With only another year or so guaranteed of being able to play Xbox Live Indie Games on Xbox 360, I thought I should probably mention a few more on the blog, to save any of you looking for an rainy afternoon's entertainment sifting through the literally hundreds of titles in the 360's library. Almost all of these cost under a pound, or a dollar in the US, so it's worth checking out the better ones if you're looking for something to play this Halloween...
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Medieval Zombies
This game plonks you way back in days of yore, facing hundreds of the undead as you search crates and hunt for better equipment to destroy them with, whilst also trying to keep your fellow AI zombie fighters alive. As you can see, the graphics are somewhat rubbish, but this gives the game a certain appeal...
Unfortunately, it also gets very, very repetitive after the first 10 minutes or so. Somehow, despite it's obvious crapness, I still really like Medieval Zombies, but i can't really recommend it or you'd think I'd gone completely mental!
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After Dusk
Ah! This is a bit better! In After Dusk, you, as captain of a starship, answer a distress call from a Space Station to find out what went wrong and maybe claim some salvage. Once you get there though, you find things have gone a bit bitey-bitey, brainy-chompy Dead-Space-style, and the space station crash lands onto a nearby planet! Skulking around the dark, you fire up generators to keep the light-fearing nasties at bay and try to get back to your ship and get away from all this death!
It's quite a groovy little game, with some nice light effects (your bullet lights up a trail as it shoots off towards the nasties), some decent platformy-puzzlements and a suitably unsettling soundtrack. Well worth a go if you're looking for a good creep around in the dark....
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Dead Kings
I really like this one! Apparently a sequel to game called Bloody Checkers (which focused a lot more on playing checkers, obviously), this one has you creeping about a castle at night looking for loot and battling dead kings and queens by examining their paintings and then taking on their challenges, which come in the form of a few mini-games like Breakout, Asteroids or, indeed, checkers...
You'll also struggle to keep your candle alight to see where you're going and access the paintings, as various ghostly happenings occur to scare you pantless and put out your flame! This game oozes atmosphere, and was quite a surprising find for me on XBLIG...It reminds me of Dark Souls, the old TV series Knightmare and a random crappy-but-good covergame you'd get on the front of an old Spectrum mag! Definitely give this one a go for a unique blend of freakiness this Halloween! Oh, and you can bring a friend for a co-op playthrough too! So yay!
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Press X To Not Die
Another one of these Live-Action-Video style games now, that everybody thought was the future of gaming back in the early nineties. This one actually tries to be funny, unlike the ones I reviewed in my previous XBLIG post, and it sometimes succeeds.
As you've probably guessed from the title, the game consists almost entirely of QTEs and you have to bash the buttons at the right time or you'll fail whatever task you happen to be doing. If QTEs are a personal bugbear of yours, you'd better steer well clear....
Plot-wise it seems pretty similar to Sean Of The Dead, with you trying to get to your girlfriend and escape the random outbreak of whatever virus is causing people to go a bit doolally and violent! Like I said, there's a few laughs to be had, and it's just about the right length for you to not get bored of just pressing random buttons. So yeah, again worth a go if you're after something a bit different....
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Demon House
Lastly today, we look at the rather okay Demon House, where you wander around a spooky mansion in FPS mode, trying to put a stop to an evil scientist plans for world domination using an army of undead creatures and robots!
It's fairly standard budget FPS stuff, but has a nice spooky atmosphere with lots of Haunted House style creepiness, and decent enough AI that it's pretty enjoyable to roam around. You'll also need to find keys hidden in secret areas to open doors so there's a fair bit of exploration too! It's pretty decent for the price you'll pay, so I recommend you give it a go.
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So there you have it, another five games covered so you know what to expect! If I've time, I'll look at some more soon, as like I say there are literally hundreds of Indie games on XBLIG! If you only download one from this lot though, I'd go for Dead Kings...definitely the best of the bunch!
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