Release number two is Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball, a game built on an internet meme older than lolcats (U can haz no orignl ideaz). The mechanics work well enough: ninjas throw red rubber balls at pirates in an attempt to knock their heads off and vice versa. The game would have actually been better with the addition of pointless gore and fatalities; there just isn’t much of interest or worth here. The graphics can be best described as serviceable and bland, the sounds nothing but ARRRRR and WWAAAHHH, and the controls are okay as long as you aren’t too picky about who you are trying to target. It’s a safe little game aimed at kids, but anyone under the age of 16 has never played real dodgeball in school anyway, so they probably won’t either notice or care. All this game did for me was remind me how good Super Spike V Ball was. If a dead horse is going to be beaten, it might as well have been a good horse in the first place.

Shred Nebula, on the other hand, shouldn’t be ignored, but probably will fall through the cracks anyway. My initial impression of Shred Nebula was ‘Oh come one, another dual stick shooter?’ until I moved the right stick and nothing happened. Remember Asteroids? This is Asteroids on steroids much the same way that Galaga Legions was Galaga on crack, except Shred Nebula is actually good. Changing from the right stick moving to having to hold down A for thrust or LB for backwards thrust makes all the difference in the world. Suddenly I can boost in one direction, let momentum carry me and then turn around and shoot backwards. I am not saying one is better than the other, I am saying that Shred Nebula should not be dismissed as another Geometry Wars clone. It’s somewhere between Asteroids and Armada, an amazing DC top-down space shooter with added loot gathering that was also played by nobody. While I can’t fully endorse it as a must buy because of repetitive looking levels and a silly story mode, Shred Nebula deserves at least a few minutes of your time.

In spite of my bitching about hard drive space a few weeks ago, I have continued to buy every damn song that Rock Band puts out. I had fallen behind a few weeks and only recently downloaded The Who pack. I know this is weeks old, but if you have Rock Band and haven’t downloaded this yet, you are seriously cheating yourself. Rock Band is all about ‘playing pretend,’ and no songs have done this better than The Who pack. I don’t know if it’s the inclusion of a few live tracks or if the music itself is just better than most of the other downloadable content, but I had more fun with these on guitar and drums than any other songs I have played, and that includes the songs the game came with. For a few brief moments I was a (sober) Pete Townsend, waving my strumming arm like a drugged up windmill, stopping just short of bashing my plastic guitar on the basement floor. It was sublime.

“Opinion: Video Games And The Graphics Plateau” at GameSetWatch
One of the most interesting topics of discussion these days in this industry is the graphics plateau, and how much we really need to be improving hardware from generation to generation. The couple paragraphs in this about Grand Theft Auto IV being on Playstation 2 instead of Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 blatantly ignores what the increased horsepower did for gameplay, but in later paragraphs he acknowledges some innovations in that area in current games in general. I think the takeaway message of the article holds true though - to the average video game buyer, graphics are becoming less and less important.

“Design Lesson 101 - Braid” at GameSetWatch
The point of the article is presented as being “Braid uses inherent complexity of individual mechanics, rather than the combination of those mechanics, to create interesting and unique gameplay that never feels unfair to the player,” but in the end it basically devolves into “how to make a good video game puzzle.” The difference between “Aha!” and “are you kidding me?” is the key, and that’s explained fully and concisely in this article.

“THE ACTION BUTTON DOT NET MANIFESTO: A LIST OF THE TWENTY-FIVE BEST GAMES OF ALL-TIME” at Action Button
This has been updated this week with numbers 10 through 5. Unfortunately Gears of War and Pac-Man Championship Edition at 6 and 5 respectively have been posted on the list with their old reviews with a few “bonus paragraphs” thrown on the end, but Ario Barzan’s piece about Metal Gear Solid 3 and Tim Rogers’ about Cave Story are among the best the list has seen so far. I can’t wait for it to be finished next week.

Galaga Legions comes from the same people behind the Pac-Man sequel, which gave them some credence, but not enough to make the new Galaga an instant purchase. I am very glad I hesitated, because after about a half hour with the demo I was left confused and bored. Galaga has the same look and feel as the Pac-Man remake, which was in turn cribbed directly from Geometry Wars Retro Evolved. It looked like it should be exciting, certainly sounded like it was engaging, but it was simply not a lot of fun. Galaga forces itself to be held up to Geometry Wars by trying to look and sound like the better shooter, and it does not fare well when compared. The basic way Galaga plays has not been changed: it is a shooter based entirely on pattern memorization. There is no randomness or chance; either the player remembers where to be and where to place the satellite or he dies. It is this bit of randomness that made Geometry Wars impossible to put down and what makes Galaga feel like work. It’s very pretty work, but it’s still work. I’d play it for a quarter at the arcade (if there still were any) but I don’t need to own it.

All of this new content coupled with the abolishment of the game size limit and continued weekly Rock Band tracks has finally brought to the forefront something I have been afraid of for a long time: I am actually running out of space on my hard drive. A few weeks ago I wanted to download an HD movie and had to do a great deal of cleaning out of un-played (or terrible) XBLA arcade titles to make room. I had over 50 titles sitting there, and even though I know I can download any of them again, it still felt bad deleting them. Then there is the 400 mb of Guitar Hero 2 tracks, 200 mb of Guitar Hero 3 tracks and 4.5 gigs of Rock Band tracks that I refuse to let go of. Not four weeks later I am too low on space to download a movie again, and I have nothing I want to delete.

Microsoft has put a tremendous push behind XBLA and the marketplace in general. They have created a system where buying something doesn’t even feel like you are spending real money; everything’s price is obfuscated via Microsoft points and I shudder to think about how much money I have actually given them. This wealth of content is hamstrung by not having any place to put it. I can’t be the only person whose launch 360 is getting more than a little cramped. Further complicating this is the asinine price of the 120 gig hard drive. I can buy an internal terabyte drive for my PC for $30 less, so it’s ridiculous. As this problem becomes more widespread, the marketplace could become a victim of its own success. Lower the price of the hard drive, Microsoft. I want to give you more money, all you have to do is let me. There are big games coming, both in expectations and size, and I may have to start playing them on my oversized blu-ray player / paper weight just because it has a 60 gig hard drive.

“The State of the Casual Games Industry in 2008″ at Gamasutra
Here’s an article highlighting interviews with three “leading lights” of the casual games industry from PlayFirst, PopCap and Reflexive Entertainment. “Match-3 [a term for Bejeweled-like games] will never die” is a choice quote, whether or not it’s true, but far more interesting is when they agree that more “immersive experiences” are doing better and better, as opposed to “amusing momentary distractions.”

“Mikami and Suda Talk EA Partnership” at 1UP
This is the best of the interviews with Shinji Mikami and Suda51 after their unveiling of the partnership with Electronic Arts for their upcoming action / horror game. Most of the right questions are asked, and Suda51 even reveals how involved EA are with the project (“a production team for EA Partners will come to our office once a month“), and Mikami saying that what EA brings to the table is “money” is priceless. The one thing I’m surprised nobody asked was how involved Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s Q Entertainment is with the title.

“THE ACTION BUTTON DOT NET MANIFESTO: A LIST OF THE TWENTY-FIVE BEST GAMES OF ALL-TIME” at Action Button
Updating with numbers 16 through 11 this week, it’s more of Action Button at its best though. The Outrun 2 review is lovely, lovely stuff (hey, much like the game), and Ario Barzan’s review of Shadow of the Colossus is maybe the best the list has seen so far, which is surprising because his Metroid Prime review a week prior was the worst. I can’t wait to see what the next two weeks bring; as the list goes on, things have only come together more and more.

After writing several pieces for this XBLAh column, I began to feel a little annoyed. Even though the column was my idea, I couldn’t help but feel it was very limiting. I had pigeon-holed myself into writing what are essentially weekly previews for downloadable games, most of which hardly have any sort of impact on anything. I look at other people’s columns, specifically Mike Ireland’s Mightier Pen and realize that is what I want to be doing; discussing the more artistic qualities of video games and their influences on society. Something that’s actually interesting to read and write about.

Braid released on August 6th, 2008 and offered me exactly that. A chance to talk about how video games have evolved, how they can be profound, how they need not sacrifice gameplay, but honor it to create something inspiring. More importantly, it gave me a chance to share my personal feelings on the future of video games. And I feel almost ashamed to tell you that I squandered this chance by not even purchasing the game. Why, you ask? It’s the same reason why the game is getting half of its press, the same reason why forum users are arguing about it, the same reason why Penny Arcade had to write a column about it. The price.

I am not one of those fools who are arguing that the game is not worth $15. Such an argument is based on completely subjective thought and debates on production value and development time are absurd. I have no doubt that to those singing their praises towards Braid, quite vocally I might add, the game is well worth the money obtained from working less than a day at a minimum wage job. I also don’t feel that debuting Braid at $15 is part of some evil plan by Microsoft to eventually raise the standard price of XBLA games, as if there was such a thing. Sure, most original titles tend to be $10, but $15 games have been on the service since launch and I didn’t see this theory being thrown around when the Penny Arcade game was announced for $20.

My reason is far less biased and far more confusing. If Braid was priced at $10, I probably would have beaten it already and would be in line to write a second opinion for James Shield’s excellent review for it. But at $15, I feel very hesitant. This is not unlike the feeling I had for Aces of the Galaxy, a game I praised earlier but also didn’t end up buying. That game was priced at $10 and I probably would have purchased it if was $5. What is it about $5 that makes us so unwilling to part with it? I remember spending about that much on lunch every day when I was in high school. And yet, as I’m writing this, I still feel cautious about spending it to buy Braid.

The situation is made all the worse by the quality of Braid. Unlike Aces of the Galaxy, Braid looks like a game that I most definitely should fork over the extra money for. This is not to say that Aces of the Galaxy is not worth the money, but rather that Braid shouldn’t be about the money. The game is a masterpiece.

How should I know? I’ve only played the sliver of the game found in the demo. But during the sliver, there were some very special moments. In the first world, there is a level with two puzzle pieces that I had no idea how to get. I scratched my head in frustration and being the impatient gamer that I am, I decided to consult youtube for a walkthrough. After watching, it became clear to me that you had to progress through the entire first world and only then could you go back and get the two seemingly impossible pieces. That may not seem very special, but I don’t want to spoil anything so I’ll just tell you that the way it’s handled is absolutely brilliant. So much so that I’ve played the game three times through now and I still have so much fun with that part.

Another special moment came when I played it in front of my parents. I’ve played a number of games in front of them, and they are indifferent to nearly all of them (except for any shooter, which they cannot stand). Within seconds of turning on Braid and walking through the title screen, my dad immediately asked, “Is this like Mario?” I replied with a simple “yes” even though the answer to that is amazingly complex. After several minutes of playing, I was amazed. My parents had become engrossed in the game, by its music, presentation, and mechanics. My mom enthusiastically said, “I like this game. It’s so… adventurous.” I spent some time showing them some of the more intricate puzzles and the time control ability and they were very impressed. I was impressed too. Braid somehow found a way to connect to people who had never really shown interest in video games. And it didn’t do it through cheap and gimmicky tricks. It did it through intelligent and intricate thought.

Profound, intelligent, unique, inspiring, special, masterpiece, art. These words have all been thrown around during the last week or so to describe Braid. I have played but a tiny percentage of the game and I am not afraid to say that I agree with those words. What I am afraid to do still is press A on “Confirm Purchase.” Therefore, I am going to have to be hypocritical here and urge those of you who are in the same position as me to buy this game, no matter how conflicted you are about it. I am telling myself the same thing. Hype happens for a reason, and sometimes it is dead on. The significant thing here is not that the GAMES R ART crowd is more vocal than ever, but that this is one of the few times where they actually have a strong case.

It’s hard to transition from the grandiose thought that Braid invokes to the relatively simple retro Capcom action-platformer Bionic Commando. But there is a connection. There were quite a number of people who argued against Braid’s price point by pointing out that Bionic Commando is only priced at $10. While this is true, it does not have anything to do with the price of Braid and the argument makes very little sense.

Regardless, the $10 price tag for Bionic Commando does seem to be very generous of Capcom. The game looks like it’s jam packed with content and the presentation is like what you would find in a retail game. The game also has plenty of humor, both added by the developers in the re-make or the unintentional humor that was present in the first one that the developers decided to keep. Other than that, there’s not much else to say. The difficulty seemed to be about average, and the only significant problem I had were the controls. While they are quite smooth, considering the circumstances, it’s still annoying to not be able to jump over simple obstacles. The high definition graphics look very nice, but do create a conflict with the retro game mechanics.

At $10, the game is hard not to recommend. I haven’t bought this yet, because I honestly did not have that much fun with it. I think this has more to do with the level in the demo rather than the full game. The bionic arm mechanic has the potential to be wonderful, and I will not doubt that it does fulfill this potential in later levels. The only thing I want to make clear is that you shouldn’t purchase this game over Braid just because it costs less. Play both games, judge them on their own merits, and only you can decide which game is worth its price.

Rounding out this week is Fable 2: Pub Games. Nobody should have any interest in this game unless they’re planning on buying Fable 2. The game consists of several casino-like mini-games, and money earned from them is tied to the money you have in Fable. Again, if you don’t have Fable, there’s nothing all that engaging here, although I was surprised to see that many of the games have a good amount of depth to them. The demo lets you play every game available at low stakes, where not much money is earned. I ended up losing a total of about 100 gold, but the leaderboards show that people have already made millions. At $10, I would definitely not have recommended this before I played it. It seemed like a way to make users spend real money to make fake money, but after seeing the games have some depth, challenge, and strategy to them, I can safely say that the games are fun to play and those buying Fable should consider trying the demo.

Next week’s release is Galaga Legions and it will be the pen-ultimate release for the excellent month XBLA is having. It’s made by the same developers of Pac-Man: Championship Edition, who are now looking to revitalize the ancient classic Galaga. The videos released look phenomenal, but early reports say that the game is too easy and lacks the charm of Pac-Man: CE. We’ll let you know next week. Until then, you should play some Braid. Even if it’s the demo, a few more times.

Beautifully scripted are the background stories for many of its organizations, but the intent is never to completely inform the player, but open up further questions. The Morag Tong, a guild of legally sanctioned assassins, split in half many years ago, resulting in an offshoot group, the Dark Brotherhood, after the latter clan’s killings became less reliant on legality and more on funding. The Dark Brotherhood, later a faction able to be joined in the sequel, Oblivion, is headed by the Night Mother. In Morrowind, the final question is left unsolved; who is she? What is she? The closer you get to information about the Morag Tong and Dark Brotherhood’s past together and subsequent falling out, the more wild the speculation becomes about the true explanation behind the present state of the guilds.

And so it was for the majority of the game. How did Nerevar really die? What actually happened that made the Dwarves disappear? Are the living gods really gods at all? Where did all these fucking cliff racers come from? The first time my cousin warned me about swimming too far, lest the Dreugh come after me, I thought he was making it up. There was no way this game was that crazy. A man with the lower body of an octopus and claws for hands? One moment it was unbelievable, and the next I was swimming for shore for all I was worth. Half the game is spent like that, uncovering new questions to answer, and the other half is spent rifling through the multitude of tomes in a personal quest to discern the truth behind the mysteries of Vvardenfell.

The game as a whole is so intricately foreign that it made for a better world to explore and experience than any I’ve ever seen since. The developers cited Egyptian, early Japanese, and Middle Eastern cultures as influence, and it really shows not just in all of the architecture, but the very civilization and all of its issues. The antagonist’s main goal is actually just to rule Morrowind, free of Imperial rule, as it was long ago. The process of stopping him involves interfering in regional politics, winning the hearts and minds of the most foreign groups, the nomadic tribesmen of Vvardenfell, and uniting the island under your leadership in the role of Nerevarine, hero reborn.

Arena, Daggerfall, and Oblivion all took place in the traditional RPG setting, with knights and green grass and dragons, and Morrowind is the place nobody from those other lands ever wants to visit. Its largest landmass is a volcanic island covered in ash, and its dark elf denizens hate foreign influence as much as the foreigners hate them. Where the dungeons of earlier Elder Scrolls titles were randomly generated, every hole in Morrowind was laid out according to carefully detailed plans. The intricacy of the world was more real than any other, and the depth only served to make Vvardenfell a more believable setting than Oblivion’s. If you want to know how deep the game actually went, here’s a good example: in Morrowind, there were over 300 books for the player to read, not including scrolls, letters, notes, and things of that nature. On standard sized paper, a collection of the books in this game spans over 1,200 pages. Damn.

The game starts small at the very tip of the iceberg - the shallow end of the pool - but from the very beginning, you’re free to wander absolutely anywhere with no guide whatsoever. Get involved in those regional politics, join one of the many guilds, gather wild ingredients and mix potions, explore dark caves, ruins and dungeons full of creatures beyond your wildest imagination, and get to know the people and problems of Morrowind. Before you realize it, you’re in a deeper world than any you’ve ever known. That complete freedom and depth is the true beauty of the game, and it’s largely due to fantastic design and more extensive in-game writing than I’ve ever come across. Once you’ve come to appreciate the world in Morrowind, you can return to that central storyline from so very long ago. You are free to ignore it, sure, but I found that the longer I spent away from it, the more I found motivation to return, knowing that my actions there would save the land I’d fallen in love with. That is actually the most fantastic thing about the game; there is nothing forcing you to defend the island of Vvardenfell except for your own conscience, and the wonderfully developed world away from that main quest only aids the development of your feelings toward it.

Many fantastic role-playing games have come out over the years, but Morrowind really helped pull itself head and shoulders above the crowd by developing a realistically complicated world in such an unfamiliar setting that its players can’t help but explore every nook and cranny, finding new reasons to love it every time they play. If you’ve never experienced the land of Vvardenfell, do yourself a favor and get with the times. Two weeks from now, I’ll be writing a follow-up piece on Oblivion, so come back on the Tuesday to read about that mainstream betrayal.

“Things to Make and Do in LittleBigPlanet” at Edge
The best non-video preview I’ve seen of this game. There’s little new information, but the quotes from Media Molecule employees are priceless (the last paragraph is perfect, and respect for Nintendo brought up multiple times, who would have guessed?), and it does go into the game’s possible cultural significance. More previews need to do that.

“Braid [REVIEW]” at Joystick Division
I’ll admit it, I haven’t played this game yet, but this would be a great review even if I disagreed with it. It’s just personal enough, just descriptive enough, and just spoiler-laden enough (with warning, of course). The cheap shot at people spending $60 for sports games and mediocre shooters is unnecessary (really not the same audience as Braid), but I agree that the backlash against its $15 price point has been ridiculous.

“THE ACTION BUTTON DOT NET MANIFESTO: A LIST OF THE TWENTY-FIVE BEST GAMES OF ALL-TIME” at Action Button
Updated this week with numbers 22 through 17. It’s a lot of reading, but I can assure you that it is totally worth it. Tim Rogers is at his near-best here; these reviews are inspired, enlightening, and entertaining. I also love that he’s writing the list as if it’s one big piece (there’s constant mentions of spear thrusting and God Hand). It’s quite an undertaking - one of the biggest projects I’ve seen in gaming journalism - but it seems he’s up to the task.

“First Annual Game Makin’ Shindig WINNERS ANNOUNCED HOORAY” at Eegra
This is the best link this week if you want to kill a couple hours. After three months, the Shindig is over, and here’s the Eegra staff’s ranking of the games they received. Each has a description by the creator and short reviews from both Patrick and Dan, as well as a free download link. The top few are definitely worth playing.

“Zero Punctuation: The E3 Trailer Park” at The Escapist
I disagree with Yahtzee’s overall sentiments here (we aren’t that hopeless), but his review of each trailer is fantastic. I’ve been wishing he’d do more stuff like this since he did the Resident Evil 5 trailer way back when. I don’t get why he’s just now complaining about sequel-itis though as if it’s a new problem. Things have been this way for years.

“E3 2008: Can’t we all just get along?” at Destructoid
This article comes down to “fanboys are dumb,” essentially, which is a pretty pointless thing to say, but I like its description of the fallout and post-fallout of Nintendo’s press conference. Extremists on both sides of the argument are guilty of being stupid, and they do deserve to be called out.

The original Geometry Wars was the best thing on the 360 for several months after release. After I turned off Perfect Dark Zero for being terrible and finished Condemned in five hours, I turned to Project Gotham 3. It was a good enough racing game, but I am willing to bet that the XBLA game it demoed ate up more hours of playtime than the game itself, and I am far from alone in that line of thought. Geometry Wars was the first big arcade hit; it resurrected the two stick shooter, and is still among the best of its kind several years later. There have been sequels in the intervening years (on systems I don’t own, jerks) but the series has finally come back home with Geometry Wars 2. Not much has changed, gameplay wise, and this is most certainly not a complaint. You move, you shoot things before they kill you, repeat until your eyes fall out of your head. It still works, only it looks much more polished now and has better music.

What has been changed is excellent news for both new players and old fans alike: the removal of a penalty for dying. In the original, dying reset the score multiplier, which usually led to me resetting the game and yelling at the TV. Now, the multiplier is based not on how many enemies are killed but on how many of their shattered husks you collect. This rewards aggressiveness, forgives the occasional bone headed mistake, and makes the game much more playable for extended periods of time. Add to that six game modes that require vastly different play strategies, and the doubling of the price feels like a pretty sweet deal. It’s $10, so go buy it and add me to your friends list so I can crush your pathetic high score.

No other arcade games released this week, but one demo is of definite note: Madden 2009. Is the game any better than last year? I have no idea; the yearly demos of Madden have provided me with all the football gaming that I need. A few games of some random team, and I am set for twelve months. It looks better than last year, but I don’t know nearly enough about football to tell you if it is any better than it has been in the past. Play the demo, and then go back to selling blood for cash. Geometry Wars 2 was just the first in what will be four excellent arcade offerings in a row.

Those of you familiar with my reviews on this site should already know that I’ve gained an affinity towards shmups recently. So much so that I’ve had some strongly opinionated things to say about recent shmups on the service, such as Omega Five and Triggerheart Exelica (Ikaruga would have been here too if it didn’t make my brain melt , but I’m much less inclined to babble on about 1942 Joint Strike. The 194X series was a quality breed of vertical shmups that were very popular in the 80s, but quickly disappeared from the market soon after. Capcom and Backbone Entertainment decided to revitalize the series with Joint Strike by bringing it to both XBLA and PSN. Being the avid shmup fan that I am now, I was not at all disappointed after playing the demo. The game is a traditional vertical shmup, with the biggest difference being that the game is played in widescreen. This allows the game to be rid of those ugly black bars on the side that plague other vertical shooters on the service. Joint Strike’s biggest problem is that it’s too similar and hardly superior to the previous games in the series. If you have access to the original 1942 or even any other 194X games, there’s almost no reason to pick this up. The improved graphics are barely noticeable and somewhat hinder the old school feel of the series.

But I’m being too harsh. The game is fantastic on its own merits, and I enjoyed the one level demo far more than the entirety of Triggerheart Exelica. One thing that can’t be emulated from the previous games in the series is the two player co-op play (both local and online) which always adds to the fun factor and replay value. The one reason I haven’t picked this up just yet is that I hear it’s very short. The game is priced at 800 MS points, but is only five levels long. But if the first level is anything to go by, those five levels in the full game will offer some of the most solid shmup gameplay of this generation. Once again, the important thing here is that shmups are hitting the service and the emphasis on co-op play makes things all the more better.

Go! Go! Break Steady marks the second week in a row where an XBLA release has unnecessary exclamation points in its title (the other one being last week’s Golf: Tee it Up!). There’s not much to say here either, since I found myself indifferent towards it just ten minutes. Basically, Go! Go! Break Steady is a break-dancing rhythm game with a twist. Instead of just having the traditional rhythm game mechanic of timing button presses along with the beat, it also includes sections that are essentially a clone of Puzzle Bobble / Bust-A-Move / Snood / the million other versions of this same game. So instead of being derivative of the already tired rhythm genre, it also implements the extremely tired aforementioned nameless genre (henceforth now called the Puzzle Bobble genre,since I believe that was the original). And therein lies the irony in innovation. No, I’m being cynical. Break Steady is not a bad game, but one that I personally have no interest in. The combined rhythm and Puzzle Bobble mechanic make the game feel as though it doesn’t know what it wants to be. From my brief playtime with the game, the Puzzle Bobble element happens randomly during the song, making things all the more confusing. The art style is hit or miss, and bound to offend some actual people in the break-dancing scene, but I’m sure there are many people out there who would enjoy this admittedly ironically unique rhythm game which has the potential to strike a good balance between fun and challenge. The best thing about this game is that tries to be good. Even in my few minutes with it, I could see that the developers had put a lot of effort into it. That effort should translate to a lot of happy customers. Unfortunately, I wasn’t one of them.

Before I wrap things up, I just want to talk about E3 in relation to the Xbox Live Arcade. As mentioned, there was no surprise release but a lot of surprise announcements. Among these was Portal: Still Alive, which is apparently an expansion to the most popular part of the Orange Box. Details on this are still unclear though, since the teaser was just GLaDOS’s voice mentioning something about new tests. Even vaguer was the announcement of the South Park XBLA game, for which the teaser only consisted of Cartman announcing the game. While these two games have potential (particularly Portal), let’s focus on the games we have more information about. Pac-Man Championship Edition was a huge hit on the service, so it’s good to see that Galaga Legions will be hitting the service in fall of this year. The game, developed by the same people that made Pac-Man CE, is attempting to revitalize Galaga,and the short video footage of the game looks incredible to say the least. Another big announcement was that the classic Rare game Banjo-Kazooie will also be hitting the service this year. One thing of particular note is that the Stop ‘N Swap feature that was designed to connect Banjo-Kazooie to Banjo-Tooie (but never did) will now be used to connect this game to the retail game Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. Since Nuts & Bolts looks very promising, and the original Banjo is heralded as one of the best platformers of its time, this is just further incentive to purchase both.

The game I’m most excited for, though, is the game that deserves its own paragraph. That’s right, Geometry Wars 2 was finally announced, and it looks even better than Retro Evolved. Do yourself a favor and look at some screens or videos to experience the visual orgasm that is Geometry Wars. It’s not just eye candy, it’s eye erotica. This time the game will feature six game modes in comparison to the two of its predecessor. Those of you who didn’t pick up Project Gotham Racing 4 (you should) will be glad to know that Geometry Wars: Waves will be one of the modes. But the most exciting thing about the game seems to be the cooperative play. Even though it’s local only due to latency issues, it supports up to four players and looks phenomenal. Of course, all of this content doesn’t seem to fit the 400 MS point range like Retro Evolved did, so this one will be sporting the 800 point price tag. Regardless, it still looks easily worth the price and is one of the rare cases where I’ll be buying it without trying the demo. Fortunately, you and I won’t have to wait long, since it’s releasing next week! It has been a very good summer for the Xbox Live Arcade.