(I originally intended to also post this on GiantBomb, where I was sure it would get more traffic, but their blog system doesn’t like this formatting and it would take ages to re-write it to fit over there. Oops. Enjoy this tumblr exclusive, guys.)

It’s long been thought that Xbox Live Indie Games is an impenetrable cesspool of utter garbage. And you know what? It kind of is. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth paying attention to - the only problem is, the signal to noise ratio heavily favors noise. So I’ve taken it upon myself to be your tour guide - I’ve picked out a fairly massive selection of games, all you have to do is decide whether or not you want to try them out. You can thank me later. If you like what you see, click on that game’s name to be taken to Xbox.com where you can download a free trial (or even buy it!) And with that, let’s celebrate the twilight hour of one of the weirdest places on the Xbox 360 Games Marketplace…

DON’T MISS THESE GAMES

Ocean Drive Challenge It used to be that you could download Outrun on Xbox Live Arcade - but Sega’s long since lost the Ferrari license, and with it, Outrun has vanished from the marketplace. Ocean Drive Challenge is here to fill that gap, with a stylish homage to the original arcade classic. You don’t get Outrun’s branching path system, but in its place you get multiple drivers, each with their own story to tell as they race down the game’s endless road. The tracks themselves could be a little bit wider given the girth of the vehicles motoring down these highways, but that just adds to the challenge.

Echoes+ Combine Geometry Wars with Asteroids and you have a pretty clear picture of what to expect in Echoes+. There’s tons of power-ups, the typical neon glow, and tons upon tons of modes for you to waste hours in. There’s also a free PC version if you’re still on the fence, but the “plus” in Echoes+ presumably means you get some extra bang for your buck. And by that I mean this game literally costs a buck.

Funky Balls Going by the name and the box art, I did not exactly expect much from Funky Balls. “Rolling ball” games are a dime a dozen these days, but something about Funky Balls was strangely charming. It took me back to the days of the Playstation 1 - when you had games like Intelligent Qube or N2O. It has that kind of feel to it, with a dash of Super Monkey Ball. I ended up really, really digging it.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Mega Shooter 11 I’ll be honest: I played Mega Shooter 11 more than a year ago and I don’t really remember much besides the fact that I think I kind of enjoyed it a lot. Its description bills it as an “extremely authentic retro side-scrolling space shooter”, with “intelligent gameplay”. Graphics are real purdy, too, despite the low color count and pixelated resolution.

Coral’s Curse This game has to be seen in motion to be believed - best described as some kind of puzzle/action game, Coral’s Curse gives you control of a mythological beast that is half woman, half snake. You have full control over Coral’s slithering lower-half, allowing you to reach new areas and fit in to places most normal people would not. I can’t speak to whether or not the game itself is any good - I spent too long just messing around with the snake physics and the trial ended.

Shark Attack Deathmatch Chalk this up as another game I didn’t expect much out of but came away pleasantly surprised. Shark Attack Deathmatch is a legitimately tense sort of game - you’re a deep sea diver being stalked by a great white shark. Armed with nothing more than a harpoon gun, you must fight for your life or be mercilessly eaten. Plus: it’s got online co-op. And like a lot of these games, it’s only a buck.

Curse of the Crescent Isle Yet another faux-retro indie game, Curse of the Crescent Isle sets itself apart by having a rather unique enemy mechanic. If I want to be a reductionist about it, imagine Super Mario Brothers 2 meets Ducktales: you pick up enemies, and instead of throwing them at other things, you use them to pogo around levels. Unfortunately the controls are a little bit stiff, but it’s nothing you can’t get used to.

SO BAD THEY’RE GOOD

AAH, HALLOWEEN PIE! There’s a lot of different tropes on Xbox Live Indie games: Ninjas, Avatars, Minecraft, Zombies… and games where the graphics are pre-rendered models of “sexy” women made using the Poser software. That’s where this comes in - essentially just the world’s most sloppy clone of Ghouls ‘n Ghosts, Halloween Pie seems to exist just to show you a greasy model of a women with gigantic breasts strip to her underwear every time one of a trillion skeletons so much as sneezes near her. The best thing that can be said for it is it actually contains a game you can play - most of the time they’re just immensely skeevy dating sims.

AVATOUR VEGAS Stop and try to imagine what the worst possible game is. The worst possible controls, the worst possible sound, the worst possible graphics. Just the most foul garbage you can think of. What would that be like? It doesn’t matter: Avatour Vegas is worse. This is essentially a bunch of data likely cribbed from Google Earth and you can fly a completely static helicopter around. Just remember: what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Including the dollar they expect you to pay for this.

JUST PLAIN WEIRD

Gametype You know your Xbox Dashboard update is bad when somebody makes a game about how bad it is. Gametype was maybe probably supposed to educate people on where they could find the Xbox Indie Games listing - unfortunately, to get Gametype at all, you kind of already had to know how to get there in the first place, therefore kind of defeating some of the point.

ADVENTURES of CAPTAIN Becky Forget about the game part of ADVENTURES of CAPTAIN Becky - the real meat of this game is the character editor, which allows you to change what Becky herself looks like. It is weirdly robust for what an amazingly simple action game it is - you can change height, weight, skin color, facial features, and more, allowing you to transform Becky in to the horrifying purple troll monster of your dreams. That by itself is probably worth the price of admission.

Did I miss your game? Do you think I did not give your game a fair assessment? Sorry about that - I am but one man.