This is a more niche list, but it means a lot to me. I’ve absolutely loved video games for pretty much my entire life. But somehow, my love for the medium grew more than I could have anticipated during the Xbox 360 era. In part, this is because the medium took a big step forward this generation with its storytelling and production values. But the other reason for that was an online platform called Xbox Live Arcade. While the service was on the original Xbox (I was a big Zuma fan), it was on the Xbox 360 when the platform truly reached its highest highs. Essentially, this was the start of console indie games (and smaller releases from bigger developers) being very easily accessible on a digital marketplace, and Xbox Live Arcade helped highlight these games.
As we started to see AAA games get bigger and fancier in this era, it was refreshing to play smaller titles that were still impactful in their own ways. Xbox Live Arcade taught me about how having these smaller experiences in between the big ones can really enhance gaming. Variety is the spice of life!
The biggest highlight of Xbox Live Arcade for me was the yearly “Summer of Arcade” event that took place from 2008-2013. Usually, in the July to August range, there would be a 5 week stretch where one pretty prominent indie game or smaller release would come out each week. This was also during the time of year that is usually pretty dead for AAA games. This five week stretch was often my favorite gaming stretch all year.
Obviously, I understand why Microsoft did away with Xbox Live Arcade as it hit the Xbox One era. By the end, there were plenty of indie games that could stand toe to toe with any AAA game in terms of quality. Separating them and making them an “other” could be considered a disservice to them. But man, I miss it. While it’s a net positive that it’s so much easier for anyone to come out with a game now, we’ve reached an era where clicking on the “new releases” tab in a game store is rarely all that helpful. You have to sift through so much crap to get to anything good sometimes, as my friend Paul wrote about with Nintendo a while back. The beauty of Xbox Live Arcade was that I could open it up and pretty much only see at least decent quality games. I think that curation was helpful in building indie games to what they are today, and I think the marketing from events like Summer of Arcade was also helpful there.
Today, we have more awesome indie games than ever coming out every month and almost every week. We are spoiled. I’d say that today’s era is much better than the Xbox Live Arcade era for many reasons, but it was still a damn special time. Here are my top 10 Xbox Live Arcade games ever.
Past Lists:
My Top 10 Game Boy Advance Games
10. Stacking
Double Fine had a nice little run on Xbox Live Arcade. It developed some quality games like Costume Quest and the very underrated Iron Brigade. But my favorite from them has always been Stacking. This game is very weird but very neat. You play as a Russian stacking doll, and you need to stack yourself into other dolls who have various abilities to advance through each level. The game had some fun exploration and multiple solutions to several of its puzzles. It also has a great art style and is just brimming with personality. The concept is so out there, and the execution is so strong that I couldn’t help but be taken in by this one. It’s actually my favorite game from Double Fine to this day, and yes, that includes Psychonauts. It seems unlikely at this point, but I would be so hyped for a sequel.
9. Orcs Must Die!
I was in love with the tower defense genre the first time I experienced it, and I was constantly craving more. But it’s a genre that kind of gets old after a while, in my opinion. I quickly shifted to needing tower defense games to be a bit more interesting in order to play them. Luckily, this era had a nice string of “active” tower defense games that let you fight alongside all of your towers and traps. My favorite of those games was Orcs Must Die!
Orcs Must Die! has the standard tower defense stuff that people love about the genre, but being up close and personal and actually watching orcs get wrecked is always a good time. The level design is strong, there are lots of fun traps, and the action elements are good enough when combined with everything else. The game also had a lot of personality and charm. I had an absolute blast with this formula and poured a whole lot of hours into it.
8. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
One of the coolest things about looking back on Xbox Live Arcade is seeing developers who got their start on it that are now a very big deal. Before Josef Fares went on to start Hazelight studios (which has made a game of the year winner in It Takes Two, and another huge and phenomenal game in Split Fiction), he was the director for Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons.
You can see Fares’ desire to create a co-op game here, even though this is a single-player game. You play Brothers as… two brothers, and you can control both of them with the same controller at the same time (one joystick and trigger is for each brother). The game essentially works a lot like the modern games from Hazelight, as you use both brothers to solve various environmental puzzles, but you are doing this by yourself. As someone who is usually more of a single-player gamer, I enjoyed how the game captured some of the fun from co-op puzzle solving within a single-player framework. The game also manages to have a pretty well told and emotional story without using any dialogue. While the overall gameplay has gotten way bigger and more fun within the new games from Hazelight, I don’t think any game from that studio has quite matched the storytelling in Brothers. Thanks to its unique concept and design, Brothers has always stood out as one of the best from this era of indie games.
7. Spelunky
Spelunky is the game that got me into roguelikes, and I have never stopped loving the genre since. Your goal is to make it to the bottom of a cave that is filled with traps and monsters. There’s really fun and intense platforming, combined with resource management for items like bombs and destructible environments that keep every run interesting. I wish the game had ways to upgrade your character in-between runs, as is more of the norm these days, but the core gameplay is so fun that it didn’t matter much to me in the moment. Your “progression” in Spleunky just involves getting better at the game and learning more about it. Eventually, you should get good enough to beat it. I can’t think of a better way to get introduced to this genre back when this came out.
6. Shadow Complex
I’m not re-releases on this list, so you won’t see Symphony of the Night on this list, which famously made its way to Xbox Live Arcade. But even without that game, Xbox Live Arcade had several other Metroidvanias that really made me fall in love with that genre.
One of the biggest to release on Arcade was Shadow Complex. Shadow Complex combines fast-paced and fun 2D shooting gameplay with classic Metroidvania elements and RPG mechanics to be a blast from the opening minutes. It’s just incredibly well made and fun. It deserved all the hype it got.
Despite seeming to be a pretty big success, the developers of this game went on to just make mobile games after this one, which makes me sad to this day.
5. The Walking Dead
While Telltale had been around well before The Walking Dead, this is the game that truly put them on the map as a must play developer for years after. The Walking Dead property was a sensation in the early 2010s, and this game capitalized on that wonderfully.
There’s just such a fun mix of elements here. The element of choice in the story is really enjoyable and made for a lot of good conversations with friends, especially with the episodic format of the game. The action/QTE elements add a nice bit of extra tension to everything, and then the story and characters are top-notch throughout. When anyone talks about the greatest video game endings of all time, this has to be there as well. While I had played other narrative games with light action elements, or with elements of choice, this whole package really changed how I viewed the genre, and I think helped take it to another level in many ways.
4. Ms. ‘Splosion Man
Another genre that Xbox Live Arcade was awesome for was sweaty 2D platformers. The most famous of which was probably Super Meat Boy. While I enjoyed that game, I’ve always vibed much more with the ‘Splosion Man series. The sequel, Ms. Splosion Man was easily my favorite platformer on the service.
Ms Splosion Man is a platformer where you jump by… exploding. The game uses this to excellent effect, with tons of long segments with tricky platforming and some puzzle solving thrown in for good measure as well. The game also really leans into its wacky concept and has lots of personality as well.
While it’s not the only game like this, I think one of the biggest keys to success with this series is that you respawn instantly with no load times if you fail. This means that even after dying dozens of times in one area, I never got frustrated. I was always right back into it.
This is another developer who weirdly went away from what made them successful after this game. Twisted Pixel ended up focusing on the Xbox Kinect after this game, and now does VR. I’d much rather see Baby Splosion Man as their next game personally.
3. The Wolf Among Us
I’m not sure if this is a game I’d usually be interested in, but Telltale was so must play at this point in time that I had to check it out, and I was rewarded big time.
Much like The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us excels at its narrative formula. There’s a great story, fun choices, excellent characters, and strong production values all around.
But more than anything, I just find this world (based on the Fables comic series, which I’ve never read) to be really weird and compelling. This is a gritty noir story combined with a bunch of fairy tale characters, and it somehow really works. It gives each new character that shows up an interesting extra layer, as you will be familiar with them, but they all have twists that make them a touch off from what you’d expect. When I completed the game, I was excited for a sequel down the road. I didn’t expect it to be over a decade later, but I am really excited to dive back into this world very soon.
2. Outland
Outland is another game made by a developer (Housemarque) that would showcase their talent and then go on to do even bigger things. I was familiar with this developer through Super Stardust HD on the PS3, which I liked, but Outland was when I realized just how talented they truly were.
Outland is a Metroidvania that implements a polarity system famous in the bullet hell game Ikaruga. Essentially, there are two different types of enemies and projectiles that you have to navigate through, and you have to switch elements in order to not get damaged by certain attacks and to damage enemies. The game has the kind of platforming, combat, and puzzle solving that you’d expect in this genre, but this extra twist makes every single thing a lot more interesting. The level design is excellent, and I was completely engaged from beginning to end. The boss fights and visual style were also great for this era.
Obviously, Housemarque is huge now, thanks to Returnal and the upcoming Saros, but I really hope Outland has another chance to shine one day down the road.
1. Bastion
I am currently playing Hades 2 as I write this, and it’s amazing to think about how far Supergiant has come as a developer, but about how awesome they have managed to be from even their rookie outing.
I was incredibly excited for Bastion before release, in part because my favorite video game reviewer, Greg Kasavin, would be writing for it. Little did I know that Bastion would deliver in every single way. Even from their first game, Supergiant was good at everything. The storytelling is excellent, the combat is varied and snappy, the visual style is beautiful and distinct, and there’s an awesome soundtrack as well. One of the big hooks of the game was a narrator that delivered lines dynamically based on different things you do, which is still something Supergiant implements into its games today.
There was a level of care put into every single element of Bastion that I’d say is true for every Supergiant game, only they’ve likely got more time, more money, more talent, and better tech now. Despite that, I think Bastion had so much personality and was so much fun that it’s still my third favorite game from them, only behind both Hades games. It makes their journey even cooler when I’ve been locked in since day one. Luckily, Bastion isn’t awesome just because it was the start of Supergiant’s journey. It is a fantastic game, and there was no other game on Xbox Live Arcade that spoke to me more.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider following me on social media, or checking out The Big Nerd Gaming Podcast!
The Big Nerd Gaming Podcast on Youtube
Big Nerd Gaming 
Leave a comment