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Xbox Live Arcade Unplugged Vol. 1 (X360)

• Developer:
• Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
• Genre:
• Official Website: http://www.xbox.com
• Score: 1 of 5: Save Your Cash

One of Microsoft's biggest draws for casual gamers is the ability to download and play smaller, more bite-sized games in Xbox Live Arcade. Restricted in file size, these games tend to appeal more to the Popcap crowd - the folks that are more easily amused by a game of Bejeweled than they are a marathon session of Rainbow Six: Vegas. For gamers with children and spouses, these are the gateway drugs we can use to get our loved ones familiar with holding a controller in front of the television set. The only barrier to entry is simply having an Xbox Live account. With it, you can download demos of all the games for free, and figure out which ones are worth your time and money. It's a simple, elegant, and relatively painless service.

The only people really left in the cold are those without access to a broadband connection. And it's precisely with those people in mind that Microsoft released the Xbox Live Arcade Unplugged disc, giving you access to Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved, Bejeweled 2, Wik: Fable of Souls, Hardwood Backgammon, Texas Hold ‘Em, and Outpost Kaloki X for $40, a slight discount over the cost of each game individually. The games are likely to appeal to different segments of people, which makes the compilation a confusing mishmash. Geometry Wars, Wik, and Outpost Kaloki are more traditional gamer fare, where by contrast, Bejeweled, Backgammon, and Hold ‘Em will probably appeal to a more mainstream audience.

The Unplugged volume is further confused by the inference that the buyer doesn't have Xbox Live. Presumably, the only reason somebody would buy a disc like this is because they can't access the internet to download the specific games that appeal to them. Why would they then, working under the assumption that the person doesn't have internet access, include Hold ‘Em and Backgammon, which are two games that only really play well with others over Xbox Live? For future volumes of Arcade Unplugged, it would make sense if they included some sort of theme to appeal to specific demographics. As it stands, Volume 1 isn't much good to anybody.

For what it's worth, the disc is relatively painless to use. You simply put it in your disc-drive, and it takes you to the Arcade blade on the 360 dashboard and the games on the disc appear there alongside any other Xbox Live Arcade games you have sitting there. There's no option to copy the games off the disc however, so if you're looking to pick up the disc to get some cheap games then sell it off afterwards, it's not going to work. It's a slick, simple package whose only major flaw is that nobody in their right mind would buy it.

Mar 7, 2007 | 0 comments
Chris Chester