Editor’s note – We’ve lost count of how many ‘Community Games Week’ features we’ve done. Here’s part X, written by Nathan Fouts, a Community Game developer.
The Community Games service is now available offering all sorts of different games from a range of new developers. While certain games have gotten some attention already, I’d like to showcase some of the less known games that I personally enjoyed.
But before that, I’d like to introduce myself. Hi, my name is Nathan Fouts of Mommy’s Best Games, creator of Weapon of Choice. It’s a high-energy, side-scrolling action game with crazy weapons, and even crazier aliens. It has seven levels of beautiful landscapes filled to the brim with absolutely disgusting, provocative, otherworldly fauna. It’s available now for 400 MS points.
Now that the pimping is finished, let’s get to the Community Games list!
Let’s start simple. A lot of people I’ve talked to have said they can’t even find the full Community Games list. After starting up your Xbox 360, scroll up till you see the header “Game Marketplace”. The greenish rectangle currently showing will say “Explore Game Content”.
Select that option with the A button. Now you have a list of game channels. Scroll up till you reach “Community Games”.
You can now scroll to the right to search new releases, by popularity, or browse through the entire list. It is into this list we will descend. With the few following games, I’m merely suggesting you take a look at the demo. It takes different strokes to run the world and the best judge on what to spend your money is you.
This is a Spanish language learning game filled mini-games to make the task more enjoyable. It also supports coop play. The music is catchy and the graphics are colorful. As I played I noticed my brain itched and burned… I think I may have been learning. Be careful that the same fate does not befall you!
Besides having one of the more strange names on the service, which does say a lot, Snowman’s Dilemma focuses on Frosty who is trying to collect all the presents in his snowy world. The meat of the gameplay deals with jumping on platforms in the level and producing platforms of your own. The A button jumps and the B button drops snowblocks. Similar to Solomon’s Key, things quickly turn more complicated when you realise you can recapture any snowblock in the level–including blocks that were there at the level’s start.
Even within the first screen, figuring out how to exit is an interesting puzzle to solve.
You control a green ball meant to rescue cyan colored balls while climbing around on the Great Pyramid of Cheops. Sounds like a new blockbuster game due out this Christmas, right? While I find the game visually unpolished, I do enjoy the strange platforming gameplay. You can control your ball and shooting direction with the left stick. You can then shoot plasma shots with the A button, jump high with the B button, use a jet thruster with the left trigger, and even shoot out a tractor beam of sorts with the Y button.
I couldn’t find out how many single player levels exist, but there is a full-featured multi-player competitive mode with lots of attack options.
Fun for sale
There are currently over 70 games available on the Community Games service. With every game, Microsoft has imposed a 4 minute timed trial. While the time is short (and may be extended in the future), the trials are free and you can restart the games to try them again after the time ends.
Most games can be downloaded quickly and it’s simple enough to queue up a half-dozen or so to try them out. Do yourself a favor and download some trials tonight.
