies fly on screen (from left to right) and they start big and gradually get smaller. You can't shoot them and they can't hurt you until they reach the right side of the screen but again, I thought they were going to hit me so I stayed away. They also cover the smaller enemies up so I'm thinking 'hey they don't hurt me so I can fly through them' but then I hit a smaller enemy that is hidden by them. Maybe if these flew in faster it wouldn't be as big of a distraction.

Now onto some actual gameplay. It's your basic side scrolling shooter with little guys that are in masses but easy to kill and eventually large boss fights. You get an occasional powerup that adds more bullets to your shots and even lets you shoot fireballs. You also have the ability to activate a 'laser shield' of sorts that kills anything it comes into contact with for a short period of time. It's a decently fun game and if there were less distractions I would definitely recommend it. A few things stop me from recommending it at the 240MSP ($3) range because it does give you a score at the end but it's never saved. A shooter that gives you points while playing through and doesn't save them to a local or global leaderboard when you eventually die is a bad no-no. If you have some time to burn, are a fan of shooters and just want something to fill some free time (with no record breaking attempts) then you'll probably enjoy it.

Rating - 6/10

Xbox Indie Games Review - 7strains : The Infectious

There's one HUGE feature that holds this game back from being really enjoyable and that's the lack of shooting while moving.

So a little about how the game plays. You must avoid different strains of infections at all cost or it's game over. There's 7 different strains that all have their own abilities and you have to pick up rocks across the map in order to kill the strains. Once you throw a rock you must go collect it again, if it's safe, so you can throw it again. You can collect a few rocks at a time so it's not always shoot once, collect once. To shoot you have to hold one of the face buttons (A/B/X/Y) and you get a cursor which you can use to help you aim. The only drawback that keeps this from being an enjoyable experience is that you're froze while trying to aim. You can shoot directly in front of you while moving but without a cursor it's impossible to hit anything reliably. The only way to really kill things is to just get close enough to them so they chase you, and get your cursor lined up so they walk into your shots. The strains randomly move around so killing them while they aren't chasing you is near impossible.

The game offers a ton of custom options that make any and every game you play different. You can change how many strains there are, the difficulty, the speed, the map and the list goes on. Maps are randomly generated based on options so that always gives a fresh feeling to the gameplay. I tried playing on Insane difficulty and everything is faster than you so if a strain sneaks up on you you're dead because you can't turn around fast enough to do anything. Maybe it's better in multiplayer where someone can watch your back.

The game offers up to 4 player local co-op/versus which is pretty neat because once one of you gets infected you can chase your buddies around and slow them down so the strains infect them also. Since there's no high scores or stat saving, besides and end of round results, playing with friends is a must to enjoy the game over a period of time.

Rating - 6/10

Xbox Indie Games Review - Decay - Part 2

You don't necessarily need to play Decay - Part 1 to enjoy this game but it helps put the story in line since it's a continuation from the first game.

This can be best described as a point and click adventure game. It's almost a detective type game where you need to figure out certain puzzles or find a key to open a locked door. The game is very dark and creepy and it does a perfect job of setting that mood.

There's a few things that prevent a perfect 10 from this review and those are as follows.
1) A notepad or similar feature to keep track of important things. If you forget something you must travel to the location (if you remember where it was). At one point the game says something along the lines of 'this looks important, maybe I should write it down' but who has a pad/pen laying around and is willing to take notes on paper while playing a video game.
2) There's a few times where you can get really stuck and there's no 'help' option where you can get a push in the right direction. Maybe there could be help clues for the next objective that push you in the right direction or remind you of what you just accomplished.

Otherwise Decay - Part 2 is just as good as Part 1 and you'll have a fun time playing detective throughout the game. It's only about an hour long or so, depending on how often you get stuck, but it's enjoyable the entire time.


Rating - 9/10