Xbox Live has been a mess recently. Microsoft seems to have underestimated the amount of people who would be buying Xbox 360s over the holiday season and overestimated their servers, which led to service outages and buggy Internet access on Xbox 360 consoles. After apologizing for their errors they hinted at a gift for our troubles, which would undoubtedly be a free game.

That ended up being the case, and next week the XBLA title Undertow will be available for free to all gold and silver users. Here is the official scoop from our friends over at the Gamerscore Blog.

Undertow Free of Charge Next Week on Xbox LIVE Arcade

Recently, Xbox.com posted a letter from Marc Whitten, General Manager of Xbox LIVE, thanking subscribers for their patience with the service. We’ve implemented several improvements to the service, to help ensure ongoing reliability and performance.  As the popularity of Xbox LIVE expands, we’ll continue to closely monitor the service and make adjustments.  As always, if you are having any problems, please contact your local support (1-800-4-MYXBOX in North America) so that we can assist you.

Marc announced that all Xbox LIVE members (Gold and Silver) around the world would have access to a full Xbox LIVE Arcade game to download free of charge. We’re pleased to announce that beginning next Wednesday, 2:00 a.m. PST through Sunday, 11:59 p.m. PST, Xbox LIVE members worldwide can download the full version of the recent award-winning Xbox LIVE Arcade game, Undertow.

Developed by Chair Entertainment Group, Undertow is one of the highest-rated and best looking games available on Arcade.  Undertow redefines aquatic based shooters through a mix of high-definition graphics, intuitive controls and multiple modes of game play action. The game features a full story driven-single player campaign, on and offline co-op, and multiplayer for 2-16 players over Xbox LIVE for Gold subscribers. Players battle for control of the oceans as one of three selectable races, each with four unique, upgradeable units. "Undertow" is available worldwide (normally 800 Microsoft Points) and is rated E10+.

This is another good move on Microsoft's part. They aren't throwing us Frogger or some other cheap game. Undertow received fairly good reviews when it was released and will be a must download once it hits for free next week. I would like to see the errors fixed quickly, though, as some people are still complaining of issues with the service. Hopefully we wont need to be gifted another game in a month and we will all be, once again, playing Call of Duty 4 in peace.