in the past, i've kind of ignored the downloadable games available to me with my three consoles, unless they're explicitly given to me for free and i test them for a couple days.
i played a couple capcom shooters (1942, wolf of the battlefield, the space one) and was left unimpressed. but recently there's been a spat of actually really good games that i find myself playing more than full disk titles. that is, until the next wave of killer games comes out; force unleashed, nhl 09, etc., etc.
here are a few i'm currently loving and a couple older ones that are great too:
bionic commando: rearmed (XBLA & PSN)
this one came out of left field for me because, admittedly, i'd barely played the NES original (read: never).
the swing mechanic (by which this title would succeed or epically fail) feels perfect and the combo of the incredibly inventive ways to kill the bosses, the upgradable and satisfyingly designed firepower with that perfect swinging makes for a game that feels like it could deserve a stand alone release.
this is a remake that doesn't feel like a remake (like all those frogger incarnations) and outdoes just about any other game on either psn or xbox live arcade right now. it's fun and has a free demo so check it out.
my only gripe= why is this not downloadable to PSP yet?
special note: pick up the PSN version if you have the option because it's much more fun to play with a proper d-pad and not the xbox's failed attempt
castle crashers (XBLA)
this nifty little game is barely out and the buzz around it is huge. it has one of the best multiplayer implementations out there in the arcade games and a tremendously addictive gameplay reminiscent of the old TMNT arcade games and double dragon style beat em ups.
the art style is wicked, there's cutesy blood and gore and really, most important of all, it's fun. it's not so challenging as to scare off new gamers (who don't love frustrating shoot em ups). it's just wacky and weird and violent and cool, it hits all my bases. i look forward to downloading the full version once i get together somewhat of a team to play through the full campaign with.
various boardgames and card games (XBLA)
the only ones i can truly recommend are UNO and carcassonne, and that's because they're fun, easy to pick up and great to play on live.
one thing to note, however, people are really talkative in the UNO rooms and to me, that's a good thing. if it's anything like when the game was available free on live back in last year, carcassonne is just full of people grinding out the 200 achievement points in complete silence. boring.
notable mentions
here are a few that might be worth your time, at least for a few seconds. they're not perfect and won't steal a ton of your time but they're cheap and quite fun, depending on how much you get in to them:
- geometry wars (1 or 2) (XBLA)
- super stardust HD (PSN)
- pain (PSN)
- soul calibur (XBLA)
- kirby's adventure (VC)
arcadin' and lovin' it,
JD
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