Both of them are absolutely fantastic and probably, together with Doom, the 2 best Live Arcade games yet to be released. And released on the same day!! Lets start with Bionic Commando. You all know the story of this game by now. All the hype, the bionic commando podcasts, Ben Judd, all the delay, the fantastic development studio Grin. It was hard to believe it was actually lying there on Live Arcade today, finally released. Well..it was well worth the wait.
Its a super feaithful remix of the original where all the fun is preserved and all the challenge is preserved but where all the frustration is gone. I had totally forgotten how fun it is to not being able to jump. The grapple mechanic is fantastic. Art direction is fantastic aswell. Writing is superfunny and alot of small touches has been implemented to make it feel nostalgic yet superfresh. The soundtrack, which I bought months ago from iTunes is still, when I have already listened to it for months, one of the best ever and since you get all this for 800 MS points...its the bargain of a lifetime. I payed more for the soundtrack alone...Add to that, fantastic multiplayer modes AND Co-Op. Do NOT miss out on this one, tho my guess is you are already playing it. The only downside here is that the achievements are mad hard. I will probably never go above 3 or 4 out of 12. I like my XBLA achievements to be about 10 easy and 2 hard, not the other way around.
Fable II Pub Games are, if you didnt know already, small gamble based pub games that remind you of things like roulette and blackjack but made super interesting by making unique rules for everything. The thing with the pubgames is that the money you win here can then later be imported into Fable II when you start playing that in October. This means I will spend a ridiculous amount of time with these games because I really want to be rich when I jump into Fable. Its good then, that all of the games are superinteresting and really addicting. Simple, yes, but very fun. Another thing worth noticing here is the atmosphere. Sure its just some simple pub games but in the background you can hear glasses, people talking and laughing in cla$$ic fantasty tavern fashion and on top of that you have this fantastic fable-like, fairytale tavern music that can only come from Lionhead Studios. You pick a temporary hero to store gold (and items which will also be included in the full game when you win them here!) and start gambling away.
Both of these games needs to be downloaded right now ! Actually, even if you dont plan to play Fable II, you need to download the Pub games because they are still fun even if you cant use the gold.