Canalside's piratical action game Yo-Ho Kablammo and Hidden Path's strategy effort Defense Grid are this week's two Xbox Live Arcade releases, Microsoft has affirmed.

Yo-Ho Kablammo sees players blast foes with cannons and other power-ups across its single-player and multiplayer (both online and off) modes in an attempt to rule the seas.

Defense Grid: The Awakening, meanwhile, has players strategically building and upgrading defenses to hold off ever-increasing waves of invading enemies. The Xbox 360 edition packs all of the content found in the PC release, plus a few new levels.

Both Xbox 360 downloads are due Wednesday, Sept. 2, at 800 MS Points ($10) a pop.

Hidden Path has announced that the Xbox Live Arcade release of its tower defence Defense Grid: The Awakening will arrive on September 2 for 800 MS Points ($10).

The XBLA version boasts four new levels and a dozen challenge modes over the fine PC original, in addition to the regular "12 hours of story play, 24 unique environments across the Awakening campaign... plus over 100 unlockable challenge modes."

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Hidden Path today announced that its strategy title Defense Grid: The Awakening will hit Xbox Live Arcade in "late summer," which is extremely good news for Xbox 360 owners that can't wait until South Park Let's Go Tower Defense Play! for their fix of the genre.

Previously released on PC, the downloadable tower defense force game will sport "12 hours of story play, 24 unique environments across the Awakening campaign and four bonus Borderlands maps, plus over 100 unlockable challenge modes" in its Xbox Live Arcade iteration. No word on pricing or a specific release date, but we'll let you know.

Hidden Path Entertainment's tower defense Defense Grid: The Awakening is currently on special offer on Steam, massively reduced from $20 to a mere $5 until May 15.

Build and upgrade towers to fend of waves of robots over 20 lush levels, with Steamworks achievements and some quite marvellous explosions--it's a steal at $5.

Here's a demo that's worth a look. Tower defense fans may be towered-out after the recent glut in the genre, but developer Hidden Path has done just enough with Defense Grid: The Awakening to justify another 20 levels of spire building.

Sure, the towers are mostly rehashes of the standard cadre, but the "power cores" that players must defend put an interesting twist on the strategic side of things. The cores are carried off by enemy mechs in ones and twos, and if a core-carrying unit is destroyed, it floats back towards the base--until it's picked up by another unit. This domino effect can lead to some intense reactionary tower building--that can often make for some terrible long-term ramifications.

Created by Age of Empires II lead designer Mark Terrano, Defense Grid is at least worth a spin--especially if you're not familiar with the tower defense genre. Grab the demo here from FileShack. The PC game sells for $19.99 on Steam.

Hidden Path Entertainment, developer of the Xbox Live Arcade trivia game Wits & Wagers, is bringing the tower defense genre back to the PC with Defense Grid: The Awakening.

Tower defense started as a popular modification to Blizzard's Warcraft III. The gameplay--building and upgrading various towers that shoot at ever-stronger lines of enemies marching toward the player's base--proved addictive enough to pave way for the PlayStation 3 release of Q-Games's PixelJunk Monsters and an expansion pack earlier this year.

With Defense Grid, Hidden Path is bringing the tower-defending phenomenon back to its PC roots with 20 levels. The game will be released this November.