It’s that time of year again, and we find ourselves on the cusp of yet another Xbox Live Summer of Arcade. Last year saw some fantastic games that might be hard to top, from the award-winning Limbo to the wonderfully entertaining Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. We were lucky enough to get our hands on one of the upcoming Summer of Arcade games last month in the form of Ubisoft’s From Dust, and if it’s any indication of the quality of the rest of this year’s Summer of Arcade offerings, we’re in for a big treat.
All but one of the Summer of Arcade titles this year will run 1,200MSP ($15). The only aberration is Halfbrick’s Fruit Ninja for Kinect, which will be available for 800MSP ($10). Last year’s incentive for purchasing all five games was 1,200 free MSP. This year, purchasing all five Summer of Arcade titles will earn you a sixth title for free: Crimson Alliance. There’s been a bit of a hubbub on the Internets about this, since one of the required purchases is only functional with the Kinect hardware. It does seem to cut off a large portion of the potential market, and discourages players from purchasing games they may have purchased to get Crimson Alliance for free.
What are we looking forward to this year?
- Bastion – 7/20 – An action role-playing with a reactive narrator, recounting your story as you play it.
- From Dust – 7/27 – From the creator of “Another World,” a god-mode game with environment modification and puzzle solving.
- Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet – 8/3 – A side-scrolling action-adventure UFO simulator.
- Fruit Ninja Kinect – 8/10 – The Kinect version of the iOS classic. Slice up fruit by flailing your arms like a fool.
- Toy Soldiers: Cold War – 8/17 – A follow-up to last year’s successful game, Toy Soldiers.
I know of at least three that I’m incredibly interested in. Just over three weeks to go, so get your MSP ready!
