Christmas Carnage

Christmas is so depressing, even
Santa drinks to cope.

Christmas is fast approaching, which means its time for a slew of Christmas games to burst forth from the great Xbox Live Indie Game hole in the sky. Christmas Carnage, created by Bandana Games, is officially the first game to break the 2012 "Christmas Game" seal, but how does it compare to the many other non-Christmas themed shooters?

What a lot of people don't know is that this is how penises
work too. If one ball goes out, the whole thing ceases to function.

The two main themes found in Christmas Carnage are Christmas and simplicity. Up to four players can participate at a time, and all you really do is fly around the screen as a fairy and shoot projectiles at the myriad of Christmas themed objects that fly at you from every direction. From presents to Christmas lights to gingerbread men and candy canes, every major element found on a table full of Christmas crap is presented here for you and your friends to destroy beyond recognition. For those of you who harbor an unfettered rage towards the holiday season, you'll find yourself at peace here. For everyone else, you might want to grab a child-based relative to play with you, because as an adult you won't really have much incentive to continue playing after you beat the game.

These screen shots are starting to disconcert me... why are
the fairies always in a perfect square? Was this play tested by a
Borg family!?

That's not to imply that Christmas Carnage is bad, because it is completely playable. The game has a few power ups for you to find that sporadically appear, and the enemies that will assault you come in copious bunches. But other than that, Christmas Carnage has no learning curve what so ever, which is why I suggest playing it with a younger brother or sister. They'll have an easy time enjoying themselves and probably be delighted by the Christmas paraphernalia dancing across the screen. The game does have a small degree of difficulty, but it shouldn't be much of a problem for an older player to help defend a younger gamer if need be.

The game also counts down how many days are left until Christmas as well as provide snarky comments at the outset of each level. The game also promises to reveal the true meaning of Christmas at it's conclusion, so you'll need to massacre 21 levels of enemies before you can find out what that is.

I remember when my dad took me out to chop down a Christmas tree.
They were all pre-decorated with ornaments which they hurled at us as we
tried to hack away at their legs and take one home. Wait. I think I'm getting
confused with the time we tried to kidnap an old man and use him as a Christmas
tree. Nevermind!

I do think Christmas Carnage is fun, but it doesn't have a whole lot of depth to it. If you have little gamers who you'd like to get pumped up for Christmas so that they explode with excitement on the big day after you've presented them with the genetically modified Monkey Pony you got them so you can record their reaction and forever immortalize on the Youtubes, Christmas Carnage will be fun for the entire gaming family. You can even wrap grandma's gnarled arthritis ridden paws around a controller and have her join in on the fray, because even she will be able to recognize the value of an 80 MSP game.

Nobody won the code I have for Space Crüesader because only Luchalma commented! Since I still have that code and now one for Christmas Carnage, if you leave a comment on this entry I'll pick a winner on Dec. 21st who will receive the codes for both games! Good luck!

Weekly Indie Game Release List for Dec. 2nd - 9th

Hey everyone. Sorry for the huge lack of updates recently. If you want to know more about whats going on with my health, check out my update on my "About Me" page. Long story short, I'm okay. I can't guarantee I'll adhere to my update schedule until I get my surgery and recover from that, but I'll do my best until then. I'll be posting the release list for last week today, and then a review for Christmas Carnage later this evening.

Without further ado, here's the Xbox Indie Games that came out from Dec. 2nd to the 8th!

Avatar Farm Update

Sorry for the lack of updates everyone. I'd like to keep this updated with reviews every Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, but I've been suffering from health issues lately that sometimes prevent me from being able to concentrate on writing due to headaches. I should be getting this taken care of shortly though, and I'll continue to review indie games as much as I can. I'll be posting a review for Christmas Carnage tomorrow!

But enough about me, in other news if your a fan of Avatar Farm Online an update was just released for it today! Click here for the details.

Another game with a big update that should be coming soon is Total Miner: Forge. I've been keeping an eye on their forum, and the next update sounds like it's going to implement a ton of changes. It's really awesome that they're going to update the existing game instead of releasing another version of it. If you don't already have it, it's currently selling for 240 MSP. That's a bit pricer than most indie games, but Total Miner: Forge is a quality voxel type game that stands above the rest that's about to get even better. Check it out!

Release List for Nov 25 - Dec 1st

A ton of indie games came out this week.... holy crap! To help my blog not be such a chore to load, I'm going to start putting my posts behind breaks. Honestly, I should be doing that anyway. So, without further ado, here are the Xbox Live Indie Games that came out for the week of Nov. 25th through Dec. 1st!

(Note: If you're a developer of one of these games and you have a website, please tell me! In my opinion it's really important to have a website for you company, and if you have a forum it gives your fans a way to interact with you. People want to tell you how much they love your game... so make sure they have a way to do it!)

Space Crüesader

I found this in my attic!

I've been a long time fan of single screen bullet hell games such as Super Stardust and Geometry Wars. Super Stardust in particular I played extensively, as I had in on my PSP and could take it with me where ever I went. So when the recently released Space Crüesader came out, I had to try it out and see if it would cause me to get sucked into the genre once again. For only 80 MSP are you getting you're money's worth?

Avatar Monster Truck

Let's go jump over a line of school buses!

A lot of times when I think of Monster Trucks I think of the huge, trailer trashy version of normal cars with their engorged tires leaping over other vehicles and crushing everything that passes under their wheels. An announcer screams the day of the week over and over again while the behemoths shred the earth beneath them, and if the audience is lucky they might even get to see someone get hurt, or better yet, die. Recently the indie game Avatar Monster Truck was released, and I was curios to see if it lives up to the epic sized tires found in the real life arenas.

Indie Game Release List for Nov. 18th - 24th.

Nov. 18th

• Alpha Ship

• Xbox Live Description - A new exciting and fun way to learn the letters of the English language! Hear their sounds and enjoy the fun experience of learning!
• Price -  80 MSP
• Co-Op - NONE
• Website - Dingy (The developer doesn't have a website, so I assume this game was designed by a dingy bobbing up and down in a lake.)
• Game Type - Educational space... thing?

Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage

WHAT? THIS ISN'T AN INDIE GAME!

This week saw the arrival of the new Borderlands 2 DLC, Mr.Torgue’s Campaign of Carnage, and it leaves us with only one question: ARE YOU READY FOR EXPLOSIONS?! If you’re a fan of Borderlands 2, and explosions, I would assume your answer would be in form of a fireball. But for those of you who are on the pile of nukes, wondering if you should hit the big red button and spend your hard earned Microsoft Points, is this new DLC worth the 800 MSP price tag?

Rainbow Rapture

Nothing about this box art implies the
 mass murdering you're about to commit.

I've had Rainbow Rapture sitting on my Xbox 360 since it originally came out on December of 2011 and I've been playing it off and on ever since. In the game you play as a Rainbow Cloud who has awoken from his slumber and is entirely dissatisfied with what’s going on down on Earth. So what does he decide to do? EAT. EVERYONE.

Avatar Farm Online

The horse is watching.
He's always watching.
Always.

Avatar Farm Online was recently released on November 16^th 2012 and made by Milkstone Studios. They originally created Avatar Farm, which has been their most successful game to date. Avatar Farm is much like the social Facebook game Farmville and its ilk, but the original version had no online components. The newly released Avatar Farm Online fixes this problem, and now you can visit other people’s farm and help them out with it, if they allow visitors to do so. How are the online components, and how does Avatar Farm Online compare to other farm sims?