Welcome to this weeks welcome back edition of XBLA Today. We have been away for a couple weeks, and now we are back and ready to praise and pounds down different arcade games every week. Rocketbowl, Samurai Showdown 2, and Shotest Shogi are the new titles this week, and sadly, I’m not terribly excited about any of them. Why? Read on to find out!

First off, we’ll start with Rocketbowl. Rocketbowl is the new boxing title from 21-6 productions and takes bowling out of the alley and put’’s it just about everywhere. You have rocket boosts to your ball and can turn your ball and even hit pins from a different frame. I have to say the game was fairly fun, but wasn’t really fun enough for a pickup. Bowling is fun, but the whole turning thing makes it interesting for a second, but the repetitiveness comes quick. The multiplayer could make it more interesting, but for the time being, it’s just okay

Samurai Showdown 2 is the classic arcade game you may remember from the SNK cabinets. It was a fun arcade fighting game at the time, but now, it just feels dated. There is updated graphics on it that don’t look that upgraded to me. It is 400 points so for big fans of the classic it may be a pick-up, otherwise, I’d say avoid.

Shotest Shogi is a Japanese board game that plays a lot like chess, but with some big differences. For instance, the pieces you take of your opponent, you can put back on the board as your own. There are some good tutorials with the game to help you get the intricacies of the game. There is also online multiplayer for you to test your skills, or humiliate  the skills you think you have. It is probably my favorite game of the week, but if you already have some of the other simple board games, it may just be a pass as well.

We had 1 okay, 1 avoid, and 1 fairly decent this week, and even though it’s not the best, it makes me remember when we would miss weeks with arcade games consistantly, or if we got one, it would be a retro release. Thanks for stopping by on this weeks XBLA Today, and see ya next week!