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

Released today,

boxartlg.jpg


Space Shooter Bundle - 1600msp
(Fusion: Genesis, Ikaruga, Radiant Silvergun and Sine Mora)
(The download is just a launcher that allows you to download the existing games. No dlc or new achievements.)

Looks like they messed up and uploaded the WSOP beta publicly by mistake. Sorry if I got anyone's hopes up.
WSOP: Full House Pro - F2P, 1.9GB.
(Only available in CA.)

Also,

Alien Spidy
--Between a Rock and a Hard Place - 160msp
 
charlequin said:
That's (going on reported payout from Steam) around $367k of in-pocket revenue. (It's also pretty close to what you'd get for an equivalent volume of full-price sales a Microsoft-published title on XBLA, due to the huge gap in payout percentage.)

This is also the first and so far only major discount of the title on Steam. Based on comparable titles (say, Super Meat Boy) it'll do several times that again by the time it's old enough to get phased out of major sales. (And then the nigh-inevitable Humble Bundle inclusion down the road is probably worth another $100k or so.)

I'm not saying Microsoft isn't capable of capturing similar market adherence again, BTW, or that they won't manage it on Xbone; this is just my thought about one reason why XBLA dev started falling off starting in late 2010 or so.
Click to expand...

I guess I just expected more, is all. Indie devs are often betting everything on a Steam release as if it's the only place they can go to make money, but it's just not the guarantee of success that people think it is - even for great games. I mean, if even a game like FEZ has to rely on getting lucky and getting featured in a sale to truly be successful then what chance has anyone else got?

Quite looking forward to giving WSOP a go today (if it comes out). I'm interested to see how you freemium up a poker game without letting people actually gamble money.
 
toythatkills said:
Quite looking forward to giving WSOP a go today (if it comes out). I'm interested to see how you freemium up a poker game without letting people actually gamble money.
Click to expand...
Going by the achievements, it's just fluff stuff:

  • Bought a round of drinks for the table after winning a Showdown during a Multiplayer game.
  • Customized your avatar while sitting at a table.
  • Hosted a Multiplayer game with a customized table, chair, and card style.
  • Bought the Tip Jar Souvenir for another player after busting them out in a Multiplayer Ring Game.
And, of course, XP boosts and shit like that:

  • Earned level 100.

Probably has the same F2P model as Doritos 2, Happy Wars and Ascend, where you can buy some minor boosts or customization, but can get by fine without ever buying anything. All the MS-published ones seem to have the same basic model.
 
Jesus, the releases really have dried up.. What the hell's happening over at MS. I was sure they had at least a years worth of releases stuck in the pipeline and yet here we are with then releasing these bundles to make it seems like there's still weekly releases...
 
Miles Quaritch said:
Jesus, the releases really have dried up.. What the hell's happening over at MS. I was sure they had at least a years worth of releases stuck in the pipeline and yet here we are with then releasing these bundles to make it seems like there's still weekly releases...
Click to expand...

Mars: War Logs is supposedly coming out on Friday iirc but yeah it's weird that as you already said Zeno Clash 2 (that's out on the PSN) isn't also coming on the 360 this week.

Now about this year's fucked up release schedule I thought that MS was gonna support the 360 with XBLA releases not only this year but on 2014 as well, as the time passes I think it's pretty clear that this is not gonna happen.

2013 must be one of the worst years for XBLA releases and with so many disappointing AAA releases IMO it turns out maybe the worst year this gen for me...I've bought and played less games in the first 7 months of 2013 than the 3 first months of the past 3 years. 2013 thus far is such a big let down IMO. :(
 
Fusion: Genesis isn't a shooter. It's a semi-online (sort of drop-in-drop-out) space trading exploration resource gathering game with pseudo-MMO fleet-versus-fleet battles. I got a lot out of it, but the UI has an enormous learning curve. Try the demo.
 
Brakara said:
So, shooter bundle, yay or nay?
Click to expand...
I personally don't think they're the best shmups on XBLA (Treasure are much better at other genres IMO) but there are hardly any bad ones on the service to begin with, so if you like the genre you can't really go wrong.

Stumpokapow said:
Fusion: Genesis isn't a shooter. It's a semi-online (sort of drop-in-drop-out) space trading exploration resource gathering game with pseudo-MMO fleet-versus-fleet battles. I got a lot out of it, but the UI has an enormous learning curve. Try the demo.
Click to expand...
Sort of true, but then again, the exploration/RPG aspects of the game are so shallow it might as well be labeled a shooting game even though it isn't. All the factions have the same submissions, the story is super short, all the shops carry the same items, no conversations to be had outside of the story missions, etc. It's obvious that they had grander ambitions but it didn't really pan out... Don't get me wrong, I liked it, but it should've been so much more.
 
Vert boil said:
Released today,

boxartlg.jpg


Space Shooter Bundle - 1600msp
(Fusion: Genesis, Ikaruga, Radiant Silvergun and Sine Mora)
(The download is just a launcher that allows you to download the existing games. No dlc or new achievements.)

Looks like they messed up and uploaded the WSOP beta publicly by mistake. Sorry if I got anyone's hopes up.
WSOP: Full House Pro - F2P,
(Only available in CA.)

Also,

Alien Spidy
--Between a Rock and a Hard Place - 160msp
Click to expand...

So basically if I'm looking to get Ikaruga and RS down the road I might as well get this one, right? I mean, those two are still 800p each?
 
JDdelphin said:
Sadly, if you're like me and think the star/smiley dynamic is kinda stupid and not funny at all- It's over.

To me, you shouldn't bank your game on what is ultimately a matter of taste [humor] making up for a lack of fun gameplay.

I think the game is wildly clever.
Even without the dialogue, [which from what I've seen, I despise] I'd totally have stuck with it longer if the game was more fun to sit down and play.

For now, it's backlogged until I feel like grinding through it enough to power up my weaponry and stuff to make the game more fun.

It's totally great that it works for some people though
Click to expand...

I'm really glad so many people are chiming in with their thoughts on Comic Jumper. I definitely understand where you're coming from.

But I just finished the first level of the third genre, and I'm still really enjoying the game. I only had one gripe, and that's that the very beginning of the first level of the third genre almost made me physically ill. I think my eyes just needed time to adjust to the art style. Because after a couple of minutes I felt a lot more comfortable.
 
Comic Jumper's problem is that it tries to hide the absence of quality level design by giving you so many enemies to kill that you haven't got time to notice it. Then it makes each enemy such a bullet sponge that by the end of the game even the lowliest grunts take about fifteen seconds to kill, which just keeps you hanging around to appreciate the boring level design.

It's just all so slow.
 
So I bought the Shooter bundle, but when I start the bundle launcher and try to download the games, I get the following error:

Can't download this item. There is a problem with the download type.

Status code: 80070057
Click to expand...

I checked my billing account, and the transaction went through without any problems (already deducted my monies).

So does this mean I'm screwed?
 
Brakara said:
So I bought the Shooter bundle, but when I start the bundle launcher and try to download the games, I get the following error:



I checked my billing account, and the transaction went through without any problems (already deducted my monies).

So does this mean I'm screwed?
Click to expand...

Seems to be a common error code and the info on the Error code lookup doesn't seem like it would be relevant.

Are you using a Norwegian account? I checked and all four titles are available there so that wouldn't be the issue.
You could try running the launcher on a more common regional account UK/US to see if it isn't just a regional thing for you.

Probably best to go through xbox support if you aren't doing that already. If the issue can't be solved you'll at least get you money refunded.
 
toythatkills said:
I guess I just expected more, is all. Indie devs are often betting everything on a Steam release as if it's the only place they can go to make money, but it's just not the guarantee of success that people think it is - even for great games.
Click to expand...

Nothing is a guarantee of success, but over the past few years PC release has offered a significantly better opportunity for indie developers than consoles did, since it let people split the difference between the freedom of an open platform (sell in different places, control your own pricing, patch for free, etc.) and the marketing benefits of a curated one.

That's why Sony and Microsoft both did complete reversals on their previous independent development policies and moved to match many of those benefits -- lots of devs can still benefit from these kinds of partnerships with console-makers, but only if they're not hamstrung in the process.

I mean, if even a game like FEZ has to rely on getting lucky and getting featured in a sale to truly be successful then what chance has anyone else got?
Click to expand...

I wouldn't really characterize it that way. The PC (via multiple storefronts and bundles, all with slightly different focuses) has far more discount options than the console storefronts do, and any title that could manage a console release would pretty much be guaranteed this kind of marketing support on PC release. (FEZ is also kind of a worst-case scenario in some ways, as stump mentioned, due to being a late port of a game that had a polarizing reception and whose developer spent months shit-talking PC gamers and otherwise burning goodwill before release.)
 
toythatkills said:
Comic Jumper's problem is that it tries to hide the absence of quality level design by giving you so many enemies to kill that you haven't got time to notice it. Then it makes each enemy such a bullet sponge that by the end of the game even the lowliest grunts take about fifteen seconds to kill, which just keeps you hanging around to appreciate the boring level design.

It's just all so slow.
Click to expand...

If you fully upgrade the problem is somewhat mitigated for a second playthrough, but not quite enough and it makes the first playthrough a real slog.
 
Feindflug said:
Mars: War Logs is supposedly coming out on Friday iirc but yeah it's weird that as you already said Zeno Clash 2 (that's out on the PSN) isn't also coming on the 360 this week.

Now about this year's fucked up release schedule I thought that MS was gonna support the 360 with XBLA releases not only this year but on 2014 as well, as the time passes I think it's pretty clear that this is not gonna happen.

2013 must be one of the worst years for XBLA releases and with so many disappointing AAA releases IMO it turns out maybe the worst year this gen for me...I've bought and played less games in the first 7 months of 2013 than the 3 first months of the past 3 years. 2013 thus far is such a big let down IMO. :(
Click to expand...

Yep, seems 2013 is going to be a mostly terrible year for XBLA releases. Not the best way to end the life of the console and one of the greatest aspects of said console.

Still, we had State of Decay, Super Time Force should be out soon too and there's Ascend to look forward to, so I guess it's not all doom and gloom, but the releases have dried up so quickly that it's almost as if everyone's just abandoned ship....
 
Vert boil said:
Released today,

boxartlg.jpg


Space Shooter Bundle - 1600msp
(Fusion: Genesis, Ikaruga, Radiant Silvergun and Sine Mora)
(The download is just a launcher that allows you to download the existing games. No dlc or new achievements.)
Click to expand...
Hmm, very tempting. I already have Ikaruga and own Sine Mora on another console (Vita), but still, that's a great deal for some awesome games.

Probably a dumb question, but when you purchase these bundles, are they downloaded as four separate games?
 
Vert boil said:
Seems to be a common error code and the info on the Error code lookup doesn't seem like it would be relevant.

Are you using a Norwegian account? I checked and all four titles are available there so that wouldn't be the issue.
You could try running the launcher on a more common regional account UK/US to see if it isn't just a regional thing for you.
Click to expand...

Tried that and lots of other things, like clearing the system cache, redownloading my profile and the bundle to a usb stick, to the hdd again, etc. But didn't work. Then I checked the Xbox 360 Update forum, and other people in the beta has the same problem.

So, here's a warning: if you're in the xbox beta then DO NOT BUY THIS BUNDLE!

Hopefully, they'll fix it in an update...
 
Vert boil said:
Released today,

boxartlg.jpg


Space Shooter Bundle - 1600msp
(Fusion: Genesis, Ikaruga, Radiant Silvergun and Sine Mora)
(The download is just a launcher that allows you to download the existing games. No dlc or new achievements.)

Looks like they messed up and uploaded the WSOP beta publicly by mistake. Sorry if I got anyone's hopes up.
WSOP: Full House Pro - F2P, 1.9GB.
(Only available in CA.)

Also,

Alien Spidy
--Between a Rock and a Hard Place - 160msp
Click to expand...


If I didn't already own all of these, I'd jump on this. It's an amazing package.

This makes me want to hold off on buying Rez (one of the last XBLA games I need to re-buy after getting my slim) because I have the sneaking suspicion that it'll be included in a bundle with (say) Nights, JSR, and Crazy Taxi or something.
 
Released today,

boxartlg.jpg
boxartlg.jpg
boxartlg.jpg


Be a Hero Bundle - 1200msp
(Fire Pro Wrestling, South Park Let's Go Tower Defense Play and Torchlight)
(The download is just a launcher that allows you to download the existing games. No dlc or new achievements.)

Mars: War Logs - 1200msp, 1.5GB.

Zeno Clash 2 - 1200msp, 1.07GB.

----------

The WSOP: Full House Pro beta will start on Monday ( 29th July) for Canadians.

The game you’ve been waiting for is now about to enter Beta, and you can be a part of it starting as soon as next week! The game will be available to Canadian players with Xbox Live Gold accounts (from the Xbox Dashboard, Bing WSOP: Full House Pro), and the game servers will be live starting Monday July 29th. Once we’ve demonstrated that the servers are stable and handling the initial load, we’ll start slowly letting new players into the game; starting with this Facebook community.
Click to expand...
http://playxbla.com/world-series-of-poker-full-house-pro-beta-starts-july-29th/
 
JudgeB said:
I'm going to try the demo and post back


ZC2 was a surprise release today
Click to expand...

Awesome, I look forward to your impressions.

And yeah, great surprise to see ZC2 released today. Was worried we'd be waiting for weeks on end with SoA starting soon.

Lima said:
Watch one of the many reviews for the PC version. Game has been out since April on Steam.
Click to expand...

I watched a review, but was hoping to find out how well it translated to consoles. It looks somewhat decent on PC, not too bad for a small developer and it's incredibly ambitious from what I can tell...but is it any fun to play?
 
Miles Quaritch said:
Awesome, I look forward to your impressions.

And yeah, great surprise to see ZC2 released today. Was worried we'd be waiting for weeks on end with SoA starting soon.



I watched a review, but was hoping to find out how well it translated to consoles. It looks somewhat decent on PC, not too bad for a small developer and it's incredibly ambitious from what I can tell...but is it any fun to play?
Click to expand...

Its is very fun. The writing is REALLY rough as well as the voice acting, there are only 3 maps and you have to constantly go from A to B and back to do endless fetch quest... but I really liked it. The combat system is great, the crafting is very good, and the Mars setting is really well done - not many games set on the red planet. It can not be compared to AAA games (they copied a lot of things from Witcher 2) but for 15$ its a really enjoyable, 60-70% RPG.
 
hitoshi said:
Its is very fun. The writing is REALLY rough as well as the voice acting, there are only 3 maps and you have to constantly go from A to B and back to do endless fetch quest... but I really liked it. The combat system is great, the crafting is very good, and the Mars setting is really well done - not many games set on the red planet. It can not be compared to AAA games (they copied a lot of things from Witcher 2) but for 15$ its a really enjoyable, 60-70% RPG.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the impressions. Hmm, sounds pretty good and I love the comparison to Witcher 2. Think I'll download the trial and take it from there.

I don't particularly mind bad writing or VA, so long as the gameplay makes up for it and it sounds like that might be the case here.
 
Loch Doun said:
And $5 cheaper than the PC version.

I'm seriously considering that hero bundle... don't care about Fire Pro but Torchlight for 800 and South Park for 400 is a nice deal with a bonus game as a throw-in.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that was a very nice surprise. I suspect we won't see much more of that after the transfer to real currency is complete...

Fire Pro isn't that bad. I'd definitely give it a go if you're buying the bundle.
 
Miles Quaritch said:
I'm more than happy to be proven wrong, but you can't deny it felt odd that we went a couple of weeks with no real releases...In fact, before today, the last real release was Capsized at the start of the month.
Click to expand...

Eh, we've had dry spells before.

On a similar subject, it'd be nice if MS let non-SOA XBLA games release on the Friday of Summer of Arcade. That way there'd be no wait for Duck Tales.
 
CrunchinJelly said:
Eh, we've had dry spells before.

On a similar subject, it'd be nice if MS let non-SOA XBLA games release on the Friday of Summer of Arcade. That way there'd be no wait for Duck Tales.
Click to expand...

Agreed on Ducktales...it's just...weird that they are letting it release a month later because of SoA
 
Miles Quaritch said:
I'm more than happy to be proven wrong, but you can't deny it felt odd that we went a couple of weeks with no real releases...In fact, before today, the last real release was Capsized at the start of the month.
Click to expand...

Meh, nothing you have been saying is wrong, they have been "drying up" lately, but it's good to see new releases scheduled/coming out soon.
 
birdman said:
Apparently the 360 (and eventual PSN release) version of Mars: War Logs has an updated translation. Polygon wrote an article about it.
Click to expand...

To be honest, there are a lot of parts where the original translation was better, painted a better picture. Some of the new parts of the text - for example, the intro - degrades a story to a teen book level. I admire and respect their work, but Mars' biggest problem was nowhere near the translation or the voicework.

And regarding the Polygon article: the game was not rushed. The development started in 2009 :)

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/sci-fi-action-rpg-mars-unveiled
 
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