Great Week for Downloadable Gems

As this monster game release season continues to roll on, it’s easy to miss the smaller games so often over-shadowed by their A-list retail brethren. This week alone offers several unique and classic games across multiple platforms. Below are just three, but if you’re a fan of indies and downloadables, there’s no better time to revisit your platforms of choice.

Wizorb

Releasing this week onto Xbox Live Indies (and soon to PC) is a very old-school genre mash-up, Wizorb from Tribute Games in Montreal, which asks the question, why hasn’t any puzzle RPG’s every built their gameplay (video) around block-breaking, Arkanoid-style? We’ll find out on Thursday.

The Binding of Isaac

Next up, Edmund McMillen, one half of the team that brought you Super Meat Boy, releases the disturbing The Binding of Isaac onto Mac & PC through Steam on Wednesday, bringing SMB composer Danny Baranowsky along for the ride (here’s some free music, full soundtrack coming soon). This one is hard to explain. Check out this blog post or watch this video to get some sense of it.

Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures

But the highlight of the week is Nintendo offering Zelda Four Swords free to owners of the DSi and 3DS, and the fact they’ve added a single player makes it an ultimate “must-have” for the platform. Seriously, I’m expecting a shaft of light to descend from the clouds while I download this… Nintendo is giving us a free Zelda adventure!

- Andy