Official Xbox Live Arcade Thread

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I downloaded the Ecco demo to check out the achievements and holy shit they're ridiculous.

One of them requires you to beat the game three times in a row without dying...the hell?
Granted the saving function could be abused to get through it all but c'mon..that's just silly.
 
Gowans007 said:
interesting stuff, most of all "Only 35% of a XBLA titles revenue is in the first two months"
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That's the best part of XBLA, the game is never taken off the shelf. I think it was Rare who said even though JetPac didn't set fire to the charts, they are still selling 200-300 copies of the game per day. Profit!
 
My favorite stat is the 156% average return on investment for titles over one year. It digitally delivers money.

I wish they included more sales numbers on individual titles and such, but I guess that can be gleaned from the leaderboards on each title.
 
SuperPac said:
What, no Hexic impressions? I loved the original Hexic. Granted, it was free and came with the 360, but it's still great.
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I'm not digging the texture on the hexagons at all, maybe it can be changed in the options, but I haven't checked that out yet. Everything else seems good, including the music. Sounds like they've got the same artist working on it, anyway.
 
Jonnyram said:
I'm not digging the texture on the hexagons at all, maybe it can be changed in the options, but I haven't checked that out yet. Everything else seems good, including the music. Sounds like they've got the same artist working on it, anyway.
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What's the music like?
 
Gowans007 said:
interesting stuff, most of all "Only 35% of a XBLA titles revenue is in the first two months"
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This is surprising. So the Hive mentality doesn't carry over to XBLA as it does with retail games. Endless shelf life means many of these purchases are impulse buys by casuals over time?
 
Xbox Live Arcade Coming to PC

http://www.gamernode.com/News/3682-Xbox-Live-Arcade-on-PC/index.html

At Gamefest, Microsoft has announced that they will be releasing a new update this holiday season for their Games for Windows Live development tools allowing developers to put their Xbox Live Arcade titles on the PC. There's no word yet on which games will be available, how it will work, or if already-purchased XBLA titles will require a second purchase to play on your PC. (Looking at Geometry Wars as an example, though, it doesn't look good.)

Hopefully with GFW Live heading to XP later this year Vista won't be required to play the Arcade titles, but until Microsoft reveals more information, that's part of the gigantic list of unknowns surrounding this latest announcement.

Stay tuned for more updates as Microsoft gives them. I'm curious to find out how they plan to convince gamers to spend money on arcade titles when there's a plethora of free flash games out there, as well as Steam.
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I swear If MS trys to double dip on the PC shit will hit the fan.
Doubt they would do that, live anywhere, one profile they are tied too etc..
 
Eggo said:
This is surprising. So the Hive mentality doesn't carry over to XBLA as it does with retail games. Endless shelf life means many of these purchases are impulse buys by casuals over time?
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I think it's called "The Long Tail" and it's been talked about a great deal in regards to online purchasing and digital distribution vs. standard B&M models. Amazon has the same thing going on with books. The period where sales occur is much longer because there are no worries about clearing out retail space for new product. Print on demand means that there's not even any worries about warehouse space.
 
Dr. Zoidberg said:
I think it's called "The Long Tail" and it's been talked about a great deal in regards to online purchasing and digital distribution vs. standard B&M models. Amazon has the same thing going on with books. The period where sales occur is much longer because there are no worries about clearing out retail space for new product. Print on demand means that there's not even any worries about warehouse space.
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Correct, the guy from Wired wrote a whole book about the phenomenon.

Compare this to this (the green line).
 
Jonnyram said:
Everything else seems good, including the music. Sounds like they've got the same artist working on it, anyway.
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No. I'm fairly sure that Stan LePard did the music for Hexic 2, while Jerry Schroeder did the music for Hexic HD.
 
xbhaskarx said:
Correct, the guy from Wired wrote a whole book about the phenomenon.

Compare this to this (the green line).
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Sigh.

The long tail has nothing to do with sales over time. It has to do with popularity of an item and the breadth of inventory that you carry. It says the aggregate of demand for many low popularity items is greater than the demand for the few high popularity items. XBLA doesn't have enough games in its catalog for the long tail to take effect. If they truly wanted to leverage long tail effects, they would flood the service with every game they could get their hands on instead of meting out releases one or two at a time once a week.
 
WTF did they do to hexec 2. The first game was beautiful and calming while this one is just a mess, visually. The gems look rough. The backgrounds are distracting made worse by slightly translucent gems. Also I don't know why they added a sci-fi theme to make it come off as more "real." It's a puzzle game I don’t need that shit. I couldn't stand to look at it for more than five minutes. No sale for me unless they release a less annoying visual pack for it.
 
Hitler Stole My Potato said:
Expected. From day 1. Jeff Minter is horribly overrated.
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IMO, he's begun overdoing the special effects at the expense of gameplay. Tempest 3000 was good, but after a certain level it became an unplayable morass of "I no longer know what's going on." Space Giraffe seems, just from the screenshots, like it's going to get to that point faster than even 3000, which is sad. :'( If it's 400 points I'll still buy it tho'.
 
SuperPac said:
What, no Hexic impressions? I loved the original Hexic. Granted, it was free and came with the 360, but it's still great.
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Holy crap H2 is alot harder than Hexic HD. Alot of new pieces makes for alot more complex game. I barely got to make 2 black pearls (that don't look black at all WTF) before the bomb blew. In Hexic HD, I can make grand pearl pooba within an hour or so. X_x
 
Well, just checked out the demo for Marathon.

I now hate this game more than the XBLA Contra, Uuuuugh.

Also from that topic:
The industry is watching to see if BioShock sells well. If it does, Eidos is ready to green-light Deus Ex 3 at it's new Montreal studio...
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OH GOD MAKE IT HAPPEN MAKE IT HAPPEN.
 
Jonnyram said:
I'm not digging the texture on the hexagons at all, maybe it can be changed in the options, but I haven't checked that out yet. Everything else seems good, including the music. Sounds like they've got the same artist working on it, anyway.
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Yep, the textures can be changed in the options, there are 7 different types I think. I'm sure some of them will look horrendous while playing though (there are stripes and squares textures!!)

I like this game, plus points for me are:

The game doesn't pause when you complete a cluster and new gems fall, so while they are all falling and comboing and that, you can carry on moving and playing - it adds to the pace of it, and higher pace seems to be what this sequel is all about.

The multiplayer is pretty fun as it's really fast moving, when you get a bomb thrown on your side it continually ticks down (i.e not once for each move you make) which makes you want to get rid of it asap!

The music is great again, a bit of a different style this time though and is more "dancey"

You can destroy the line/flower tiles, you hold B and they build up and blow up, taking out all the tiles around them.

I bought it (although I buy a lot of arcade games) and I really like it.
 
HydrantC12 said:
Apparently Space Giraffe got a 2.0 in OXM. What happened :(

http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t=540825
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Why are people in this thread listening to this retarded magazine? Did you not click the link and see that it recommends you buy Mad Tracks DLC? This editorial staff is quite clearly insane.

I mean, yeah, Giraffe is mostly just an effects and weirdness show, but it's fun for it. It's like Rez in that regard. Rez was never much of a fantastic gameplay experience, and neither is SG. It's still really good fun to just mess around in LSD land and laugh at all the wackiness, plus it IS highly playable if you learn to see what's what.

Finally, Undertow blows. I really wanted it to be good when I thought it looked like a 2D adventure type thing, sort of like a modern Ecco actually. Then I played it and found out that even in singleplayer, it's just some CTF-type deathmatch bullshit with retarded bots that cheat. Fuck that.
 
aku:jiki said:
Why are people in this thread listening to this retarded magazine? Did you not click the link and see that it recommends you buy Mad Tracks DLC? This editorial staff is quite clearly insane.

I mean, yeah, Giraffe is mostly just an effects and weirdness show, but it's fun for it. It's like Rez in that regard. Rez was never much of a fantastic gameplay experience, and neither is SG. It's still really good fun to just mess around in LSD land and laugh at all the wackiness, plus it IS highly playable if you learn to see what's what.

Finally, Undertow blows. I really wanted it to be good when I thought it looked like a 2D adventure type thing, sort of like a modern Ecco actually. Then I played it and found out that even in singleplayer, it's just some CTF-type deathmatch bullshit with retarded bots that cheat. Fuck that.
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What a letdown... -1 sale.

And regarding a modern Ecco: make it happen SEGA! A new one, you can even use 3D graphics, but keep the 2D perspective (as the Genesis ones, not the DC one), heavy on exploration and puzzle solving. Please.
 
Fatal Fury Special has its own page on Xbox.com now. Now SNK needs tgo confirm Neo Geo Battle and I'm a happy panda.

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/f/fatalfuryspecialxboxlivearcade/

The grandmother of all fighting games is here, with FATAL FURY SPECIAL™, a unique adaptation of the original 1993 arcade smash Garou Densetsu Special. Experience all the great fighting game action, with added network play and high-definition display, now available on Xbox LIVE® Arcade. Fifteen fighters (plus a special guest), gather for the match of the millennium. Can you beat them all?

- Fifteen (plus one) unique characters: All your favorite characters are here, including Terry Bogard, Billy Kane, Wolfgang Krauser, and a special hidden character.
-Classic fighting arcade action updated: The classic game has all the original features of the arcade smash, but has been updated for high-definition displays.
-Twelve unique achievements: Twelve new achievements, ranging from easy such as beating a fighter without sustaining any damage, to difficult, such as taking 10 straight wins on Xbox LIVE, are presented for you to master.
-Four leaderboards: Four ways to track your overall performance in the game.
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EDIT: It's for 400 points btw. Hopefully it comes out next week along with Streets of rage 2 :D
 
400 Points is great - I probably won't get FFS, but if this is 400, it leaves hope for games like Metal Slug to be 400 too.
 
Huh..FFS...that sort of came out of nowhere.
Shame if FFS is the first game SNK plans to release for XBLA it'll be eons before I start seeing some games I actually want on the service(Like KoF 98, Garou, Last Blade 2, Blazing Star, etc)
 
3kuSaS said:
When the hell is Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD coming out? I needs me some Dee Jay, damnit.
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A few months, probably. They don't want to show any media until Puzzle Fighter comes out, they don't want to detract from it.
 
WHAT THE HELL!?

I just can't believe that score has anything to do with the quality of Space Giraffe. I want to see the details of that review asap. Uh-oh....
 
Model 500 said:
WHAT THE HELL!?

I just can't believe that score has anything to do with the quality of Space Giraffe. I want to see the details of that review asap. Uh-oh....
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What do you really need to know about Space Giraffe though? Just take one Winamp plug-in, apply it to Tempest, bake for 450°, sprinkle with internet memes and serve.
 
Model 500 said:
WHAT THE HELL!?

I just can't believe that score has anything to do with the quality of Space Giraffe. I want to see the details of that review asap. Uh-oh....
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Again; OXM likes Mad Tracks a lot.

amelia-suspicious.jpg
 
Dear god Hexic 2 is terrible. I don't know how much difference and HDTV makes here, but on my SDTV everything is tiny and hard ot see with TONS of empty sapce around the screen. WHY!? The hexagons are too similarly colored and only if you pick the card theme can yo usee any clear differentiation. Additions are lame, and the music sucks comapred to Hexic 1.

Hexic 1 > Mad Tracks > Hexic 2 >
Space Giraffe
 
Hitler Stole My Potato said:
What do you really need to know about Space Giraffe though? Just take one Winamp plug-in, apply it to Tempest, bake for 450°, sprinkle with internet memes and serve.
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Looks like you were the reviewer.
 
Old?
* Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1989 is the best selling XBLA game of 2007.
* Street Fighter II is the best selling XBLA game ever.
* Gamers play Jewel Quest for longer sessions than any other XBLA game.
* More minutes have been racked up playing UNO than any other XBLA game.
* XBLA games, on average, take only 35% of their total revenue in the first two months on sale and then have steady sales in the months that follow. Apparently this kind of steady selling is very different on the way retail games sell loads immediately and then drop off.

And finally, the average number of friends on a Xbox Live Friends list is 23. I've got 99 - how many have you got? Oh, and I made the one about Geo Wars up. Although I definietly am 38% balder since I got that Achievement...
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X26 said:
Dear god Hexic 2 is terrible. I don't know how much difference and HDTV makes here, but on my SDTV everything is tiny and hard ot see with TONS of empty sapce around the screen. WHY!? The hexagons are too similarly colored and only if you pick the card theme can yo usee any clear differentiation. Additions are lame, and the music sucks comapred to Hexic 1.

Hexic 1 > Mad Tracks > Hexic 2 >
Space Giraffe
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Additions are fucking awesome. I'm really digging all the changes. It's seemed almost impossible at first, but by my 2nd game I was able to get a grand pearl pooba (pearl flower) and beat the marathon mode. I don't think I want to play Hexic 1 again because it seems to simple in contrast now.

And the battle mode rocks too.

I can see how the game would be a bitch to look at on SD TV though. I'm having hard enough time on 34" HDTV and 21" monitor.
 
Shogmaster said:
Additions are fucking awesome. I'm really digging all the changes. It's seemed almost impossible at first, but by my 2nd game I was able to get a grand pearl pooba (pearl flower) and beat the marathon mode. I don't think I want to play Hexic 1 again because it seems to simple in contrast now.

And the battle mode rocks too.

I can see how the game would be a bitch to look at on SD TV though. I'm having hard enough time on 34" HDTV and 21" monitor.
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I thought I was doing well when I made one black pearl. The game can be ridiculously complex to a beginner.

I can kind of see why they put Hexic 2 out before Puzzle Fighter. I don't think the battle mode in Hexic can compete with PF, which is a tournament tested puzzler.
 
SapientWolf said:
I thought I was doing well when I made one black pearl. The game can be ridiculously complex to a beginner.
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To succeed in in H2, you do the same thing you should do in Hexic HD: Make tons of stars. The most important weapon you will have in your arsenal in Marathon mode is two stars right next to each other. This allows you to "walk" those stars (select each star every other time and rotate to move them in your desired direction) at will and make more stars and pearls and whatever.

I can kind of see why they put Hexic 2 out before Puzzle Fighter. I don't think the battle mode in Hexic can compete with PF, which is a tournament tested puzzler.
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Puzzle fighter is a very shallow puzzler, so yeah it will probably do alot better in sales than Hexic 2.
 
I think I've found a bug in Hexic 2. I saved a Marathon mode game to eat dinner and in continuing afterwards, I had no more bombs dropping. I accidentally finished the game after a dumb mistake of making a pearl flower too early, but still busted the earlier personal record by like 10 million points! :lol

BTW, even without that bug, Hexic 2 is way easier in hindsight than Hexic HD since you can manually detonate your special pieces. Much easier to deal with difficult bomb situations.
 
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