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[vixlar]

Boom Boom Rocket - It is basically DDR, but you play by hitting AXBY buttons or the D-pad. And it gets fast enough that you have to use both. You can also use a guitar controller. The graphics have you flying around a virtual city, setting off fireworks with your button presses. You have to time the button presses to when the firework crosses a line on the screen. But some of the fireworks travel faster than others. All of the music is classical, which seems to go really well with the fireworks theme. The versus local multiplayer is great and addictive.

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/Boom-Boom-Rocket/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d8025841086a

And it plays great with plastic guitars. I don't know if only accepts guitar hero, or rock band too. Just a warning, the songs are great classic musical pieces, but they sound like electronic or something like that. For me, personally, it should be great if the music were orchestral.

 

[Fraeon]

I know it was mentioned before but it needs to be said again:

Omega Five.

 

[afternoon delight]

Darwinia+ !

It saddens me no one even remembers its on XBLA. Think of an RTS with lots of mini-management and awesome graphics. Or just look up a review.

 

[Triple Da G.O.D!]

The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai -The game is too damn good. All the action with a old school flavor.

I'll quote myself from a while back giving props to Downtown Smash Dodgeball. 800 points is a little steep for an indie game but I just had to support it.

This thread has gone on for this long and nobody mentions Downtown Smash Dodgeball. Shame on you GAF.

Downtown Smash Dodgeball - 800

My only gripe with the game was the cost initially but I couldn't turn down some classic goodness. If you loved the game then you'll love it now. And a nice thing to consider as well is that the 2 guys who created the Kunio series are the heads of Miracle Kids who created this. So with that in mind go ahead and give it a go.

Other Links

Downtown Smash Dodgeball's official site. Or more like a instruction manual.

And Protect me Knight too. 240 is good deal for some fun action.

 

[Quixzlizx]

Heavy Weapon is a great side-scrolling shmup where you're a tank on the ground being attacked from both sides of the screen. There's a fairly long and enjoyable campaign that has 2-player local co-op, and two different multiplayer modes that have 4-player online and local co-op. I enjoyed it so much I double-dipped when it was later released on the PSN.

 

[Draft]

I find poker smash oddly compelling.

 

[Deleted member 47027]

Omega Five!

And OutRun!

 

[RBH]

Aces of the Galaxy

 

[Ace Harding]

Not sure if this qualifies, but I had a lot of fun with Risk: Factions. Some great twists on an already awesome board game, and great to play with friends. Haven't tried couch multi-player (assume its an option?), but I think that would be fun as well.

I think it's 800 space euros.

 

[Slermy]

I really like Marble Blast Ultra. At least I did back when it was released. I haven't played it in a long time, but I hope it still holds up.

Oh, it does. I played that with a friend recently and it was just as much fun as I remembered. We even got a pretty good group going rather quickly. It's a simple ball rolling game, but extremely well done and great fun in both single player and multiplayer.

As mentioned earlier, Switchball is also great if you like this style of game.

Aces of the Galaxy

Sir, you and I should be friends. I couldn't talk any of my friends into picking this one up. It's a great Star Fox style shooter.

Eets: Chowdown, which was also mentioned above is an amazing game. It's a neat lemmings-ish style game, though it also involves timing as you can personally interact with some of the objects you place. Great art too. I bought every piece of DLC and have a full 200/200 in that game. Definitely one of my favorites.

Defense Grid: The Awakening The best tower defense game I've ever played. Period. DLC came out fairly recently for it as well.

 

[LakeEarth]

GRIPSHIFT!

Its like a time attack / platforming / puzzle / driving game, and its a ton of fun.

 

[Mr. B Natural]

Rocket Riot is a riot (lolol) but the online is dead as a doornail, which kind of defeats the purpose. Single player just isn't the same.

Yeah, I'm gonna have to put a "nay" on rocket riot. It's not a good game for 10 bucks. Defense Grid, however, is a must play. I don't like tower defense games so much, but a fantastic game that's so well thought out it put AAA games to shame is a fantastic game no matter the genre.

 

[PoweredBySoy]

Panzer General: Allied Assault
Tactical based card game, unquie and rather fun if you are into this sort of thing

Whoa. What's this?? Just watched a gameplay video - I'll have to check it out.

 

[Beezy]

When people say that the 360 doesn't have that many good exclusives, I just look at XBLA and smh at their ignorance.

 

[Monty Mole]

When people say that the 360 doesn't have that many good exclusives, I just look at XBLA and smh at their ignorance.

It's the best part of the 360 IMO, and that's not a knock against the 360. Far from it.

 

[Beezy]

It's the best part of the 360 IMO, and that's not a knock against the 360. Far from it.

Agreed. I've spent just as much time on it as I have on my store bought games.

 

[Atomski]

I don't hear many talk about it but first that comes to mind for me is.

Toy Soldiers

Its a Tower Defense game though.

 

[Zachack]

Not sure if this qualifies, but I had a lot of fun with Risk: Factions. Some great twists on an already awesome board game, and great to play with friends. Haven't tried couch multi-player (assume its an option?), but I think that would be fun as well.

I think it's 800 space euros.

It'll be 400 (along with the Snoopy game) in early November.

 

[jergrah]

Snoopy:Flying Aces -- Had a bit of hype around launch, but that was it
Chime
Jetpack Refuelled

 

[betweenthewheels]

Switchball is fantastic, definately overlooked.

 

[Flib]

No mention of Hydro Thunder?? So good.

 

[Jhoan]

Assault Heroes-- for 400 MSP, it's a pretty sweet deal. If you like top down shooters like Commando, it's worth it. It's got a weapon upgrade system, it's bullet hellish, and got underground sections in which you die in one shot like old school games and local and online co-op. I enjoyed it.
Poker Smash is o.k; I kind of regret getting it at 800MSP. If you like Panel du Pon style puzzle games, you'll probably dig this game. I don't think you could find a PVP match game that easily anymore. I personally thought it was a disappointing game but maybe it's because I'm not good at it.

You should try out The Maw trial game to see if you like it. I personally, liked it, but not to the point where I bought it because it has deleted scenes as add-ons and I'm hoping that at some point a Deluxe edition comes out (I doubt it though) or it becomes a Deal of the Week again. Also, Omega Five was pretty cool, but not to the point where I would buy it for now and KOF: Sky Stage was also pretty cool; it's another shmump, but with KOF characters. There's also R-type Dimensions, 1200 MSP is a bit too steep for the price of admission.

 

[mokeyjoe]

Spend it on Indie Games instead.

 

[Tain]

Do you already have Virtual On: Oratorio Tangram?

It's the definitive home version of an excellent, stupidly competitive, extremely unique arcade 1v1 mech game. Once you adjust to the controls (which can be tough to get the hang of) and start playing others, it winds up being the best thing you can buy on XBLA. Be prepared to get destroyed while learning.

There's very, very little out there that plays like VOOT. Senko no Ronde and the other VO games are as close as you can get, but none of those can match the speed and variety, I think.

 

[Tain]

Spend it on Indie Games instead.

there aren't many good ones though :x

 

[betweenthewheels]

No mention of Hydro Thunder?? So good.

The summer of arcade games are pretty well known, the game is excellent though

 

[TripOpt55]

Yeah Switchball was pretty cool and maybe N+ which is good if it's considered overlooked (with some games I'm not sure if they are considered overlooked).

 

[Flib]

The summer of arcade games are pretty well known, the game is excellent though

The buzz around it died pretty quickly and it seems to hardly ever come up in these types of threads. Just making sure it doesn't get overlooked.

 

[mokeyjoe]

there aren't many good ones though :x

There're plenty, once you sort them from the drivel. Games like Beat Hazard, Miner Dig Deep, Jump, Apple Jack, Decimation X, Gravitron etc. Maybe not for the whole 2400, but certainly a portion of that would be well spent on the cream of the crop.

 

[legbone]

i like zuma quite a bit.

and once again, OMEGA 5!!!!!!!!!

 

[WaltJay]

Chime is a nice puzzle game, similar to Lumines. Plus, it's just 400 MSP and part of your purchase goes to charity.

Also, Final Fight Double Impact is a great port of Final Fight arcade, one of my favorite games. It's 800 MSP, plus you get Magic Sword.

 

[AwShucks]

Shred Nebula.

If you can get used to the controls it's a pretty fun game. Probably more in Score Attack than Adventure mode, depending on what you like.

Either way, try the demo at a minimum.

 

[SapientWolf]

there aren't many good ones though :x

That's untrue. The gems just tend to get buried due to the sheer number of indie releases.

But do indie games even count towards the promotion? They only mention XBLA and DLC in the press release.

 

[Badoor]

The SNK titles on XBLA are pretty good if you'd like quality fighters or Metal Slugs. Thier online aspects usually suck (though I heard good things about NeoGeo Battle Coliseum's online). Though I'd recommend skipping Fatal Fury special as feels very archaic and hasn't aged very well from a gameplay's perspective. And this is coming from a huge SNK Nut.

 

[VASPER]

GO GO Break steady is the shit!

 

[Popeck]

Defense Grid is pretty awesome. Toy Soldiers seems nice too, what little I've played it. Splosion Man is great too. A good amount of content, an excellent co-op campaign.

I've only played Rocket Riot singleplayer and it didn't really strike me as a great game, but it obviously lives and dies for the multiplayer.

 

[RetroGreg]

Shred Nebula.

If you can get used to the controls it's a pretty fun game. Probably more in Score Attack than Adventure mode, depending on what you like.

Either way, try the demo at a minimum.

This. More people should play this!

 

[SapientWolf]

I've only played Rocket Riot singleplayer and it didn't really strike me as a great game, but it obviously lives and dies for the multiplayer.

Co-op alone is well worth the asking price.

 

[Gaspode_T]

This has been nagging at my mind lately so I went through and listed up every game I could find that's 400 points and not some sort of arcade or 16-bit port:

400 point XBLA game list (with most Arcade/16-bit ports excluded!):

• 3D Ultra Minigolf
• 3 on 3 NHL Arcade
• Age of Booty
• Aqua
• Assault Heroes
• Blazing Birds
• Bliss Island
• Brain Challenge
• Chime
• Cloning Clyde
• CrazyMouse
• Crystal Quest
• Dead Rising Case Zero
• Dead Space Ignition
• Droplitz
• Fatal Fury Special
• Feeding Frenzy
• Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved
• Gin Rummy
• Hardwood Spaces/Backgammon/Hearts
• Haunted House
• Jet Pac Refuelled
• Minesweeper Flags
• Path of Go
• Polar Panic
• Small Arms
• Space Giraffe
• Spyglass Board Games
• The Undergarden
• Uno
• Wolfenstein 3D
• Worms
• Zuma

Anyone have recommendations from this list? A lot of these I've never even heard of.

Age of Booty, Chime (especially if you don't have PS3), Jet Pac Refuelled seem like the universally agreed must buy games from here? I don't have Jet Pac yet.

I can heartily recommend Polar Panic if you like simple old school style games at all, it's quite a steal at $5.

Space Giraffe has a bad reputation but is also probably worth the $ if you like Jeff Minter games at all. I still suck at it years later though.

I'm going through the library...literally like 90% of the games are 800 points. That's a tough price to swallow when a bunch of brand new games are coming out.

Also summarizing this thread...as far as I can tell, some of the best of the obscure 800 and 1200 point games includes:

Aces of the Galaxy
Go go Break Steady
Lazy Raiders
Lode Runner
Poker Smash
Rocket Riot
R-Type Dimensions (1200)
Shred Nebula
Strania
Triggerheart Exelica
Zeno Clash

I have and can recommend Strania, Zeno Clash, Lode Runner. I have been salivating over R-Type for months and it seems like it will never have a price drop so I might break down and get it.

There are a lot of games I would totally jump on for 400 points...Super Puzzle Fighter, Mr Driller Online, Rainbow Islands, etc...I understand why the default price is 800 points but at least put them on sale once and a while...

 

[Apdiddy]

From what I've played on demo versions (haven't gotten them yet), I would say check out Adventures of Shuggy and Boulder Dash XL. I think both are 800 MS points.

 

[Gaspode_T]

I should also mention there's a real chance of some of these older games being delisted at one point or another, I totally regret never getting Joust! Now it will cost me like $20 if I ever want to get it buy buying some strange code from eBay.

By supporting indie style games from publishers like Valcon you are telling MS that the smaller fish can sell well too. A publisher like Valcon is a perfect example of a company that could pick up games from XBLIG or Dream.Build.Play but for some reason it seems like a struggle for the indies even the ones that are almost sure to be successful (this is well documented already on various dev blogs). It's a real shame that Shuggy hasn't sold better than it has, but like I said 800 points is competing with some pretty high profile games. Maybe they should re-tool Shuggy for a WP7 release.

The full list of 400 point games including the Arcade/16-bit stuff was actually:

3D Ultra Minigolf
3 on 3 NHL Arcade
Age of Booty
Altered Beast
Aqua
Assault Heroes
Asteroids & Asteroids Deluxe
Battlezone
Blazing Birds
Bliss Island
Brain Challenge
Centipede & Millipede
Chime
Cloning Clyde
Comix Zone
Contra
CrazyMouse
Crystal Quest
Dead Rising: Case Zero
Dead Space Ignition
Dig Dug
Discs of Tron
Droplitz
Ecco the Dolphin
Fatal Fury Special
Feeding Frenzy
Frogger
Galaga
Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved
Gin Rummy
Golden Axe
Gunstar Heroes
Gyruss
Hardwood Spaces/Backgammon/Hearts
Haunted House
Jet Pac Refuelled
Minesweeper Flags
Missile Command
Ms. Pac Man
New Rally-X
Pac-Man
Path of Go
Phantasy Star II
Polar Panic
Rush'n Attack
Scramble
Shinobi
Small Arms
Sonic and Knuckles (240 points!)
Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Sonic the Hedgehog 3
Space Giraffe
Spyglass Board Games
Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting
Streets of Rage 2
Super Contra
Tempest
Time Pilot
The Undergarden
Track and Field
Tron
Uno
Warlords
Wolfenstein 3D
Worms
Xevious
Yie Ar Kung Fu
Zuma

 

[Shurs]

Your list is missing Dead Rising 2: Case Zero (400 pts).

It's a standalone game, not DLC.

 

[Phonomezer]

 

[Gaspode_T]

Your list is missing Dead Rising 2: Case Zero (400 pts).

It's a standalone game, not DLC.

Thanks, I always forget that's not simply on sale...really stands out compared to the other games in this list doesn't it!!

One thing I wish I had was something like AppShopper that says "Game was on sale 11/2010, 1/2011, 5/2011" if it says that...guess what, probably might go on sale again! However for some games like Rez, E4, Lumines Live...I really think they probably will never go on sale (and never have??)

 

[Shurs]

However for some games like Rez, E4, Lumines Live...I really think they probably will never go on sale (and never have??)

If you're interested in those games, you'd be better off buying Qubed. It's a disc release with those three games on it. The Amazon link I provided has it for $20. I'm sure you could find it for less than that if you looked elsewhere.

 

[Gaspode_T]

Wow!!! I can't believe I've never even heard of that release

Now the prices those games are set at makes even less sense...I think Lumines has a bunch of DLC too

Retail re-releases of XBLA games is a great idea, I hope they do more of that because I have so many real life friends who stubbornly refuse to take their 360 online

 

[atre324]

Outpost Kaloki X is fantastic, you have a few different story campaigns where you manage a space station by adding spokes for the various types of production facilities onto a central hub. Later on you have to contend with alien invasions and keep your station repaired as well. Unfortunately I don't think it's ever gone on sale, but you can pick it up cheap if you find a used copy of Arcade Unplugged Vol 1.

Kingdom of Keflings/World of Keflings (also from NinjaBee) are also great, kinda like a sim game but totally about resource management. World of Keflings tries to streamline things a bit over the original and it's a bit more convenient, but for whatever reason I feel like Kingdom has a lot more charm. You can get addicted to accumulating materials very easily in the game, but unfortunately once you've built everything there's little reason to keep playing.

Undergarden is pretty neat, kinda a sidescrolling game similar to pixeljunk eden or loco roco, where you explore various environments making glowing plants bloom and collecting your fellow creatures.

Gyromancer is what happens when S-E teams up with Popcap to try and take on the popular gem switching genre... overall I like it a lot better than Puzzle Quest but I wish the RPG elements were a bit more fleshed out.

I dunno if Zeno Clash fits the thread title, but it's really awesome. Punching and kneeing and otherwise crushing enemies' faces feels so satisfying. Also I played the demo for Lucidity and the concept seemed interesting but I'm not sure how the whole game plays.

 

[sixteen-bit]

Strania is a phenomenal shooting game.

 

[Tain]

Strania and Hard Corps: Uprising are the best original downloadable games of the generation. Pretty easily, too, I think.

I feel like I need to bring them up all the time, nobody paid attention to them.

 

[djtiesto]

If you're interested in those games, you'd be better off buying Qubed. It's a disc release with those three games on it. The Amazon link I provided has it for $20. I'm sure you could find it for less than that if you looked elsewhere.

I've seen it at Toys R Us bargain bins for $10... YMMV though.

And yes, Hard Corps: Uprising and Strania are both fantastic.