Official Xbox Live Arcade Thread

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ESRB Watch:

EXIT 2

Platform: Xbox 360

Rating: Everyone

Content descriptors: Cartoon Violence

Rating summary: This is an action puzzle game in which players navigate a small character through various hazards (e.g., fire, electrical waves, alien attacks) in an attempt to rescue civilians trapped in buildings. Players must set a path for the character that allows them to reach the exit without harming themselves or civilians. If players choose a dangerous path, the character may die from fire, drowning, electricity, or other hazards, and then must start the round over.

Puzzle Quest Galactrix

Platform: Macintosh, Windows PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3

Rating: Everyone 10+

Content descriptors: Alcohol Reference, Violent References

Rating summary: This is a puzzle adventure game in which players complete gem-matching puzzles to advance a storyline about intergalactic conflict. Players can also engage in text-based missions such as finding items or searching planets for life forms. Occasionally, players will be tasked to deliver brandy or grapes used in winemaking. Throughout the story, there is dialogue about violent events such as slavery, religious holy war, nuclear weapons, and death threats.

CRYSTAL DEFENDERS

Platform: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3

Rating: Everyone

Content descriptors: Mild Fantasy Violence

Rating summary: This is a strategy game in which players arrange small soldiers around a winding path to defend against waves of enemies. As the small enemy sprites (various creatures that look like wolves, ostriches, and spiders) pass by the stationed soldiers, they are attacked with arrows and swords. Characters disappear in flashes of light when defeated, while "zapping" sounds accompany each hit.

Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers

Platform: Windows PC, Xbox 360

Rating: Teen

Content descriptors: Mild Blood, Mild Suggestive Themes, Violent References

Rating summary: This is a fantasy card game in which players use cards that contain pictures of creatures and warriors to defeat opponents. Players' objective is to play their hand of cards in particular orders onto a playing field, using the battle traits and resources of the characters represented on the cards. Card images include depictions of warriors on fire, soldiers stuck by lightning, a bloodstained torture device, and a vampire with blood on its chin and claws. Some female creatures are depicted with provocative outfits that reveal some cleavage.

ARKANOID Live!

Platform: Xbox 360

Rating: Everyone

Content descriptors: No Descriptors

Rating summary: This is a puzzle game in which players bounce a small ball at arrangements of colored bricks to clear a game board. Each set of puzzles contains a different collection of blocks and background graphics.
 
Hey, I have a question someone might be able to answer.

I have Meteos Wars that I got from the US marketplace. If I picked up the DLC from the Japanese marketplace, would it work?

The reason is I have alot of unused Japanese points right now and no American ones.

Also, would that content not work if my machine was offline (because I would be using my American gamertag).??
 
Shard said:
ESRB Watch:

EXIT 2

Platform: Xbox 360

Rating: Everyone

Content descriptors: Cartoon Violence

Rating summary: This is an action puzzle game in which players navigate a small character through various hazards (e.g., fire, electrical waves, alien attacks) in an attempt to rescue civilians trapped in buildings. Players must set a path for the character that allows them to reach the exit without harming themselves or civilians. If players choose a dangerous path, the character may die from fire, drowning, electricity, or other hazards, and then must start the round over.
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Want want want want.
 
The Maw DLC Coming

Kotaku is reporting that ‘The Maw‘ developers Twisted Pixel are already hard at work on some DLC for the arcade title. For those that have played the game this should come as no surprise. While being a unique and very fun game to play I found it to be somewhat on the short end of the spectrum. With the three new DLC levels, whose releases will be spaced out, we will be able to fill in some more of the story as they will be acting as “deleted scenes” that take place between the retail levels. Here’s a little more info on the levels that will be coming with their own Achievement ad will run close to 100 MS Points.

“Brute Force will fill in some missing moments found between and original game’s second and third level, the team told me. In this level, Bounty Hunters have sent in members from their new elite strike force, the Brutes, to stop Frank and Maw.

In River Redirect, which occurs after the original game’s sixth level, Frank and Maw have to change the course of a rive to reopen their path past a raging fire.

The Speeder Lane level will take place after the original game’s seventh level and has Maw and Frank stealing a Bounty Hunter Speeder and using it to break through a blockade.”

There is no official date for the DLC but like many others that have enjoyed playing ‘The Maw’ I hope the first one shows up sooner rather than later.
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R-Type page lists 'Content Download' as a feature... hm.

Third Lightning converted into this engine pls
 
I think EXIT 2 was known about a while ago, wasn't it? Think it was on the Australian ratings site or something.

Like I said then, I just hope they've simplified the controls. I never brought EXIT because the controls got far too complicated for what is a pretty simple game.
 
Four Days of Blood Bowl
Slew of trailers in honor of the big game.

Focus Home Interactive announced today that it will be releasing four trailers of the upcoming Blood Bowl spread across four consecutive days, starting today. The plan is for each trailer to focus on one of the teams from the game with Friday bringing the first true peek at gameplay. The first of these trailers, which was released today, highlights the Goblin team.

Blood Bowl is said to be an "ultra-violent mix of American football and other team sports" and it all takes place within the Warhammer universe. Managers craft teams using orcs, elves, dwarfs and other fantasy creatures and then do battle on the fantastical gridiron.
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http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/948/948357p1.html

Goblins Trailer:
http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/14219412/blood-bowl/videos/bloodbowl_gobelins_012709.html
 
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3172495

Mystery URL At Japanese Microsoft Site Suggests 360 Final Fantasy IV

Go ahead, click on this link:

http://www.xbox.com/ja-JP/games/f/finalfantasy4/

Notice that Microsoft Japan's server appends a "details.page/" to the URL. Now try a different one; replace "finalfantasy4/" with "finalfantasy5/", gibberish, or anything else. No "details" are appended.

What does this mean? A "finalfantasy4" is registered on Microsoft Japan's Xbox 360 web page for some reason -- and we'd be willing to guess it might represent a forthcoming Xbox Live Arcade port of Square Enix's recent cell phone RPG Final Fantasy IV: The After. Just last week, Microsoft stated the following in its press release concerning Square Enix's first two XBLA releases, Yosumin and Crystal Defenders: "Beginning with these two games, Square Enix plans to release a steady stream of its popular titles -- as well as original content -- on Xbox LIVE Arcade". Both Yosumin and Crystal Defenders are ports from mobile platforms, so it's not such a stretch to imagine The After might be next.

Final Fantasy IV: The After is a direct sequel to FFIV, written and directed by original creator Takashi Tokita. A serial RPG in twelve chapters for the Japanese cell phone services (iMode, Yahoo!, and EZWeb), The After stars Cecil and Rosa's son, Ceodore, and takes place a decade after the events of the original game.
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UraMallas said:
HOLY SHIT. FFIV for XBLA?! This is the best gaming related news I've heard in months.
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15xmkia.jpg
 
Wow, Funtown Mahjong has the worst presentation of any XBLA game so far. Most of the graphics have this ugly scaled look to it when playing in 720p, some of the menus are in completely different style (a few of them so basic it looks like the programmer just hurried to make it in a few minutes), and some of the graphics effects are just embarassing. This is a type of game which make Community Games look bad if it was released there.

I like that when I press "Return to Arcade" I get a message where the first part reads: "The function you chose is not available in the free trial."
 
RBH said:
Soooo.......how's that RBI Baseball?
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My Partnernet has been down for a good week now and I'm waiting for Microsoft to send a new debug to replace this one. I wiped the HDD clean thinking it would help the net, but it didn't and I still have problems connecting to the net with the debug unit since it keeps telling me I need a higher MTU (of 1364) and I already have at 1500/Auto, so not much I can do.

So, couldn't load up both and give you a good comparison. Sorry :-/
 
Sectus said:
Wow, Funtown Mahjong has the worst presentation of any XBLA game so far. Most of the graphics have this ugly scaled look to it when playing in 720p, some of the menus are in completely different style (a few of them so basic it looks like the programmer just hurried to make it in a few minutes), and some of the graphics effects are just embarassing. This is a type of game which make Community Games look bad if it was released there.

I like that when I press "Return to Arcade" I get a message where the first part reads: "The function you chose is not available in the free trial."
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It kind of sucks for the Death Tank fans to know that the game is done but they're releasing stuff like this instead. I feel your pain Rlan, lol.
 
Caspel said:
My Partnernet has been down for a good week now and I'm waiting for Microsoft to send a new debug to replace this one. I wiped the HDD clean thinking it would help the net, but it didn't and I still have problems connecting to the net with the debug unit since it keeps telling me I need a higher MTU (of 1364) and I already have at 1500/Auto, so not much I can do.

So, couldn't load up both and give you a good comparison. Sorry :-/
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Partnernet's actually been down for upgrades since the 22nd :)

and DEATH TANK!!
 
1UP.com presents a journalistic preview of Texas Cheat'Em for the XBLA and PSN

http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3172517

once had someone in marketing tell me that if companies came up with more obvious game titles, they could get away with spending "about half" of what they normally spend on advertising. It seemed like a controversial statement at the time, but now that I'm sitting down and writing about Wideload's upcoming downloadable game Texas Cheat 'Em, I'm starting to come around. For example, I haven't said anything about the game yet and I bet you already know what it's about. Maybe not the specifics of how it works -- thus giving a reason for this preview to exist -- but certainly the concept of poker with cheating. The elevator pitch gets across in the name.

When you look just below the surface of that concept, you find that the "cheating" part is essentially a way to add more videogame-like aspects to a traditional poker game. Going along the theory that normal videogame poker can't match real poker because of the lack of money and atmosphere, the developers aimed to create something that would make up for that downside.

Wideload Shorts' Scott Corley on why Texas Cheat 'Em is one of the few multiplatform downloadable games: "I suppose every publisher and developer has a Magic 8 Ball that tells them what the best platform deployment strategy is. We have one. We shook it while saying 'what platforms should we ship Texas Cheat 'Em on?' And out of the purple fluid the words 'XBLA and PSN' appeared. So we went with that." [Note: D3 also plans to release a PC version of the game "at a later date."] Click the image above to check out all our Texas Cheat 'Em screens.
"Gambling with a videogame, playing a game of chance against a computer, is not very fun, or at least it doesn't meet our threshold for what we consider fun," says Wideload Shorts director Scott Corley. "So we started talking about how we could make a gambling game really fun when played as a videogame, and played online against people not in the same room. The idea of cheating came up. Suddenly we had a game that we would enjoy playing, because you could be clever and affect the outcome of a hand of poker in a skillful way."

During any given hand, you have a number of points that you can spend on cheats. Some of these affect other players, while others give you a chance at a better hand. You can use Card Suggestion to swap one of your cards out for another, X-Ray Vision to see an opponent's card, Chip Stealing to simply take chips out of their pot, and various other cheats.

The trick with all these is that you have to earn them by competing in minigames -- or I suppose "microgames" might be a better term since each takes about five seconds to play. After you spend your points, you face off against either the AI or another player, jamming on a button to race horses, choosing whether a random card will be higher or lower than one shown, etc. Win and you get to execute your cheat.

Corley on Wideload's current casual leanings: "We don't really want to have to go home and say 'look kids, here's the snuff-porn game that daddy has been working on!' Instead of coming up with new and interesting ways to kill people, we now tend to put things like colorful animals in our games instead. Stubbs gets to kill people in interesting ways because when he kills people it makes us laugh." Click the image above to check out all our Texas Cheat 'Em screens.
I had a chance to play approximately 10 rounds, and the nice aspect of having these minigames is it means there's almost always something to do. Because I was busy trying to pick the most effective cheat or playing minigames, I rarely found myself waiting for everyone else to make up their mind or finish their turn, which can be an issue in poker games with a lot of players. The interface also includes a timer so that if any player takes their hand off the controller for more than 30 seconds, they fold out automatically.

And as a result, in many ways Texas Cheat 'Em feels more like a light strategy game than straight up poker. You're constantly thinking about how to use your tricks in order to make the best hand (and to help with this, a meter on the left side of the screen shows the hand hierarchy and where your current hand lies at all times), and that gives the game a much different feel from a typical card game.

Given the developer's history ("the attitude across Wideload is, basically, if everyone is running one way, we look in a different direction," says Corley), that's presumably the idea.
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SapientWolf said:
It kind of sucks for the Death Tank fans to know that the game is done but they're releasing stuff like this instead. I feel your pain Rlan, lol.
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I really think they're artificially stretching these games out so that they can have a set of respectable games for another "Summer of XBLA." They probably won't push stuff like R-Type or Lode Runner that far away but who knows...
 
Sectus said:
Wow, Funtown Mahjong has the worst presentation of any XBLA game so far. Most of the graphics have this ugly scaled look to it when playing in 720p, some of the menus are in completely different style (a few of them so basic it looks like the programmer just hurried to make it in a few minutes), and some of the graphics effects are just embarassing. This is a type of game which make Community Games look bad if it was released there.

I like that when I press "Return to Arcade" I get a message where the first part reads: "The function you chose is not available in the free trial."
Click to expand...

The presentation and graphics may be sub-par, but the gameplay seems pretty faithful to the core game. I never played real Mahjong, but the rules and such seem to be there. I'm considering buying the game, but I want to see what my roommate thinks first, as she's Chinese and plays for real.
 
Rlan said:
Partnernet's actually been down for upgrades since the 22nd :)

and DEATH TANK!!
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Hmm... odd. I've had two buddies say their Partnernet was working fine but then again they barely play the XBL/XBLA portion of it so maybe they never really attempted to log on.

Well, maybe this is why Microsoft is being so slow in response, who knows. I'll try back in a week or something to see if they've updated.
 
Well what do ya know, Partnernet is up and running today -- so it wasn't my debug after all.

Well to the user that wanted a comparison of RBI Baseball and MLB Stickball, I'll have one for you by tomorrow afternoon :).

I have to redownload all my games again and Partnernet is a lot slower than XBL, so it'll take awhile (Hasbro, Magic, Dishwasher are all ahead of RBI as of this moment).
 
I don't know what's going on with my copy of Braid. I am trying to play it however it says that it's in Trial mode. I deleted the game and re-downloaded it and it still isn't playing correctly.

I'm pretty sure the problem was that I downloaded the game on another 360 although I had my hard drive installed at the time. Can anyone help me out?
 
striKeVillain! said:
I don't know what's going on with my copy of Braid. I am trying to play it however it says that it's in Trial mode. I deleted the game and re-downloaded it and it still isn't playing correctly.

I'm pretty sure the problem was that I downloaded the game on another 360 although I had my hard drive installed at the time. Can anyone help me out?
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Are you playing offline? If you downloaded the game on an other system (even with your memory card/HDD) it's tied to that system; you would either need to do the one per year license transfer to your current box, or be connected to XBL when playing the game, so it will recognize you as the "legitimate" owner because you're not playing it on the Xbox 360 it was purchased on.
 
striKeVillain! said:
I don't know what's going on with my copy of Braid. I am trying to play it however it says that it's in Trial mode. I deleted the game and re-downloaded it and it still isn't playing correctly.

I'm pretty sure the problem was that I downloaded the game on another 360 although I had my hard drive installed at the time. Can anyone help me out?
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Are you signed into Xbox Live when trying to launch the game? XBLA titles are attached to the serial number of the console that they're originally purchased on. On a different console you gotta be signed into live to authenticate the game. (Unless you've gone through the DRM switcharoo process for the new console.)

Edit: beaten to the punch.
 
http://xboxlive.ign.com/articles/950/950021p1.html

UK, February 2, 2009 - R-Type Dimensions, the HD revival of the classic 2D shooter series, has been confirmed for a global release and is expected to land on Xbox Live Arcade later this month.

Developed by Tozai, the game is an HD remix of R-Type I & II, adding online co-op to the mix as well as the enhanced visuals. Shoot The Core carried word of the release date, and Microsoft has since told IGN that the game is on schedule for a European release, and that precise timings will be unveiled later today.
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In case anybody is wonder this marks 4 games confirmed for this month, 3 on 3 NHL Arcade, Flock, Cellfactor: Psychokinetic Wars and now R-Type Dimensions.
 
Interesting, most interesting, it seems the 3 on 3 NHL Arcade has been bumped back a week.


http://www.easports.com/

(Coming Soon Section)
02.11.09

3 on 3 NHL Arcade


That is straight from EA Sports, so the release feild is wide open I guess.
 
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