Mind-numbing fun in this nice new version of an old way of playing video games. Good looks, fun while it lasts.
User Rating: 8.3 | Assault Heroes X360
Looking for a decent value for your Microsoft Points? Looking for a fun time with low time consumption? Just want to look at a graphically inclined Live Arcade game? Look no further than Assault Heroes. Essentially a combination of some of the tried and true aspects of the top-down arcade shooter, this game keeps you mildly entertained for a short while. If you are into the achievement points system on the Xbox 360, you'll be playing this game over and over until you get most of the reasonably achievable members of the batch. The weapons are pretty fun to experiment with (and use as an enemy's distinct weakness) and the leveling up of each weapon is pretty interesting and actually useful. If you're used to this genre of games, you must also be familiar with the punishing difficulty of these games. No matter how great you are, there is always a level that is timed, and not meeting that timed goal means certain death. This game pulls a fast one like this on the player at the very end of this short game, and with mixed random results. Rushing gets you killed unless you use your nukes and grenades with reckless abandon. Take your time, and you know the words you will find on your screen in a relatively short amount of time. This feels like a cheap trick, but perhaps it's one of the most alluring quarter-sucking antiques of yesteryear that bring people back to this genre of video games. You are hereby forewarned... other than that, the bosses are intense and fun, and slightly difficult upon first encountering them, but soon, the player realizes what's going on fairly quickly. This is game is really short, but the aesthetics of the levels within the game prevent you from really complaining too much about this, as they are beautiful to see over and over again. The shimmering ocean level is especially fantastic on an HDTV screen. Wow... The hard difficulty will keep you on your toes. The techno-ish music will have you jamming to the music, especially with a surround sound system at your disposal. Some music is recycled, but it happens to be the stellar tunes that are repeated ad nausea, so this is forgettable issue. All in all, a good game. 
