XBL indie spotlight - I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1

I'm long overdue to write an article here, so here we go! While there's been many, MANY retail games that are well worth owning released this summer, it’s pretty obvious that with the economy the way it is and the sheer number of things going on in peoples lives that sometimes you just can’t afford to spend a full 60$ on something new. For those of you who are on a budget, there’s been plenty of great sales on Steam and some amazing PSN and Xbox Live Arcade games going from 10-15$. For people that aren’t able to spend that much either, this is exactly the type of game you’ve been looking for. Since Geometry Wars came out years ago, its formula has been reiterated and cloned many times, so it’s easy to think you’ve seen everything that can be done with twin stick shooters. Luckily, there’s some pretty amazing people out there that want to prove otherwise. Enter I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1: a game that I bought simply because of the laughable title, the fact that it only cost 80 Microsoft points (1$), and the incredibly minimalist box art which stood out in the Indie Games section. It sat on my hard drive for 2 days, unplayed but not forgotten, until I had some downtime two days later, so I finally decided to fire it up.



While its gameplay is still a reiteration of the tried-and-true twin stick shooter format, there’s a certain charm in its construction that has to be experienced once in everyone’s life. Since Portal came out, people have occasionally tried their hands at making a game with a comedic ending song (Portal - Still Alive, and You Have To Burn The Rope come to mind), but this game is almost built around this concept. While it’s fun to play on its own, the real humor of the game comes from the amazing song blaring in the background, which I don’t want to ruin here. The great thing about the music in the game is that just when it starts to get old, it switches into another version of the song and the map and graphics changes accordingly, along with introducing new enemies and weapons. I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1 is one of those things that might have benefited from online play or an online leader board, but even without it, there’s tons of laughs to be had each time you play the game. It’s hard to say too much about it without kind of spoiling or possibly overhyping the experience, so do yourself a favor and download it with those 80 points you’ve had laying around on your account or at least give the demo a chance.