14 DAY TRIAL // The weekly Xbox Live Arcade additions have been announced and one title is going to stir some mixed feelings with a lot of the more experienced gamers. There are two games that will enter the Xbox Live tab on Wednesday and they're both priced at 800 Microsoft Points, or $10. The first is a less known title, Tower Bloxx Deluxe, but the second is part of a very popular franchise. Panzer General: Allied Assault is the second game that will become available this week on Microsoft's service.
Tower Bloxx isn't exactly a title with a reputation, either good or bad, and this XBLA release may prove to be the first contact a lot of players have with the series. The original version was developed by Digital Chocolate and it was a strategy-puzzle game, with two modes, Build city and Quick game, but the new version for the Xbox Live will have a total of six game mods as well as avatar support.
The second title offered this week on XBLA has a far more renowned name. Panzer General: Allied Assault is part of the famous Panzer General franchise that was started by Strategic Simulations in 1994, and it was a turned-bases strategy game, where players assumed the role of a German General and led his troops through a single player campaign that stretched from 1939 to 1945. The innovative element of the game was the way the different missions in the campaign were linked together. Individual units estimated entire battalions that would receive special bonuses upon surviving a successfully completed mission. Panzer General won the Origins Award for Best Military or Strategy Computer Game in 1995 and went on to see several other successful iterations in the series.
If the names and information that came with the units were fairly accurate and the scenarios were mostly based on actual historical scenarios, Panzer General: Allied Assault won't emphasize the strategic gameplay as much as the original versions did. Allied Assault is a card game that will allow players to recreate battles of World War II, but won't provide the same depth and experience as the original games of the Panzer General series.