If you’ve been looking for a decent racing game on the Xbox Live Indie Games service to play with friends both locally and across Xbox Live, you could do a lot worse than Avatar Racedrome. It’s cheap, relatively fun and will keep you going for a good hour or two.

It’s a rather flawed experience, however, let down by bland tracks, a lack of customization and boring environments. The action is definitely there, but it just feels like there’s no heart to the game at all.

GAMEPLAY

Initial reactions aren’t great. Each of Avatar Racedrome’s 16 tracks are set in the very same stadium environment, with the same set of track pieces in different formations. It’s hard to tell the races apart, and it makes it incredible hard to care about actually driving around them.

This shallow aura seeps into all areas of the game. Car customization is minimal and pointless – you can change the colour of your kart and the flag adorning its bonnet, but thats about it. Every car looks identical in shape and size – I can’t even remember the last time I played a racing game which didn’t give me the option to change my car type.

It definitely feels like Avatar Racedrome is trying to emulate the popular Trackmania game series with its setting and barebone racing, but this direction does not do the game any favours.

Once you’ve gotten over the bland packaging, however, you’ll find a fairly decent racer underneath. Accelerating feels fast and cornering works well – there’s an option to turn on ‘auto braking’, allowing you to power around corners and let the game alter your skids accordingly. I was surprised at how good this proved to be, and my experience definitely improved as a result.

An interesting if rather strange feature is the rewind function. At any point during a single player race, you can hold down the left L button to rewind time. Everything begins moves in reverse very smoothly, and it’s pretty hypnotic viewing. Quite hilarious to play around with, but ultimately makes every single race a doddle, since you can simply redo every single corner you mess up.

There are several game modes on offer, including single player races, local multiplayer and multiplayer over Xbox Live. The single player tournament mode is quite the challenge, as the AI-controlled karts take no prisoners and race for their lives. It’s just about the right difficulty level, although you’ll probably only play through once or twice before you feel that you’ve seen everything.

The multiplayer can be played two-player split-screen, or up to 8 players via the internet. The local action isn’t so great – the two screens look squashed and don’t use up the whole widescreen display, and with only two cars on the track it feels quite barren – but if you can get a few friends to play over Xbox Live, you’re laughing. It’s all good fun, although during this mode karts cannot collide with each other due to server restraints.

STYLE

As mentioned before, Avatar Racedrome suffers from just not having much soul. Cars all look the same, levels all look and feel similar, there’s just the single environment to drive around, and only the avatars racing in the cars give the game any personality whatsoever.

The soundtrack is your average techno mix and not worth singing about. The car sounds, too, are pretty standard – revs of the engine, screeches of tyres – you’ve heard it all before.

All in all, it is Avatar Racedrome’s look and feel which really stop it from being something highly recommendable. If there were different worlds to race around, with opponents who were driving their own mode of transport, the gameplay would slot into place. Instead, we’re left with a title which feels too half-hearted.

STORY

You race to win! As with the majority of racing games, there is no storyline. You can stick your country’s flag on the front of your ride and pretend you’re powering down the track to honour your motherland, but really it’s all about the racing.

OTHER

It’s difficult to recommend Avatar Racedrome, given all its flaws. Yet compared to the majority of racers available for the Xbox Live Indie Games service, this is probably one of the best.

If you can see past the blandness of it all, there’s an above-average racing experience for playing with your friends. If you’re looking to eat away an hour or two with some pelts around the track, this may be your best option, especially given the $1 (80 Microsoft points) price tag.

Tower defense titles have evolved considerably over the past decade, with some developers taking the original concept and putting their own unique twist on the action. On the surface, Scribble Defense appears to follow the original idea to a tee, implementing enemy spawning and tower building by the book.

There’s a lot more to it than that, however, as the game provides a few interesting twists to keep the base concept fresh while adding more depth to proceedings.

GAMEPLAY

On each level, enemies spawn from a set of points around the screen and make their way down a scribble path, eventually reaching your base. Allow enough baddies to reach the end of their stroll and the level is lost.

You can stop them dead in their tracks by placing down towers around the paths. These act as gun placements and will shoot at anything that moves into their radius. Fallen bad guys will sometimes drop cash which can then be used to buy more towers for dealing with the tougher enemies later on in the level.

The backbone of Scribble Defense is your bog-standard TD affair, but a number of interesting additions and general well-balanced play make all the difference.

The paths down which the enemy roam are not always stationary, and can move about considerably. This means that a single tower placement at a point on the path’s edge will not work, as the path may move out of its range. Hence, you’re challenged with covering the entire area rather than a single path.

Later into the game, methods become available for pulling and pushing the path in any direction you want. This can be extremely useful, allowing you to push two separate paths together and use a smaller number of towers for the same job.

This becomes essential when colour-coded enemies begin to spawn. Certain bad guys are incredibly tough, but will instantly explode if they so much as touch one of their brothers of a specific colour. Pushing two paths together and then using a vortex tower to pull all the surrounding enemies together can set off a chain reaction in this case, causing them to touch and kill each other.

Enemy types are quite varied, meaning you’ll have to approach each level differently. Only specific towers are available for each course, too, so you’ll be changing your tactics quite frequently. Fortunately the game stays well-balanced throughout, with a pleasant difficulty curve for easing players into the action before unleashing hell.

While the gameplay is really excellent, a couple more game modes would have been appreciated – maybe a survival mode or even multiplayer take on the action.

STYLE

Scribble Defense implements a simple, easy-to-understand interface which works fairly solidly. The graphical style does feel a little barebone, with scribbled paths, simple enemy animations and a black background, but there’s technically nothing wrong with Scribble Defense’s looks.

It’s not specifically stated, but I got the impression that these scribbles were made with chalk on a blackboard. This theory is backed-up by the end of level screen, where your points are added together and a grade awarded – it reminded me of a teacher toting up sums on a chalkboard at school.

Sound-wise, it’s all fairly average with nothing to really write home about. Towers make with the pew pew, and enemies die with alien screams.

STORY

There is no story to speak of, but as with many tower defense titles, it’s not really necessary. Still, a running dialogue may have done a better job of tying all the levels together.

OTHER

If tower defense is your forte, you may want to check out Scribble Defense. It throws a few fresh ideas into the fray and definitely comes up trumps.

The game only costs $1, so if the concept appeals to you in any way, it’s definitely worth throwing your hard-earning points in. At the least, you’re getting a couple of hour’s worth of quality tower defending action.

Dr. Mazing is BitCore Studios’ take on the Streets of Rage style fighter, with the hero dealing out pain to every enemy that gets in his way.

I pull no punches when I say that there really isn’t much merit at all in playing Dr. Mazing. Fun may be hiding somewhere in between its incredibly shallow gameplay and child-like graphics, but I highly doubt it.

GAMEPLAY

On each of Dr. Mazing’s ten levels, the idea is to button-bashing everything that advances on you into submission. Killing robots is as easy as approaching them and hammering the X button until they disappear. Rinse and repeat to complete each level, with barely any strategy involved whatsoever.

That’s not to say there is no challenge – but unfortunately, anything that does cause you grief is mainly due to some horribly unbalanced play. The majority of baddies will barely hurt you as long as you keep mashing the punch button, but certain enemies – in particular, those with lazers – can utterly destroy you in a few shots.

Hilariously, said bad guys can usually only fire horizontally across the screen, so you can simply move below them and out of their range, while still dealing damage.

Once the screen is cleared, a boss will appear. These are as shallow as the rest of the action, and again involve hammering your X button into submission. You can jump and do a flying kick, but it barely does any damage and is simply not worth bothering with.

There’s no much more to add to this abomination. Two players can kick robot ass together, but you’ll spend the first five minutes laughing at how awful it all is before opting to play something else. In other words, pointless.

STYLE

If you’ve checked out the screenshots, you’ll know Dr. Mazing is not exactly a looker – in fact, it looks like it was drawn by a 12 year old, and not a very talented one at that.

While everything looks very amateurish, however, it must be admitted that the game certainly has its own style. You could even call the terrible cutscenes and laughable animations a little charming. You know, if you squint and turn your head a bit.

The noise blasting from your speakers is by far the most hilarious element and must be heard to be believed. The soundtrack consists of quite absurd hip-hop tracks – very appropriate for a game about a genius doctor who is saving the world – and the sound effects made my ears prick up as I tried to decipher exactly what I was hearing. For example, every time the doctor is hit by an enemy, it sounds like a gorilla mating. Make of that what you will.

STORY

Dr. Mazing is a university lecturer who just so happens to be in possession of a machine which is going to solve all of the world’s problems. As he is about to demonstrate to his class, an army of robot aliens burst in and start lifting the building out of the ground, keen to utilize the machine for their own evil purposes.

The doctor isn’t having any of it, grabbing an essential component and diving out of the window to safety. What became of his students we shall never know, but as our best heroes always teach us, saving your own hide is number one priority.

He then goes on a rampage, destroying the alien beings and essentially saving the galaxy from chaos. It’s utter nonsense in motion, and the opening cutscene (as horribly drawn as it was) was perhaps the only bit of the entire game I nearly enjoyed.

OTHER

If the combination of child-like graphics, silly premise and shallow button-bashing aren’t enough to put you off, Dr. Mazing costs 240 points ($3), making it one of the more expensive Xbox Live Indie Games titles.

If you’re looking for a worthless laugh, or an example of how not to make a game, this may be exactly what you’re after. For anyone else, stay well clear.

Paipa puts an interesting spin on the classic Pipe Dream concept, not only filling the pipes with water but surrounding them with the stuff too. The water level is constantly rising, and connecting valves on each side releases the pressure, dropping it ever so slightly.

You won’t find anything revolutionary here, but there’s a good amount of fun to be had with Paipa, even if it is a little short-lived.

GAMEPLAY

Given a grid full of pipe pieces, the idea is to rotate enough into place to create a constant line from the left of the playing area to the right. It doesn’t matter what route the connected pipes take or which valves they connect to, as long as the water can find passage from one side to the other.

While you’re puzzling your paths out, water is filling the chamber, rising bit by bit. Finishing a full pipe will lower the water level, but allow it to reach the top of the screen and it’s all over.

As progression is made, the pressure level will go up, causing the water level to rise more quickly. This can be counteracted by chaining together connection combos – if a full connection is made immediately after a previous one, this will earn you a combo, and the pressure level will decrease, making life that little bit easier.

This involves trying to set up near-complete connections in the hope that finishing a different one will cause all the pieces to fall into place and create another full pipe straight afterwards. The problem is that this is incredibly difficult to do, and in my whole time playing the game, I only managed to achieve three combos. In fact, in the time I was trying to set combos up, I was allowing the water level to rise and wasting time in which I could actually be lowering the water.

It’s a clever idea, but ultimately flawed – it would have made more sense to have some sort of combo timer which allowed you to set up another full line within a certain amount of time of creating a previous one, rather than having to have one ready before-hand.

Along the way, there are special pipes which need attending to before they can be used. Each needs fixing via a gesture with the right stick – for example, some pipes need oiling by holding the stick down, while other need hammering by banging the right stick up a few times.

While these simple additions give the game a little personally, it’s hard to shake the fact that Paipa features rather shallow gameplay. There really isn’t much to it at all, and the initial fun factor is all but gone after half an hour of spinning pipe pieces.

It doesn’t help that there is only one game mode on offer, with no multiplayer or puzzle variations to speak of. This kind of gameplay could easily have lent itself to a number of different styles of play, but the chance is squandered.

STYLE

Steampunk visuals are Paipa’s repertoire, and the look definitely pays off thanks to smooth animations and great water effects. Underwater pipes ripple with the rising flood, and steam screeches from completed pipelines.

However, in a completely unmerciful act, developer Papercut has given the game no soundtrack whatsoever – not even the usual technobeats usually associated with this type of XBLIG title.

The hisses of steam escaping and the ringing of sirens as the water nears the top of the screen would most likely have been adequate, but without music playing over the top, the repeated noises begin to grind.

STORY

While Paipa may lack a number of key elements, the developer has definitely gone all out on the storyline. The year is 1866, and the Queen has sent out interplanetary steamer HMS Victoria to claim Mars for the British Empire.

As an engineer on board the spaceship, you are responsibly for releasing the pressure valves on Deck 43 – hence completing pipes to lower the pressure.

It’s all very silly, but in a simple yet charming way. The idea that there are flying boats at all, nevermind in the year 1866, and that these boats have flaws such that men are needed to constantly lower pressure on-board is pretty hilarious, and definitely brought a smile to my face. Typical British 19th century era prompts will pop up now and again too, letting you know you’re doing a ‘jolly good’ job.

OTHER

Paipa does not add anything to the pipe concept that we have not already seen before, and it doesn’t particularly do its business better than other games of the genre either.

There’s still a small amount of fun to be had, though, and for the $1 price tag you won’t exactly be kicking yourself if it proves too shallow for your tastes.

If pipe games are your forte, make sure you grab the trial before putting your points down.

Arena shooters are two a penny on the Xbox Live Indie Games service, with only a small number really deserving your attention. JoyJoy is definitely in the ‘must play’ category, with its polished look, multitude of weaponry and challenging gameplay.

It may all get a little too hectic as the later levels utterly destroy you, but that doesn’t stop Joy Joy from feeling as revolutionary to dual-stick arena shooters as the classic Geometry Wars did.

GAMEPLAY

If you’ve played dual-stick blasters before, you’ll know what to expect here. The left stick moves your ambiguous-looking craft around the screen, while the right stick lets fly a variety of different lasers in whichever direction you point.

Similarly abstract enemies spawn around the playing field, honing in on your position. Collide with a baddie and lose a health point – run out of health and watch your ship explode into light. It’s game over, bud.

Starting with a single bog-standard laser, your ship can grab other weapons which can then be upgraded along the way. Each gun is completely different to every other, although the usefulness of each varies. For example, the Hunter’s bullets lock onto nearby enemies and make a beeline, while the Lancer fires off a small but powerful spread.

Besides your regular blasting, the left trigger can also be used to charge a weapon up. During this time, your guns cease firing and your ship will store power – the longer you hold, the bigger the effect. Again, each weapon has a different effect – the aforementioned Hunter simply fires off a shed-load of enemy-seeking missiles, while the Lancer powers out a spread of lasers through a whole 360 degree radius of your ship.

While the selection of blasters is very much appreciated, it becomes apparent after a short while that certain weapons are much more useful than others, and you eventually end up using only one or two of those on offer – suggesting that maybe the available weapons need balancing a little. Still, the majority of arena shooters only offer one or two types of weapon, so you can’t really complain.

As well as the regular story mode (which features very slick boss battles at the end of each world), there are challenges to complete which force you to survive for a set amount of time with specific weapons. These are great fun, although the XBLIG restriction on not allowing online leaderboards is a shame, as this mode would really have benefitted from a bit of online competition.

It’s worth noting that after trawling through a couple of worlds, JoyJoy becomes rather difficult. Whole screen’s worth of enemies will regularly spawn, and completely obliterate your ship if you don’t have a charge laser ready. Later enemies will throw a whole bunch of laser fire your way, and it all gets very bullet-hell.

Fortunately, there are modifiers which can be added to your craft to make the game easier, at the expense of points, so gamers of any skill level can play comfortably.

A two-player mode is also included in the package, and proves to be great fun for a short while. As with the likes of I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1, it’s a nice little distraction for when you and a friend are looking to casually blast bad guys together.

STYLE

JoyJoy’s general aesthetics are incredibly pleasing, with a mixture of polished, sharp visuals and incredible musical infusion helping the game achieve levels of brilliance that would otherwise have been elusive.

As mentioned previously, everything about JoyJoy’s graphical style is very abstract, yet beautifully so – both your own ship and the enemies are simply solid shapes with the slightest bit of detail, but rather than hindering the experience, it actually gives the whole thing a rather sinister atmosphere. In short, it looks simple yet stunning.

The soundtrack is just as beautiful, with fluid technobeats fading in and out as your ship takes damage. It’s this attention to detail which makes JoyJoy really stand out on the whole.

STORY

This is an arena shooter, so it comes as no surprise that JoyJoy features no story whatsoever. You’re here to blast hundreds and thousands of random enemy ships, not ponder the meaning of it all.

OTHER

Compared to the majority of shooters on Xbox Live Indie Games, JoyJoy really stands out from the crowd, providing one of the most smooth and visually stunning experiences you’ll find on the service. A new standard has been set, and future XBLIG blasters are bound to be compared to this ultimate looker.

This is only the first in a series of shooters from radiangames too, as the developer releases Crossfire later this month, which looks just as polished and playable as its predecessor, albeit with a slightly different spin.

JoyJoy costs a single dollar, so if you own an Xbox, there is simply no reason not to grab this powerful piece of indie gaming.

Nomis: Legacy Islands takes the platforming genre back to its roots, with levels full of baddies, crevices and tight jumps to conquer. A number of subtle twists, including the ability to activate stealth and sneak around the enemy, make for a unique run ‘n gun experience.

Unfortunately, the game mechanics are far too rigid and the difficulty curve is constantly stuck at ‘unforgiving’. In the end, the execution sucks all the life out of what could have been a great deal of fun.

GAMEPLAY

All the usual platforming suspects are here. Jump across pits, climb ladders, shoot bad guys – all present and willing. The problem is, the controls feel much too stiff to fully enjoy. Movement is fully functional, but has no personally and gives off a very clunky vibe.

Mix this with the extremely unforgiving nature of the game, and you’ve got a concept which provides more frustration than fun. If a developer wants to create a hardcore, tough-as-nails experience, you’ve got to make sure the controls are spot-on or you’re hindering the player before they’ve even begun!

Touch an enemy a few times – or eat his bullets – and you’re toast. Health regenerates really slowly over time, so it’s either a case of waiting around after every encounter, or dying a fair few times.

Dying wouldn’t be such a problem, if it were not for the tedious implications. Each time you die, you’re made to wait for five seconds while you respawn. This makes sense for the co-op mode (which I’ll mention later), but in single player, it’s a pointless wait which really racks up after you’ve died for the umpteenth time.

A lack of checkpoints also adds to the pain. More often than not, death means being sent back halfway through the level, usually while letting out a deep sigh. Nomis really could have done with more checkpoints planted throughout each level, just to make losing a bit more bearable.

Despite all these problems, the game does get better over time, mainly thanks to the stealth elements. Tapping Y makes the protagonist blend into the shadows for a short period, allowing him to walk straight past bad guys and even kill them while still cloaked.

Eventually, you’ll stop even using your weapons and walk around thwacking everyone with melee attacks. Everything can be upgraded through collecting metal, cash and medals, so once your stealth power has been upgraded to last for a decent amount of time, you’ll barely need to shoot your gun.

In fact, by the later levels, it’s possible to run through most of the game without even killing a single baddie. Your stealth bar fills while you’re not using the power, so it’s a case of recharging it while no-one is about, then running invisible through the masses, and repeat until fin. Using this method actually makes for some really interesting, tactical play, which may or may not have been the intention.

Stealth does not work on the boss battles, however, which are quite the mix of good, bad and ugly. Each boss has a health bar which needs depleting via a variety of different methods, usually to do with unloading into its face. It’s always a case of finding the target, and repeating a few steps over and over to win.

The two player co-op mode takes the single player and throws a second controller into the works. The second player is a little like Tails was to Sonic – the screen follows player one, and player two can fall behind (or surge ahead) off the screen. If a player dies, they spawn on top of the other player, which is pretty useful. Co-op is definitely a lot more fun that the single player, although let’s be honest – when does adding an extra player to the mix not make a gaming experience better?

STYLE

Nomis features some lovely background art, and the character stylings aren’t too shabby either. Some of the animations could do with a little work, but it’s all vibrant and colourful enough to enjoy.

The music and sound effects are quite another matter. The soundtrack for each world is simply a five or six second sample played over and over again, which really does grate after only ten minutes of play.

Gun shots and the like are your standard affair, although quite why your character has to shout ‘LOLZ’ and ‘EPIC FAIL’ every time he kills a bad guy is beyond me – it really does not fit into the overall setting at all.

STORY

Once a peaceful place, the Legacy Islands have now fallen victim to an evil robot general who plans to resurrect an ancient weapon hidden somewhere in the isles. As part of a resistance dedicated to fighting him and his cronies, our strapping hero sets off to make the world a safer place.

Each world is themed, be it underground caverns or snow-covered mountain tops, and each bad guy follows the theme – be it a robot dressed as Santa Claus or an android in a mine-cart.

Other than the aforementioning ‘LOLing’, the overall setting and mood is pleasing, and continues the trend throughout. Adding an extra player really helps too, giving you the feeling that you’re working as rebels together.

OTHER

While I’ve not exactly been lavishing the praise onto Nomis, it must be said that, despite all its fault, you can really feel throughout that its heart is in the right place. Level design is solid and clearly well thought-out, and you can sense a lot of work went into pain-stakingly creating each environment and idea.

While this devotion must be commended, the controls and backhanded gameplay mechanics make it all incredibly difficult to appreciate. It’s all very well and good piling on the features, upgrades and collectibles, but if the backbone isn’t there, they’ll all collapse into a mess.

Still, for $3 you could do a lot worse. Nomis: Legacy Islands may put a smile on the most hardcore player’s face, but for everyone else, it’s just too fiddly to get into.