Kicking Off the Xbox Live House Party

Every year there's always one party I am guaranteed to look forward to, and it's none other than the annual one at Xbox Live. This year's is looking even greater than last year's with Warp, Alan Wake's: American Nightmare, Nexuiz, and I Am Alive all in attendance. We can expect these great looking downloadable releases through the rest of February and early March.

The release of Warp tomorrow on February 15th, will have you teleporting your way through a single-player mode placing you in the role of an alien attempting to escape an underwater laboratory. Expect to be warping your way inside and out of barrels, through walls, and best of all into people. What you do while inside of them is your business not mine, but I expect a lot of you will be forcing them to involuntarily explode just like me. The game also offers up a unique challenge mode providing some great replay value for those of you with a competitive side. Priced at just 800 MP it looks to be a great start for the House Party releases. Alan Wake's: American Nightmare releases the following week on February 22nd for 1200 MP. Offering up a grindhouse inspired follow-up to Remedy Entertainment's, 2010 release Alan Wake. American Nightmare acts as a standalone adventure for the tortured writer. The game acts as an episode of Night Springs, the television program that Alan Wake wrote for in the game universe. No need to have played the original however, the developers ensured that all players would be able to play and enjoy without requiring a playthrough of the original. Drawing inspiration from Quentin Tarantino, the game is bringing a much faster paced, more action oriented adventure. Try thinking Twilight Zone meets Planet Terror, only without the crazy, decaying, infected people.

Nexuiz brings it's fast paced, and extremely competitive multiplayer arena style first person shooter to the party on February 29th, for 800 MP.

Running off the beautiful CryENGINE 3 this downloadable serves up gorgeous environments to frantically launch missiles through. While the combat feels like a call back to the classic Quake and Unreal Tournament days, the plot only reaffirms this with the Nexuiz being a tournament broadcast for all to watch. If you miss Quake and Unreal Tournament, I would suggest checking this out.

I Am Alive brings the party to a close on March 7th, setting you back 1200 MP. You play as a man struggling to survive in a city destroyed by, "the event". Little is known at this point what exactly "the event" is, but we do know it has destroyed everything, leaving certain areas engulfed in a poisonous cloud. In order to secure your survival you will have to climb, scavenge, and fight through the city. Gameplay leaves players with the choice of whether survivors you encounter are worth helping, or should be left to fend for themselves. They aren't the ones climbing destroyed skyscraper's after all. Combat uses the idea of deception, draw your empty pistol and enemies will react whether the gun is loaded or not. Be careful though, they may not believe the gun is loaded. When they hear the click of your empty chamber, death is imminent. What better way to wrap up the party than with a post-apocalyptic fight for survival? Which games are you looking forward to partying with? If you're aiming for all 4 titles, make sure to pick them all up before March 13th, as this will entitle you to an 800 MP rebate from Microsoft. Let me know in the comments below!