10 Xbox Live Arcade games that should be ported to Windows Phone 7

While Windows Phone 7 has made a fairly quiet start to its life - a considerable chunk of which will necessarily be spent playing catch-up with iPhone and Android - there’s no denying the quality of its hardware or OS.

Even more importantly to us, there’s no denying the quality of its first batch of games.

With its strong hardware and unique Xbox Live integration, the platform could produce grade-A gamer’s games the likes of which its rivals can only dream of.

With that in mind, we thought we’d look at one possible source of such unique titles – Xbox Live Arcade. This download service for the Xbox 360 console has been an enormous success, producing dozens of excellent games at a relatively low cost.

Indeed, both the technical and price level of your average XBLA title brings them tantalisingly within reach of Windows Phone 7. Here are ten of the titles we’d most like to see on Microsoft’s reborn mobile platform.

Pac-Man: Championship Edition DX

This update to Pac-Man: Championship Edition – which itself has appeared on iPhone, Android, and Java – has only just been released on XBLA, but it’s already making serious waves. The addition of two small letters barely does justice to the major overhaul that’s been undertaken here.

At heart it’s the same Pac-Man we’re all familiar with. On top of that is piled layer upon layer of variations, modifications, neon-soaked visuals and pounding electronica.

If this doesn’t make its way to Windows Phone 7, I’ll paint myself yellow and run around my town centre shouting “wacca.”

Rez HD We reference Q Entertainment’s audio-visual masterpiece a lot on Pocket Gamer, partly in the faint hope that someone will finally make a portable version. Windows Phone 7 looks as good a bet as any, given the excellent XBLA version.

To call Rez an on-rails shooter is a gross understatement, but that’s what the mechanics boil down to. The drag-across-multiple-targets firing system would map beautifully to the touchscreen, and the tightly integrated audio would work perfectly – although headphones should somehow be made compulsory.

N+ I have some mild reservations over virtual control issues – no pure platformer feels completely at home on touchscreen – but N+’s self-contained levels and simple goals (survive, get to the exit) could make a Windows Phone 7 version viable.

And, of course, Slick Entertainment’s brilliantly minimalistic platformer has a strong focus on user-generated content. The game’s powerful level editor, combined with WP7’s strong social focus could spark a whole new wave of N-based creativity.

Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 Earlier in the year we produced a similar feature to this for iPhone. Concerning Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2, Bizarre Creations’s influential twin-stick shooter, beloved friend of Pocket Gamer Fraser MacInnes wrote:

“Given (Bizarre’s) relationship with Microsoft, if another handheld version is on the cards the Zune HD may well get first dibs over the iPhone.”

Zune HD’s DNA has since been absorbed into Windows Phone 7, and the platform’s Xbox Live focus only strengthens the likelihood of (and demand for) a portable version of the game.

Shadow Complex While Epic has spent a lot of time showing off its Unreal Engine 3 running on iPhone and talking about Android compatibility, we can’t help thinking that Windows Phone 7 could see the most exciting applications of this technology. Just look at the brilliant Shadow Complex, an XBLA exclusive from Epic built on UE. It’s a sprawling Metroid-style action-platformer with branching paths, and we can’t help thinking it would be an excellent fit for WP7 – even with virtual controls.

Limbo Playdead’s Limbo is one of the most original 2D platformers to have turned up in a very long time. It’s also a beautiful, haunting experience played out entirely in black and white.

Some might argue that its menacing atmosphere and sedate pace wouldn’t suit mobile play. I’d say that today’s big sharp screens put paid to the first complaint, and would suggest that the slow, more cerebral pace is better suited to touch-controls than the likes of Sonic.

The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom Like Limbo, this ingenious little puzzle game sports a beautiful black and white visual style. Other than sharing a basic 2D platformer structure, though, that’s where the similarities end.

The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom is all about brain-melting time-twisting puzzles. The idea is to collect all of the pies in a level by replicating your character, setting up elaborate action-loops, and essentially working with yourself to solve problems. Confusing? Yes, but brilliantly so.

Outrun Online Arcade How could you possibly replicate the slick, fluid arcade racing brilliance of OutRun on a four-inch screen? Well, it’s been done before to decent effect in the shape of OutRun 2006: Coast to Coast on PSP.

The Windows Phone 7 hardware spec is easily a match for Sony’s ageing (albeit purpose-built) hardware. More of a challenge would be adapting the game to accelerometer steering, but done properly it could evoke the steering wheel-powered arcade original beautifully.

Ikaruga As Cave’s recent success on iPhone has shown, the supposedly hardcore 2D shooter is a surprisingly good match for touchscreen devices. The long portrait screen and precise touch-to-manoeuvre controls fit the platform particularly well. To some, Treasure’s Ikaruga is the pinnacle of the genre with its lush 3D visuals and distinctive two-tone gameplay. It could be made to work beautifully on WP7, with a touch of a second finger switching the colour of your craft.

Trials HD RedLynx’s fiendish stunt-riding masterpiece would be perfectly at home on Windows Phone 7. Not only would the repetitive, bite-sized gameplay suit be ideal for mobile play, but the controls would translate beautifully, too. The idea in Trials HD is to negotiate a series of obstacle courses on your dirt bike, shifting your rider’s weight to stay upright. This could be achieved beautifully on WP7 through a mixture of touch (for accelerator and brakes) and accelerometer (for shifting weight) controls.