I’m purchasing an Xbox Live Indie Game (XBLIG) every day, seeking out the quality titles that got lost in the shuffle and are not well represented in the top 50 lists on the Xbox Dashboard. Today is day #257, and today’s game is “Twin Blades”.
Twin Blades began as a mildly diverting hack-and-slash game, but a title update brought a host of new features that radically expanded the game’s content. Chief among those additions was a story mode and a host of new areas to fight through. This turned a game that was fun at first, but soon became monotonous, into one that was truly awesome.
Oddly, though it was supposed to be the Xbox Live Deal Of The Week (DOTW) from July 12th to 18th, today’s the 24th and it’s still showing half price (200 points, normally 400) for me so hurry up and buy it if you’re even remotely interested.
First, from the developer (Press Start Studio):
“TwinBlades is a frantic shooter game set in a medieval era with unique manga-like graphics. Help the nun defeat evil with some heavy zombie-killing action across multiple environments, venture through the city market, the cemetary, a chapel in ruins and the city’s outskirts to purge the town of all its living-dead inhabitants!”
This game has also been released for Windows Phone 7, and I became aware of it through the Windows Phone Marketplace (where it was well received, by all reports). But the Xbox 360 is my preferred gaming platform and I happily snapped it up the Xbox Live Indie Games version (a shame developers can’t bundle their XBLIG and WP7 games together).
Twin Blades has you fighting your way through hordes of enemies using both a scythe (melee) and a gun (ranged attacks). Bayonetta would be proud. Dispatching enemies nets you hearts that, when you have enough, you can trade in for upgrades to your attributes and for more ammo (of the 6 available types… yes 6!). The game is a 2D side-scroller with free movement (you’re not always forced to travel in a given direction), and it must be said that the overall presentation (most especially including the excellent animation) is quite impressive.
For a simple hacking, slashing, and shooting game, a tremendous amount of replay value has been bolted on between the many ammo types, the story mode, and the survival mode (where you seek to take out as many enemies as possible before you finally get overwhelmed). Pre-update, the game consisted only of the survival mode so the post-release support for this game from the developer has been fantastic. A good buy at 400 points, but a steal at 200 if you can still snag it.
Click here to download “Twin Blades”, and then please come back after playing to rate the game.
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It’s gone!
I just went back to the Marketplace to buy Twin Blades because I never got round to it, but it no longer exists.
Ok, I checked it out and word is Microsoft took Twin Blades off the market when the PSN port got a ‘mature’ ESRB rating. Something about that rating made Microsoft panic and remove their own versions of it. This information supposedly comes direct from the developers.
Glad I got it before it went down. I wonder if I would be able to re-download it if I deleted my copy? It’s sounding like I probably couldn’t, unfortunately.
If the developers are correct about the reason, then that’s surprising. You can’t even access XBLIG these days unless your parental settings are set to “Mature”, from what I understand.
Steven…so far as I know you are able to re D/L games you own even if they are no longer available to the open market. Not sure about Indie games per say but I am able to re d/l games like Robotron and Joust that I bought but are no longer available. You do have to search through your download history on the computer in order to get them but it is possible so far as arcade games are concerned. Let me know otherwise as I will make a point not to delete them if that is the case.