So Microsoft finally updated their Games for Windows LIVE software this week adding the Games on Demand feature that has been on the Xbox 360 for a short while now. I am planning on writing up a longer post about Games for Windows as a whole later but I wanted to say a few things about this new game, Tinker.

The greatest thing about Tinker is that it is completely free to play. Tinker is also exactly the type of game that you would expect to see on XBLA. I actually wish the game was on the 360 so I could play it on my TV as well as talk in a group chat over LIVE. I will say, however, that Tinker is a good sign of what is to come to Games for Windows.

The game itself doesn’t need a whole lot of description. It is a standard puzzle game where you control a cute little robot around a square grid level, getting rid of obstacles in order to reach the end of the level. The game ranks you by time, numbers of moves, and number of collectibles for each level giving you stars based on your performance.

I have gone through the 20 tutorial levels along with a few of the first stage levels. The game does seem to mix the puzzles up quite a bit with different types of blocks, bombs, switches, teleporters, and even lasers and mirrors. I can only image things will get pretty difficult in the later levels.

While the game itself is solid, it suffers from a lot of little problems. The most significant being its issues with both the Xbox 360 controller and the Games for Windows overlay in general. First of all, the game doesn’t go full screen. You always see the windows tabs at the bottom as well as the box around the entire window. This isn’t a huge deal, but it shouldn’t be an issue at all.

One of the problems with controller compatibility is that when you go through the tutorial, it doesn’t have different text explaining which button to push. I figured out shortly that “A” is the action button and not “spacebar” or “enter” if I weren’t using the controller. There is also the issue of bringing up the Games for Windows overlay. It is basically just like when you bring up the dashboard when playing an Xbox 360 game to check your friends online status or achievements. The problem here being that when the overlay is up, any input from the controller effects both what is happening in the dashboard as well as in the game. This actually caused me to exit the game without knowing what happened.

These may seem like some tiny things to complain about but they are problems that should be easily remedied. I didn’t have these problems when playing Fallout 3 on the PC, but I did have other issues with its integration with the Games for Windows. It would be interesting to see if other games suffer from similar problems to this. If this issue isn’t isolated, Microsoft needs to figure that shit out. If there are usability issues, Games for Windows will never catch on.

What it really comes down to is that the game is free. Go to the official website to download and install the GFWL software and you can install Tinker from there are check it out.