Xbox Live Indie games are a mixed bag. There’s a fair bit of dross out there, but delve a little deeper and you can find some real gems. The ‘Select Indie Round – Up’ is a way of filtering out the less than stellar titles and highlighting some of the better games available, which brings us to this week’s selection…
Avatar Fighter – 80 MSP
There’s a bit of a fighting theme this week, beginning with Avatar Fighter. Another one of those games where your own Avatar can be the star. Avatar Fighter is a 2-D Fighter that hand picks elements of the best fighting franchises to deliver a game that’s surprisingly enjoyable to play. It’s forgivable at first to think that, due to the limited animation and bland graphics this is going to be a bad game but start playing and you realise that it’s a solid fighter, and stringing together combos is a lot of fun. Of course you can play as your own Avatar, opening up some exciting possibilities with the range of ‘Avatar Costumes’ presently available on the Xbox Live Marketplace…
Battle High – 80 MSP
More fighting fun now with ‘Battle High’, an impressively animated 2-D fighter that has a Japanese developed flavour about it. It’s smooth and enjoyable, with a nice assortment of characters, although for me personalty not quite as enjoyable to play as Avatar Fighter, although a lot more pleasing on the eye, despite the small size of the play screen…
Toy Stunt Bike – 80 MSP
Finally this week for those not into their fighters we have ‘Toy Stunt Bike’, a competent ‘Trials HD’ clone at a very affordable price. There’s some variation on the Trials format here, all levels are played from the perspective of a tiny toy bike (hence the name), which results in some cute visual styling reminiscent of the ‘Toy Story’ films and the Dreamcast classic ‘Toy Commander’ of course! You can also play as your Avatar, which is always a nice touch. Of course, there’s much less content here than you get with Trials HD and the controls don’t feel quite as responsive, but there’s a lot to enjoy about this title, well worth checking out if you want some Trials type fun on a budget.
Blast Process 