Xbox Community Games: Quantity, and Quality?

I found on N4G earlier this week a rather nasty comment from a Cgames developer complaining about how the bad rating we gave his game threw the whole integrity of the site into question. Apparantly we play games for only 5 minutes before reviewing them, it’s news to me and likely news to everyone else on the site. Hell, Wardrox STILL hasn’t finished his Killzone 2 review. Hell I’ve had to ignore games I really want to play (Ico) because I’ve had to play games for review. I don’t take this review crap lightly and I don’t believe anyone else on the site does. So mystery developer, how about you try doing what we do, it’ll be a lot less painful than playing your game that’s for sure. OK rant over, we’ve got a lot to get through this week.

Quick look at the top sellers from last week and it should surprise no-one that Let’s Draw A Picture Together sold best out of last week’s releases. I have no problem with that whatsoever, we had a fantastic time with that game at NGathering. It’s also not surprising that RC-Air Sim has taken back its place at the top of the pile. So what of this week?

Cocktail Paradise
Information – 200 Points

It’s effectively a giant book of cocktail recipes. They’re split into when they’re best drunk and there’s really a lot of content in there. For 200 points it’s genuinely hard to argue against this for what it is and at the price being asked. It’s certainly cheaper than a print cocktail book. Though of course, they’re all likely available off the internet.

Try It

Clover
Adventure – 400 Points

Now this is excellent, it appears at first to be a side-scrolling platformer but once you start playing it you’ll see it has a lot more in common with point and click side scrolling games. The whole game is more about bringing the right item to the right person in order to move forward and unlock more of the surprisingly well written story. Add that to some well drawn graphics and chilled out piano soundtrack and you have a template for what Community Games should be.

Buy It!

Ezmuze: Hamst3r Edition
Music – 800 Points

It’s the most expensive Cgame in a long time, but it’s a full music sequencer somewhat like Music on the PS1. Unlike Music however its a lot more complex which makes me grateful for the fully voiced tutorials which explain quite well how stuff works. I doubt it’ll find much love outside of creative people, and it’s harder to recommend with the inability to add in your own samples. If you liked Music though (which is damn impossible to find these days) you may want to check it out.

Try It

Fridgy
Toy – 200 Points

I bought a pack of fridge magnet letters. They cost less than this and they do the same job. They’re even better actually because they have autosave and when I’m not playing someone else will usually come along and change the settings so they say “NJ is a dick”.

Leave To Die

Halfbrick Echoes
Puzzle – 200 Points

This one’s made by the developers of the upcoming Raskulls for XBLA so there are high hopes. Basically it’s a puzzler where you collect gems in order, but every time you collect a gem it creates an enemy who follows the path you’ve walked. This can create a giant clusterfuck of enemies but you can also use special gems to kill enemies as well as utilise safe zones, however its not really too difficult. Still it is quite nice, worth the trial time if nothing else.

Try It

Karnn Age
Shooter – 400 Points

Oooh, see what they did there? I don’t like Geometry Wars clones as I’ve said before, yet Karnn Age has a decent gimmick in that there’s a danger zone outside the normal play area where powerups spawn. However being in this area causes the sun to become angry and come after you. This gimmick is exactly that; a gimmick. I only activated the sun once during my playtime and that was because I was trying to. Only really worth it if you really need another dual stick shooter.

Try It

Math Sniper 3D
Puzzle/Shooter – 200 Points

This game honestly has the best premise I’ve ever heard. A rogue agent has stolen a secret code encrypted into the solution to a math problem that you can see through your high powered sniper rifle. Epic. Unfortunately the MSPaint graphics are somewhat detracting, its a great idea, but the execution is rubbish.

Leave to Die

Orbyx: Mystic Orbs of Chaos
400 Points

It’s Peggle. I’m not even kidding, you fire a ball and try to hit a certain number of gold pegs anongst a load of green pegs with only 10 shots. I’m far from being against more Peggle though, and there are a few nice touches the game adds to the perfect formula. An Arkanoid-esque paddle replaces the free ball bucket every other level, a black peg is often placed in the center of the board to undo all the pegs you’ve hit so far and the cannon isn’t always at the top of the screen. It lacks the genius and humour of PopCap’s crack though, so it’s only really recommended if you’re so desperate for new levels that you started playing World of Warcraft. The physics are pretty poor too.

Try It if you really must

Quadtrix
Puzzle – 200 Points

At first glance I thought this was going to be a decent puzzle game not unlike a Rubik’s Cube. Switching triangles around a grid to sort them into the correct coloured columns. It’s a decent concept, unfortunately it’s way too easy and never gets harder past bigger and bigger grids. I blasted through the first 10 levels without any trouble from the time limit or move limit. Any fan of puzzle games is going to be sorely disappointed by this one.

Leave to Die

Ring of Fire
Cards – 200 Points

Here are the rules to the drinking game Ring of Fire. I just saved you 200 points.

Leave to Die

Ye Olde Dice Game
Boardgame – 200 Points

It’s Yahtzee. Anything that keeps sales away from Family Game Night is fine by me, but there are good Yahtzee games available in a browser. Whether you spend 200 points on this is obviously up to you, but I certainly wouldn’t.

Leave to Die

A Robot’s Conundrum
Puzzle Platformer – 200 Points

This is decent, basically use your cute little robot to push a box from the top of the level to the bottom. There’s no real holes I can pick in the game but there’s no real thrill there either. It’s just kind of….there. I haven’t been this apathetic towards a game in a long time, not even a decent level editor can make things more exciting. So it’s not bad, but it’s not really good either.

Try It

Game of the week is undoubtedly Clover. Stinker of the week is equally undoubtedly Ring of Fire. I’m very glad to have dealt out a buy rating though there’s plenty of garbage in there this week as well. Story of the service I think.

If you think you can do better than Ring of Fire (and let’s face it, who couldn’t) then you’ll find all the stuff you need to get started making Community Games over at XNA Creator’s Club.