If a game on Xbox Live Arcade isn't actually a classic title, it's very likely it's a ripoff of one. Which is OK, as long as it's done right and thus worth your Microsoft Points. Sierra Online recently held an event showcasing its forthcoming downloadable offerings, and I picked the two most-promising to single out: Aces of the Galaxy from Artech and Commanders: Attack of the Genos from SouthEnd. Both titles will be available this winter on PC and Xbox Live Arcade.

Aces of the Galaxy
Out of all the games I saw at the event, the retro-influenced space shooter Aces of the Galaxy from Canadian developer Artech stood out as the title most worthy of my time. At face value it's a fairly standard rail shooter, and takes lots of liberties in stealing gameplay bits from Nintendo's Star Fox and games of that ilk. But the title has lots flash and high-def visuals, complemented with fairly tight gameplay and the addition of co-op play offline or over Xbox Live, making it a pretty attractive package.

I played through a few of the game's levels, and was most impressed by the sheen Artech managed to put on the whole thing. For an Xbox Live Arcade title, the game looks fantastic. Enemies flight paths are marked with streaks of colored light, making them easier to shoot down but also lending a cool visual effect. Torpedoes launch with a space-warping power to them, leaving a pleasing trail en route to a high-energy explosion. And the level backgrounds all have the nice look of an infinite sunrise/sunset combination, with stars and suns and a mix of purple and orange hues.

There's some sort of humans-versus-aliens story overlaid on the whole thing, which doesn't really matter. You'll go through each level fighting swarms of enemies, dodging asteroids, and sometimes reaching a boss fight. After each mission, you'll be given a choice of paths, so multiple playthroughs will be required to explore the 30-something stages in the game.

The ship's controls handled well, using the now-standard dual-joystick setup. As part of your arsenal, you've got unlimited standard ammo, cluster missiles that require you to paint targets across multiple enemies before unleashing them, and straight-flying but powerful torpedoes. There's also a scanner you'll be required to use in some areas to uncover cloaked vessels. On top of that, killing enough baddies gives you the ability to use the now-common "bullet-time" to slow down things for a bit and mop up.

And with both online and offline co-op, I can definitely see myself picking up Aces of the Galaxy for some old-school rail-shooter action with a friend. Though no price has been set yet, the game comes out for both PC and Xbox 360 this winter, meaning it could be late this year or early 2008.

Commanders: Attack of the Genos

The second title worthy of some attention, and appealing to a markedly different set, is Swedish developer SouthEnd Interactive's steampunk-influenced turn-based strategy game, Commanders: Attack of the Genos. You may know the developer from the Xbox port of cel-shaded shooter XIII (PC, PS2, GCN, Xbox). Like Aces of the Galaxy, there's nothing really remarkable about Commanders within its genre, and it's got a lot of similarities to Intelligent Systems' Advance Wars series. But also like Aces, the visuals and overall theme of the game lend it some level of attraction as an affordable downloadable title.

The game has a pretty interesting art direction, as it's set in an alternate version of the present day, featuring an aesthetic reminiscent of what people in the '20s might have thought the future would look like. The story is your standard humans-versus-aliens theme again, with the enemy being the Genos referenced in the title. The large, crab-like walker vehicles and bulky, polished robotic infantry have an art deco look to them, and the game's hand-drawn characters appear to be wearing the garb of fighter pilots or hardboiled detectives. It's at least a palatable aesthetic if nothing else, and combined with pretty fun gameplay and online features, the look gives the game a bit of welcome singularity.

Commanders features pretty standard turn-based gameplay that will be familiar to most gamers instantly, but it's also simplified in certain ways, with a streamlined interface that should appeal to those less familiar with the genre. Rather than having separate movement and attack portions of a turn, all unit actions are drawn from the same pool of action points. So you can attack multiple times rather than moving, or just move your units farther without attacking.

That doesn't mean all the advanced touches common to the genre have been stripped away. The game features terrain effects, random attack calculation with critical hits and glancing blows, and 15 unit types including both land and air-based units. As the game's title suggests, there's also commander-specific special abilities of both active (special attack) and passive (persistent stat upgrades) nature.

The 15-mission campaign is paired with four-player online play over Xbox Live--teams or every man for himself--or two-player offline play. Fans of turn-based strategy games should have no problem getting some fun out of Commanders when it comes out in November on PC and Xbox Live.