I haven’t played multiplayer, nor will I ever (since not a single one of my friends will touch an indie game with a bargepole). It plays pretty well in single player though. The thing that really impressed me is how much I didn’t hate it. You see, I’m terrible at RTS games. I’m pretty bad at the turn-based type, but when it gets into real time I’m utterly abysmal. I got about an hour into C&C Red Alert before I simply couldn’t beat my current mission.

Video Wars removes all the stuff that aggravates me and that I can’t get my head around with RTS games in general. It starts immediately and doesn’t play out like chess. That is, it doesn’t require you to have a long-term plan at the outset and then painstakingly execute it. You don’t have to wait ten minutes to build a unit. You don’t spend all your time trying to guess why your opponent has been so quiet all this time.

Video Wars seems to be a non-RTS player’s RTS. It almost, almost strays into tower defence. I approve.

actually there are leaderboards, well peer to peer leaderboards anyway. Check out Star Ninja, Who is God?, etc.

Yeah, you’re slightly misinformed. Online multiplayer is available in xna but leaderboards, acheivements etc. are not.

If you’d like to try some online multiplayer XBLIG games, xboxindies.com has an excellent tool for finding new games. Here’s a view filtered to show only games with online multiplayer:

http://bit.ly/oWPqBd

I actually cry a little every time I see how good this tool is compared to the official search functionality on the marketplace.

No problem.

I’ve never messed around with XNA (xbox programing tools).

Thanks for putting that last part in. As the proprietor of a website dedicated solely to Xbox Live Indie Games, I had no clue at all what XNA was. I’m honestly not sure how I made it this far without you.

Sorry I guess I am mistaken. It was something I was told once by an indie game developer, and I simply have never encountered one of these games with actual online multiplayer. (Well up until checking out the one you just mentioned.) I’m a progamer, but I’ve never messed around with XNA (xbox programing tools). I was just reapeting something some developer had ranted at me about after I commented on a lack of multiplayer. My bad.

You’ve heard WAY wrong my friend. There are actually quite a few online multiplayer games on Xbox Live Indie Games. I’m reviewing one today, Take Arms. I’ve played a few that have online multiplayer already. It’s there, and if you look around hard enough you can find instructions on how to do it. XNA guys whine about my insistence of bringing it up, with some calling it “unnecessary.” And yet every single non-XBLIG/XNA fanboy I’ve talked to, without fail, says it would make a huge difference in them purchasing a game or not.