Exelinya Burst (Xbox 360)

It's time for another Japanese Xbox Live Indie Game, and in it, the player controls a tiny sukumizu-clad girl who flies aroun d with a big grabby-arm device. Using said device, they must grab and throw enemies, who come in the form of crudely drawn vegetables. Though the game bears some superficial similarities to Bangai-O, as well as a shared obsession with explosions, the way it plays makes it a pretty unique game.

You character is unkillable, with the only real foe being the time limit. Before time runs out, the player has to score as many points as possible, by grab the enemies and throwing them into each other. Thrown enemies explode, and enemies caught in explosions will also explode, and so on. There's also bosses, who come in

the form of flans and milk cartons, who shoot streams of carrot and radish-shaped missiles (the carrots go in a straight line, the radishes are homing).

There's also a power bar at the bottom of the screen, which goes up and down depending on how many explosions are currently happening. The more full it gets, the larger the explosions get. When it's completely full, large red explosions will occur, that also slightly increase the amoumnt of remaining time. So obviously, the game revolves entirely around creating more, bigger explosions, to score points, to regain time, and to cause more explosions.

Obviously, the time lmit and constant explosions give the game a manic pace, and this is also aided by the

music. There's a few different tracks, and the game seems to switch between in a semi-dynamic way. I'm not sure exactly how it chooses which track to play at a given time, whether it's based on the current amount of enemies or explosions on-screen, or maybe the remaining time or some other myserious algorhythm, but it always fits.

Though it's not a must-buy like Chieri no Doki Doki Yukemori Burari Tabi, I still totally recommend Exelinya Burst. It's only 69p, and the nature of the game means you can probably easily fit a whole credit into the 8 minute default demo time that XBLIG games offer to see if it grabs you.