Apparently developer Criterion is feeling a bit of “Burnout” on racing games, as today the Burnout and wish…

The Indie Games channel offers alternatives to XBLA’s finest for a fragment of the cost and you would be silly to disregard them.

With an increasing number of games on XBLA getting further and further expensive, and with the following-gen way forward for Xbox laying an uncertain path for indie development, now’s the ideal time to benefit from the indie game channel and all its wonderfully eccentric games.

Here are some XBLA games and their indie game alternatives…

XBLIG

White Noise Online

Developer: Milkstone Studios

Price: 80 Points

Taking its cues from PC freebie Slender, White Noise is set exploring creepy locations without attracting the unwanted attention of mysterious figures that, for some reason, want you dead.

It looks awesome for a game that costs lower than a pound and contours online co-op besides, so if horror is your thing, it is among the many better examples available for download.

INSTEAD OF…

XBLA

Haunt

Developer: NanaOn-Sha

Price: 800 Points

Coming from the rhythm-action pioneers that gave us PaRappa The Rapper, Haunt is predictably somewhat strange.

bizarre cross between Condemned and Luigi’s Mansion controlled exclusively with Kinect, it’s only a shame that the standard issues with motion control prevent it from being anything greater than a unique experiment.

XBLIG

Rad Raygun

Developer: Tru Fun Entertainment

Price: 80 Points

Monochrome Game Boy style titles appear the entire rage at the Indie Games channel and here is considered one of our favourites, emulating the classic handheld down to some crazy motion blur.

The music is outstanding, too – in the event you even vaguely enjoy chiptune soundtracks then this is considered well worth the asking price alone.

INSTEAD OF…

XBLA

Mega Man 9

Developer: Capcom

Price: 800 Points

The Blue Bomber’s retro revival had fans of old-school gaming beaming from ear to ear, Capcom brilliantly returning to the franchise’s roots with this new/old game and its further improved sequel.

Tough as nails (accurately) and filled with content within the kind of additional challenges and characters, here is a great doff of the cap to gaming’s rich past.

XBLIG

Soulcaster

Developer: MagicalTimeBean

Price: 80 Points

While it may well appear as if an 8-bit RPG inside the vein of Dragon Quest, Soulcaster’s combat is really far in the direction of tower defense than that of a standard RPG.

Allies could be placed and recovered to defend your fragile wizard from Gauntlet-style hordes of monsters, and while it starts out relatively sedate, things quickly escalate.

INSTEAD OF…

XBLA

South Park: Let’s Go Tower Defense Play!

Developer: DoubleSix

Price: 800 Points

Or any tower defense game, for that matter – they’re the entire bloody same.

While we variety of get the appeal of the genre, it’s one much better fitted to mobile gaming where you can find off about a waves of enemies at the bus and play little and sometimes.

Although ‘little and often’ can become ‘for a very long time’. We’ve been there. Curse you, Plants Vs Zombies.

TOTAL COST

XBLA: 2,400 Points (approx. £20.40)

XBLIG: 240 Points (approx. £2.04)

 TOTAL SAVING: £18.36

Deus Ex and Assassin’s Creed both have movies within the works. Do they stand a much better chance of constructing a good videogame film as a consequence of their story focus?

We’ve all seen what can happen when Hollywood attempts to conform a game for the large screen, and it sure isn’t pretty.

The big question is, have enough lessons been learned from dirge like Resident Evil, Silent Hill and Street Fighter: The Movie, and should narrative-heavy titles comparable to Assassin’s Creed and Deus Ex fare any better?

You’d think they’d, considering screenwriters have a ready-made universe and choice of characters that completely adhere to Hollywood’s leading-man sterotypes.

But we have seen this such a lot of times before, and while the Resident Evil series appears to feel no negative impact from Paul W S Anderson’s truly terrible output (actually, fans appear to love them in a unusual kitsch way), games like Deus Ex and Assassin’s Creed pride themselves on pushing stories in videogames.

If a film plops onto the screen within the way that Transformers does most years, it won’t go unnoticed.

If only there has been a single shining example of the way to try this right, we’d have more faith that the method was worth pursing.

But the actuality is that games work well as games, and if Hollywood stopped producing movies in line with them we doubt we’d even realise.

So just stop, Hollywood; return to comic books and leave games alone.

Leave it to the developers to explore compelling stories and characters within games. They’re getting quite good at it now, they usually do not want any longer distractions from needlessly explosive, CGI-heavy toy commercials.

TWA-PINION

We asked Twitter: Will Assassin’s Creed and Deus Ex make for good films or will they make an identical mistakes as all movie adaptations?

Steven Euden @Sterno666

“Lets hope they get them right, but as this appears the rage they can flop after a number of big names hate them.”

Kris Miles @Kris_Miles

“Assassin’s Creed could, but Deus Ex would just feel dumbed down. Assassin’s Creed would probably be better as a movie.”

James Birks @ oKidUko

“Depends at the director and the forged; often they put an excessive amount of into the lighting tricks and forget it takes greater than that.”

 Jack Wheeler @Jack_Wheeler

“I think AC has the possible to be an excellent film, if done right. Uncertain on Deus Ex though, just a little predictable for a film”

 Dave Peters @davep_12

“[I] think they’ll screw up, take a look at Resident Evil and Prince Of Persia.”

@joshauditore

“Today’s storylines have much more room to manoeuvre in, allowing someone’s interpretation to really be fathomable.”

It’s hard to visualize a time when Xbox Live Arcade wasn’t the haven for brand spanking new IP’s, new experiences and (relatively) cheap gaming that it’s now.

In reality, though, the service had the humblest of beginnings, dating all of the as far back as the times of the unique Xbox.

The XBLA has faced its fair proportion of problems along the best way; but technical limitations, a clumsy certification processes, pricing structure nonsense and an uneven Achievement Point haul have all helped it become the beast that it’s far today.

It won’t be long before the subsequent era of Xbox is upon us, and as Microsoft prepares to disclose its next-generation hand we won’t help but wonder what the longer term holds for the Live Arcade.

So at the start succumbs to a Kinect-powered world, X360 investigates the 12 games that experience shaped XBLA into what it can be today…

Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved

• Developer: Bizarre Creations
• Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
• Release date: 22 November 2005

Reason for inclusion: Kick-starting an unlikely success story

While a pre-loaded puzzler reintroduced the area to the recent face of XBLA, it was Bizarre Creations’ Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved that showed us its true potential.

The deliriously addictive twin-stick shooter captured everyone’s attention with a blistering soundtrack and deceptively deep gameplay; it saw many early adopters through a launch window drought long after the shiny allure of Perfect Dark: Zero wore off.

It was the primary next-generation game to capture the leaderboard appeal of the Nineties arcade scene – fitting, considering its retro aesthetic.

While its sequel eventually surpassed its predecessor in almost every way, we will not overlook the large influence Geometry Wars had. If it wasn’t for its success, we’d not have the service we all know and love today.

Limbo

• Developer: Playdead
• Publisher: Microsoft Game Studio
• 
Release date: 21 July 2010


Reason for inclusion: Beautiful, deadly… expensive

Limbo arrived with Gothic swagger when it kicked off the 2010 Summer Of Arcade.

Coming in at a hefty 2,100 Points for but a number of hours of gameplay, it provoked a pricing vs longevity debate and set the precedent for all high-profile releases to return in it its wake.

That’s to not say Limbo doesn’t deserve its place at the list; it delighted players with its hypnotising black and white aesthetics and punishing puzzles.

Playdead certainly recognise the ability of the market; a representative from the studio doesn’t think the sport would has been possible without it:

“Before XBLA and PSN, it was difficult to visualize Limbo being anywhere near commercially viable… it’s hard to secure the funding.”

Limbo inspired quick thinking and fast thumbs, and still to this present day it’s a must-play for any owner of the Xbox 360.

The Walking Dead

• Developer: Telltale Games
• Publisher: Telltale games
• 
Release date: 2012

Reason for inclusion: Monthly torture of the soul

lots have been said in regards to the Walking Dead.

It’s a broken game, but at its core it has essentially the most heartfelt and arresting storytelling ever present in a videogame.

After Telltale Games strung us along for 5 months through its fantastic implementation of an episodic system, it managed to surpass all expectations by actually sticking a landing.

As we desperately await a next-generation announcement from Microsoft, it’s likely the influence of The Walking Dead would be felt for a few years to come back; Telltale finally stepped out of the shadow of its collective résumé and has undoubtedly become the studio to look at through 2013 and beyond.

“I’m actually more optimistic about our industry now than i have been in a long time,” said designer Joel Pinney. “Social gaming and the colourful indie scene have massively livened things up inside the last five years.”

Minecraft

• Developer: 4J Studios
• Publisher: Mojang
• 
Release date: 9 May 2012

Reason for Inclusion: Crafting a runaway success

Minecraft changed everything. Easily surpassing everything around it, the favored crafting game made the jump from PC and have become an overnight sensation.

With a reworked crafting system, new interface and options of both split-screen and online multiplayer, not just is Minecraft the precise-selling XBLA title, it also holds the gauntlet for third most played game on Xbox Live.

“The console adaptation of the hugely popular PC game has broken all previous digital sales records, selling greater than some other title within the first 24 hours on Xbox Live Arcade,” shouted press releases just days after it was made available.

Minecraft revealed a player base hungry for brand new experiences, and with its continued support it has spawned a community unlike another.

What are the games you like playing on XBLA most? Tell us below.

The next-gen countdown is seriously on now with many pointing to the tip of May because the time when Microsoft is potentially set to finally reveal what it has in store for the subsequent generation of consoles.

Rumours and speculation are rife, but as we creep closer, it’s easier to get beneficial what’s actually in store.

Sony’s early-ish reveal of the PS4 has helped with this but until Microsoft reveals its hand we still don’t know how the following-gen showdown will go.

Always-on, backwards compatibility, two different SKUs (one actually being more of a fixed-top box); the potential of the Xbox brand is gigantic.

Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter believes the following-gen of consoles turns into a lot more like TVs or, dare we are saying it PCs, with users adding to them incrementally through the years as and after they want, effectively doing away of the normal console cycle…

“I think console hardware goes to become more analogous to televisions, where incremental changes are more frequent, but frame breaking changes happen only every decade or so.”

“That suggests to me that we are going to continue to play console games, but that the ‘cycle’ may become irrelevant, with people upgrading for other features, much as we’ve got done with televisions.”

“I think that the way forward for games is bright; the demographic expands each year, as formats like mobile and social bring new gamers into the market once a year.”

“Even if it really is the last major iteration for hardware, i believe console gaming is destined to continue growing, not less than on the rate of GDP growth, if not slightly more.”

On The subsequent Xbox…

“I think the following Xbox would be positioned as a multimedia device, with built-in TV tuner and router eliminate the will for cable TV boxes.  I expect it to be subsidized by cable providers, and think it’s going to set records for initial sales. The PS4 will probably catch up over the years, but may start off as only a gaming console, although Sony was adding multimedia features with every new console.”

“I think that Sony might make a near fatal mistake if it chooses to dam used games, tilting the playing field sharply in Microsoft’s favour; I hope Microsoft doesn’t waste this chance to indicate how gamer friendly it’s by advertising that the recent Xbox will play used games.”

If you examine videogames then you’ve probably heard of study Analyst, Michael Pachter.

He is probably the most prominent voices within the industry and as an analyst for investment banking company Wedbush Morgan Securities; he’s the writer of countlessly quoted publisher reports and host of his own show, Pach Attack.