Microsoft Announces Summer of Arcade, Prizes to Be Won

The last summer days will bring us a real Xbox 360 mania, since Microsoft plans to offer goodies, freebies and quality products to all the fans of its console. Starting tomorrow, the 30th of July, and continuing for five full weeks, the Summer of Arcade will offer everybody entertainment and prizes through the Xbox Live Arcade.

First of all, each week until the 27th of August will bring us a great classic game that will eventually allow us to enter the competition (but we'll talk about it and the prizes a bit later). Now, let's see what surprises Microsoft has in store for us for the Summer of Arcade:

On the 30th of July, we'll start the party with Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2, the retro shooter which comes back with new features like new enemies, scoring strategies and brand new achievements, all for 800 MS Points ($10).

The second week kicks off on the 6th of August and brings us Braid, a simple puzzle-platformer game everybody will love since it allows players to manipulate the flow of time! And if that's not enough for you, the 13th of August will take you even further into the future with Bionic Commando: Rearmed, the classic side-scroller that promises to put 2D graphics back to the map (in true HD, of course!).

The fourth game will be released on the 20th of August and it will be no other than Galaga Legions, another arcade shooter which delivers updated graphics and some great gameplay mechanics. The last game, Castle Crashers, will be released on the 27th of August and it will bring us hand drawn characters, lots of weapons and enemies and a noble quest: to save the princess.

But gamers will probably care less about noble quests since everybody who will play the trial or full version of the featured Summer of Arcade game of the week will get a chance to win one of the great prizes (yes, you just have to play a game and you're in for the draw!).

One lucky fellow will win the grand prize consisting of 100,000 MS Points (which means $1250 or 125 XBLA games), 12 month Xbox LIVE Gold subscription and an Xbox 360 Elite console. Two runner up prizes will also make some people happy since they will offer 10,000 Microsoft points ($125) and a free 12 Month Xbox LIVE Gold subscription, while five weekly prizes will give five lucky winners 4000 MS Points ($50).