It’s not as if we never get good games on XBLA, but you have to admit that 90% of the games released are titles most people hardly give a shit about. It was starting to be a pattern where you’d get about 20 pointless XBLA titles, then something like Geometry Wars would come along if you were lucky. So, here are some recently released XBLA games which are a blast to play, and why you should stop being a lazy cock and actually download the trial versions as soon as possible.

Galaga Legions

This was released yesterday and it’s a remixed version of the classic Galaga arcade game. Emphasis on remixed, as this isn’t just a simple rehash. This wasn’t a game I was keeping an eye out for but upon playing the trial I was pleasantly surprised. The game plays like a mix between a shoot’em up and tower defence. Your ship has deployable turrets at its disposal, so to score big points you need to be smart in where you place these turrets, thus ensuring you take out as many of the enemies as possible. This isn’t just a simple remix, it’s a whole new ball game.

Bionic Commando: Rearmed

Yet another game I wasn’t keeping an eye out for, mainly because I’ve never played the original Bionic Commando game. I gave the trial a spin, and the first thing that struck me was how hard it is to get into this game when there is no jump button. Instead of jumping, you have a bionic arm which can grab objects and let you swing around, basically like Spiderman. Once you get the hang of this however, the game is actually quite a nice challenge, plus the trial version had some amusing humour in it.

Geometry Wars 2

The same awesome Geometry Wars, except more of everything. The trial version of this game was very brief, it lets you play for a while and then stops before you start having any real fun. Regardless of the shitty trial though, I imagine most of you have played the original Geometry Wars so you should have a good idea of what to expect. It’s like I said though, same game, but more of everything. It’s just a shame the four player co-op is offline only, apparently the game would lag badly if you were to play it online with that much shit going on at the same time.

Braid

The trial version of Braid was an awesome experience in its own right. Braid may look like an action platformer, but it’s in fact a puzzle game at heart. You have to manipulate time to solve problems, yet the beauty of Braid is how good you feel when you solve a puzzle that was seemingly impossible at first. The trial version has a puzzle like this, a puzzle which upon completing, me and my friend felt like we were the smartest folks on Earth (yeah right).  Add to this the fact that the music and artwork is just plain awesome, you’d be an idiot not to at least try this game out.