Trials Evolution is the sequel to the popular Trials HD.  Essentially it's a simple concept, a motorbike stunt game that uses exaggerated physics and complex courses to challenge your thumb and finger coordination.  Each course is a wild ride that rewards you for speed and punishes you for mistakes.

The rewards come in the form of medals that unlock harder levels, but more importantly, the sheer crazy joy of lading that massive jump perfectly lining yourself up for the next obstacle.

The game is split into several different sections, each proceeded with a license trial, that teaches you new tricks and unlock a new bike.  Each section is of course more difficult than that previous, and before long the game starts to get real difficult.  The addictive quality of the game will make you push on, challenging yourself to complete just one more level.

Then you get to the point where you don't have enough medals to unlock the next license, so you'll have to go back to previous sections and try and upgrade the bronze medal to a silver or gold.  With a faster bike and well honed skills you're surprise yourself at how these earlier levels no seem a lot tamer.

Eventually you'll get to the level where you can't make it over the first obstacle, even after 50 or even a 100 tries.  The game begins to get maddeningly frustrating.  But the game has worked so well, and given so much fun up to this point that you're willing to keep trying, until you make it past that obstacle onto the next.  If fact you're so drawn into the world of Trials Evolution, that you'll be so determined to finish the level that you won't give you.  You may realise you'll never get anything more that a bronze medal, but there' noting that's going to stop you from getting the bronze.

And if that just sounds like Trials HD to you, well it is.  And it's not.  Where Trials HD had you competing over levels all pretty much in the same warehouse, Trials Evolution takes you outside where no too levels are the same in look or approach.  The levels twist and turn and the scenery is amazing and sometimes interactive.

There's even levels that pay tribute to other popular XBox Live Arcade games such as Limbo.

As much as the basic game is worth the price on it's own, Trails Evolution does have some less than stellar features added to it.  The main one being the ability to unlock gear that you can spend your earnings on.  Clothes and motorbike parts are available if you have the money - the problem is that these add-on parts don;t do anything but change the look slightly.  No performance bonus, nothing.  There is nothing compelling you to spend the money you earn, because it really adds nothing to the game.

The second thing that's been added on is multiplayer.  I wasn't sure that this would really work, and quite possibly I'm not alone, because the times I have tried to find some online races, I've been unable to.  This could of course be due to my geographical location or the weird times I play.

But these are minor issues that don't affect the core game.  One thing I haven't tried yet, but is bound to extend the life of Trials Evolution is the custom track editor.  Once enough crazy people have mastered this, there could be an almost unlimited supply of new user created challenges to embrace.

As for me, I'm still happy trying to get those last few medals so I can unlock what is bound to be an insanely hard final area.

The original Alan Wake was an atmospheric horror that dripped with suspense and real terror.  It was a game you wanted to play with the lights on.  American Nightmare takes a different route.  Gone are the lush if terrifying woods, replaced with a more open desert landscape, and gone is the suspense, replaced with a more generic action driven story-line.  A story-line that has a distinct pulpy feel too it.

Alan Wake finds himself trapped inside a TV show he wrote - think Twilight Zone - called Night Springs, and in this show his evil doppelganger, Mr, Scratch has ripped through time and space and unleashed his mindless killing machines, the Taken, possessed by the Dark Presence.  Ordinary looking humans that hate the light and are susceptible to bullets.  But this times there's a few surprises, with different types of enemies, some that will multiply if you shine light on them, and some that are, well, giant spiders.

The story mode is the main part of the game, and will see you trying to solve the mystery whilst collecting manuscript pages and not getting killed.  Graphically the game is on par with the original, with the same spectacular lighting effects.  It's a testament to Remedy's skills that they've been able to produce such a polished XBox Live Arcade Game - it really is visually as good as the original retail version, though possibly a tad shorter.

the weird thing about American Nightmare is the whole voice over technique that drives the story, speaking in the third person, because you're part of a TV show.  It takes a little getting used to, but once the action kicks in, you'll forget all about the weirdness as you desperately seek out a safe zone.

Along with the story mode, American Nightmare comes with a Fight Till Dawn mode where you have to stay alive and defeat waves of the Taken.

All up Alan Wake's American Nightmare is a surprising departure from the survival horror feel of the original, and may not be quite up to spec for fans of the original, but is in essence still an Alan Wake game, and whilst i may be lacking in some aspects, it packs quite a punch for a downloadable arcade game that clocks in at less than $30 for a brand new game.

Discover Trials Evolution, the most awaited XBLA game of the year! Bust out of the warehouse into an outdoor world. Multiplayer comes alive, in your living room or on Xbox LIVE. Build your own tracks with the included editor.

Dim lights

The end of the world was a long time coming.  With rumours of I Am Alive beginning in 2008, a change in developer and a total re-working, at some stage of it's life, I Am Alive barely seemed to be breathing.  Fortunately UbiSoft stayed on target and finished the game.

The basic premise of the game, is that it's been a year since the event that destroyed most of humanity, laying waste to cities and creating a toxic dust cloud.  You play a man who has spent the last year making his way back to his home in a mid sized American city, in a effort to find his wife and child.  We come into the game as he nears the outskirts of the city and has to find his way across a badly damaged suspension bridge.

It's on this bridge where we learn one of the games unique game-play mechanics; stamina.  You only have a certain amount of stamina, and for walking around it's fine, but when you start climbing, your stamina starts to rapidly fall, and if you don't make it to where you're climbing - or at least to a ledge that you can rest on - before your stamina runs out, you'll fall to your death.  You can visually see your stamina running out via the HUD, and the ominous music that starts playing will send shivers of dread coursing through you body.

Once you've learnt a few tricks about climbing and resting, you'll be onto the next game mechanic, solving the puzzle of where to go next.  Sure, you've got a mini-map you can pull up, but that only shows you what direction to go in, not how to make it across a woefully destroyed bridge.

Then it's on to the sewers where you'll get your first taste of humanity gone bad.  You have a gun but no bullets, so you'll learn how to threaten and bluff your way to getting past people, or forcing them into a position where you can kick them off a ledge to their death.  Soon you'll have one or two bullets (and you'll need to use them wisely) and a machete.  This gives you more options for dealing with bigger groups of survivors, intent of killing you.

I Am Alive is a very linear game, though there is plenty to explore, and you really have to explore, because you can find items that will save your life, such as water and medicine, both essential for restoring stamina and health.

The graphics seem somewhat dated when you first begin, but the story and moody dust filled post apocalyptic cityscape draws you in almost completely and the odd graphical glitch doesn't seem to bother you.

Two things however will get on your nerve.  One is the occasionally niggly controls that can make it had to get your character to climb where you want him to, and then there's the long periods between save points, necessitating some very long replaying of certain parts of the game.

But these are only niggles, and once you allow yourself to get drawn into this horrific new world, you won't want to leave.

Discover Babel Rising, the New God Game on Xbox Live and PSN. Babel Rising lets you play as a God and use your powers to prevent humans from building the tower of Babel...

Dim lights

Dim lights
Nobody knows what really happened on that day. Most people died, and the few remaining survivors are just as damaged as our world after the Event. In this craziness, you have to fight to survive, because humanity is just a stupid dream that disappeared with the rest of our life.
Only one thing is sure: I Am Alive...

Gotham City Impostors is a new XBLA Batman themed shooter from Warner Brothers, selling for 1200MSP. It’s Batman ‘themed’ because Batman and his many villains never appear themselves, instead you play in a team of sad, delusional vigilante wanna-bes, either as Bats or Jokers.

The game is multi-player only and is heavily inspired by a certain big brand retail shooter on the XBox. Anybody that has played any of those multiple versions of that franchise will feel right at home here. However while GCI feels a lot like that other shooter in terms of play, it also packs enough differences to make it a pretty unique experience. You can snag a 60 minute time limited trial to give it a crack. Although with only an hour to play you’ll be missing out on a  ton of content to unlock and experiment with as you rank up your character - there’s up to 500 XP levels to earn!

First up your vigilante’s appearance is highly customisable using costume unlocks you can purchase in-game with ‘costume coins’, or if you’re flush with cash, real life MSP. The costumes are entirely cosmetic but do give you a lot of options for making your Joker and Batman team character unique.

Next up, GCI borrows an idea from Brink here and you have up to five un-lockable body types, from a bantam weight character with fast sprint, up to the freakishly massive tank. Your body type naturally modifies how fast you move in game, how much damage you can take, and dish out (with melee attacks), how big a target you present, as well as how much lugging heavy weaponry around slows you down. The body types definitely lend themselves to different play styles and their speeds and abilities are noticeable in-game. There’s also something funny about facing down a huge angry clown with fluro-green hair and a machine gun while you’re playing a scrawny Batguy in his garbage bag cape and tighty whiteys.

Naturally there’s a bunch of weapon unlocks in predictable categories: pistols, shotguns, SMGs, rifles, heavy weapons a sniper weapons. The sniper weapons seem particularly overpowered in GCI and you’ll get one-shot killed a fair amount by a sniper ‘sports bow’, which can get a little tiresome - hopefully they’ll be a little nerfed in the next update. The weapons have a bunch of perks you can unlock in the form of different scopes, barrels and extended magazines. Of course there’s also a bunch of challenges for each weapon that will give you XP if you complete them. Nothing terribly innovative here and the weapon unlock system is probably the most cookie cutter, ‘CODesque’ part of GCI.

Fortunately you’ve also got support unlocks for your characters which is really where GCI gets interesting. You start out with a great support unlock with is a Batman style grapnel gun. Using this gun correctly really lets you explore the vertical space of each map and get the drop on opponents from above, or fight them across the rooftops which ties in nicely with the Batman theme. In fact a lot of support unlocks you can earn encourage you to travel the maps in three dimensions: there’s a glider rig which lets you fly with the help of in-map air vents, spring shoes which let you power jump with a cool down, inflatable insoles which give you a double jump, and a set of roller skates that give you a massive speed boost and let you hit skate ramps laid around the levels. Other unlocks include several options for laying booby traps, as well as tossed explosives and body armor and one particularly annoying unlock that renders you invisible for a short time. There’s a set of ‘fun facts’ you can unlock for your character as well, which are essentially COD-style perks, including death perks.

The five bright, daylight maps that come with the game have also been designed as tight, three dimensional arenas. Each map is a mix of indoor and outdoor spaces, with doorways and windows to travel through, and a lot of room to move vertically over roofs, or onto stacked containers, vehicles etc. Just be careful while you’re racing around though because many of the maps also have built-in traps that will kill the unwary. The maps work very well with the support unlocks and you’ll find yourself grappling, gliding or roller skating around them quite happily. It’s this ‘full 3d fighting space’ that really makes GCI different from your average shooter and it took me a little while to notice how rich it makes the levels if you get off the ground and start lurking on rooftops, behind the water towers and billboards - just like a certain angry millionaire vigilante! There’s quite a few in-jokes scattered around the maps too if you take the time to stop and look.

You can play on these maps in one of three modes: Team Deathmatch, ‘Fumigation’ which is basically COD’s Domination mode  and finally a CTF mode where you have to capture and carry a very leaky battery to your team’s propaganda machine to temporarily cripple the enemy.

As the game is multi-player only, the matchmaking is pretty important. Fortunately there seem to be a lot of people playing GCI on the Xbox which is great because you’ll generally get a match pretty quickly. I notice it’s also at the top of Major Nelson’s Live Activity report this week which is nice to see. However I have to say playing from New Zealand will penalise you somewhat - I assume because most servers will be US or European since this is an XBLA title and not full retail. There are definitely lag issues both during matchmaking and occasionally in-game, and I’ve noticed I consistently seem to have a red connection speed marker in the player list. I’ve also been dropped repeatedly during matchmaking with ‘Lost Connection’ messages, although this could be attributed to launch week jitters rather than lag as it seems to have settled down a bit.

I’m hoping GCI has some staying power because it’s definitely a rich game for a multi-player XBLA title. In fact it’s probably a richer experience than some retail FPS titles from last year (yes Brink I’m looking at you). I should also mention that there’s an extensive stats tracking website and ‘turf war’ meta game that supports GCI through the use of a mandatory ‘Warner ID’. This is mildly annoying to set up when you first play the game, but I do love a good stats site and that’s unusual to see in an XBLA title like this.

There’s more good news too because the first DLC pack for GCI will be free and will contain a new map to battle on as well as a bunch of other bits and bobs, and what sounds like some changes to matchmaking so hopefully the experience will only improve.

So to wrap it up, if you’ve got a faded Batman or Joker t-shirt in your closet, and you’re looking for a cheap multi-player FPS that’s rich in quirky unlocks and colourful game play with some definitely unique twists, Gotham City Impostors is worth checking out.

Shank 2 is another of those sequels to a game I never played, so if you're looking for a blow by blow comparison to the first Shank, you're in the wrong place.  For everyone like me, who missed the first incarnation of this XBox Live Arcade 2D brawler, read on.

Shank 2 is the great grandchild of games I used to play in dark dingy arcades during my miss-spent youth.  A side scrolling two-deminsional game that sees you fighting your way through levels of enemies, starting off using your bare hands but picking up a plethora of weapons on your way through.  End of level bosses and a little hint of platforming lends a bit of variety, but in essence, it's kill or be killed.  Essentially the only different between this and my youthful addictions is that back in the day, the games were run through a chunky arcade machine that has about as much power as a pinhead does these days and consequently, the chunky 8 bit graphics didn't do the games justice.

But today with the power of modern consoles Shank 2 is a visceral delight, with bright crisp cartoony graphics bringing the game to life, and bringing a demented childhood joy in the blood letting that happens as you rampage through level after level of joyous violence.

It's no wonder Shank 2 got a R16 rating, but before anyone gets their knickers in a twist, it's cartoon violence, albeit, adult cartoon violence.

Strangely addictive and easy to get into, Shank 2 is one of those games you'll find yourself playing in-between games for something a little different, and non-taxing on the grey matter.

Xotic, available from the XBLA Market place is a FPS game of sorts. It’s got your average evil darkness of evil that wants to take over everything. You happen to be the chosen one and must stop said evil and hopefully banish it for good.

Whilst this game has some interesting ideas (Your gun is a symbiotic fly) it really just failed to do anything for me. The graphics are pretty average and in a word 'neon', everything seems to emit more bloom than a Halo gun. The artistic direction looks too stylised and comes across as primitive and lacking polish. The hand full of maps I managed to play were small and seemed to be overly forcing the game mechanics. I understand the maps get more complex as the game progresses but frankly my eyes were getting tired of the glaring colours and trying to distinguish bad guys from back ground after the first few levels.

My biggest grief is that trying to find neon lights in a neon lit environment is a bit of an eye strain, in order to find all the lights and secrets you need to navigate the map in 3 dimensions which might have been a challenge it wasn't for the power of creating platforms under your feet. The difficulty curve is a little wonky and by the 4th level I was facing opponents who could kill me in a couple hits which might have been because I didn't know a good path for upgrading my skills.

The aim of Xotic is to blast through the levels and gun for the highest score, the story provides little more than a just because and since leader boards haven't interested me since Pac Man it’s more of a method to get a few extra game score.

Xotic seems like it wants to be a platform game with exploring and scoring elements disguised as an fps. But it tends to just end up being a bit of an eye strain and stopped being fun. If you dropped the symbiotic part and let me play as a fly I would likely have enjoyed it more. If you’re a competitive player and love getting high scores you will likely enjoy this more than me if you prefer getting a Kill Death Ratio, look elsewhere.

I like zombies.  Some would say I love them.  But I'm also very particular about my zombies.  There are a lot of crap zombie games out there, and one good one, Dead Island.  All Zombies Must Die takes a totally different route, and in reality the zombies are just window dressing.

The town of Deadhill, so the story goes, has been overrun by the undead, and you have to escape in this lets-not-take-things-too-seriously twin stick shooter with subtle RPG overtones.  From the cartoon graphics too the I-know-I'm-a-game cheesy dialogue All Zombies Must Die has one aim in mind: to make killing zombies fun, and satisfying.

In the beginning, things are a blast, you'll just want to stay rampaging around the first stage killing zombies left, right and center.  Its that much fun.  But to progress you have to pass through a gate, and it's here the All Zombies Must Die potentially stumbles.

Along with the undead, Deadhill has been plagued by a series of gates controlled by a robotic gatekeeper who thinks he's a stand up comedian.  And sure, he's funny the first couple of times, but the he gets old real quick. So do his quests.  To progress onto the next level, you have to complete a challenge for the gatekeeper.  It's a simple mechanic that works at first, but makes the game repetitive and predictable towards the end.

And that's the main problem with All Zombies Must Die - it never goes anywhere.  It's the same thing, over and over again.

Having said that, it's quirky and fun, and because it's downloaded onto your hard drive, you don't have to mess round with inserting a disk, you can just fire up the XBox and have five minutes of mad-cap fun.  With zombies.