Xbox Live Arcade

For a long time I avoided checking out Xbox Live Arcade because I didn't want to get sucked into the nickel and dime game of buying content for my Xbox 360. I always thought the cost of Live Gold (now $60 a year) was steep enough. It's true there is a lot of free content for many games (bonus maps, themes, missions, etc) and occasionally Microsoft does release a full game. On the 360's second birthday last November, they release Carcasonne, one of my favorite board games, for free. This game is basically what turned me on to XBLA.

Looking through the library, there are some real classics in there. Many are ones you've seen in on other consoles, such as Galaga, Asteroids, Missile Command, Dig Dug, and Ms. Pac Man. Some I remember spending countless hours playing in the arcades of the 80's, like Gauntlet, Tron, the newly released Discs of Tron, Robotron, Time Pilot, and a bunch more. It's really awesome to also see Doom and Sonic the Hedgehog again. I was also excited to see Catan, another one of my favorite board games. You can also find some of the best, current Internet classics like Zuma, Hexic, Geometry Wars, and Bejewled.

You can play all of them in trial modes, which allow for a few levels of play, or play with certain restrictions. If you want to buy the full versions, they run around 800 points for most of them, which is $10. This isn't a bad deal, since may of the RealArcade games are $15 or $20, but they should release them in packs. $10 is a bit steep for truly ancient games like Asteroids. Some are priced a little cheaper, at 400 points (or $5) which isn't too bad, but many of those older ones simply won't hold your interest, no matter how much you loved them 30 years ago.

Yes.. Space Invaders is over 30 years old! Insane, isn't it... games have come such a long way. Luckily, XBLA keeps us feeling young as we can play all those old games as if they were new... sort of.