My favorite board game, -and probably same goes for many of you readers- RISK, is coming to Xbox Live Arcade.

RISK: Factions is the latest digital version of the RISK board game, and will be ready in early 2010 for gamers who would love to own a digital copy of RISK.

We haven’t received any word on whether this will be available on othe consoles besides Xbox360.

What if all the traffic light control is in your hand?

This chaotic idea sounded like a perfect puzzle game, but no one has done it. At least as far as we know.

Wondering what all those colors in the screenshots are for? GLPeas released a real-time traffic management puzzle game call Carcophony. It looks chaotic indeed, isn’t it? Let’s check out the video and see how crazy it gets.

The game isn’t so ADHD friendly, isn’t it?

It’ll cost 400 Microsoft Points and is available now. You can also visit official Carcophony website for more information. – http://www.glpeas.co.uk/carcophony.html

Ion Assault is beautiful.  Beautifully presented particles whizz around the stages, things explode with glorious fanfare, and there is enough eye candy to make you drool.  Unfortunately, it’s somewhat lacking in the gameplay and innovation departments, with extremely frustrating controls to boot.  But…I also suck at two-stick shooters…

Ion Assault is a new release for Xbox LIVE Arcade from the Munich-based game development team Coreplay.  As I mentioned above, it’s a two-stick shooter, where the object of the game is to suck up ammo (particles) by holding down the left trigger, then releasing the sucked up ammo into a blast of energy by letting go of the trigger.  You generally wanna fire this stuff at the asteroids or baddies trying to gun you down, but I enjoyed just shooting the walls and watching everything bounce around, which is probably why I died so often.

Yay! Particles!

As in every other one of these games, avoiding everything whizzing around while destroying everything in your path is the main objective, but confusingly you are able to slam into the asteroids and not die.  The player’s ship is only destroyed when they get shot by a baddie or smash face-first through their windshield.  This seemed like an extremely odd design decision, as it lowers the danger rating considerably for the player.  I definitely found myself involuntarily avoiding the asteroids, dying because I don’t notice the tiny kamikaze AI pilot screaming “BANZAI” as he turns me into ions.

When talking about Ion Assault, it’s impossible to not talk about Geometry Wars and the old-skool Asteroids.  Ion Assault is very derivative of these two games and relies heavily on its “suck-up-the-ions” mechanic to separate itself from the pack.  This does add a bit of differentiation, forcing players to set up shots where they can recover their just blasted ion shot after it bounces off the walls, but unfortunately (or fortunately, if you love Geometry Wars) the mechanic was not enough to make it feel exceedingly innovative.

The controls are another gripe of mine.  While using the second stick to aim, but not shoot, is part of the crux of the gameplay mechanic, it was often frustrating to align shots in the correct manner. Unlike Geometry Wars where your gun can shoot in a full 360 arc, your ion cannon in Ion Assault can only fire from the tip of your vehicle.  This design decision worked fine for Asteroids, and would have worked fine for Ion Assault if the spacecraft didn’t always seem to rotate the wrong direction.  I would constantly be aiming at 6:00, hit the right stick towards about 1:30 and watch as the spacecraft spun around clockwise, instead of the shorter counter-clockwise direction I had wanted.  Many words I shan’t repeat here were spoken loudly at the television screen.

As I began this review, I did make note of the beautiful graphics, to which some attention must be paid.  The particles are swirly marvelousy goodness(y), especially when some of the special items are deployed, and the chaos really gets flowing when stuff is flying all over the place.  It does occasionally get so chaotic that you can’t even see what enemy smashed into you, but that comes with the genre…

Despite the drawbacks, two-stick shooter fans really should enjoy this one.  I focused on the flaws here, but overall the game is a solid offering for fans of the genre.  Going for massive combos to yield the highest score is good clean fun, though the limited campaign offering makes the game a stretch at $10.

Our Score: 7 /10

Crazy particles and two-stick action will entertain fans for hours.

I really wanted to try out the multiplayer, but unfortunately I don’t have any friends in real life (to do split-screen with!) and after waiting 30 minutes in an Xbox LIVE multiplayer lobby looking for a game, I gave up.  If I do happen to make some friends (kidnap my neighbor), or I manage to get in a multiplayer game, you will definitely see this part updated!

When I first picked up Defense Grid, I had no idea what I was in for. Although I enjoy RTS (my main strategy being overwhelm in big numbers), I had never played a tower defense genre. Apparently, it has its roots in a strategy arcade game called Rampart, back in 1990 (holy crap that’s almost 20 years ago!). Anyhoo, as I began to progress through the Campaign mode, I was hooked. I didn’t want to stop. I actually played it about 5 hours straight until I had trouble focusing on the screen. It’s addicting, to say the least.

For those of you who may not know much about this genre, the basic premise is this: you have a map, and you are defending that map from enemies via the construction of different types of towers. In our case, we are protecting “Energy Cores” from “Aliens”. And seriously, that’s about as deep as the story goes. HOWEVER, the gameplay more than makes up for it in depth and strategy.

When you first begin Campaign mode, you only have one type of tower to choose from. But as you progress through the various missions, you are given more and more options for towers; ten in total, each with their own unique strengths and weaknesses. You begin each map with a limited amount of resources with which to build your towers. As you destroy aliens, you gain more resources, which can then be used either to build more towers, or to upgrade the ones you already have. The mechanics are simple enough.

But you can’t just haphazardly put up towers everywhere. The strategy in this game comes in many different layers. As I mentioned, each tower has its unique advantages and disadvantages. For example, the Cannon Tower is powerful and has great range, but it’s fire rate is slow and can’t attack enemies close by. Another factor to consider is the placement of your towers based on range and line of sight. Even if the enemy maybe in a particular tower’s range, if another tower blocks that towers line of sight, it can’t attack. Yet another factor to consider is whether to invest in upgrades or in the number of towers; quality vs. quantity. I tell you, these decisions will keep you entertained for hours.

But its not only the gameplay that gives this title such a high replay value. First of all, there are leaderboards and in-game medals, which automatically boost any game’s replay value. But there’s definitely more to it. Defense Grid comes packed with 20 unique maps, as well as 4 bonus Borderlands Maps, and 3 new challenge mode types, which are 360 exclusive. After beating each mission within the Campaign mode, it unlocks a series of challenge modes on that map. For example, after beating the Focal Point mission, you have access to such challenge modes as Grinder; where you fend off 99 waves of enemies, or 10 Tower Limit; where you must complete the mission with only ten towers on the map.

The presentation of the game as a whole is pretty sweet as well. As expected on a next gen console, the game looks pretty nice. These towers and aliens aren’t just moving blobs. The game allows the player to zoom in and out via the Right Stick, and you can get a nice close-up of the action. Each map has a unique design, each providing its own set of strategic decisions to make. The soundtrack is also pretty nice. It’s not the best soundtrack I’ve heard, but it definitely compliments the game, and in no way detracts from your gameplay.

Overall, I think Defense Grid, priced at only 800 Microsoft Points, is a solid Xbox360 Arcade title and a great purchase. Although I’d never played a tower defense game before, I’m definitely hooked now.

Our Score: 8.5 /10

Ready up your towers and defend away!