The Best 360 Games to Download
Killer titles on the Xbox Live marketplace
We love the Xbox Live marketplace. Yes, it’s got its faults. A bizarre pounds-to-points conversion rate (£5 for 400 Microsoft Points – huh?) makes our head hurt; the intermingling of full games and ‘assets’ (demos, themes, etc) can be confusing; and sometime the pricing strategy seems to have assigned to a monkey with a dartboard (800 MSP for Coffeetime Crosswords? Uh, no thanks.)
Still, these quibbles are just that – minor niggles that Microsoft, to its credit, seems intent on ironing out in the face of the PS3’s constantly improving online marketplace. The simple fact is that Xbox Live is home to many great games, spanning a huge variety of genres. Choosing just seven was always going to be a difficult task, and there are some omissions to our list that we’d be remiss for not at least mentioning. The likes of E4, Rez HD, Carcassone, Crimson Skies, Alien Hominid and both Geometry Wars games all deserve your attention; with all but Crimson Skies available as trial games, it won’t even cost you anything to give them a test run.
The seven games that did make our cut can all stand tall in such lofty company, while possessing qualities that, to our minds at least, make them stand out from the pack. So, without further ado, we are proud to bring you our favourite downloadable games for the 360.
Black – 1200 MSP
In the continued absence of a downloadable Goldeneye, Criterion Games’ Xbox Original Black is a more than acceptable substitute. Eschewing recent FPS subtleties such as regenerating health and, um, jumping, Black is all about hectic shootouts, weighty real-world weapons, and massive explosions. As it’s only three years old, Black can still hold its own in technical terms – it looks just fine, plays ultra-smoothly on the 360, and the award-winning audio is yet to be bettered. Best of all, though, are those explosions. A well-placed grenade can absolutely devastate a room, and most levels are so peppered with combustible barrels that they quickly descend into Die Hard territory, with bullets and bodies flying everywhere. The only complaints are a lack of multiplayer and, as is the case with all Xbox originals, no achievements.
Omega Five – 800 MSP
The Xbox marketplace is chock-full of shooters: old school fans can treat themselves to the ageless R-Type or a host of late-‘70s / early-‘80s arcade conversions; for more up-to-date thrills the Geometry Wars games don’t disappoint. If you want a real challenge, though, two games stand out from the pack – Treasure’s seminal Ikaruga and Natsume’s Omega Five. Both are unbearably hard bullet-hell style scrolling shooters, but we’re giving the nod to Omega Five purely due to the fact that it’s exclusive to Xbox. Japanese sci-fi nonsense of the highest order, O5 is possibly the loveliest-looking game in the Xbox Live Arcade. Controls take a few plays to get used to, with special attacks and shields mapped to triggers and bumpers, but once you’re up to speed Omega Five becomes an almost Zen-like experience of millimetre-accurate positioning and twitch reflexes.
Castle Crashers – 1200 MSP
Maybe the most under-rated game on the Xbox marketplace, Castle Crashers is a cell-shaded take on the Golden Axe / Gauntlet formula. There’s just so much to like about this game, from its Samurai-Jack style visuals and OTT violence to the on-or-offline four-player co-op to the RPG-lite levelling and power ups. The amount of variety on offer is another feather in its cap, with every new level introducing a new gameplay mechanic or environment to the basic hack n’ slash template. Castle Crashers will see you charging around on giant lizards one minute then swimming upstream in a monster-infested river the next without ever missing a beat. It also boasts some honest-to-god laugh out loud moments and a clutch of the most imaginative bosses we’ve seen in a long while. (Just what is the collective term for bosses anyway?)
Battlefield 1943 – 1200 MSP
DICE’s online shooter was one of our most-played games this summer. While we do love a bit of multiplayer CoD or Halo action, the Battlefield games have always offered a different experience, and 1943 is no exception. Essentially a sandbox FPS, Battlefield’s simplicity encourages players to get stuck right into the action and have fun. With only three classes to choose from and a single game mode (team-based capture the flag), fights in 1943 don’t take long to get started. The three land maps are all island-based too, so it’s impossible to wander too far from the action; another map purely based on aerial dogfights is equally intense. By throwing 32 players into every map and littering the islands with toys – tanks, jeeps, aeroplanes – DICE has ensured that no play session is ever boring, and the emphasis on action over tactics makes for an utterly refreshing and addictive experience.
Plants vs Zombies – ??? MSP
Ok, we’re kind of cheating with this one. You won’t find Plants vs Zombies on the Xbox Live marketplace yet. But PopCap’s genius take on tower defence has been confirmed for release on the service (although no date has yet been set) and, barring an altogether unlikely screw-up in porting, will be another essential purchase. PvsZ is an essential for tower defence aficionados, and a great place to start for anyone unfamiliar with the genre. An unlikely mix of broad comedy and serious tactics, PopCap’s game charges you with defending a garden from a zombie hoard using a variety of deadly plants. You’ll need to master all 49 types of vegetable-based weaponry at your disposal to get through the game’s 50 levels, as the undead attacks ramp up in difficulty and the zombies start sending out their special teams of pole vaulters, snorkelers, and the fearsome bobsleighers. It’s very daft, utterly charming, and the PC version is one of our favourite games of 2009 so far.
The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition – 800 MSP
Yes, we’ve covered Monkey Island to death recently. LucasArts seems to be on a franchise-milking mission recently, with more special additions and outsourced spin-offs than you can shake a rubber chicken (with a pulley in the middle, natch) at. Still, their update of the very first Monkey island game is a thing of beauty; a point and click adventure with a never-bettered mixture of fiendish puzzles and comedy. Becoming a pirate on Melee Island is still great fun for series veterans and newcomers alike. It’s maybe not ideally suited to console play (a legit DS version would have been perfect), and the voice acting can grate as often as it amuses, but SoMI manages to be that rare thing – a classic that plays like it could have been released yesterday.
Braid – 1200 MSP
Braid, quite simply, is a delight. Jonathan Blow’s little indie title plays with your head in ways that very few games can. While it’s a platformer at heart, Braid’s USP is a rewind ability that lets you control time. Initially used simply to reboot a missed jump or accidental death, successive stages push this core mechanic almost to breaking point with some fiendish time-based puzzles, requiring each new section to be tactically appraised before embarking. Some objects are immune to rewind; time control affects some enemies, but not others; a broken item can be remade by skipping back a few seconds. If you think Braid’s hand-drawn style means this is a game for children, you’re in trouble. Brutally hard and yet completely compelling, Braid has deservedly won multiple awards for innovation and, to our minds at least, is one of those titles that can comfortably be held up as ‘art’.
