Review: MotorHEAT

Developer Milkstone Studios used to supply the Xbox Live Indie Games channel with high quality titles and MotorHEAT is one of my favorites from their impressive lineup, which consists of almost 30 titles! Considering this high output, you'd suspect the quality of their games to be sub-par but Milkstone never failed to deliver very polished products. This 3D endless racer was no exception and was one of the best racing games on XBLIG. Fortunately, it can also be purchased on PC (please note the disclaimer at the end of the review!) and there's a demo available to download from the developer's website so you can witness the intense speed rush this game has to offer with your own eyes. But beware: playing this game will dry up your eye sockets, so better get your eye drops ready!

Trial impressions: Zombie Death Car

Yet another Xbox LIVE Indie Game with zombies in it, but this time things are different. This is not your usual "mind-blowing" twin stick or sniping shooter. No, this time you will have to do without a shotgun or rifle, your only weapon is an old police muscle car, the infamous Zombie Death Car, which - as its name implies - brings death to zombies that are trying to escape, but is hurting the player way more than the undead, who have my sympathy for trying to get out of this 3D driving game. The developer's description: "Stop the zombie hoard from escaping with your car." Well, I would hand them the keys...

IndieWatch Episode Four presents another fine selection

Taking a look at the current german Top Downloads list reveals what a dashboard promotion like GamePro's IndieWatch can do for titles that are featured in it. Episode four went live on the german dashboard last Tuesday, and since then all of the games covered in the video have reappeared among the Top Downloads and on high positions on the best selling today list on Xbox.com. GamePro's selection in the new episode of IndieWatch presents some of the finest games available on XBLIG:

Review: Dirchie Kart

Roaring retro racing

The first attempt on XBLIG to capture the spirit of 16-bit kart racers like Super Mario Kart was Wacky Karts, but this title suffered from an unforgiving balancing and "wacky" controls that made it mostly unenjoyable. Now a new contender by independent developer BrownBot has arrived on the marketplace, and their game Dirchie Kart does a way better job at delivering a fun kart racing experience. The full version includes ten different race tracks, three game modes, Avatar support and four player split screen matches. Battle and Drag events are accessible only in multiplayer mode and offer three Battle arenas and one Drag track. Due to a lack of multiple players, this review focuses on the single player component but will at least give some impressions gained from plugging in a second controller and checking out some two player split screen features. The standard single player race mode gives sufficient insight in what this game is about, though.