Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) News and Announcements Thread - 2012 Edition

Status
Not open for further replies.
I mentioned this in the activity thread but it's really good to see all the games that were on sale show back up in the top 20 top xbla sales list.

The decision makers at Microsoft won't be able to help but notice that.
 
Great concept and visual style, but ultimately fails because of repetitive environments, lack of rewards for exploration and overly segmented level design. At first glance it looks like a Metroidvania, but in reality it's just a linear platformer with way too much backtracking. Still worth playing if you get it for cheap.

God I FINALLY find someone I agree with on Outland. My search is over.
 
Same price it is on Steam for the Because We May sale. Wonder how the developers got Microsoft to go along with that.

Yeah, I wondered if it was to do with that but it kind of defeats the point of that entirely. I thought "Because we May" existed specifically because developers couldn't just change prices at will on Xbox and PSN, but this suggests that that isn't true at all, or at least that Microsoft are open to price changes if developers so desire.
 
is it a Tower Defense game?

Tower "Offense"! Basically, you play a supertroop who escorts selectable vehicles down paths, which themselves can be dynamically changed. You also have AoE special abilities you can use, to hide your troops, heal them, cause damage, etc.

I just purchased it myself, feels like a fantastically polished, well put together game for 10 bucks, even more so at 4.

Won't have time to play it much myself this weekend (Yay for Anime Cons!), but I look forward to getting into the full game soon!
 
Not a bad few weeks ahead. Bang Bang Racing just confirmed for 6th.

05/30 Mad Riders (UBI/Techland) 800MSP
05/30 SEGA Vintage Collection: Golden Axe (SEGA/M2) 800MSP
05/30 SEGA Vintage Collection: Streets of Rage (SEGA/M2) 800MSP
06/06 Bang Bang Racing (Digital Reality/Digital Reality) 800MSP
06/06 Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown (SEGA/SEGA) 1200MSP
06/13 Babel Rising (UBI/Mando Productions)
 
God I FINALLY find someone I agree with on Outland. My search is over.

Actually, I was very disappointed by Outland after all the hype and for the same reasons lol.

To me it felt half baked, as if they threw it together really fast after its announcement. Really dead, simple world map screen that was actually unclear on where you were at, or what you'd already done, confirmed it.

The art direction blew a lot of people away, which is unfortunately kind of common with games like this - give it edgy or innovative art direction and all else is forgiven.
 
Actually, I was very disappointed by Outland after all the hype and for the same reasons lol.

To me it felt half baked, as if they threw it together really fast after its announcement. Really dead, simple world map screen that was actually unclear on where you were at, or what you'd already done, confirmed it.

The art direction blew a lot of people away, which is unfortunately kind of common with games like this - give it edgy or innovative art direction and all else is forgiven.

Funny, I've been playing Bastion lately and that how I feel about it. Just not that great a game IMO and very shallow and frustrating in many respects. But hey, there's gorgeous hand-drawn backgrounds and a cool ass narrator so it's awesome.

Outland is in my backlog.
 
I don't think so, as I remember that being a reason why the Super Meat Boy devs disliked XBLA so much.

A lot can change in a couple years, though. And Team Meat even got that introductory sale which was somewhat unheard of on XBLA.

So I'm guessing Anomaly is worth it for 320 MSP?

I already own it on Steam and Android and I'm considering triple dipping...

Microsoft just changed their policy for XBLIG allowing publishers to change the price of their games every 90 days. Maybe something like that for XBLA.

http://www.vg247.com/2012/05/22/microsoft-to-allow-more-frequent-xblig-price-changes/

XBLIG can change the price of their games every 7 days. It was 90 days before this change.
 
Funny, I've been playing Bastion lately and that how I feel about it. Just not that great a game IMO and very shallow and frustrating in many respects. But hey, there's gorgeous hand-drawn backgrounds and a cool ass narrator so it's awesome.

Outland is in my backlog.

LOL yes that describes Bastion.

It's not that "candy games" are always a bad thing.

But, sometimes I wonder at so many small teams getting incredible, glowing reviews and encouragement by doing nothing but making, well, almost hipsteresque artstyfartsty games. Games without much real game beneath the package.

Means I have to be very careful about glowing impressions on how amazing the latest indie treasure is.
 
A lot can change in a couple years, though. And Team Meat even got that introductory sale which was somewhat unheard of on XBLA.

That's definitely true, and it would show that MS is being smarter about things and going in the right direction if they are more flexible with pricing of XBLA games. That seems to be the most obvious flaw of XBLA right now anyway. You need to have more than just 4 games on sale per week. You need big blow-out sales, and not just one day during the holidays.
 
Are the deals of the week worth the price?

I'm referring to Might & Magic Clash of Heroes (600 MSP), and to Beyond Good & Evil HD (400 MSP). Thanks.
 
Just to chip in I'd say both games are an excellent value for that price. At their full prices their worth buying and playing through but on sale it's even more the case. Remember that both were previously full retail games at much higher prices before being put onto XBLA. Clash of Heroes was even redrawn and had a lot of work put into it, as well.

Both deserve to be purchased.
 
Anomaly is pretty sweet so far. Loving pretty much everything except the silly accents! Actually, I guess I love those too but not in a positive way, lol.

As for BG&E, I've always hated it and would never agree that it's a must-play. Most of the gameplay wants to be MGS but fails hard, any craft controls suck, Jade's controls actually suck a bit too and I think the story is confused and stupid. Does it want to be a cautionary, 1984-like tale or a fucking cartoon?
 
As for BG&E, I've always hated it and would never agree that it's a must-play. Most of the gameplay wants to be MGS but fails hard, any craft controls suck, Jade's controls actually suck a bit too and I think the story is confused and stupid. Does it want to be a cautionary, 1984-like tale or a fucking cartoon?

Are the inverted controls still messed up? Reason I stopped playing it, hoping for a patch.
 
PlayXBLA just posted screenshots of an unannounced XBLA game that will be revealed at E3. It looks to be an Avatar Motocross game.

Sqfal.jpg


uZhse.jpg


Original screenshot filenames include "AMX".
 
It'd be pretty neat if Microsoft actually used the Motocross Madness IP they've been sitting on all these years.

Well the filename definitely suggests Avatar Motocross, though Avatar Motocross Madness is a bit of a mouthful. With this, Trials, Red Bull and Joe Danger: the Movie, that's a lot of motorbike games on XBLA this year.
 
I would totally get BG&E if they had proper controller options. Need invert to play. Unbelievably dumb. You can tell me that's not a simple patch. Won't happen at this point though.
 
So maybe it's been discussed and I just missed it, but I'm gonna ask anyway:

Where is Spelunky? Wasn't it supposed to be Q1?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom