Xbox Live Arcade has seen many games from platformers of every kind to rehashing of old classics.  One kind of game it was missing in fact was the ever entertaining city building/management genre.  To the rescue comesNinjaBee with such a game.  However, leave it to them to add an interesting twist to the idea.  So does it live up to other classic NinjaBee games such as Cloning Clyde and Outpost Kaloki X?  Hit the break to find out.

As the first entry into the NXE with support for avatars, A Kingdom for Keflings shines as a great starter title for Microsoft's relaunch of the Xbox dashboard.  The game stars you or your avatar or one of the other avatars created for the game.  Once an avatar is chosen, the player is thrown into a land as a giant governing over and commanding the peoples of the land also known asKeflings.  Keflings are the task managers of the game.  As a giant, you are allowed to roam the world and help the Keflings in limited ways, but it is much more efficient to allow the Keflings take control while you are managing elsewhere.

The goal of the game is understand the structure of what is required for certain buildings to be made.  Eventually the game builds itself to be a thriving city.  There ends up being an entire social system via building schools and giving yourKeflings additional abilities and skills.  This is where the game shines as it allows the player to attempt to build a possible utopia where all are the same.  While it is possible to keep all citizens of the kingdom at the basic level it won't open up any new structures.  It is also possible to upgrade all theKeflings but this becomes tedious as well and is easier to allow social structure and intelligence to take place and keep the drones doing their thing.  Which brings up another excellence of A Kingdom for Keflings, as the game becomes more about what to do with the kingdom rather than the Keflings themselves.

The game also features what starts to be a relatively catchy soundtrack but soon grows a bit mundane when the songs start to repeat.  Be advised that it may be better to use the custom soundtrack option with this one.  However the music alone doesn't hold the game back.  In fact the game flows so well that its hard to sit down for 15 minutes of a quick play and end up playing for four hours.

If the main part of the game doesn't keep you entertained enough there is also an online option that allows up to four people to cooperatively build a kingdom.  Something achievement enthusiasts will need to tackle to complete the game 100%

A Kingdom for Keflings overall is quite the game and a wonderful entry onto the Xbox Live Arcade.  What can start as a relatively small Kefling operation tends to up pretty big and will have the player out for hours on end perfect their city.  The multiplayer option is very fun and a great addition to the game.  While the soundtrack becomes tedious and slightly annoying (but not annoying enough to turn the game off) it doesn't detract from the experience very much if at all.