Official Xbox Live Arcade Thread

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Man, with releases like this week's like they know there are points in my account and they know I've downloaded a few games I like but don't love and they want me to pull the trigger on those before they bring out the big guns...
 
So, I've been out of the XBLA loop for the past 2 months or so... since Ikaruga came out really. I'd like to finally catch up, so what would you guys say are the must-buy games from within that time period, if any?
 
Mark D said:
So, I've been out of the XBLA loop for the past 2 months or so... since Ikaruga came out really. I'd like to finally catch up, so what would you guys say are the must-buy games from within that time period, if any?
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Assault Heroes 2
 
Rlan said:
What needs to be a downloadable game? #8 - Bubble Bobble!
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YES PLEASE.

That game has some of the most infectiously catchy 8-bit music ever. And the co-op was a blast. I'd be worried that whoever remade it would give it a totally hideous art style, but it would still be worth the $5 or $10, especially with added content and online co-op.

I gotta give you props -- your picks for these need-to-be XBLA games have been spot-on.
 
Rlan said:
New Happy Tree Friends Trailer:

http://www.gamerbytes.com/2008/06/new_happy_tree_friends_false_a.php

What needs to be a downloadable game? #8 - Bubble Bobble!

http://www.gamerbytes.com/2008/06/not_done_what_needs_to_be_a_do.php
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You know, this doesn't work out as much when you cover all there systems, Bubble Bobble is already a downloadable game, as if I recall correctly it was released for the Virtual Console around December, also if we throw the PC into the mix, the Gametap service has Bubble Bobble.
 
Shard said:
You know, this doesn't work out as much when you cover all there systems, Bubble Bobble is already a downloadable game, as if I recall correctly it was released for the Virtual Console around December, also if we throw the PC into the mix, the Gametap service has Bubble Bobble.
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They could release Bubble Bobble on the toilet with new Flush Physics™ and thousands of people would still be interested. I'd even buy it if it had 4 player online multiplayer. For XBLA, not the toilet. Unless...
 
Shard said:
You know, this doesn't work out as much when you cover all there systems, Bubble Bobble is already a downloadable game, as if I recall correctly it was released for the Virtual Console around December, also if we throw the PC into the mix, the Gametap service has Bubble Bobble.
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True, but a NEW Bubble Bobble would be great, and even Online Coop could work on the Wii.

Just because there is Bomberman '93 and Alien Crush doesn't stop Hudson from releasing Bomberman Wiiware and Alien Crush WiiWare :)
 
Rlan said:
True, but a NEW Bubble Bobble would be great, and even Online Coop could work on the Wii.

Just because there is Bomberman '93 and Alien Crush doesn't stop Hudson from releasing Bomberman Wiiware and Alien Crush WiiWare :)
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True enough. Though I should mention to the uninitiated that the Gametap version has leaderboards and online co-op. Though, I do see your point, nothing like that on the console downloadable services, and nothing with upgraded visuals.
 
http://www.360sync.com/2008/06/16/new-marathon-content-hits-this-wednesday

Freeverse just sent us the heads up that the new DLC entitled - Jjaro Map Pack will be hitting this Wednesday for 250 Microsoft Points. Slated for a June 18th release, this content pack will extend the Marathon gaming experience on the Xbox 360 gaming console with new maps, game modes, and textures.

The Jjaro Map Pack for Marathon: Durandal will include 12 classic multiplayer levels previously seen in Bungie’s Marathon and Marathon Infinity. Nostalgic players will recall the names of these classic maps: Thrud, Vulcan, King of Pain, Spiral Insanity, Dead Fields, Morphine, La Cosa Nostra, Mars Needs Women, ‘Fugee Camp, What Goes Up Must Come Down, Arena, and Spline. [Clicking the links will give you an early video preview of the maps!]

Each of these downloadable maps will support new gametypes previously unseen in their original release on the Macintosh platform, including King of the Hill, Kill the Man with the Ball, and Tag.

Also included in this downloadable content pack is the “Jjaro” collection, a texture and design set previously introduced in Marathon Infinity. In addition to these exciting new environments in which to play, players will also be able to unlock two new achievements:

* killjuggy Thing What Kicks - Kill a Juggernaut in Survival and live to tell the tale. 20 points.
* kingpfhorday King Pfhor a Day - Outscore all other players (at least 3) combined in a King of the Hill or Kill the Man with the Ball match. 10 points.

If you want to earn the new achievements, you’ll have to get the new map pack. Let us know if you buy the map pack this Wednesday, as some of us will be playing it Wednesday night.
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Tomorrow's games are pretty decent. Nothing awesome, but I liked 'em enough. Elements of Destruction is the better one, though it needs to get quite a lot deeper than the demo was. Sealife Safari is just Pokemon Snap with fish. It'll get much hate on GAF, but it's a nice, relaxing little experience if you like sealife.

(These are among the last games I'll ever "preview" in this thread or whatever. I won't have any more PN access unfortunately.)

ICallItFutile said:
Is it fairly certain he glitched the game? Has anyone else come across odd leaderboard scores before?
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It's in pretty much every XBLA game, yeah. Always someone with a fishy score on top; either from glitching (both aware and unaware glitching) or boosting (getting a friend to lose to you 500 times so you can be #1 in Tapper). It happened to me in Heavy Weapon where me and my crew were seemingly the first to run into the online glitch and we had a massive survival time because of that, and we didn't actively do anything to glitch it yet got lots of shit for being cheaters.
 
Sean said:
Happy Tree Friends is NEXT week (June 25th).

Elements of Destruction and Sea Life Safari are this weeks games.
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I like the concept of Happy Tree Friends, sounds like Lemmings. But then I read that it only has 10 levels (compared to like 100+ in Lemmings) and is made by Stainless Games. Any microscopic bit of excitement is now rightfully gone.
 
New Schizoid Screenshots

http://www.xbox360fanboy.com/photos/schizoid-xbla/

schizoidjunenew-61.jpg


schizoidjunenew-51.jpg


schizoidjunenew-41.jpg
 
AstroLad said:
I'll never understand that. Wouldn't it take some intern five minutes to fix? Seems like most companies just release something on XBLA and then just completely forget about its existence. Hope that changes in the future.
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Its actually really challenging to change or remove XBLA leaderboard scores for technical reasons.

We had a lot of work to do to fix up just a couple of leaderboard anomalies introduced into our leaderboards over the Christmas period where Live was having all those problems. Took a long time and I still don't know whether it all got resolved properly.
 
Feeding Frenzy 2 XBLA launching in July (New IGN Preview and Videos)

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/882/882491p1.html

Feeding Frenzy 2 Hands-on
They say there are plenty of fish in the sea. Now there are less.
by Erik Brudvig


June 17, 2008 - PopCap Games cut its teeth on web-based flash titles, but it wasn't long before the lucrative console market came calling. Already we've seen the likes of Zuma, Heavy Weapon: Atomic Tank, Feeding Frenzy, and Bejeweled 2 come courtesy of the publisher and developer. Now the Xbox Live Arcade is getting a sequel to one of the downloads that came out in the beginning part of 2006. Feeding Frenzy 2 offers the same formula of the original, but seeks to answer critics with the addition of new power-ups, stages and multiplayer gaming.

If you played the first Feeding Frenzy game, you'll be right at home with the sequel. Each stage begins with you at the bottom of the food chain. Anything smaller than you is up for munching, but anything bigger will do the same to you. Gobble up enough small fish and you'll grow and, since turnaround is fair play, you'll then be able to eat what was once chasing you. Get to the top of the food chain and scarf down a bit more and you'll pass the stage.



As you progress through the 60 odd stages you'll meet new fish, obstacles and environments. To avoid the nasty barracudas, sharks, aquatic mines and big fish, you'll have to make use of the power-ups such as a temporary speed boost or a mushroom that wipes larger fish off of the screen for a quick second. My favorite stages were ones set in the dark which required you to keep snagging power-ups to light the way with a lantern fish. Much has remained the same in the sequel, though we did notice that some stages now allow you to jump out of the water to snag bugs. Just watch out for hungry birds.

The big additions come in the multiplayer side of Feeding Frenzy 2. A host of mini-games have been added as well as a co-op story mode. Each mode can be played with up to four players, though it looks like this won't support Xbox Live. You'll have to round up three friends in front of your console to enjoy these puppies. The mini-games are simple, time based affairs designed to keep the feeding frenzied and occupy our brief, MTV generation attention spans. We tried out a few and found mini-games that offer up tasks such as eating as many bugs as possible or doing as many flips outside of the water as you can (make sure you time it right so as not to belly flop and stun yourself). The most interesting one we played challenged players to nip others in the tail as many times as possible. Of course, they're trying to do the same to you simultaneously.

Feeding Frenzy 2 launches on the Xbox Live Arcade next month. If you can't wait, it's already out on the PC.
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Gameplay Videos

http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/949/949560/vids_1.html
 
pilonv1 said:
Any reviews of Elements of Destruction yet? I remember that sounding awesome.
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It's made by the same team that created the abomination that is Screwjumper.

So hopes are very low.
 
FlyinJ said:
It's made by the same team that created the abomination that is Screwjumper.

So hopes are very low.
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From what I heard, Elements is pretty decent and Screwjumper was a bastardized version of something more abstract.
 
pilonv1 said:
Please be so, this could be my first blind purchase in months
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You know, the games all come with free demos.... I know they're not always fully representative, but you can at least get a sense.
 
SickBoy said:
You know, the games all come with free demos.... I know they're not always fully representative, but you can at least get a sense.
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I can see where he's coming from, though. Sometimes I wonder if I'm being too stingy with my points. I bought a few 1600 pt cards when Target was selling them for $5 and I still haven't bought anything. It's easy to talk yourself out of a game when all you have to go by is a demo.
 
I'm not interested at all in SLS and EoD. I won't even try them.

I can't wait for Happy Tree Friends and hopefully Ticket to Ride next week.
 
I shouldn't talk about it, but it's below the cap now :)

A few other games went through similar situations. One was 350+ then went down to 150, and another was 700+ for two days, then went all the way down to below 350.
 
EA Announces 'EA SPORTS Fantasy Football' applications for XBLA and PSN

http://www.gamerbytes.com/2008/06/ea...ts_fantasy.php
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nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

i thought this was going to be Fantasy Football where we all get to make our soccer team picks for the English Premier league or something which would be AWESOME.

That said, fantasy NFL isn't that bad, but yeah....

i was thinking this was this :

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=nugmBqZ_S3c
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv0jCoGpBEA

:/
 
borsdy said:
I just turned off auto downloads, xbla is really turning up crap.
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Come on. There are still good games coming out. Whenever you have a lot of games coming out there are going to be some stinkers, but I think there have been several good games this year.

I really think we are spoiled on XBLA. Folks who only have access to PSN rejoice at pretty much every new game release, and then turn on the game only if it is indeed garbage. Thanks to the demo requirement on XBLA, I will try anything once.
 
Just checked out the two demos, crappy again this week.


Something really needs to change with these releases, 800 points for every new shitty game is the first thing that needs to stop. Are devs getting too close to there product (ms should really take a firmer hand recommending lower price points for some of these).
 
Gowans007 said:
Just checked out the two demos, crappy again this week.


Something really needs to change with these releases, 800 points for every new shitty game is the first thing that needs to stop. Are devs getting too close to there product (ms should really take a firmer hand recommending lower price points for some of these).
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Yeah, far too many 800 point games. Roogoo is a fun game that gets pretty difficult, but most people aren't going to spend $10 for what the demo shows as a baby game.
 
LakeEarth said:
Yeah, far too many 800 point games. Roogoo is a fun game that gets pretty difficult, but most people aren't going to spend $10 for what the demo shows as a baby game.
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Yeah the 800 point for any new title trend is a bad one, some games could get a bit of slack or be worth it for the diversion if they were 400. I think the biggest joke is still word puzzle for 800 tho I'm told last weeks Frogger 2 is horrendous.

Its really got to be hurting the devs and MS, Everyone is being exposed to this and the price points and giving up and only the "hardcore XBLA" follower are finding out about the good new releases in the sea of shit or only the high exposure titles Bio Commando, Castle Crashers etc. are getting any interest while the rest just lay in a sea of noise.


as for Roogoo yeah its a great game and really ramps up, Im stuck about 3/4 through the campaign but the demo was incredibly shallow and basic.
 
Frogger 2 isn't that bad, but definitely would have been better at 400, it's just so damn short.

Elements of Destruction is super fun so far, really enjoying it.
 
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