Two up for Xbox LIVE Arcade this week, says Xbox Blogster Major Nelson. Both highly decent too…

Crystal Defenders is a fantasy/strategy game from masters of the art, Square Enix. Gameplay is endearingly straightforward - players deploy various battle units in order to ambush enemy forces as they march through the static-screen environments.

It’s fun for single players, and the basic ‘W1’ gameplay mode is augmented by advanced W2 and W3 options that introduce Power Crystals, bigger monsters and trickier terrain to the proceedings. Squenix veterans will be pleased to see the inclusion of assorted faces from Final Fantasy Tactics A2 too. All told it’s a tidy package for 800 MS Points - £6.80 to you. It’s heading to WiiWare and the Playstation Network shortly.

Similarly priced and, as we can attest, insanely more-ish, PopCap Games‘ casual gaming smash Peggle is a classic puzzler where players aim balls into a series of peg-filled screens. Hit a peg and it disappears, clear the screen of all pegs using the limited number of balls available and it’s onto the next. That’s the basic premise, but certain pegs reveal bonus powers, the 10 ‘Peggle Master’ characters have unique abilities and this Xbox LIVE rendition boasts 2-4 player on/offline co-op/competitive gameplay options missing from the original. There are 55 levels and 75 challenges to test your ball bearing-ricocheting madskills too. In other words prepare to be hopelessly addicted all over again.