Best of Summer of Arcade Countdown: Part One

Ah, Summer of Arcade Eve. Just as the apex of the summer heat and retail release drought hits, the promise of five weeks of quality games to your Xbox without making you head out into the swelter outside is just the relief gamers need.

This is the fifth year that Microsoft has run the Summer of Arcade, kicking off tomorrow with Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD. But before we dive into this year's digital treats, we're celebrating the wood anniversary by counting down every release that's flown under the Summer of Arcade banner, and separating the good from the great. We're covering 20-11 today, and you can pry yourself from Tony Hawk on Thursday to read 10-1.

Turtles in Time Re-Shelled is the one real dud in the history of Summer of Arcade. The update of the arcade beat 'em up mixed and matched from the original game and the SNES port, resulting in the game that had the drawbacks of both versions, with a few flaws of its own to boot. For a release that banked on fond memories and childhood good will, the bland changes to the game's graphics and sounds stripped the game of its charms and revealed the shallow brawler at its core. Ubisoft's license to the heroes in a half shell has since expired and resulted in the game being pulled from the marketplace, relegating this release to a footnote in the otherwise stellar history of the Summer of Arcade.

Castlevania: Harmony of Despair probably isn't what most gamers wanted from the series. It isn't a tough sidescroller or a sprawling and tightly designed labyrinth. The decision to make a six player, loot based dungeon crawler is an unorthodox one, and while it isn't a completely unqualified success, there is still a good deal to like here. Recycled art and assists from previous games puts a damper on a game that has a subtitle that abbreviates to HD, but there is still a surprisingly active community and a healthy amount of DLC to keep you up until past when Dracula returns to his coffin.

The odd man out of 2008's all star debut class when it comes to Summer of Arcade, Galaga Legions suffers mostly in comparison to Namco's other arcade update Pac-man Championship Edition, and to its famous ancestor. Ignoring all of that reveals a pretty standard but still engaging shooter in the traditional sense, with just enough arcade inspired charm to keep players coming back.

Games in the Summer of Arcade increasingly have a certain amount of ambition to them, and some of the most fondly regarded games in the line-up are out of nowhere indie surprises that play with and subvert our expectations of games and their mechanics. Fruit Ninja Kinect is a port of an iPhone game with motion controls. It may not reinvent the wheels or shift any paradigms, but Fruit Ninja on Kinect keeps the same hectic quick burst gameplay that made fruit violence so appealing and reminded everyone that dumb fun is just as important as your gaming vegetables.

Summer of Arcade tends to result in genres making a surprising comebacks, and From Dust might be the one of the best examples of that yet. A traditionally PC-bound genre, the God game has you controlling and giving orders to your peons from on high. It's a game that is equal parts power fantasy as it is tense time management strategy, and while some awkwardness in controls can annoy, it's a solid representation of a style of game mostly absent from the service.