The Xbox Live Arcade and Indie Games catalog has plenty of dual-stick shooters already, ranging in price from $1 to upward of $15. Competition is fierce, and Death by Cube is the latest entry trying to stand out. $10/800 Microsoft Points will get you a rather frantic, ’hardcore’ game whose major features are a variety of stages, a pair of special defenses for your character, and the ability to unlock various character modes that improve one trait while weakening another.

At its most basic level, Death by Cube plays like most other games in this genre in that you move around using the left analog stick, and shoot in any direction by using the right stick. Unfortunately that arrangement is not able to be reversed, something I hope all future titles in this genre will do. The other noteworthy difference in the controls is the addition of two other buttons; one does a dash, the other brings up an energy shield. The shield’s use is fairly obvious in that it blocks incoming long-range attacks, and you can then shoot the gathered projectiles back at your enemies. The dash is a little more interesting, since it lets you briefly become invulnerable (effectively letting you pass through enemies and projectiles), and also causes your foes to believe you’re still at the location you started the dash from. They’ll quickly figure out the deception, but mastering the dash is nonetheless the most important thing you can do in this game.

Learning to use both of these defenses is important because Death by Cube is very intent on living up to its name; while the first few stages are pretty merciful and serve as reasonable tutorials, later levels ramp up the difficulty and send hordes of enemies at you. Correctly using these defenses often awards you various power-ups, but it also prevents you from not getting killed. This can lead to some very intense stages where you’re rapidly alternating between shielding, dashing, and shooting in various directions, and it can be pretty fun at times. Unfortunately, it can also be hard to see the action because the game insists on having all the robotic enemies you fight explode in a burst of red ’oil’/blood, and you’re often facing a dozen or so enemies at once; it’s easy to fill the screen in these red bursts. This becomes a problem when enemies begin firing red projectiles at you, making it hard to see the action at hand.

Beyond just dashing about and shooting, there are a few other things that make Death by Cube a little different. The most significant of these is some unusual missions; they can range from the typical (survive as long as you can on one life), to being more detailed base assault/defense stages where you have to either protect your home base from enemy swarms, or destroy their base while also fending off the swarms trying to repair it and kill you at the same time. There are also a few different character modes to unlock, which trade one aspect of your normal performance in for improving another. This leads to certain modes being more useful in different stages, so it keeps things interesting.

Death by Cube offers some online play modes, but unfortunately they appear to be deserted; attempts at ’peak hours’ over three days yielded absolutely nobody to play with. The modes seem to be about some kind of team-based versus play, but the only way I know that is reading the in-game manual. This is kind of bizarre; I used to criticize Square-Enix for publishing downloadable games that had no online play, and now that they’re adding it I can’t find anyone to play with. Sadly, this is a real problem because while the single-player experience is fun, it is eventually going to wear out its welcome, and online play can only solve the issue if there are people to play it with.

This leaves us with what amounts to a competent, ’hardcore’ dual-stick shooter. It’s a little too intense for my taste, but I can overlook that. Death by Cube is a decent game, and I’m certain that those who enjoy a heavy challenge will find a lot to like for their $10/800 Points. On the other hand, it faces stiff competition because the XBLA and Indie Games catalog is full of dual-stick shooters and only does so much to stand out from the crowd.