Oh man, is it Wednesday again? Nothing says humpday quite like fresh downloadables. This week we’re getting a last minute entry from Pieces Interactive with a port of their Puzzlegeddon title, as well as the first episode of Team17’s Alien Breed Evolution trilogy. Both are available for 800 MSP and as always, I pressed the big green button on both for all of you. As it turns out, this is a pretty good week on Xbox LIVE Arcade.
Puzzlegeddon is a surprise title this week from Pieces Interactive, fresh from ripping up the charts on PC and iPhone. The game is a battle-puzzler for 2-6 players, playable single player and over Xbox LIVE.
The game involves 2-6 little islands on a comically small planet who are trying to nuke the junk out of each other. They do this by matching little blocks on a square playfield, accumulating resources that can be used to attack, defend, boost or play dirty tricks. More resources equals better versions of those abilities. To top this off, each of the seven island nations has a unique ability of its own.
All of this is nice and colourful with a jumpy little soundtrack and a cartoony presentation that sanitizes the horrors of nuclear armageddon. But is it fun? Sort of, from what I’ve played of it. The game presents an absolute ton of options to configure individual games (although there seems to be no teamplay option), but the bulk of the game is always spent staring at a tiny little 6×6 puzzle in the middle of the screen. There’s no way to interact or even see an opponent’s puzzle.
Which, really, seems kind of odd. There’s a huge amount of screen real estate that’s just being wasted here. The graphics are nice, and there’s no ugly black borders or repeating textures, but everything happens in a very small portion of the screen. Why not show me little pictures of what my opponents are doing? Even though the title is essentially multiplayer only (single player with bots), it feels very lonely.
UI issues aside, it is a lot of fun. I like the puzzle, which seems simple enough to make the game approachable for a ton of people, while providing enough depth for some good combos. Big games get pretty crazy, as temporary alliances form and break. The lack of any local multiplayer is a shame.
Is it worth 800 MSP? Yeah, I think so. Not everyone will dig what’s going on here, but the title is polished and plays pretty well. A download of the trial will provide an answer to anyone who’s on the fence about it.
Alien Breed Evolution (Episode 1) is brought to us by Team17, the developer responsible for the Worms titles. It seems to be a remake of an old Amiga game. I’d never played the original, but I’m quite impressed with Evolution so far.
The game presents itself as a story-based, action horror shooter. The gameplay involves running around a busted-up space station, collecting items, shooting aliens with dual sticks, activating points of interest and that sort of thing. It all looks really nice and detailed. Team17 put the Unreal Engine to good use, and things like the flashlight really help the visuals pop. Cutscenes are done in a two-tone graphic novel style with voiceovers.
The whole thing feels an awful lot like Dead Space. I know Alien Breed is a much older title and probably did a lot of this stuff before, but the comparison is there. The game maintains a lot of a classic feel to it. Simple and straightforward for the most part, my experience through the first level has amounted to a series of objective hunts punctuated by alien ambushes.
But it’s all good fun. The first level took me a half hour, so I’m guessing the whole single player game (five levels in episode 1) hangs somewhere around the two or three hour mark. Short, but there’s at least three difficulty levels and leaderboards.
I didn’t get a chance to try it, but the game offers co-op, both local and over Xbox LIVE. It takes away the camera control from the players and forces them to stay on the same screen. The co-op mode seems to use a different set of levels, probably shortened or edited in some way. But it’s another way to enjoy the content, and local co-op is always appreciated in things like this.
Microsoft’s asking price for all of this is a tiny bit iffy. This is the first of a trilogy, so those who get sucked in by the story will end up paying 800 MSP twice more to see it through to the end, which seems like a lot. On top of that, who knows if a package deal will be offered at some point for those who wait? The trial is very easily worth a download, as the experience is solid, even if most of it feels a bit throw-back-y.
The xbox.com page doesn’t seem to have any screenshots for the game up at the time of writing, so I’m including a few.
Brad Petch has been playing games longer than most gamers have been alive. This does not mean he's good at them, or has good taste in them. Online interactions are not rated. 