What Is It? Wikipedia says, "Aegis Wing is a side-view scrolling shooter, where the player controls a small ship pitted against countless foes." I say that this is a generic 2D shoot-em-up in the same style as Gradius, Thunder Force 3 and Aero Blasters. Described as an "homage" to those classic shooters of the 1980s and 90s, Aegis Wing was created by three Microsoft interns in the summer of 2006. In a lot of ways Aegis Wing is the birthplace (and future) of the Microsoft XNA program, a set-up that allows aspiring video game developers to work on small Xbox Live Arcade-like projects for a nominal fee. Hopefully the future Xbox Live Arcade games spawned from the XNA program will turn out better than this boring homage to a solid shooter genre. Aegis Wing is a slow-paced action game where you fly around the screen dodging bullets and picking up power-ups. Unfortunately the power-ups aren't very interesting and you always have more than enough armor to sustain multiple direct hits from enemy fire. The big "innovation" in this game was that you could team up with three other players to have a crazy multiplayer experience. While this is an interesting idea, the four-player stuff wasn't as much fun as it should have been and the overall experience was short lived.

When Was It Free? Aegis Wing was made available for download on May 16, 2007. It has been free to download ever since.

Why Was It Free? All things considered there's really no reason Microsoft needed to release this for free, they could have just as easily made us pay $5 for what is essentially a student project. Perhaps sensing that the game wasn't worth the standard $5, Microsoft (wisely) decided to release this as a free download.

Is It Worth It? Aegis Wing is not a good 2D shoot-em-up, it's just that simple. I hate to be the negative one here, but the moment you start playing this terrible shooter you'll know precisely why Microsoft isn't charging for this. It's as if the Microsoft interns played a lot of old school shooters, but for some strange reason they weren't able to remember what the best moments were. Trust me, Aegis Wing does not represent the best moments in 2D shooterdom. At its core this is just another 2D shooter that moves at a snail's pace and all about you memorizing enemy positions and where you can get power-ups. Only this game doesn't have any cool power-ups and just about nothing happens from level to level. And the worst thing of all, the boss battles aren't even memorable. How can you make a 2D shooter with lame bosses? That's like making a basketball game without cheerleaders or giving us a Grand Theft Auto game without the cops. I do like the idea of getting four people together and combining to make one large (and powerful) ship, but even that ends up breaking the game's difficulty. If you're looking for a few free achievement points then you might want to consider downloading this, but everybody else should just avoid this shooter train wreck.

What Is It? It's a racing game. No, it's a third-person shooter. No, it's a little of both. Hmm, what the heck is Yaris? This Backbone developed game is one of the worst available on the Xbox Live Arcade service, a completely unplayable mess of a game that can't decide what it wants to be. Is it an action game or a racing game? Is it fun with friends or not? Is it the next big thing? Let's hope not, because Yaris is one of the worst games on the market. Not only that, it also sets a bad precedent to all other games like it. This is an advertisement, plain and simple. At best this was nothing more than a glorified flash game that has been taken from Toyota's website and given to Xbox 360 owners. This is nothing more than a cynical attempt for Toyota to act cool and try and market their "hip" new car at the video game public. But don't be fooled, because there's absolutely nothing "hip" about this Xbox Live Arcade game. If anything, Yaris is where hip goes to die.

When Was It Free? The game has been free ever since its release on October 10, 2007. That's certainly more than I can say about those overpriced Burger King games.

Why Was It Free? In case you haven't figured it out by now, Yaris is a car advertisement thinly veiled as an Xbox Live Arcade game. In other words, this is a commercial that you interact with. I don't know if it was Microsoft or Backbone, but whoever realized that you couldn't charge for a blatant advertisement was an absolute genius. It's not just that the idea of paying for an advertisement (plenty of people bought those abhorrent Burger King games), it's also the idea that you are paying for one of the worst games of all time. One has to suspect that not a lot of time or money was put into developing this game, and it definitely shows. And don't look now; the era of advertisement games is only getting started. Later this year Doritos plans on unleashing their latest chip-related game. I can hardly wait to add that game to this list.

Is It Worth It? Is Yaris a racing game or a shooting game? Who cares? Because if that's all you ask while playing Yaris then there might be some real issues going on there. For example, why does every level in Yaris look exactly the same? Oh, and did anybody at Backbone notice that this game is nothing more than a rip-off of the bonus stage in Sonic the Hedgehog 2? And while we're at it, didn't Backbone develop the Sonic 2 port for the Xbox Live Arcade? These questions are infinitely more interesting than trying to decide whether this is a driver or a shooter. Well folks, it's a little of both. But like pickles and pizza, this Yaris combination does not work. I know it's tempting to download everything that is free, but I guarantee that the 50 megs this game takes up could be better used for new Rock Band songs or a South Park episode. This game isn't even worth it for the free achievement points, which are generally difficult to get and take awhile to earn. This game is bad. It's a bad single-player game. It's a bad multiplayer game. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if in twenty years we find out that this game was the cause of cancer. It's just a terrible, terrible game. A terrible game that plays exactly like the bonus stage in Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Weird.

What Is It? Carcassonne is a little difficult to explain, which may be part of the reason that nobody bought this game when it was originally released. Based on a German board game, Carcassonne is played with painted tiles. Two to four players take turns laying down tiles and building castles, all while capturing parts of land and generally screwing over the other players. Unlike Catan, Carcassonne is actually an extremely easy game to learn and be good at, which makes this title a little more accessible than most of the other German-based board games. At the same time one could argue that Carcassonne is more limited, often with games resembling each other. Thankfully there are expansion packs and other ways to play the game, but it's certainly true that this isn't as deep as other Xbox Live Arcade board games. The good news is that Carcassonne plays a lot faster than other board games on the XBLA service, so it's easy to just create a fast game and be done with it before you get too bored. Carcassonne, it's a solid board game for those who don't mind being a little adventurous.

When Was It Free? In mid-November back in 2007. Unfortunately it was only free for 48 hours.

Why Was It Free? Unlike a lot of the games on this list, Carcassonne wasn't given away to calm people down or right a wrong. In fact, Carcassonne was offered to both Gold and Silver members because Microsoft was celebrating their fifth year of the Xbox Live service. For one week Microsoft brought out the crazy videos, allowed people to download cool themes and picture packs, gave away free points (which I'm still waiting on, thanks a lot Microsoft), and offered Carcassonne as a thank you for making the service so successful. Not sure why they chose Carcassonne, but it's nice to talk about Microsoft giving away a game because they feel like it and not because they have to for a change.

Is It Worth It? Carcassonne is not only one of the best games on this list; it's also the most misunderstood. Despite what you've heard from the media, critics and your friends, Carcassonne is not Catan-lite. Carcassonne is its own game that is easier to pick up, more accessible to new gamers and is faster paced. In Catan you could spend hours playing a match, whereas Carcassonne is over within 15 minutes. At $10 this game wasn't worth it, if the title was originally marked at $5 it would have been a monster hit. Then again, those who got it for free are the ones having the last laugh. Not only did these people get a stellar game, but they got it without having to charge their credit card. Carcassonne is a solid game that deserves some love. Maybe not $10 worth of love, but love nonetheless.

What Is It? Undertow was originally sold as a 2D variation to the popular Battlefield-style action games that populate the consoles these days. Apparently that didn't work, because here we are two months after its release getting it for free. Undertow is the crazy combination of Ecco the Dolphin, Geometry Wars and Battlefield 1942; it's an underwater action game that manages to feel both original and familiar all at the same time. In Undertow you have a series of bases around the level, it's your team's job to capture as many of these bases, all while racking up points and upgrading your character. It's an intense back and forth battle that forces you to work as a team and learn all of the secrets of every level. Yet for some strange reason it bombed. Perhaps it's the teeny tiny graphics or the steep learning curve, but whatever it is Undertow was completely ignored by Xbox 360 owners up until now. Perhaps now that it's free we'll finally start to see people appreciate Undertow for the solid product it actually is.

When Was It Free? From January 23, 2007, until January 28, 2007. If you're reading this the day it was posted (January 25, 2007) then Undertow is free right now. So all of you Xbox 360 owners need to download this game and give it a fair chance. Hey, it's free, and it's certainly hard to beat that.

Why Was It Free? Where do I even begin? Okay, so once upon a time there was this company called Microsoft. After years of dominating the Operating System and office application market, Microsoft decided that it was about time to try their hand in the home video game market. Now on their second console Microsoft has seen the highs and the lows of being a major player in the games industry, but so far the company hasn't bungled it bad enough to be the next Jaguar or TurboGrafx-16. But just because they haven't driven themselves into a wall, that doesn't mean that they haven't hit a few bumps along the way. One of those bumps happened late last year, during the three weeks surrounding Christmas Day and New Years.

Perhaps it's because Microsoft didn't expect so many systems to sell or maybe it was nothing more than a fluke, but whoever is to blame the fact still remains that a majority of Xbox Live users were without service for the busiest time of the year. That meant that gamers that upgraded (or had a refurbished system) could not play Xbox Live Arcade games. This meant that console owners couldn't transfer their username information from another console. And yes, this meant that millions of gamers couldn't play Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4. For close to a month this went on, with numerous comments from various Microsoft employees (Larry "Major Nelson" Hyrb, Jeff Bell, etc.) and a multimillion dollar lawsuit.

With all of the bad publicity Microsoft decided to offer Xbox Live users a free game. Undertow is that game. Does this make everything better? I suppose that answer is going to change depending on who you talk to, but I'm not a big fan of how Microsoft went about this. For one thing, since the game is two months old there are bound to be people who already own it. Also, this niche game isn't exactly everybody's cup of tea. It would have been nice to see Microsoft give us a choice of game or maybe even just give us the 800 points to spend how we want. But that's not how it works, so enjoy Undertow.

Is It Worth It? I'm not afraid to admit it, Undertow rocks. And it's not just me saying that, a quick glance at Game Rankings shows us that the game is squeaking by with an 82% average. Heck, the only bad reviews the game received came from generally untrustworthy magazines that seem to relish in the idea of being as tough as possible. Without a doubt Undertow is a critic's darling, which didn't seem to help actually sell any copies. Sadly Undertow landed with an audible thud, kind of like the fat man who tries to land a dive only to perform a noisy (and painful) belly flop. But it's worth playing, and now that it's free you might as well pick it up. This is not the easiest game to get into, it involves you actually learning the levels, working together as a team and knowing your strengths and weaknesses, but that's the fun of playing this kind of action game. Hopefully more people will give this game a chance now that it's free; it certainly deserves to have a large following.