Official Xbox Live Arcade Thread

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I can't believe my XBLA games don't show up as boxarts. Oh I see only when I am being advertised to, do I get the cool boxarts for the games. But once I buy them, it's back to the text only list! Boo!
 
Generic games seems to be the theme for this week's XBLA releases.

Meteos Wars is a match 3 puzzle game with falling blocks, I'm fairly sure everybody has already played a variant of that. This one has some weird gravity effect when trying to remove blocks and I don't feel that alone is enough of a change.

Powerup Forever is yet another Geometry Wars-esque dual-stick shooter. It has a few original ideas, but just doesn't seem fun enough to warrant a purchase. I've already got Super Stardust HD which I feel is the definitely the best game of that genre, so unless a game is drastically different I feel like I can just go play that game some more to get a much more fun experience.

If it was a remake or port of Warning Forever I would have been a lot more interested.
 
Sectus said:
Generic games seems to be the theme for this week's XBLA releases.

Meteos Wars is a match 3 puzzle game with falling blocks, I'm fairly sure everybody has already played a variant of that. This one has some weird gravity effect when trying to remove blocks and I don't feel that alone is enough of a change.
Anyone whose opinion is worth a damn already knew how Meteos played 3 years ago, and loved it.
 
Shig said:
Anyone whose opinion is worth a damn already knew how Meteos played 3 years ago, and loved it.
I think there's a lot of people who never played Meteos before. Either the XBLA trial does a poor job showing what's so fun about the game, or it worked a lot better 3 years ago for people who weren't bored to death by the whole "match 3" genre.
 
Shig said:
Anyone whose opinion is worth a damn already knew how Meteos played 3 years ago, and loved it.

So it's awesome because it's...awesome? I won't say Meteos is terrible, but it's definitely not the second coming of Peggle. I played it on the DS and found it pretty entertaining, but as far as puzzlers with a music component go Lumines was more my thing.
 
I prefer Meteos to Lumines by approximately 12 country miles, personally.

Not to give the XBLA release a free pass, though. It's got a very different control method that may not work as well. Gonna definitely check out the demo before considering a purchase.
 
xbhaskarx said:
So when will we get a co-op tower defense game with NXE avatars, like A Kingdom of Keflings combined with PixelJunk Monsters?


That might happen with Defense Grid, but I suspect that it is a bit too late for full NXE support.
 
Why the HELL is the Street Fighter Uno deck 280 space points? I normally do not complain about arcade prices but considering the other decks are 100 points and the whole game itself is 400, it seems a bit odd to me. Has anybody bought it? Is it actually worth it? I love the other decks (especially the Kameo one, oh it's so evil) and I was really happy to see another one pop up after all this time.
 
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21478

December 11, 2008

Xbox Live Arcade Sales Triple After New Xbox Experience

Xbox Live Arcade Sales Triple After New Xbox Experience Sales of downloadable titles from Xbox Live Arcade nearly tripled in the first week after the New Xbox Experience's launch, according to new data revealed by Xbox Live programming director Larry Hryb.

Speaking on his Major Nelson blog, Hryb said that Avatar-focused title A Kingdom for Keflings registered the second-best debut performance ever on the service. The update of UNO to include the use of Avatars bumped the game's sales 650 percent in one day.

Movie downloads increased by 49 percent and downloads of television episodes increased by 30 percent, following the launch of the new dashboard update. In the U.S. the Xbox Live Marketplace now offers more than 30,000 movies, TV episodes and music videos via Netflix and deals with 45 global network and studio partners.

The number of new friends added per Xbox Live member also rose by 33 percent as a result of the new interface, with Hryb indicating that the average number of unique visitors to Xbox Live each day has risen by 66 percent over the past year.
 
Shard said:
http://www.gamerbytes.com/2008/12/exit_2_coming_to_xbox_live_arc_1.php

exit22.png
Yayayayayayayayayaayayayayayayaayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayay!

There's probably only 4 people in the entire world who cares about this, but well, I'm one of those! EXIT is definitely my favourite puzzler on XBLA, it might be my overall favourite as well.
 
Sectus said:
EXIT is definitely my favourite puzzler on XBLA, it might be my overall favourite as well.
Are you one of the few to be able to 100% pretty much every level? There's a few I may need to pick your brain on. :D
 
Psychotext said:
Are you one of the few to be able to 100% pretty much every level? There's a few I may need to pick your brain on. :D
100% as in getting 200 points on every level? That's a bit out of my reach unfortunately.
 
My brother (gamertag: stubbscroll) is one of the few to have 200/200 in the game, he probably wouldn't mind a random message about it.
 
Didn't know where to ask so I'll post it here: Can I share XBLA game licenses between two Xbox 360's? Share as in me being logged into my XBL account on my console and another person being logged into theirs account playing my games.
 
love a kingdom for keflings (i dunno why. i think it might be the ridiculously cheerful music). but damn it looks like shit. i hear it even runs bad later on -_- what the hell
 
Cdammen said:
Didn't know where to ask so I'll post it here: Can I share XBLA game licenses between two Xbox 360's? Share as in me being logged into my XBL account on my console and another person being logged into theirs account playing my games.

Not the way you want. You could buy the game on his console though, and still be able to play it on your console (although you'll have to be logged into XBL to do so).

XBLA games are tied to 1) the console it was bought from, and 2) the gamertag who bought it. There is an utility that transfer the license from one console to another, but it does that for everything you've bought.
 
Princess Skittles said:
Why the HELL is the Street Fighter Uno deck 280 space points? I normally do not complain about arcade prices but considering the other decks are 100 points and the whole game itself is 400, it seems a bit odd to me. Has anybody bought it? Is it actually worth it? I love the other decks (especially the Kameo one, oh it's so evil) and I was really happy to see another one pop up after all this time.

My guess is they went over budget with HD:R so they are tryin to recoup in any way possible. Didn't they originally want to charge 20 for HD:R? PRemium theme, Uno Deck, Pinball FX skin, picture packs...

Sectus said:
Generic games seems to be the theme for this week's XBLA releases.
.

Meteos is anything but generic.

Theother game though yeah. Total bleh.
 
Shard said:
I'm not surprised. I bought up 4 games and downloaded 8 demos online the day after I got NXE. It's liberating when you don't have to deal with the 360's interface.

Brakara said:
Not the way you want. You could buy the game on his console though, and still be able to play it on your console (although you'll have to be logged into XBL to do so).

XBLA games are tied to 1) the console it was bought from, and 2) the gamertag who bought it. There is an utility that transfer the license from one console to another, but it does that for everything you've bought.
What happens when you buy the game online? Will the license then be tied to the first console you download it to?
 
SapientWolf said:
What happens when you buy the game online? Will the license then be tied to the first console you download it to?

Yes. Say you wanted to download a game while at your friends house. If you're signed in with your profile, the game will be tied to a) his console and b) your profile. That way, anyone can play it on your friends console, regardless of who is signed in.

When you get back to your house and download the game, you will need to be signed in with your profile in order to play it.
 
And somehow Live keeps tracking of the console you are using. I have 2 consoles, but I use the same gamertag on both (in a memory card). The first time I have used the web interface of the marketplace, the console downloaded the content just after starting, no questions. But later, when I try to download other stuff for my second console, when I turned it on all download were paused and when I clicked on them, there was a message saying "this content was queued for another console, want to download it anyway" (or something like that). I choose yes, and then this console becames the "prefered" console for Live (i.e. if I try to download something for the other console I have to do that again).
 
Hmm, isn't there several titles which were announced for 2008? Flock, Metal Slug 7, Arkanoid, R-Type... I'm pretty sure those titles were announced for this year some months ago.

Perhaps we might see a goldmine of XBLA titles at the very end of this year? Or a bunch of disappointing delays.
 
Sectus said:
Hmm, isn't there several titles which were announced for 2008? Flock, Metal Slug 7, Arkanoid, R-Type... I'm pretty sure those titles were announced for this year some months ago.

Perhaps we might see a goldmine of XBLA titles at the very end of this year? Or a bunch of disappointing delays.

Yea, those and Space Invaders Extreme I remember hearing slotted for this year. May just have been FY09, though, which would push them a bit back.
 
Brakara said:
Major Nelson mentioned on his latest podcast that the next week's bargain will be an XBLA title. Any idea what it will be?

No idea, but we haven't gotten any clues on the Xbox forums. My only guess is that it might be Uno Rush or possibly Things On Wheels.
 
Rlan said:
No idea, but we haven't gotten any clues on the Xbox forums. My only guess is that it might be Uno Rush or possibly Things On Wheels.


Uno Rush has sorta fallen off of the map, my bet would be on something like Interpol or Minesweeper Flags or even Puzzle Arcade.
 
Rlan said:
No idea, but we haven't gotten any clues on the Xbox forums. My only guess is that it might be Uno Rush or possibly Things On Wheels.

You think the bargain will be a new title? I thought it would be of an older one.
 
I have to say... Meteos, what did people ever see in this game? I played it on the DS once, but was it only up and down block movement??? I cannot recall. It is like a very uncompelling version of Klax. First off, if this is a port of the DS game, it looks like a direct port. Like they blew up a DS game on my television screen, and it sounds equally as compelling when you hear those beats kick in. I was completely ready to buy this game, and it is more then just the control scheme that makes this game not all that and a bag of Tom's. I understand early gaming platform desperation, but I would like to believe that this is something more then that. Please say bad port, because Lumines was awesome on both the PSP and the 360.
 
A2M Acquires Chilean Developer Wanako Games

Montreal-based developer expands offering to downloadable

MONTREAL, QUEBEC -- (Marketwire) -- A2M (Artificial Mind and Movement), Canada's largest independent game developer, announces that it has acquired Wanako Games, a video game studio located in Santiago, Chile. The first and largest game studio in South America, Wanako Games specializes in the production of downloadable interactive content. The studio is acquired by A2M from Activision Blizzard. With this transaction, A2M is expanding its offering across Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) and Playstation Network (PSN), using Wanako's established TONGAS game framework, while entering a growing market segment which complements its existing portfolio.

"The acquisition of Wanako Games is an opportunity to work with an experienced, motivated team, and to add successful downloadable games to our portfolio, including Assault Heroes 2 and 3D Ultra Mini Golf 2, said Remi Racine, A2M's President and CEO. The addition of downloadable content to our game offering has been part of our growth strategy. We couldn't miss this opportunity to provide A2M with a strong foot hold in the downloadable space and access to a great talent pool."

"We couldn't be happier to be joining A2M," commented Tiburcio de la Carcova, Wanako Studio Head. The complementarities of our titles, target markets and technologies, combined with our understanding of the license-based development, are paving the way to a solid alliance between the studios. In addition, we have developed relationships with prestigious universities and art schools in Chile, which will bring new approaches and favor exchange between the two cities."

Wanako Games has worked with the main console technologies, particularly Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. Since its foundation in 2002, the studio has developed 15 titles, including renowned brands, original Intellectual Properties and blockbuster franchises. Wanako Games' portfolio includes 3D Ultra Mini Golf Adventures and Assault Heroes, Game of the Year 2007 according to IGN. The studio is currently working on 3D Ultra Mini Golf 2 as well as an unannounced XBLA/PSN title.

Wanako Games employs 40 people and will continue to be based in Santiago, Chile.

Based in Montreal, Quebec, A2M (www.a2m.com) is dedicated to creating great games and original concepts that capture the player's imagination. Since 1992, A2M has developed over 40 titles across every genre, on every viable platforms. The studio has also partnered with the industry's top publishers and licensors, including Activision Blizzard, Disney, Electronic Arts, LucasArt, Sony and Warner Bros. A2M is Canada's largest independent game developer, employing over 450 talented people, and is committed to producing unparalleled game experiences with original or licensed Intellectual Properties, in a creative environment where talent thrives. Over the past three years, A2M has ranked amongst the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 and also as Canada's 50 Best Managed Companies, two years in a row.
 
Shig said:
Anyone whose opinion is worth a damn already knew how Meteos played 3 years ago, and loved it.
I'm among those who loved it, and maybe it's because there's no stylus, but I can't get into it on XBLA. It's a shame, because online play was the only thing missing from the original.
 
Brakara said:
Major Nelson mentioned on his latest podcast that the next week's bargain will be an XBLA title. Any idea what it will be?

For some reason I think it'll be Portal or Galaga Legions. I know both of those games are way too cool for this type of deal, but those are the two that came to mind.
 
PhlivoSong said:
For some reason I think it'll be Portal or Galaga Legions. I know both of those games are way too cool for this type of deal, but those are the two that came to mind.
I'm thinking Castle Crashers or Penny Arcade Ep. 1.

I'd be happy if it was Galaga Legions, though. That game needs a lot more love (and sales).
 
Well, whatever Microsoft is doing this week, I haven't a clue, the XBLA PR Organs has been severely lacking in this regard since October. You could set you watch by the as announcements in ye olden times but now, it is god damn crapshoot to when the world receives official news.
 
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