Xbox Live Indie-Dome is a bi-weekly feature where we sift through the Xbox Live Indie Games Marketplace to find the best and worst… so you don't have to!

And here we are again with another Dome for anyone unwilling to play through every single XBLA indie release. Yessir, you are welcome. *wink*

Anyway, those of you who have read any of the previous versions of the Indie-Dome will probably notice that things look a little different this time. Good eyes! We have, in fact, changed the Dome’s format a bit. From now on we’ll be mentioning every single release within a two-week time period, but only the *Must Play* and *Utter Failure* games will be receiving extensive coverage (i.e. lots of words).

As always, not every release will get more than a few sentences. The games with actual paragraphs have managed to stand-out due to their entertainment value and/or shockingly amazing awesomeness (these will feature the *Must Play* tag) or because they’re so incredibly terrible potential consumers deserve a warning (these feature the *Utter Failure* tag).

Remember, the Indie-Dome (like all reviews) is an opinion piece. The comments (or lack thereof) made throughout convey the reviewer’s thoughts on the overall quality (or lack thereof) of the submissions in a given two week period. These comments are not directed towards the developers, but rather their games. Seriously, we know most of you folks put a lot of hard work into these things, so please don’t take it personally.

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Biz School – Twist-Ed

(Developer: ggaler – 400 points)

*Utter Failure*

Now this is a “Tycoon” game gone horribly, horribly wrong. In all honesty the first time I started up a game of Biz School I watched about twenty seconds of the tutorial before I gave up on the game. But I went back to it later, thinking the game itself might at least be kind of interesting.

I was wrong. Shame on me.

There’s no tycoon-ing anywhere in this game. No planning, no resource management, advertising or any of that other crap people seem to enjoy in this genre. Here’s what you do: You pick a character, which as far as I can tell has absolutely no effect on your “turn.” Then you choose a franchise (one from eight) to… I don’t really know what you do with it, actually. Then you flip over cards at random on a grid (like a memory game sans the memory part) to determine your revenue. You do this over and over again until you win or lose, but I think by then you’d be hard-pressed to care either way.

Packito lost in space

(Developer: frigiere – 240 points)

A whimsical-looking side-scrolling shooter that tasks you with shooting space garbage.

It looks pretty, but the mechanics feel unrefined and it seems overpriced.

United States of Zombieland

(Developer: Angry Aardvark – 80 points)

A passable twin-stick shooter, but it pales in comparison to Z0mb1es!!!1.

Quizocalypse

(Developer: Wolpertinger Games – 240 points)

Zombies make everything better. In theory, anyway.

So how do the little brain-suckers affect a quiz show filled with nerd lore and internet memes? You’ll just have to read our full review to find out.

Bloody Death

(Developer: MonkeyWare Studios – 240 points)

*Utter Failure*

The bastard child of Dragon’s Lair and Night Trap, without any redeeming qualities whatsoever. Well, I suppose the spelling errors are at least funny when you catch them the first time.

You get to “control” a series of protagonists as they attempt to escape/survive their run-ins with Faceless Killer. What this actually amounts to is watching a dim, grainy video and waiting for a string of button commands to pop up on the screen. Press all the buttons correctly and your character lives, fights back, doesn’t get their head chopped-off, etc… Screw up and they die.

Even that wouldn’t be so bad if it felt more like you were involved in real QTEs (for the record: I can’t f’ing stand QTEs). But no, instead you get a list of buttons that reads like a grocery list that you have to press in exact order while an invisible timer counts down. There’s no satisfying feedback between what you’re pressing and what’s happening on the screen. In fact, comparing Bloody Death to Dragon’s Lair is a lot less accurate than I originally thought. It’s got much more in common with the obnoxious throw-away mini-games a lot of modern games use in lieu of hacking, lock-picking and the like.

And don’t even get me started on that “… signed by The Prince of Terror…” BS…

テスターフェイズワン – (TESTER PHASE ONE)

(Developer: DK Alpha – 80 points)

Really nothing more than another “bullet hell” shooter with retro graphics and solid streams of bullets.

Paradox

(Developer: dEAD nERVE – 80 points)

An odd puzzle game that feels simultaneously too fast and excruciatingly slow. Orienting your “tube” to the different blocks is a pain.

Nightmare

(Developer: BadApps Games – 80 points)

For a Nightmare, this ho-hum platformer/door-opener is awfully bright and colorful. It’s also not so much difficult as it’s time-consuming and tedious.

Avatar… Fly!

(Developer: Ninja Fever – 80 points)

There isn’t much excitement to be had with flying through floating rings, but at least the Avatars look like they’re flying in this one.

The American Hot Dog Race

(Developer: Super Boise 2 – 80 points)

A button-mashing hot dog eating contest which it just as much fun to play as it sounds. Which is to say “not very.”

Avatar Shatter

(Developer: PlayItLoud – 80 points)

You get to blast colorful geometric shapes. With your Avatar! You just run and shoot, run and shoot, run an-ZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

Stop the Woodcutter!

(Developer: Nitama Naishin – 240 points)

It’s a simple little tower defense game where you use cute little woodland creatures instead of actual towers. It looks sharp and adorable, but it doesn’t really do anything notable aside from using a unique theme.

MyBand

(Developer: Kydos – 80 points)

Play your own music on a number of different instruments (there’s even a bagpipe!), either solo or with friends. You can either play to a crowd or record a session in your studio, complete with separate track recordings, overlays and the ability to save finished songs. The cartoonish chicken/hot dog people also bring some distinct and enjoyable personality to the table.

radiangames Crossfire

(Developer: radiangames *duh* – 240 points)

*Must Play*

Holy crap. No, really. Holy. Crap. Crossfire is exactly the kind of game I always hope to encounter when compiling an Indie-Dome. Namely, it’s freaking awesome.

At first it appears to be a love-child between Space Invaders and the Vegas Strip. You shoot bright neon ships with bright neon lasers fired from your bright neon ship while attempting to avoid your enemies’ bright  neon lasers by moving left and right. Tap the Left or Right triggers and suddenly it’s a whole different ball game.

What makes Crossfire truly stand out is your ability to jump from the bottom of the screen (shooting up) to the top (shooting down). This allows you to avoid incoming fire and shoot at your targets’ unprotected backsides. And just like every other game that’s ever been made, things ramp up quite a bit the longer you survive. Some “ships” (they could also be guns, I don’t know, nor do I care) can flip over after a couple seconds to reacquire you, some shoot both ways (*rimshot*) and still others are actually more dangerous if you attack from behind. And they all start showing up at once, in different configurations.

It’s challenging, different, pretty, fun and very difficult to put down. Make sure you have the 240 points ready if you decide to give the trial a go, because you will want to buy this game after you play it.

Aphelion

(Developer: lunatic studios – 240 points)

Not bad for an amateur RPG. Lots of “skill trees” (more like straight lines), a story that doesn’t read like it was penned by an autistic third-grader (i.e. 90% of the story-driven indie games available on XBL)  and some more-than-decent graphics. The animations are a bit awkward and it’s very difficult to figure out what objects in the environment you can interact with, but it’s a decent enough game provided you aren’t already playing any other RPGs.

Stack of Bricks

(Developer: rafaro – 240 points)

A slick looking brick-breaking game full of crazy power-ups and… bouncing. Not a bad game in the slightest (aside from the yawn-inducing Magnetic power-up), but also nothing ground-breaking. Still worth checking out if you like games along the lines of Arkanoid.

Helico Hero

(Developer: Cobalt270 – 240 points)

An objective-based, 2D helicopter simulator. The controls are overly complex and unwieldy, which means more realism but a lot less fun.

MetaElectric Guitar

(Developer: Jordan Mews – 80 points)

Kudos to a “guitar game,” minus the guitar, that offers more control over your sound (i.e. pitch, etc…). Unfortunately you can’t really do anything else with it (not even record) other than make noise.

Leximo

(Developer: Ninth Planet Games – 80 points)

A spelling puzzle game that’s awkward to play. The hex-based grid makes things more visually confusing than they should be, and it’s way too easy to just drop letters anywhere at random and still get a ton of words/complete challenges.

Bombs Away

(Developer: ssteele00 – 80 points)

So your job is to grab bombs dropped from the rooftops by a frog “friendly” alien..? Grab the bombs before they hit the ground or use a “magic detonator” to blow them up in the air. Meh.

*Must Plays*

• radiangames Crossfire (240 points)

*Utter Failures*

• Biz School – Twist-Ed (400 points)
• Bloody Death (240 points)