Hothead Games’ anticipated action RPG DeathSpank has arrived on PSN and Xbox Live Arcade, and is now available for respective console owners to purchase and download.

Players assume the role of the wanderer DeathSpank, described as a “Dispenser of Justice, a Vanquisher of Evil, and a Hero to the Downtrodden.” Throughout your travels you search for a powerful artifact known as “The Artifact.” Forged by unknown hands for unknown purposes, both you and a mysterious, evil tyrant seek to obtain it.

DeathSpank runs $15 or 1200 MS Points. A free trial is available as well (confirmed for Xbox 360) to try the game before you buy. In related news Hothead’s veteran designer Ron Gilbert (Monkey Island series) has made some comments on the release with Gamasutra, including the hope that DeathSpank helps “open the door” for future digital titles on PSN and XBL:

“[It's] very different from a lot of stuff that’s in the download space…I’m kind of hoping in a way that it’ll open up the door to the Xbox and the PSN having more games with some real meat on them…I’m really hoping this is kind of the future of downloads, and that we can get some really good, interesting games in the download space.”

Radiangames’ first Xbox Live Indie Games release, Joy Joy, had a rather appropriate name, providing joyous arena blasting action. The second is the shooter series, Crossfire, hoped to continue this trigger-happy trend.

While Crossfire feels unique and looks incredible, the concept eventually falls flat due to frustrating game mechanics. It looks like a great idea on paper, but in execution many flaws rear their ugly heads.

GAMEPLAY

Players blast their way through 50 waves of increasingly powerful enemies, while confined to a fixed horizontal plane. Baddie ships drop purple ammo as they die, which can then be collected and used to launch much more deadly lazer fire.

The big twist comes in the ability to jump from the bottom of the screen to the top, and vice-versa. Tapping the left or right trigger allows the hero ship to swap sides and attack the enemy from behind. Of course, the baddies aren’t going to take that lying down, and they’ll flip on the spot and continue to fire in your general direction.

This concept is taken a step further with some really interesting enemy design. Certain baddies won’t spin and will only focus on one side of the arena, allowing you to mop them up first, then concentrate on the spinny ones. Others spread their fire over both sides, provide support to other enemy ships, or can only be destroyed from one direction.

As you kill enemies consecutively, your combo multiplier will increase, leading to much more pleasing scores. Unfortunately there are no global leaderboards, but some players will still get a kick of trying to beat their own highscores.

Initial levels are great fun, giving the player a wonderful sense of power while still providing a decent challenge. Round about the halfway mark, however, it all gets rather silly.

If you’ve played a bullet-hell shmup, you’ll know how crazy it can get, and only with complete concentration (and a little bit of luck) can you prevail. Now imagine a shump in which you not only have to dodge for your life, but also need to be constantly watching the other side of the screen to make sure it’s safe to warp over there.

Once the hordes of bullets start flying, Crossfire simply becomes much too difficult to enjoy. On later levels – especially the last ten – I found myself losing all three lives over and over again on a single wave. Any fun that can possibly be pulled from this experience is undermined by a deep sense of frustration.

This feeling is magnified due to ridiculous respawn settings. Whereas in a regular shump you’d flash a couple of times on respawn, indicating a short period of invincibility to allow you to prepare your positioning, Crossfire doesn’t even give you a second. You’re plonked down exactly where you died – usually right in the path of oncoming fire – and more often than not end up dying again instantly.

The flurry of lazer fire becomes so intense that eventually you’ll take to picking the bad guys off from the edge, bit by bit. Enemy ships move left and right, but generally stay on one side of the screen. Hence, if you can quickly take out half of the horde, it’s then possible to chip away at the rest of them. Note that while this is pretty much the only decent method for completing the final waves, it’s really not much fun at all.

Two player blasting proves to be a lot more fun, as having a second source of fire power obviously takes the pressure off. Grab a friend and you’ll find thirty minutes of worthy game time. Play on your own, however, and you may just find yourself having to purchase a new Xbox controller after slamming the last one against a wall.

STYLE

As with Joy Joy before it, Crossfire really is a gorgeous little thing. Lazer fire glows in fluorescent streaks, while extravagant explosions constantly light up the arena. The player ship becomes a glowstick blur as it bounds up and down the screen, giving a real sense of speed and urgency.

It’s all a little less abstract than Joy Joy was, with both the player and enemy ships actually looking like ships this time around – I found this gave the overall experience a lot more personality.

The soundtrack is also in the same vein as Joy Joy‘s, although it isn’t implemented as well here. The same style of technobeats accompany proceedings, but where Joy Joy‘s bass faded in and out as damage was taken, Crossfire‘s music isn’t so interesting. Still, there’s nothing technically wrong with it, so I’ll stop sounding moany.

STORY

Surprise surprise – there is no story involved. This is an out-and-out blaster, and your job is to reach the end and score lots of lovely points along the way.

OTHER

I was really looking forward to experiencing Crossfire, especially after enjoying Joy Joy so much, so this has come as a bit of a disappointment. It’s not a bad game – it’s simply that the concept is so much better as a thought than it is in motion.

Still, if you’re into your shmups in a big way, or you’re looking for a decent co-op shooter for you and a friend to play through, I would recommend at least giving the demo a try.

Zombie Cow Studios has released a trailer for their upcoming educationally icky shooter Privates.

Players become heroes with condoms for hats exploring the orifices and innards of those nasty STI-carrying teens. Blasting away viruses and other grossness as janitors of the genitals in an apparent effort to give these misguided adolescents a second chance at a clean crotch.

Funded by UK TV station Channel 4 (OMG NAUGHT INDE1!1) Privates will receive a free PC release this summer from the channel’s website. Zombie Cow is also prepping Privates for the Xbox 360′s Indie Games channel, which in their words “will probably cost a little bit of money” for interested parties.

Kydos Studio has announced the release of its beautiful puzzle platformer Lumi onto the Xbox Live Indie Games section of the 360′s Live service.

The dev’s third effort on the channel (creators of MyBand and Soul as well) has players jumping into the shoes of a puffball with big eyes trying to restore light to her home planet, which currently is being plagued and consumed by an evil force. The gameplay brings both the familiar and strange as it consists both of collecting fireflies and using a new magnetism-based mechanic that gives players the ability to navigate through levels using different colored hubs. Some fresh new ideas plugged into the platformer equation.

The title runs the 400 MS Points ($5) and, as comes standard on the channel, a trial version is available for free to download and try out. Check out the Lumi launch trailer below.

In the heat of Summer, you can always rely on Indie Links to cool you off, especially if your means of air conditioning is near your computer arrangement. I did my best to diversify this week.

Lots of interviews, in depth coverage of current/upcoming games, and in the end, ten awesome links from ten different sites.

The Big List Of Indie Game Sites (Pixel Prospector)
From the guy who brought us the 200 (or so) free indie games in 10 minutes videos. A comprehensive and categorized list of all the indie sites and coverage out there, DIY included of course. Super love!

Hands On: Amnesia: The Dark Descent (Eurogamer)
“I think a mark of quality in a game is whether you can return to a room you’ve previously been in, and know you were there earlier by the destruction you wrought. Amnesia, the new first-person adventure from Penumbra developers Frictional, does not paint rooms in the blood of your enemies, but rather in strewn desk drawers, boxes and broken glass. And light. Amnesia is looking to be an extremely dark game, but rather than offering you the opportunity to sneak silently in the welcoming shadows, here darkness is your enemy. It is the path to insanity.”

Interview: Loved’s Ocias Seeks Depth, Player Confrontation (Gamasutra)
“While E3 dominated games industry headlines in recent weeks, an unexpected candidate for people’s attentions in June has been Loved, a browser-based game by Australian artist and designer Alexander Ocias.”

Gryzor87′s Retro-Inspired Sound: Hydorah Music Q&A (IndieGames)
“Freeware game Hydorah is the brainchild of Locomalito of Andalucia, Spain. For the soundtrack, whose cover art is by illustrator Marek Bayej, musician Gryzor87 drew on the established audio styles of retro sidescrolling shooters, while also infusing his own rock and classical-inspired tastes.”

Review: Fault Line (TIGSource)
“This month Fault Line was released. I don’t know if you’ve been following Nitrome. I know I sure wasn’t. Their game Tiny Castle got a plug on the Indie Games Weblog as well as the AV Club’s Sawbuck Gamer column. And it was an interesting game, more for it’s idea that for how well it pulled it off. But Fault Line has got me digging into their backlog.”

Interview: We chat with the founder of Joystick Labs (Big Download)
“There are a number of ways game developers can find money to help fund their projects; through publishers or awards, grants and more. But what about actual help during the development process to make the game better and to establish contacts in the game industry that will allow the developers to sell the game? That’s the plan of the newly announced Joystick Labs, a Durham, North Carolina-based company that was officially announced this week. The company will not only pick games and development teams to help fund their creations but also to mentor them in various aspects of game development and business.”

The Joystiq Indie Pitch: iBailout (Joystiq)
“This week we talk with Nick Marroni, who, after deciding he’d had enough inferior games that combined Ms. Pac-Man and the Federal Reserve, set his mind on making his own.”

Interview: Brendon Chung of Blendo Games — What did the Rastafarian cat say to the Glowing toucan? (Level Forty-Two)
“I had the chance to interview Brendon Chung, a videogame developer and the founder of Blendo Games. We talked about his future endeavours, his games Flotilla and Gravity Bone, the nature of game development and the origins of Blendo Games.”

June 2010 Video Spotlight — UFO: Alien Invasion (IndieDB)
“Just when you thought it was safe to walk in tall grass again a wild Spotlight appears! Introducing the first IndieDB Spotlight video, jammed packed with umm well Indie games.”

Interview: Hothead Games on DeathSpank (GamingNexus)
“”When confronted with the idea of developing Ron Gilbert’s DeathSpank character introduced by his Grumpy Gamer comic series, the Penny Arcade duo gave the go ahead to Hothead to transition gears from their series to start work on the action RPG game. We had an opportunity to delve more into the back story of both the development of DeathSpank, as well as the details behind the gameplay itself via a roundtable discussion with Executive Producer Vlad Ceraldi, Lead Designer Darren Evenson and RPG Designer Dennis Detwiller.”

Zeboyd Games, developer of the XBLIG diamond Breath of Death VII: The Beginning has announced its next RPG for the 360 service: Cthulu Saves the World. Geoff mentioned it recently, but we had scant info and no media on the upcoming title at the time. No longer!

Bringing together 8/16-bit style graphics with modern gameplay design, the dev promises “an epic journey of redemption and insanity,” as players take control of the monster from H.P. Lovecraft lore. Featuring a 6-10 hour main quest, post-game modes, a combo system, random encounter limits, unite techniques (one can hope in the vein of Chrono Trigger), branching level ups, and more. Accessibility is part of the game as well, allowing players to save anywhere and collect 1UPs that can be used to retry failed battles.

One of the major gameplay features in Cthulhu is the ability to inflict insanity on your enemies through magic or skills, making them more dangerous but more vulnerable in battle. Zeboyd describes the playable characters players will amass in their party:

“Umi the beautiful heroine with an unhealthy obsession with the ocean, Sharpe the sentient floating sword, October the cute necromancer, Paws the alien cat, Dacre a senile old man, Ember the dark dragon, and of course, Cthulhu from the classic horror of H.P. Lovecraft!”

Cthulhu Saves the World is set for release in August. A battle screenshot as well as the absurdly awesome retro-fitted box art follows.

There are some downright terrible games on the Xbox Live Indie Games service – we all know this, and so striving to find the hidden gems can be a really rewarding task. Avatar Hunter is not one of these gems, and can definitely be placed in the ‘downright terrible’ category.

The aim of the game is to match up pairs of avatars from memory, in the same style as the classic Concentration card game. Of course, this concept has been used many times before in video games – mainly as small side quests or filler material. To use the idea as the main feature of your game… well, let’s just say Avatar Hunter really is devoid of any fun whatsoever.

GAMEPLAY

Presented with a number of doors, your task is to open them, revealing an avatar behind. Reveal two similar avatars in a row, and the doors will stay open. Find every matching pair to complete the level. Move onto the next level.

This is the entire game. Each subsequent level will feature more doors than the last, providing a bigger challenge, but really it’s all the very same. ‘The very same’ meaning utterly boring and really not much fun at all. I can imagine younger children may get a slight kick out of it, but it would be a tiny, ‘did you just feel something?’ kind of kick.

There are two different game modes to play through. Time attack sees you matching avatars against the clock, while challenge mode gives you a set number of moves in which you must find all the pairs. Each mode also contains various different environments which pretty much all look the same and aren’t worth mentioning.

Just to top it all off – as if the experience wasn’t dire enough – there is a ‘fireplace mode’ on the title screen. Yes, you can press the back button to display a fireplace which can then be left on your TV for all to see. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to work very well – I went all the way up to my television screen and still could not feel the heat. Must be a bug.

In summary: boring, not fun, lame.

STYLE

The background images and interface are generally pleasant, if a little too static. As for the play area itself, there’s nothing particularly interesting to talk about. Each world has its own theme, with the doors taking the form of curtains, blackboards and the like.

Strangely, for a game about Xbox avatars, it doesn’t actually use your own avatar or just friends’ avatars. I was hoping I’d pull back the curtains and my stupid, grinning face would be hanging around behind, but instead there are just lots of randomly created ones. What’s the point of using avatars in the first place if you’re not going to pull them from the user’s Xbox?

While the art isn’t too shabby, the sound is irritating as hell. Voices whoop and holler as you find pairs or fail. After ten minutes of play I had to turn the sound of, as I couldn’t bare it any longer.

STORY

An evil creature – a teddy apparently – has kidnapped avatar twins from around the world and is holding them prisoner in his mansion. By matching up the avatar twins, you are reuniting them.

It’s as simple as that – although to be fair, it’s one of the better explanations I’ve heard for matching pairs of things. According to my girlfriend, I’m meant to match pairs of socks after they’ve come out of the wash! Why bother, eh?

OTHER

Know that I am being blunt when I say that you should not buy this game under any circumstances. It is not fun and not worthy of your time.

Instead, let me suggest that you go out and buy a pack of cards for the same price. Cards can also be used to play a variety of other games, and a group of friends can play along too. Found in all good toy shops.

Since Geoff has started up this neat little editorial gig where we take a game on Xbox Live Indie Games, play through the demo/trial, and offer up our insight, I’d like to take part in it too. Especially since every time I’ve logged onto XBLIG for the last month or so, I’ve been seeing Baby Maker Extreme sitting at the Top Downloads pile. Knowing that there’s quite a few games on XBLIG which are pure shit or, in some cases, aren’t games at all (useless flashlight apps or quiz games claiming to help us learn how to speak to women), I steered as far away from Baby Maker Extreme as possible.

But after taking a look as to who the developer is — Stegersaurus Games — I actually remembered covering them back in the beginning of 2010. Hence, I decided to give the game a try because it did actually look pretty enthralling. What I came away with was utter confusion for the first five minutes of my play-through. Clearly, this isn’t a game about making babies — not to say that that’s what I was hoping for (No, seriously, I wasn’t. I have nothing to hide from you!) but I never could have guessed how this game was meant to be played. After playing it, I have to apologize to my co-editor and friend Erik Johnson for the comments I made in the latest podcast; Baby Maker Extreme does not in any way, shape, or form, realistically simulate the experience of having a baby.

But it does bring us some good fun! You see, in Baby Maker Extreme, the player’s character — a baby or your avatar, depending on which one you wish to use — will be inside the mother’s womb. After playing a duo of mini games in which you balance the mother’s breath and push by mashing the B button, little [Insert Name Here] will come flying out of the womb and into the hospital. Your goal? To make sure that baby flies as far as possible. Does this sound safe in real life? Absolutely not. Is it fun in Baby Maker Extreme? Definitely.

As the baby starts flying, you have to steer it towards glowing objects and people. Players can dive with the A button and boost themselves upwards with the B button (which can only be used once unless you manage to recharge) during their time in the air. Hitting glowing objects and people will not only gain you points but also recharge your boost. It might sound extremely silly and…well…it is. But it’s also loads of fun. The overall visual style of the game is remarkably good-looking. The paper art combined with ragdoll physics prove for some excellent aesthetics.

Even the music and color scheme of the presentation look great. Especially for an 80 MSP ($1) title. Baby Maker Extreme is actually really fun. If you don’t believe me, I highly suggest trying out the demo on XBLIG. If you do believe me, I suggest purchasing the game with any spare points you may have left over from previous transactions. It’s not the most revolutionary gameplay, but it does pose a challenge and also feels rewarding when done right.

We’ll be on the lookout for more from Stegersaurus Games because clearly their sense of humor and willingness to go beyond the mold of the regular has paid off.

[Try/buy on Xbox Live Indie Games.]

Well, not literally with my band, but rather with a new XBLIG title aptly named MyBand. In today’s waning music game based world, I’d actually say it’s a little ballsy of somebody to create a game where the entire point of the game is to do nothing but string together various crude instruments into a playable recording… you know, considering the flops that are Rock Band and Guitar Hero these days.

Anyway, before I begin, let me just say that MyBand is not a game. It’s more of a music application (Xbox Live Apps, anyone?) that has the graphics of the game. But other than that there’s nothing here for anybody looking for a game. That said, what it actually is is kind of cool.

I went into MyBand expecting some sort of cheap-o, controller based Guitar Hero or something along the lines where you’d just go along with crudely made songs in an attempt to keep up a beat. What I found instead, was a neat music generator that allows you to choose from a fairly wide variety of instruments in order to make your own songs, no matter how crude they are.

The game has two modes, Live and Studio. Of the two, I feel like the studio mode is much better. It’s basically just an area for you to test out the title’s various instruments (ranging from guitar/drums to a sitar-like instrument, harp, and even a violin) and then, if you want, record them. You record one instrument at a time and then you can go pick up another instrument and record that one on top of the tracks you’ve already laid down. It’s pretty cool.

Unfortunately, the way you actually create music is pretty limiting, which isn’t surprising given the limited abilities of the Xbox 360 controller. Basically, how it works is you hold down one of the primary buttons, or the triggers and then strum the left thumb stick. Each combination (or by pressing two at the same time) will create a different note on the guitar, sitar, harp, etc. While you can get about dozen or so different sounds out of your guitar, it’s still not nearly enough to actually create anything of value, at least not that I could see.

On top of that, while recording various tunes might seem really cool, I had some trouble figuring out how to erase, or rewind tracks that I didn’t like. From which I’m not really sure there was an option to do so at all.

Still though, the game has the ability to allow for 4 players to strum along at the same time, which will most likely sound like crap, but hey! Maybe you and some of your friends can piece something together that actually sounds really good, or, you know, learn how to do it on real instruments. Whichever…

MyBand is a unique title on XBLIG, regardless of its faults, and at only 80 MS points ($1) it’s probably worth it for you to check out. There’s not many titles out there that allow you to do stuff like this, especially for a dollar.

[Buy/Try]

[My impressions are based off the trial and do not necessarily reflect the full game.]

Screenshots

The shoot em up. Some love it, other don’t. Regardless of where your loyalties lie, however, you can’t argue that the venerable shmup genre has become home to some of the most iconic games in history. Games like Space Invaders and Galaga pioneered the genre back in the 80s. Since then the genre has come and gone in waves.

Well, this week, a new one came out called Crossfire, the second XBLIG title from Radiangames. While it might not do anything terribly different, or innovate the genre in any meaningful way, the game is not without it’s own sort of charm.

Crossfire, as stated above, is a shmup. In fact, unlike most modern smhups out there today, I’d actually say the Crossfire hearkens back to the original Galaga/Space Invaders formula most, with a special emphasis on the Space Invaders type gameplay.

The concept is pretty simple. There are waves of enemies attempting to kill you, you simply have to kill them first. Of course, the caveat is that you are able to warp between the top and the bottom of the screen in order to shoot them from behind if you’re finding it’s just getting a little too hot on one side.

Of course, that doesn’t mean it’ll be easy by any stretch. The warping ability is simply a mechanic to liven up the gameplay of this well worn genre. In no way does it actually make things easier. In fact, I’d say it might make things more challenging. Which is a good thing, mind you. Challenges are why we play games in the first place.

Finally, I can’t help but comment on Crossfire‘s amazing style. Like Radiangames’ previous title, JoyJoy, Crossfire looks beautiful. With all sorts of neon colors, and bright lights swooshing around, you’d have a hard time finding another XBLIG title that is as graphically pleasing. My one complaint is that, during my trial, most of the enemies were only a couple of colors, which could get a little bland.

Still though, Crossfire is only 240 MS points ($3) which means it’s a far better proposition than, say, buying Galaga Legions which is currently 800 MS points ($10). And, honestly, it’s a better game too.

[Buy/Try]

[My impressions are based off the trial and do not necessarily reflect the full game.]

Screenshots