Another week, another set of Xbox LIVE Arcade releases. This week we’re getting Petroglyph’s Panzer General: Allied Assault and Digital Chocolate’s Tower Bloxx Deluxe for 800 MSP each. I loaded both of them up and am going to spoil all their surprises.
Panzer General: Allied Assault is a combination board and collectible card game (CCG), focused on two player Germany vs America World War II action. Yes, I was expecting some sort of hex-based war game as well, but as things turn out, the game’s actually a modular board game with considerable CCG elements. Other versions of the game will be made available at some point. I’ve only put a little time into the title so far, but it comes across as surprisingly dense and complex. The computer player in the Tutorial kicked my ass and really showed me what war’s about. The How to Play section of the game seems like a good place to start instead. The game sports a Campaign mode, a Skirmish mode with 30+ maps (although they’re just the same tiles reorganized different ways) and Xbox LIVE multiplayer support. Curiously, there is no map editor.
The game looks way better than a board game should. There’s a realistic-looking battlefield that’s representative of a number of terrain tiles all lined up, with little units trucking about. No plastic or pewter little static dudes here. Players assemble decks of cards from their collection and rumble Germany versus America style. The game seems similar to a lot of other war games I’ve played, with units getting played, moving around, capturing towns and doing battle with adjacent units. Cards in hand can do stuff during battle, bring units into play, summon bombing runs and so on.
I’m going to have to put some more time into it to figure the game out, but what I’ve seen so far has me intrigued. Looks like Magic: the Gathering and Culdcept Saga have some CCG competition! Board game fans might want to give the trial a download and see what they think.
Tower Bloxx Deluxe is the Xbox LIVE Arcade port of Digital Chocolate’s life-ruining mobile title. On mobile devices, it was an addictive, pick-up-and-play title noted for its simple controls: one button. The main activity in the game is building towers. A crane dangles a cube-shaped section of building over a swaying section of already placed building. Press that one button and stack ‘em up! See how high you can go! And that’s pretty much it, as far as gameplay goes. Better timing places the blocks better, making the building sway less, and rewarding more population (more score).
The Xbox LIVE Arcade version keeps all that gameplay intact. There’s a Quick Play mode and a Time Attack mode, but the bulk of the single player experience is found in the Build a City mode. Progress through larger and larger cities, build increasingly taller towers, and try to reach population goals. Certain buildings can only be placed besides other buildings, so there’s a minor strategy element to all of it. Simple fun, to be certain, but pretty decent all the same. There’s a few multiplayer modes, but they’re all focused on local only – no Xbox LIVE multiplayer support at all. I haven’t tried out any of them yet, but they’re Time Attack, Battle and Co-op. Co-op is two player, but all the other ones support up to four.
This is a pretty easy one to recommend. Just download the trial and make a tower. Now, imagine doing that probably a thousand times more. Sound fun? The game has a nice, colourful look to it, and a tiny bit of Avatar integration. I’ll probably be playing a bunch of it because sometimes I just love to press ‘A’.
