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XBLA (Xbox Live Arcade) News, Announcements, Reviews, and Impressions Thread

SirFisher said:
Everyone should buy ilomilo. One of my favourite games of all time (yes!). The puzzles are challenging and interesting, the art style and the world are so well realised, the soundtrack is just incredible and the story.. man, the story really got to me, more than almost any other game. It's simple and therefore powerful.

All the parts mesh perfectly to form a game I can't forget.
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Yes, ilomilo is a great game, quite challenging too.
 
JDdelphin said:
-and what the heck, no sale on the GoD version of WWE Allstars? (although, just checking it- is some of the the dlc for that on sale?)
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Nope, currently those are the normal prices.

Nelson is waiting for everything to drop but the panel popped up on the US marketplace. Only the forza horizon dlc pack hasn't dropped yet of the ones listed.
GoW 3 or Halo 3 weren't listed so they may be holding back a few panels with shooty stuff.
 
SirFisher said:
Everyone should buy ilomilo. One of my favourite games of all time (yes!). The puzzles are challenging and interesting, the art style and the world are so well realised, the soundtrack is just incredible and the story.. man, the story really got to me, more than almost any other game. It's simple and therefore powerful.

All the parts mesh perfectly to form a game I can't forget.
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Agree with this 100%. Easily one of my favorite xbla games around.
 
JDdelphin said:
Fun with mere mortals though
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And only ones you know as well. The first month of that game was aggravating since jerks were using anagram generators on their phones and PC's/laptops and hitting the incredi-word every time. It was hard to get a fair game going and Denki only had the money to fix the lock ups and not put in cheat protection.

Quarrel is one of the best games of last year but holy hell did it expose just how horrible the wider gaming community can be.
 
RobotRocker said:
And only ones you know as well. The first month of that game was aggravating since jerks were using anagram generators on their phones and PC's/laptops and hitting the incredi-word every time. It was hard to get a fair game going and Denki only had the money to fix the lock ups and not put in cheat protection.

Quarrel is one of the best games of last year but holy hell did it expose just how horrible the wider gaming community can be.
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...is there a Quarrel crew around here?
 
Any opinions on:

The Undergarden
Scarygirl
Adventures of Shuggy

The above are all listed under the "related" tab next to ilomilo when browsing marketplace.
 
Montresor said:
Any opinions on:

The Undergarden
Scarygirl
Adventures of Shuggy

The above are all listed under the "related" tab next to ilomilo when browsing marketplace.
Click to expand...

Scarygirl
Scarygirl: I played this before, but I figured I'd give it another try. I think I liked it a little more this time but not enough to buy it. The combat is a little ho-hum and more well suited to a beat-em-up than a platformer, the jumping doesn't feel great (there are a number of jumps where you're going from one platform to another platform above you, and you only have the exact vertical momentum required to get there, so you end up sort of clipping the corner). The art style isn't really for me either, it's kinda like Emily the Strange or whatever meets vinyl claymation look. The demo is longer than I remember it though, you get four stages and a teaser for a boss.
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Meh.

The Adventures of Shuggy (review)
Shuggy is a puzzle platformer comprised of 150 or so levels, mostly single screen. You are Shuggy, a vampire that inherits a haunted mansion and needs to drive the ghosts out. What's cool about Shuggy is that it's basically a kind of a buffet approach to the genre. There are probably a dozen or so different level types throughout the game.

To list a few:
- Every 15 seconds a new Shuggy ghost is spawn and retraces the old Shuggy's path. You need to use your ghosts to hold switches to open doors for you, but if you touch them, you die.
- Shuggy can't move, but you can rotate the stage 90 degrees.
- Chunks of the stage randomly rotate, creating new permutations that may or may not be accessible
- Shuggy can have a sort of bungie cord rope and swing around the level. Use the bungie cord to turn gears, but don't accidentally cut the rope.
- You switch between many Shuggys, controlling them all. Watch that one you're not paying attention to doesn't get hit by an obstacle.
- An AI controller computer partner works with you.
- Autonomous goo is crawling around the floor or ceiling. Touch it and it will jump from ceiling to floor or vice versa. Get the goo to certain areas.
- Potions in the level can make you super huge or super tiny, make sure you're the right size to get through.
- Moonjump; in these stages, Shuggy can jump super high
- 36 unique co-op levels which prove to be a great twist on the above mechanics.

The game is very clearly done by a guy with help from a few of his friends. He worked on it for several years, and it didn't do great on XBLA, fewer than 10k copies sold I think. It's a real quality product, the kind of thing that people would jump on if it were available on Steam. The art is simple although cute, there's no fancy cutscenes, and the game is 4:3 with borders. If you liked Braid or PB Winterbottom or if you like flash games or really any kind of 2D puzzley platformer, you'll like this game. It's a simple, humble game, but it's a good one. I'd like to see the guy who made this hired as a designer for bigger games, because he nails the level design and ideas so well. Adventures of Shuggy is a meagre $10 and while the 150 levels don't last for hundreds of hours, it's great value for money and supporting a good, hardworking developer
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I think the price has dropped since then.

The Undergarden

The Undergarden: I played this demo when it came out and thought "cute and harmless". This time I played it and thought "cute and harmless". It's a level based puzzle game where you move a cuddly bear teletubby thing around a screen, cause grass to grow and flowers to bloom, use the flowers fruit to activate weight and anti-gravity switches, which opens corridors, which lets you move through. It's very colourful and very welcoming. In the tutorial level I didn't see anything that could injure you, so I'm guessing there aren't any enemies. It reminded me most of Soul Bubbles in that the levels were kind of tunnel-and-clearing setups and you float around in any direction, although the mechanics are different. I bought this because it was 240 msp and might get delisted soon. The game has co-op but I can't see how that could possibly benefit it--this is definitely intended to be a single player game. Cute and harmless.
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RobotRocker said:
And only ones you know as well. The first month of that game was aggravating since jerks were using anagram generators on their phones and PC's/laptops and hitting the incredi-word every time. It was hard to get a fair game going and Denki only had the money to fix the lock ups and not put in cheat protection.
Click to expand...

It's impossible to build cheat-protection into Quarrel, because a high level player and a cheater look exactly the same. The only way to build in cheat protection would be to incredulously argue "no one could be that good".

With games like Wordament (Boggle), it's easily to do because the player has a fixed amount of time to maximize score--cheaters go for high level words and never low level words--for example picking long words but never words contained as a subset of the longer word. A regular player would do this fairly consistently because constant input is necessary to get a high score so any player is going to do all the available permutations of a word they pick before moving on to new words. And even then cheat-detection is a loose heuristic that requires many plays. It's not just about skill (indeed cheaters normally don't win at Wordament because the input lag required to get the words off the anagram finder is too high) but rather about the pattern of choices.

(FWIW, I did write a Quarrel AI while I was playing the single player)

Montresor said:
Thanks a ton stump. You've sold me on Shuggy.
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As always try the demo first. I really loved it, some on GAF didn't. The demo doesn't show you all the diversity and challenge but it at least gives you a sense of what you're in for presentation-wise (specifically the single screen thing bothers a lot of people)--but if you do buy it, I hope you enjoy it. The co-op is great.
 
JDdelphin said:
My only quarrel with Quarrel is how near impossible it is to play the ai at higher levels.
It's physically impossible to type in anything (let alone a good word) as fast as the ai does and in a lot of modes being fastest means you win any tie on points.

Fun with mere mortals though
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Yeah, it can get pretty difficult later on. It's still a great game, definitely worth considering at its sale price.

Anyway, I just noticed that Fuel has been added to the sale. Opinions? It's an open world rally/off road racer, which is right up my alley, but reviews are exceedingly average.
 
Stumpokapow said:
It's impossible to build cheat-protection into Quarrel, because a high level player and a cheater look exactly the same. The only way to build in cheat protection would be to incredulously argue "no one could be that good".

With games like Wordament (Boggle), it's easily to do because the player has a fixed amount of time to maximize score--cheaters go for high level words and never low level words--for example picking long words but never words contained as a subset of the longer word. A regular player would do this fairly consistently because constant input is necessary to get a high score so any player is going to do all the available permutations of a word they pick before moving on to new words. And even then cheat-detection is a loose heuristic that requires many plays. It's not just about skill (indeed cheaters normally don't win at Wordament because the input lag required to get the words off the anagram finder is too high) but rather about the pattern of choices.

(FWIW, I did write a Quarrel AI while I was playing the single player)
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Agreed that you can't put in complete protection against cheating in that genre, but I'd Quarrel that Quarrel would have been a bit more balanced for online by adjusting the round time to 30-35 seconds from 45 and disabling chatpad as an input as the joypad added to the input time and would have made juggling between a phone and a console a little more difficult since you couldn't just punch it in with the chatpad keyboard. The inherent clunkiness of the pad would have added to the panic and put off people using their phones/PC's since they wouldn't be able to multi-task so quick. Meanwhile a good player would be able to spot words and get them in quickly. Most of the time when I was playing against the few people who were doing it fairly, if someone hit the incrediword or a high scoring word very quickly, especially since the game rewarded speed (I'd say it took good players playing fair 7-15 seconds to lock in their words if they spotted what they wanted)

You can't completely stop cheating, but you can certainly level the playing field a bit.
 
enzo_gt said:
So.. BattleBlock Theatre is out tomorrow. Does no1 curr about the game or what?

They just announced crossover unlocks today with Castle Crashers and Alien Hominid and I made a thread about it.
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I care I care, I actually got to play it but we're not supposed to talk about the beta even when the game releases, because of the NDA and whatnot.

All I can say is that is was really fun and the multiplayer, with communication, is great (not all the modes but some are really interesting).
 
Released today,

boxartlg.jpg


BattleBlock Theater - 1200msp, 1.16GB.

(Double Dragon 2: Wander of the Dragons will be coming out this Friday)

Also,

Capcom Arcade Cabinet
--Commando, The Speed Rumbler and Exed Exes (Savage Bees) - 800msp
--Legendary Wings - 320msp
--Side Arms - 320msp
--Trojan - 320msp

Guardians of Middle-earth
--Frodo - 160msp

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
--Who Wants To Be A Junior Millionaire? - 240msp
 
Anyone from Yurope that might wanna play this game coop with me and get all the achievements? I don't know if I can convince my friend that I usually play coop with to buy Battleblock.
 
I have been pretty happy with Deadlight on XBLA so far. I am not sold on the control scheme necessarily however. I had to stop playing last night after I got stuck at a point where I can't figure out what to do next. I just need a break and will go back and tackle it.

There was some good press about it early, then some reviews were placing negative marks against it. I personally find it underrated.
 
Hedon said:
I have been pretty happy with Deadlight on XBLA so far. I am not sold on the control scheme necessarily however. I had to stop playing last night after I got stuck at a point where I can't figure out what to do next. I just need a break and will go back and tackle it.

There was some good press about it early, then some reviews were placing negative marks against it. I personally find it underrated.
Click to expand...

It is supposed to get progressively worse as it goes. Good opening, but goes downhill fast.

I have not played it, so cannot back that up, but heard enough to put me off it for good.
 
Keyser Soze said:
It is supposed to get progressively worse as it goes. Good opening, but goes downhill fast.

I have not played it, so cannot back that up, but heard enough to put me off it for good.
Click to expand...

Entirely possible. I am early on into the game (just recently got the .38). I guess I was basing the entire game off of my play so far, assuming it remains consistent. Puzzles, side scrolling, climbing, jumping and zombies has been a win so far.
 
I love the actual, factual description for Double Dragon II the revenge.

This is a remake “Double Dragon II” a 80’s game. The story line takes same as original game story. However, the graphic, character, action, system etc. are change. Also we are including new stage and enemy in the game. The player will be addicted to new version of Double Dragon II. Also, characters are undressed from 80’s style, and recreated with modern sexy and beautiful style that amaze you and feel never been experienced world before.
Click to expand...

I mean what the fuck.
 
Hedon said:
Entirely possible. I am early on into the game (just recently got the .38). I guess I was basing the entire game off of my play so far, assuming it remains consistent. Puzzles, side scrolling, climbing, jumping and zombies has been a win so far.
Click to expand...

The second quarter is almost all platforming with little zombie interaction, then you get some good stuff again, and then back quarter is trial-and-error human-v-human gunplay; I liked the game a lot (I think I'm still in the top 50 in the world leaderboards) but there's a weird sort of disjointness about it.

Rlan said:
I love the actual, factual description for Double Dragon II the revenge.

I mean what the fuck.
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Sounds like whatever SE-Asian company they outsourced dev to, they also outsourced the platform producer role to.

BTW I just finished all 6 Raskulls GPs on Intense difficulty. I officially have nothing left in the game to complete except to unlock Barry Steakfries, so I've been playing multiplayer over Xbox Live with my girlfriend between rooms. I hope you guys are able to return to the game some time (ideally a Steam port with Workshop support for level creation and new characters would be amazing).
 
I can't remember the last time a demo surprised me in a good way. Usually I know what I want and what to expect going in, so I don't even try out the demo before spending the money - and sure enough, the majority of games I don't plan on getting don't impress me with their trial versions.

That said, I genuinely enjoyed Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams. Admittedly, the jumping feels a bit slippery at first and the level design has its flaws. But switching between the worlds is seamless and fun (had to change it to "Manual world switch" in the settings first, though) and it generally provides a good challenge. It probably gets brutal in later stages (and there's "Hardcore" and "Über Hardcore" to unlock).

The levels have a fair number of secrets and there's (not so great) artwork to unlock. I should note that I'm a sucker for collecting stuff in platformers. The two different jumping mechanics (dash/float) for the two sisters allow for some interesting sections where you have to switch a lot and react quickly.

I liked the choice of "happy world" for the angry redhead and "devil world" for the harmless blonde. While I wasn't feeling the punk rock, the vibrant, colourful artstyle more than made up for it.

Definitely picking this up when it goes on sale.
 
So ilomilo, how is it? I played the trial and really enjoyed it, very charming art style and music. However does the game as a whole hold up? Wondering if it's worth dropping $5 on this.
 
ilnadmy said:
So ilomilo, how is it? I played the trial and really enjoyed it, very charming art style and music. However does the game as a whole hold up? Wondering if it's worth dropping $5 on this.
Click to expand...

Yes; the game gets increasingly more difficult, and especially the expert stages are hard. There's a lot of content. If you like the demo you'd definitely like the full game.
 
Battleblock Theatre: So, this was weird for me. On the one hand, I think it's actually funny, it's really good looking, and I actually enjoyed it a lot more than Castle Crashers or Alien Hominid, neither of which I really liked or thought were particularly interesting examples of their genre. On the other hand, it doesn't feel like there's much here. The level designs end up feeling simple because of their segmented nature, most of the level design elements seem pretty atomic--the way I'd compare this game to Raskulls is that both defy expectations... Raskulls levels appear to be random but actually have very very strategic block placements, while Battleblock Theatre levels appear to be elaborately constructed but actually don't have very much to think about. Perhaps the co-op levels are a little more meticulous in their design?

I like the emphasis on being able to create your own levels and share them, and I'm sure the community will take off. There's a ton of unlockable content, too, although it's not clear how many levels there with which to gain currency to unlock stuff--it's possible you'll have to grind levels to get more currency? The EGM review suggests 100 levels, which would give you 700 gems, which would be enough to unlock 70 characters? Not sure if there's more or fewer than that in total?

I'd really like to get a sense of the competitive modes. The movement and the level designs themselves in the campaign don't seem to lend themselves well to really quick intense competition, so I'm guessing the competitive modes involve more open stages or stages with more parallel paths?

I read just about every review available right now, and none of them really introduced any element of comparison to any other games or gave me context to answer the questions I had. Mostly just very surface-level "It was so fun! It's really intense! It's fun! I had a lot of fun!" stuff... thanks, guys.
 
Stumpokapow said:
Battleblock Theatre
Click to expand...

I'm the odd one out in not enjoying Castle Crashers (don't generally like any brawlers) so I haven't been looking forward to this all that much. I watched a linked video to TotalBiscuit and then watched the Giant Bomb guys and it looks extremely boring. Then again, both videos were really early on but I agree in that nothing looked too interesting.

As for the gems I think there's nine total per level as the Giant Bomb guys got a +2 gem bonus when they got all the gems, yarn, and time awards for a single level. Aside from that, I would expect they want you to get more gems simply from playing multiplayer? I guess that could be seen as grinding? Also, do you get gems on user created levels?

Anyhow, unless I hear something about the levels really picking up I don't see myself picking it up. I'll probably grab the demo to give co-op a try with the girlfriend and see what she thinks but I'll likely save my money for Monaco.
 
Either I completely missed the news when it's been talked about or this is new info,

The Ride to Hell: Retribution game is going to have a companion XBLA game.

Looking to lead your own pack of fearsome bikers? Ride to Hell: Route 666 is just for you, taking the player on a journey to conquer legendary Route 66. Players will recruit and lead a gang of bikers from Chicago to Los Angeles, fighting for every mile of the road using both brain and brawn. Fast paced arcade combat combined with easy to understand tactics – anyone who understands team sports will be able to dive right in to commanding their gang. Get ready to rule the road with Ride to Hell: Route 666 in June 2013 on the PlayStation Store, Xbox Live Arcade for Xbox 360 and Steam.
Click to expand...

No screens or footage yet but there are images of the full game here and a nsfw trailer here.

Dev for the xbla game is Black Forest Games, the guys that made Giana Sisters Twisted Dreams.
 
Stumpokapow said:
Battleblock Theatre: So, this was weird for me. On the one hand, I think it's actually funny, it's really good looking, and I actually enjoyed it a lot more than Castle Crashers or Alien Hominid, neither of which I really liked or thought were particularly interesting examples of their genre. On the other hand, it doesn't feel like there's much here. The level designs end up feeling simple because of their segmented nature, most of the level design elements seem pretty atomic--the way I'd compare this game to Raskulls is that both defy expectations... Raskulls levels appear to be random but actually have very very strategic block placements, while Battleblock Theatre levels appear to be elaborately constructed but actually don't have very much to think about. Perhaps the co-op levels are a little more meticulous in their design?

I like the emphasis on being able to create your own levels and share them, and I'm sure the community will take off. There's a ton of unlockable content, too, although it's not clear how many levels there with which to gain currency to unlock stuff--it's possible you'll have to grind levels to get more currency? The EGM review suggests 100 levels, which would give you 700 gems, which would be enough to unlock 70 characters? Not sure if there's more or fewer than that in total?

I'd really like to get a sense of the competitive modes. The movement and the level designs themselves in the campaign don't seem to lend themselves well to really quick intense competition, so I'm guessing the competitive modes involve more open stages or stages with more parallel paths?

I read just about every review available right now, and none of them really introduced any element of comparison to any other games or gave me context to answer the questions I had. Mostly just very surface-level "It was so fun! It's really intense! It's fun! I had a lot of fun!" stuff... thanks, guys.
Click to expand...
I bought the game, played first two chapters thus far.

The number I've been hearing thrown around is 460 levels from people who appear to be beta testers (might include the co-op counterpart for levels and then the hard mode's levels and their co-op counterparts (though I haven't tried hard mode yet) and multiplayer levels for all the various modes). And there are 320 characters to unlock, 64 of them might not be tied directly to gems though (star/golden heads) because the Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers heads. It's too early to know if maybe a new store opens up later. Those may require specific feats to unlock, as there's no place to purchase them. Also you don't have to buy all the heads. That's why the trading system exists. Two players can go into a part of the shop and just trade heads to get them all, there's even an achievement for trading with 10 different players.

As you progress they open up a ton of different block types which you have to deal with. Movable blocks, conveyor belts, ice, power pads, fans with switches on their opposite sides, transparent blocks you can move through, ice blocks, cannons working in tandem, sticky blocks which let you cling to walls SMB-style. There are a lot of platforming options, eventually you have to make use of jetpacks, wings, propellors, boats. And this is just what I've seen in the first two chapters. No idea if it ramps up significantly, but I wouldn't say anything was too demanding thus far. Otherwise, the game is not really "hard" thus far, on the easy mode anyways. You can reset the level at any time in case you kill an enemy you need to manipulate to reach a platform, etc. or if you just want to start at a previous checkpoint. They are very segmented, but the challenge comes in trying to get the time condition too, adding that speedrun element (to get A++ rank you need to beat it in time, and get all of the collectables too). Each boss level is considerably harder than the regular levels and is on a clock ticking down. Also some levels randomly have hidden bonus levels that you can access from within the level and have a pretty much free additional 7 gems + yarn.

To 100% each level there are 7 gems in each level (10 used to put into a machine to unlock a random character with a specified head shape), 1 ball of Yarn (exchange 5 to get a random weapon), and you have to beat the time under par. If you do so, you get two bonus gems. Sometimes (I think randomly?) a hat appears on some part of the level and you have to get it and bring it to the finish, which will reward you with 10 bonus gems. Haven't tried grinding thus far, but I assume grinding doesn't work and you just get the difference if you improve. Weapons are sort-of designed to provide their own little advantages, but you don't really need any of them to beat a level (i.e a dart gun that can stick to walls and use as a temporary platform, bomb frog that crawls along surfaces and explodes when in proximity of an enemy, vacuum that sucks things closer, bubble gun which shoots bubbles you can bounce on, etc.). In my eyes a metagame will develop in both competitive and co-op where the most effective weapons are found out and employed to get faster times.

The co-op is working together rather than with parallel paths, stuff like you needing to throw your partner to reach something you couldn't otherwise reach, having one player sacrifice themselves to move forward, a lot that reminds me of Splosion Man in that case. The competitive stuff is generally open levels. I haven't played competitive myself but it seems like they've got a robust set of creative gametypes. Generally, I expect the competitive to die out quick like it did for Castle Crashers, and from the OT it seems like people are experiencing some netcode issues? But all of it being playable locally with 4 players means it'll probably be a riot, though maybe a bit unbalanced and "messy."

I think how much you enjoyed the demo and if you like what you see in the GiantBomb QuickLook of the game which shows the first few levels and the competitive + co-op MP should be a good indicator on if you should buy the game or not, because it's more of that.

Wibblewozzer said:
I'm the odd one out in not enjoying Castle Crashers (don't generally like any brawlers) so I haven't been looking forward to this all that much. I watched a linked video to TotalBiscuit and then watched the Giant Bomb guys and it looks extremely boring. Then again, both videos were really early on but I agree in that nothing looked too interesting.

As for the gems I think there's nine total per level as the Giant Bomb guys got a +2 gem bonus when they got all the gems, yarn, and time awards for a single level. Aside from that, I would expect they want you to get more gems simply from playing multiplayer? I guess that could be seen as grinding? Also, do you get gems on user created levels?

Anyhow, unless I hear something about the levels really picking up I don't see myself picking it up. I'll probably grab the demo to give co-op a try with the girlfriend and see what she thinks but I'll likely save my money for Monaco.
Click to expand...
You don't get gems from multiplayer or user created levels or user level playlists (chapters people can string together from multiple levels they make), you get strawberries instead, which can't be used as a currency for anything.

Frankly, it's just too early to see if anything picks up. Game's been out a day and even The Behemoth's own forums are kind-of dead. I think this game has been coming so long with slowly drip-fed info that people stopped caring, and they didn't ramp it up enough pre-launch.

EDIT: Some people on The Behemoth forums are saying it ramps up gradually featuring timed levels and trickier jumps. I also forgot to mention there's also Furbottom's Feature, which features more levels made by Behemoth as well as featured Community playlists, and which also people are saying is more challenging. I guess if you want a challenge there's that and the hard mode, which I'm sure is hard considering how Castle Crashers' hard mode was.
 
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