Review of Garden Gnome Carnage

I played this a game a few years ago when it first came out on Yoyogames. It placed second in a winter competition held on the site. I was pleasantly surprised to see this game available as an Xbox indie game.

In Garden Gnome Carnage you play as a building with a garden gnome tied to your chimney. Soldiers are trying to climb the building in order to liberate the gnome from the building. You don't want that to happen. There are many ways of dealing with these intruders such as swinging your gnome at them, shaking them off your building, throwing explosive bricks at them, and calling in some airstrikes. These guys are relentless though and will come at you in the hundreds with all that they've got. There's also a friendly cat that tries to climb your building to refill your bricks. That cat is the one thing that you do want to reach the chimney. If you chain enough combos together you can also play a quick minigame that will benefit you if you manage to win. The game ends when someone finally reaches your chimney.

Garden Gnome Carnage is one of those crazy ideas that definitely deserve a try. The game is just fun to play. It keeps track of your scores so you can keep track of your progress. It says it has online leaderboards as well but I don't think they are working at the moment. It also has a level up button that allows you to skip the early slow levels and get into the action faster at level 20.

The only downside to buying the game is that you can already play the game for free on several different flash sites with the only difference really being that the flash version is more Christmas oriented with elves/gnomes trying to capture you instead of soldiers. The game is great either way and should be played. It sales for 80 microsoft points.

It is still a great original game a few years later. Garden Gnome Carnage gets a 4/4.

Review of QuickDraw

I'm sure we have all played wild-west style dueling mingames. Those are the ones where you wait for the sign to come up saying "Draw"and the first person to shoot wins. Well QuickDraw revolves around this entire gametype, and the results are surprisingly fun. 

QuickDraw features an Arcade mode which puts you up against opponent after opponent to see how long you can carry on. Each challenger has a slight variation of the duel. Sometimes the rules might easily be the first one to press the correct button wins, while at other times it may be something along the lines of the first one to fire after the can hits the ground. If you ever shoot before the desired time you are given a foul. Two fouls equals a loss. After every five matches or so you get the chance to play a quick round of blackjack to earn an extra life. Each opponent has a score value that goes up after each duel. The dueling will continue until you finally run out of lives. There is also a versus mode where you can either battle your friends locally or you can play against the computer.

I didn't initially think QuickDraw would be anything special but after trying it out I was amazed by how much I liked the game. Everything just works together, from the music to the graphics to the comedic bounty signs. Many of the concepts may be simple but when they come together they make a great game. Honestly I can't really think of anything negative about the game.

QuickDraw is a treasure on XBLIG. The western atmosphere and the solid dueling mechanic make an amazing combination. For only 80 microsoft points you can be dueling all day long. QuickDraw definitely deserves a try!

I give QuickDraw a 4/4!

Review of I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1

This game has a special place in my heart. It was the first game I ever played and bought as an Xbox Live Indie Game. In fact, I don't think I had even heard of Xbox Live Indie Games before this came out. So I thought I might as well do the first review on the first game I played.

Now don't worry, I didn't spell the name wrong. I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1 (or we could just call it Zombie for short) is a dual stick shooter meaning that with one stick you control the movement and with the other one you control the shooting. Other twin stick shooters include Geometry Wars and the Dead Ops Arcade in Black Ops. The game revolves around you running around the area trying your best to survive against thousands of zombies. Zombies aren't the only things after you though. You also have to deal with green slimes, fat zombies, space amoebas, centipede like creatures, geometric shapes, exploding zombies, and very angry demon boxes. Luckily you get a variety of weapons to fight the zombies like shotguns, machine guns, flamethrowers, lasers, and some sort of green shuriken thing along with some power-ups. The point of the game is to survive until the end of the game (or just to survive as long as possible!) It also includes local co-op for up to four players.

This game is amazing. At first you might suspect the game may not be what you are expecting. The menu is plain with no sound or music, and you still see the same "spelling errors" that plagued the title of the game. However, once you start Zombie up you will see how great the game is. The graphics are very well done and seem good enough to be put up on an XBLA title. They range from well drawn zombies to retro looking boxes. The background also changes as the game goes on giving a different feel of scenery. (One warning though: if you suffer from seizures you may want to stay away from the game, at several points the backgrounds and enemies all flash in different bright colors which may not be very good for you!) One of the best parts of Zombie though are the songs. Throughout the game you can hear the developer singing about fighting zombies and buying the game. I think the music is good enough to buy the game just for that. If you survive the whole thing it will take about 12 minutes from start to finish. Not the longest game ever but you most likely won't make it through your first few times. Also it's fun enough that you'll come back to play it again. It has local high-scoring as well if you are into that. Zombie is so great the only minor complaint I have is that I can't tell how many lives I have because my gamertag is too large. Everything else I think is just right for the game.

Zombie sells for the very large amount of 80 microsoft points ($1). There is really nothing bad I can say about this game. Everything works well and runs smoothly. Honestly I don't see a reason why someone wouldn't buy it. I highly recommend I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1 to everyone!

I give it a 4/4!