This being the last day of the year, and the last weekend of your holiday vacation, it's a great time to spend those Microsoft Points you received as gifts, or to treat yourself to something fun with which to usher in the new year. Here are my recommendations of games released to Xbox Live in 2010 that aren't to be missed.

Limbo: This platform-puzzle game is perhaps most memorable for its morose atmosphere and the macabre results of failure. With almost no backstory, a boy sets out on an adventure through a woods devoid of color or background music. His weapons with which to defend himself from giant spiders and worse are limited to the player's ability to make him jump, climb, push, and think. At $15, the game is pricey for a digital title, but it's 33% off today only — either way, a fair price for what Wired called one of the best games of 2010.

Cthulhu Saves the World: You may not have heard of indie developer Zeboyd Games, but their previous Xbox Live release, Breath of Death VII, sold 30,000 copies. Created by a long-time gamer and RPG aficionado, the game capitalized on the rich history and tradition of 8-bit RPGs while correcting many frustrating aspects of the genre, such as random encounters. Cthulhu Saves the World is its spiritual successor, with more inside jokes and great gameplay but with a presentation that's been bumped up to 16 bits and a story that will take ten hours to experience, unlocking multiple replay modes. The price tag on this game is triple that of its predecessor and will set you back a whopping $3.

Pac-Man Championship Edition DX: Despite the name, Pac-Man CE DX is so much more than a remix of the 2007 Championship Edition. With "ghost trains" that harken back to the old computer game Snake, a bullet-time effect when Pac-Man is cornered, a variety of skins by which to customize the game's look, and more gameplay modes than you can shake a power pellet at, it's an impressive amount of content and replay value for $10. As the creator of Cthulhu Saves the World wrote:

Pac-Man: Championship Edition DX is a worthy sequel to some of the best games ever created (the original Pac-Man and Pac-Man: Championship Edition) and is probably the best game that will come out this year. Given that this is a year that has included gems like Super Meat Boy & Civilization V, that’s saying a lot.

Return All Robots!: RAR! is a top-down puzzle game in the tradition of the Adventures of Lolo. Players direct a scientist whose remote control will send good robots back to base while avoiding their evil counterparts. Check out our preview for more details and a gameplay video. Again, you'll be supporting an indie developer and getting a great title for a mere $3.

Chime: Released in early 2010, this top-down puzzle game invites you to place blocks anywhere on a playing field such that they form perfect rectangles. As with Lumines, a line regularly sweeps the playing field, clearing any completed pieces. An excellent soundtrack, including a piece by renowned composer Philip Glass, is enhanced by sound effects made when the line encounters your shapes. Play until you've completed the level, or in time trials of 3, 6, or 9 minutes, for only $5.

RISK Factions: The classic board game comes to Xbox 360 with multiple enhancements and features. Though the classic map and rules are available, other modes offer rewards for capturing specific terrain; multiple factions (all identical in gameplay); battle animations; online play; and more. This game has been on sale for 50% off all week; today is the last chance to get it for only $5. Check out the reference to an Apple II contemporary in this cutscene:

Worms 2: Armageddon: You'd never guess how much fun it could be to arm a nematode with a bazooka and send him to kill his brethren until you've tried it. This turn-based, 2D strategy game pits teams of worms against each other, using bizarre terrain (a construction site, a moon made of cheese) and armaments (banana bombs and exploding sheep). This $10 iteration in the 15-year-old franchise is already a few years old, but a $5 battle pack released in the summer of 2010 adds new levels, weapons, and more.

Portal: Still Alive: Valve's release of Portal 2 for Xbox 360, PS3, Mac, and PC has been continuously delayed and is currently slated for April 18, 2011. While waiting for this full-fledged retail game, you'll find it's not too late to crawl out from under your rock and discover what all the fuss is about. Portal came out in 2007 as part of a compilation of games, but an enhanced version of this first-person puzzle game was released as a standalone product for Xbox Live in 2008. Although not a 2010 release, it's the only Portal product available this year — and at $15, it's the cheapest Portal experience you'll find in 2011, too.

With so many games available for the Xbox 360, this list can only begin to scratch the surface. What were your favorites this year?

For a few hours last month, the Xbox Live digital edition of Lionhead Studio's Fable II, normally priced at $19.99, was free. The discount was a glitch in Microsoft's system and was quickly rectified, but not before countless savvy shoppers took advantage of the brief and inadvertent deal.

I was not one of those lucky few, but I am someone who regularly grapples with the ethics of piracy. The theft of digital content is unequivocally illegal, yet pirates nonetheless justify their actions with a series of arguments — some tenuous, some less so. I wondered how downloading Fable II for free when it's rightly a $20 purchase was any different from piracy, and how strong its case would be?

For an answer, I turned to Jeffrey Seglin, professional ethicist. Seglin writes a weekly newspaper column for Tribune Media Services Syndicate entitled "The Right Thing", which provides an objective perspective on the right and wrong of any number of scenarios, from dealing with difficult landlords to keeping deathbed promises. In this past week's column, he addresses my question, "Is free Xbox game a fable?"

I confessed to Seglin that I wish I had known about the error, as I would've taken advantage of it to get a free game. But if I had, would I have been able to live with what I had done? The main argument I made was to compare the online Fable II to its retail origin:

"If I were shopping in a retail store and the clerk forgot to charge me for an item, I would bring it to his attention and expect to be fairly charged for it," K.G. writes. "When it comes to a digital product instead of a physical one, the situation somehow seems different. Is taking advantage of an online store’s mistake akin to theft? Do I have a responsibility to not partake of such an error? … [and] now that th[ose who downloaded the game] know [it was an error], do they have a responsibility to do something about it?"

Seglin's answer is one that owners of Fable II can feel good about, and one that I again liken to retail: if a product is advertised at one price but is "supposed" to be another, the retailer is expected to make good and offer the product for the advertised price, then correct the issue.

That's what I did when I invited international customers to subscribe to Juiced.GS, a print magazine I publish. A limited number of subscribers received a postcard offering renewals for $19/year, which includes shipping anywhere in the United States — which didn't do the postcard recipients, who lived anywhere from Europe to Australia, any good. Despite having to swallow the difference in shipping rates, I felt the only responsible recourse was to honor the $19 price. I doubt those international subscribers felt it unethical to save $7 off their usual renewal rate.

If I can acknowledge a mistake and not ask my customers to suffer for it, then it's fair for Microsoft to treat its customers with a similar respect. So enjoy Fable II any way you like, and lose no sleep over your good fortune.

Following the first and second acts, Doctor Octoroc has finished the third and final installment of his 8-bit adaptation of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Here are parts one and two:

The entire five-video series is also available as a single YouTube playlist.

But wait — there's more! After I reported that Doctor Octoroc's site had been hacked, it was temporarily down while its CMS was upgraded for the first time in two years. When it came back up, there was additional content: a director's commentary, explaining the editorial decisions he made in adapting Whedon's work (count the quotation marks!); and a "making of", detailing the tools used to create the faux game.

Kudos to Dr. Octoroc on a creative, original, and excellently executed adaptation! My only question … what's next?

8-Bit Dr. Horrible, the NES-style adaptation of Joss Whedon's musical superhero comedy, debuted its first act last week. Its creator, Doctor Octoroc, has now completed his two-part second act:

I love how Billy apparently has a tracer on Penny. That's not creepy stalking at all…

I'm still thinking this would be a great game, but we've seen no combat mechanic. I wonder what that would look like?

Although only 41 minutes long and now nearly two years old, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog continues to be an Internet sensation. The three-part series, starring Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother), Felicia Day (The Guild), and Nathan Fillion (Firefly), incorporates humor, music, and a sincere, witty, and surprising story.

What else has all those elements? … Why, 8-bit role-playing games, of course! Doctor Octoroc agrees and has crafted this masterful rendition of Dr. Horrible's first act:

I love that Doctor Octoroc has remained true to Joss Whedon's story while still being flexible enough to incorporate common RPG elements. He even explains any unintentional spelling errors as being consistent with Japanese translations of the era. Brilliant!

Since Dr. Horrible is no longer available on Hulu as it once was, this 8-bit version is the only legal way to see the series for free. Similar arrangements of the second and third acts are en route, so watch Doctor Octoroc's blog or Twitter feed for updates. If Twitter is to be believed, the first act already has the blessing of Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion, Felicia Day, Dr. Horrible co-writer Maurissa Tancharoen, and even Dr. Horrible himself. Is the next step a playable game based on the series? Would such a production beat Dr. Horrible 2 to release? And in the meantime, what game will this amazing video inspire us to play — Dragon Warrior? StarTropics?

Vandal Hearts II is one of my all-time favorite RPGs. I'm not usually a fan of tactical games and have earned much vilification for being the one gamer on Earth to have disliked Final Fantasy Tactics. But Vandal Hearts II earned sixty hours of my time, something I'm rarely able to devote to any single title but which this game warranted. The first Vandal Hearts, along with Wild Arms, were the games that convinced me that the leap from the Nintendo 64's cartridges to the PlayStation's CD-ROMs was warranted, and I was playing Vandal Hearts II well after the PlayStation 2 was launched. The series thus bookended my experience with the 32-bit gaming era, but I was eager for more.

So I was excited to learn in the past few years that Konami was considering reviving this decades-old franchise, and when news came last year that the form would be an Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network game, I considered it my good fortune, as I'd just gotten an Xbox 360 a few months earlier. Yet no gaming site I followed seemed as interested in the title as I was. I checked them regularly but found updates rarely. Finally, Konami emailed me this week: Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment had been released on January 20th.

As I'm currently in the middle of three other games, including one RPG, I did not rush to purchase this title, but it was easy enough to move the demo to the top of my queue. The trial version of Flames of Judgment, supposedly a prequel of the game's predecessors, consists of two battles with some storyline in between. Having played only that much, I can offer only first impressions.

The most significant, or most immediately apparent, departure from Vandal Hearts II's battle system is the ability to change weapons in mid-battle. Heroes can attack from a distance with missile weapons, then switch to melee gear when the enemy draws close. Although many gamers will appreciate this versatility and realism, I don't prefer it. It's not that the system is inherently bad; few people complained that Final Fantasy VI's espers allowed every character to learn the same magic spells, for example, as doing so did not diminish the party members' unique attributes, such as Sabin's blitzes or Setzer's slots. But I did not expect to see such adaptability in Vandal Hearts. One of my favorite attributes of Vandal Hearts II was that each character was essentially a blank template, to be crafted into any sort of warrior needed: fighter, archer, mage, and more. Whatever the person's equipment was defined their purpose, which was fixed for the battle. What I've seen of Vandal Hearts: FoJ is that characters can more easily fill each other's voids should one fall, which for me eliminates some of the tension of battle.

Beyond gameplay and into mechanics, the animation style has taken a turn for the cartoonish, which doesn't match the game's mature themes and Teen rating. It also seems harder than I remember to adjust the camera to get a good view of the 3D playing field. Cinematic interludes feature voice acting, but the game's main dialogue is presented via text — unusual for this generation of RPGs, but not for a 500-megabyte download.

It's been more than a decade since I first played Vandal Hearts II, so my memories and expectations may both have been distorted by time. Even if not, it's unfair to expect a franchise to remain unchanged over so long a period. Either way, I'm not sure Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment will draw me into the tactical RPG genre the way its predecessors did.

Last month, Microsoft had an RPG conference in Japan.  The biggest news out of the event was the announcement that Star Ocean 4, previously thought to be a PS3 exclusive, is in fact, an Xbox 360 game and might not show up on the PS3 at all.  Xbox owners can also cheer that The Last Remnant, a multiplatform Square-Enix RPG, is going to be released earlier on the 360 than on the PS3.  Other highlights from the conference include additional media and information on Tales of Vesperia (a 360 exclusive by Namco in the series made famous in the US by Tales of Symphonia for the GameCube) and Infinite Undiscovery (a 360 exclusive by Square-Enix that looks similar to Rogue Galaxy).

I'm reminded of this quote from Vic Ireland, the president of the now-defunct RPG localizing company, Working Designs:

For the future, there are still great opportunities. I have been in touch with a number of other publishers and manufacturers and I will be working with some of the WD staff to do games for other publishers for the time being, but not as Working Designs. One thing that holds a ton of promise is Xbox 360 RPGs, and I've contacted Microsoft about getting what's underway in Japan out in the US and helping to get more done worldwide. We'll see what happens on that front, but please let them know that you want more rpgs here. There's some amazing stuff coming for the '360 in Japan, and I know I want it — I think you will, too.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who read those words from Vic Ireland back in 2005 and laughed in disbelief.  The Xbox 360 being a great RPG machine?  Aside from a couple Bioware games (Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire), the Xbox's library of RPGs was practically non-existent.  Why would the 360 be any different?  And yet, here we are in 2008 and those words of Vic sound more prophetic than crazy.

How did we get to the point where the PS3, aside from Final Fantasy XIII, is sparse in the RPG department, despite the PSOne & PS2's utter dominance in the genre? How did the Xbox 360 come to look so impressive compared to the original Xbox's pathetic showing?  There are a number of factors: Microsoft's courting of Japanese developers and their own investment in Mistwalker Studios (Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey); the Xbox 360's one-year head start; and the cheaper price tag are all factors. But I believe the biggest contributor is that Microsoft published good RPGs significantly earlier than its competition.  RPGs tend to be games with low replay value; thus, fans of the genre tend to buy more RPGs than fans of other genres with greater longevity might.  The early availability of RPGs on the Xbox 360 combined with RPG fans' tendency to buy many RPGs created a snowball effect: a good RPG comes for the system encourages more fans of RPGs to buy the system, which in turns encourages more companies to make RPGs for the system.  The system has momentum now — Western RPGs like Too Human and the Mass Effect trilogy, Japanese RPGs from companies like Square-Enix & Namco, Strategy/RPGs from Atlus — and I don't see that changing any time soon.

Will the PS3 or the Wii be able to catch up and overtake the 360 in the RPG field?  I don't think so.  Final Fantasy XIII, though a big title, looks like it'll be too little, too late.  And with Square-Enix showing more and more support for the 360 and less support for the PS3, there's always the chance that FFXIII could end up as a multiplatform title.  The Wii has a fair chance of developing a good RPG library simply because the system is selling insanely well and the dominant system inevitably gets strong game developer support, but I don't know.  Whether it's true or not, the Wii is getting a reputation as being the console of choice for casual gamers and so developers may prove hesitant to develop RPGs for the system.  The Wii might end up with a strong lineup of RPGs, but as of now, that's merely a hope; there's nothing particular noteworthy in the genre on the system at the moment.

In the meantime, I plan on enjoying the 360's RPG library while marveling at the strange and bizarre world we live in.

Title	:	Final Fantasy Origins
Platforms	:	Sony PlayStation
Publisher	:	Square Enix USA Inc.
ESRB Rating	:	Teen
Game Rating	:	7.7
Review by	:	Ken Gagne

In sequel after sequel, many companies pay homage to their origins. But sometimes their memories don't mesh with the consumers', as evidenced with Final Fantasy Origins, a Square-Enix game for the Sony PlayStation. 

This single disc compilation contains Final Fantasy, originally published by Nintendo for the 8-bit NES, and Final Fantasy II, which has never before been released in the States. (The Super Nintendo game known to most Americans as Final Fantasy II was a translation of the Japanese game Final Fantasy IV.) FFI was one of the first role-playing games (RPGs) many Americans experienced, and is fondly remembered for starting a franchise that exists to this day. 

The graphic and sound components of both games have undergone facelifts, but remain firmly rooted in their 8-bit heritage and not on par with their 16-bit descendants. New features, such as artwork, bestiaries, and other collectable data, become unlocked as gamers progress through the adventures. 

Both games invite players participate in quests to save the world. As they explore dungeons and castles from a top-down perspective, random encounters with monsters will occur, initiating a turn-based battle system where orders are given to fight, cast magic, or flee, after which the consequences of each round are presented. 

Nostalgia is a strong selling point for this disc. If you give the first Final Fantasy to someone to whom Garland is a tree trimming, he isn't going to be impressed; those of us who spent the lazy summer of 1990 with Final Fantasy will be the ones plunking down cash to relive our childhood. 

Since Final Fantasy allowed gamers to create their own party of mute adventurers, it's hard to reminisce about these heroes; the most personification they've ever received is in the online comic strip 8-bit Theater. If you identify with those characters, then you'll be stunned by the name changes that have occurred in this restoration: Fighter is now Warrior, Black Belt's a Monk, even the land of Coneria is now Cornelia. Though these titles may be more precise and true to the original game, they will strike veterans as more blasphemous than anything. 

Many publishers package classic titles alongside modern remixes. Why the Final Fantasy we all know and love could not have been preserved, I don't know. Most of the updates are just superficial enough to be glaring instead of appreciated, much as "Transformers Generation 2" added many unnecessary, computer-generated sequences to an already fine cartoon. 

One fine addition is FFI's "Easy Mode" which, as a hardcore gamer, I prefer to call "Fast Mode". This option does away with hours of "levelling up", a tactic that, in the early age of role-playing games, filled the void of story and gameplay that then was not possible. In "Fast Mode", less experience is necessary to progress in strength, and equipment costs less money. Though some pacing is still required to preclude obliteration, this new mode makes an old game more playable. 

Final Fantasy II is more story-driven than its predecessor, with predefined characters and a plot that thrusts players right into the action. Each hero raises his or her individual attributes based on specific actions in combat. This method is a precursor to the progression method used in Final Fantasy X, which also isn't level-based. Although it grants players the freedom to customize their characters' strengths, it is also difficult to reference without a single number indicating their level. 

With the opportunity to stroll down pseudo-memory lane, and to experience new yet familiar adventure, Final Fantasy Origins is one last opportunity for what was once old to be new again on the Sony PlayStation. Gamers with access to the original versions of these games may find as much to like as to dislike in these revamped editions. Sometimes it's best to go straight to the source. 

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 Related articles: 

 
• Final Fantasy Chronicles 
• Old RPGs 

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This article is copyright (c) 2003, 2007 by Ken Gagne. All rights reserved. Not to be distributed without permission.

Original publication: Tech News, 22-Apr-03