The one feature that made the Xbox stand above its competition in any category was Xbox Live. The inclusion of online play with a fully featured service was a long time in coming and with the Xbox 360, Microsoft upped the ante, creating a full featured lobby system, with rankings and an Xbox Live Arcade feature (XBLA) that offered gamers a chance to download some of their favorite old games directly to their hard drives. The service, a direct access feature of Xbox Live is a great way to not only access your favorite games of arcade times long past, but to play them against your friends online. Of the many XBLA offerings so far, three stand above the rest as the best available at the moment.

Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved

Originally included on Project Gotham Racing 2 and 3, Geometry Wars was immediately available for download on the XBLA service when the Xbox 360 launched in late 2005. The game, a revved up version of Asteroids, is extremely simple, quite something to look at and all in all, one of the most addictive arcade experiences around, even compared to the older quarter chomping classics. The visuals are firework inspired flashes of light and simple graphics and regardless of how simple a game this is, for only $5, it’s the best option around for arcade gaming on your Xbox 360.

Doom

The classic first person shooter that started it all is back, this time for a system that could stomp it under its pinky toe if it so desired. Regardless of graphical power though, Doom stands up to the test of time, and still remains one of the truly fun games ever made and an amazing multiplayer experience. It is that multiplayer that makes this a must download for XBLA. With both co-operative online play and four player multiplayer, this is an amazing experience, something you can replay after 15 years and get something new out of.

Alien Hominid

This flash original, developed by Behemoth is an instant classic with slick graphics, a hilarious premise, and an amazingly well developed Metal Slug style arcade shoot em up. It’s not only a great (and cheap) download for your XBLA library, but it’s a great game to have period. Released two years ago on consoles, the ability to shrink it down and give it to you for download is incredible. If you have seen a little alien with a big huge gun chomp on an angry FBI agent’s head, you haven’t played enough Alien Hominid yet.

XBLA is a great product. While it doesn’t have the support of endless A quality software like Nintendo’s Virtual Console, it does have an ample supply of original ideas and arcade style games from gaming past to tap and port for its uses. And the inclusion of online play, something other services are still troubled with, makes all of these games amazing entries to any gamer’s library.