XBLA Games

01/25/09 02:13:05 pm

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• Castle Crashers
• Braid
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I don't own an XBox, and as such, have not played many of its titles. But since I've been able to use Rirath's, I've tried out a few that have succeeded in charming me.

One of those is the "indie" game, Braid. It's hard to call it "indie" when you read that $180,000 was sunk into it, but nevertheless, it delivers a fresh and different experience from the mainstream. A combination of platforming and puzzle solving set against beautiful landscapes and music, Braid offers you 6 worlds with different time-bending mechanics that you must utilize to obtain puzzle pieces and save Tim's princess. The gameplay is consistently fun and challenging; puzzles will often have a fiendishly simple solution once you grasp it. Oddly, the story is both a high and a low point of the game for me. If it had made sense within the context of the game itself, it would've been a mysterious and chilling revelation. Instead, obscurity seems to be flaunted for the sake of "artfulness," and I was left not-quite-satisfied by the end, having to Google for others' interpretations for a full explanation. Overall though, it's a great little title despite its flaws.

Castle Crashers has been a worthy venture as well. It's a side-scrolling beat-'em-up with colorful art and a sense of humor. The game blends in some RPG elements as well, such as attribute-enhancing weapons, character stat customization and leveling up. The number of characters you can play with definitely gives this game replay value, if you enjoy it. As mentioned in a previous post, I plan on making some skins of these characters. :3

Aside from games, it seems like my Comment Spam post ended up becoming a magnet for more sophisticated spam attacks. I had to redevelop my filter system somewhat, and that has been getting the lion's share of my website-related attention. Alright mighty spam bots, I am humbled... so leave me alone. :P