Forum: gaming.stackexchange.com
Tags: <xbox-360><xbox-live>
Title: How to find the better games on Xbox Live Marketplace?
Question: With so many games on Xbox Live Marketplace (XBLM), how can I identify the better games or more popular games from the market?

Answers:
sents: text: There are two mechanisms the Xbox provides for you to do this.
text: It lists the most downloaded games
text: It lists the highest rated games
text: Now you have to take both of these metrics with a grain of salt.
text: People will rate games high
text: they have only played once, or download games they hear about a lot.
text: So keep that in mind.
text: As for the actual steps to do this.
text: Open your 360 dashboard Scroll up to game marketplace
text: Once inside scroll right to see highest rated and most downloaded If you're looking for good games
text: I might suggest:
text: Castle Crashers Shadow Complex Trials HD Puzzle Quest 2
answer_details: author: gaming.stackexchange.com/users/102/tzenes
score: 8
sents: text: Every game on Xbox Live Arcade has a trial mode.
text: I suggest you take advantage of this excellent feature.
text: Don't bother looking through what games are most popular or most highly rated.
text: The best possible advice I can give you is to download as many games as you can in the genres
text: you're interested in, and play through their trials.
text: If you can't trust your own opinion of the game after having played the trial version, there is little help to be found elsewhere.
answer_details: author: gaming.stackexchange.com/users/1037/Christian
score: 4
sents: text: Metacritic tags Xbox
text: Live Arcade games.
text: Try this search .
text: It's not perfect - it misses Braid!
text: - but seems to cover most the good ones I know.
text: The dashboard also supports community-based star rating of games.
answer_details: author: gaming.stackexchange.com/users/80/monorailkitty
score: 2
sents: text: There is a new Destination Arcade coming soon.
text: Looks interesting.
answer_details: author: gaming.stackexchange.com/users/40/senloe
score: 1
sents: text: Check out Major Nelson's blog , particularly the "LIVE Activity" reports that he publishes weekly to find out what XBL Arcade games people are actively playing.
text: It changes from week to week, but gems like Trials HD will hang around in the top ten for quite some time.
answer_details: author: gaming.stackexchange.com/users/50/ZoogieZork
score: 1
sents: text: I've been looking through http://www.xblaratings.com lately.
text: It has user submitted ratings and reviews for XBLA games.
text: Granted since it requires and account there isn't MUCH info there sometimes, but it's one resource available.
answer_details: author: gaming.stackexchange.com/users/599/JustinP8
score: 0

Summary of the answers:
Every game has a trial mode. You can look at Mjor Nelson's blog to find the most popular games.
S2: Don't bother looking through what games are most popular or most highly rated. Every game on Xbox Live Arcade has a trial mode you can use and try out yourself. You could check out  Major Nelson's blog , particularly the "LIVE Activity" reports that he publishes weekly to find out what XBL Arcade games people are actively playing or take a look at  http://www.xblaratings.com.