XBLA Catch-Much: Farewell to XBLA

I spent a couple hours playing it last night and fell in love with Lumines all over again. Other than Geometry Wars I believe this is by far the best purchase I've made on Live.

I'm not a huge puzzle game freak, but there's something to be said about the way Lumines puts you into semi-trance while playing, very similar to Rez. It's probably technically not the best puzzle game by far, but I still love it.

I kept saying "Just one more game.." and ended up going to bed just after midnight. Sucks when you have to get up at 5am

(Also, I bought both packs, and to me, it felt more like buying a full game than any other Live release has. I'm not too pissed off about a couple missing things)

Yeah, I let my wife play it last night (the demo) and I just happened to have 1800 MS points left on my account. Well, needless to say, today my account is down to 0. But, the more games I can have that she also likes to play the better. Next week it will be Marvel Ultimate Alliance.

I bought the core pack, which does not feel like a complete game. In my first game I had played through all the skins. There doesn't appear to be anything to unlock and one very annoying thing is that none of the included levels have a quick dropping speed with a slow tempo bar. Those were always the most challenging to me. Big points, big risk.

Im not entirely unhappy with the purchase, and I had those points left over from last xmas so its not like I hurt my pocketbook to get it... do people still have pocketbooks?

I did notice 2 examples of the company not paying attention to what other Live Arcade games are doing, which is really annoying.
1. Friends signing online blocks part of the playing area. Big snafu.
2. Leaderboards have no filter for just showing where you stand against your friends, unless I just couldn't find the button. I pressed them all. Is there a secret button?

Nearly every other Live Arcade game does #2 (go ahead and giggle) and its really maddening when a company shows it's not paying attention or doesn't care by not including generally accepted features.

For the record, since there's no friends Leaderboard, my high score is about 300k. It would have been higher but I was getting bored

You show off. Um, the leaderboard is there from the main menu and you press the D-pad left and right to toggle between world/local/friends so it's like other games.

Try to get 70 blocks done in 60 second mode. I tried for about an hour last night and got to 49, and my eyes hurt. But that song.. in my head.. hehe

I saw world and local but not friends. Maybe thats an 'advanced mode' feature

Hmm wonder how difficult it would be for N20: Nitrous Oxide to be brought to the Online Marketplaces of the consoles.. great simple game, interesting trippy graphics, and awesome music..

polypusher wrote:

I saw world and local but not friends. Maybe thats an 'advanced mode' feature :P

I want to laugh about that one, but if that's true, dear god that's horrible.

I literally don't think I can go any faster when playing those time trials. My fingers move quicker than my brain can register any moving objects! There's no time to think, only to act and react!

Congrats on the 300k. I think I made it to about 50-60? last night but I got greedy a few times and piled 'em high.

polypusher wrote:

I saw world and local but not friends. Maybe thats an 'advanced mode' feature :P

Nah it's in the regular, I was able to look up leaderboard standings off my trial version.

I guess I didnt push left or right hard enough? I tried, oh lord how I did try.

Ok Ill look again when I get home, see if we got any contenders

polypusher wrote:

I guess I didnt push left or right hard enough? I tried, oh lord how I did try.

Was that a Blind Melon reference? If so, *golf clap*

Fraid not. Simpsons. Otto on the suggestion that he try to get his bus drivers license.

I only know one Blind Melon song

Mortal Kombat 3 was posted for about an hour and then taken down. I managed to snag it, very solid port though the online mode isn't working yet.

No golf clap for you!

It was really close to "I Wonder." I think that was one of their radio hits but damn that was a long time ago...

Shannon Hoon wrote:

"All alone in the broadening skies
Under the every night I will lie
Scratching claw and grip the rails
Every day my living hell

"Oh God you know I've tried
I know how hard I tried
and oh I tried......
Uh...."

Sinatar wrote:

Mortal Kombat 3 was posted for about an hour and then taken down. I managed to snag it, very solid port though the online mode isn't working yet.

Wait, WHAT? Details please. Why was this posted? Why was it retracted? How did you get it? Why aren't MS henchmen at your door?

Dang it... I wanted to download MK3!

Asz wrote:

Wait, WHAT? Details please. Why was this posted? Why was it retracted? How did you get it? Why aren't MS henchmen at your door?

I don't know why it was removed, the forum I got the info from said that some disgruntled MS employee posted it before quitting. I bought it for 800 points, its UMK3, I don't know what else to say. :p

Achievements:

Double Time: Complete a 2 hit combo against the CPU. (8 pts)
Combo Number 5: Complete a 5 hit combo against the CPU. (15 pts)
Flawless: Complete a Flawless victory against the CPU (1 round). (11 pts)
Match Three: Reach the third MATCH in any single player tournament (10 pts)
Match Five: Reach the fifth MATCH in any single player tournament (12 pts)
Ultimate: Become the champion in any single player tournament (22 pts)
Soother: Complete a Babality against the CPU. (20 pts)
Beat the Noob!: Beat the hidden character, Noob Saibot while playing the CPU. (25 pts)
Fatality: Complete a Fatality during an Xbox Live Versus game. (15 pts)
My Friend: Complete a Friendship during an Xbox Live Versus game. (20 pts)
Competitor: Win a total of 10 Xbox Live Ranked Versus matches. (12 pts)
Century: Win a total of 100 Xbox Live Ranked Versus matches. (30 pts)

Same forum has a MS representative that posts there regularly, he just posted saying that it'll be back up sometime soon.

Sinatar wrote:

...said that some disgruntled MS employee posted it before quitting.

Man... he must of really love his company, because we still have to pay for the content!

Sinatar wrote:

I don't know why it was removed, the forum I got the info from said that some disgruntled MS employee posted it before quitting. I bought it for 800 points, its UMK3, I don't know what else to say. :p

Cool! I didn't know this was anywhere close to being released yet, too many good games coming out. I'll be all up over this when its released again. Thanks for the info

Is MK3 back on?

It is, and i've been playing it for the past hour. Love the live battles! Hit me up if you see me online and i'll be glad to jump in

MK3... ...I'm so bad this game. I used to play MK series religiously... I knew every combo, fatality, etc... but now I can barely do a combo. Sub-Zero perhaps is the only character that I still remember few thing. Still, the game looks exactly how I remember it... except for the new selection screen. Plus the game is a bit odd to play, I think I got used to like the Genesis controller or even the arcade stick. Xbox 360 controller is just feel odd.

Lumines! Cool game... I'm not to thrilled with some of the sound effect, like white/green theme... where every time you make a cube it sounds like it's killing a chicken. Plus there are some themes that pretty much insanely hard to tell what piece is given to me. Overall, it seems good.
Other than that... anyone have any tips or some tricks. I can't seem to pass 30K points.

That seems to be the Prince theme, and it bugs me too. I also both love and hate the clockwork theme. The drums in it are sweet, everything else is kind of annoying.

Tips are hard for Lumines, you have to figure out what moves are smart and what's dumb, and try to just do the smart ones (duh) The smart ones are hard to describe. One of the big things to avoid is creating any kind of checkerboard pattern anywhere. There's not much you can do to bust that up.

You can get a lot of points in the beginning by wiping out all of one color, or clearing the board entirely. Clearing the board is really hard but all of 1 color isnt so bad. Also realize that the game isnt like tetris where you want to have a lot on the board to score big. I keep the board as empty as possible for as long as possible.

Nei, if you check around the Help tab of Lumines you'll find some really good tips on general block usage, how best to use L blocks, mixed blocks, ect. While you're starting out its best to take it slow and look for the best possible spots to put your blocks, focusing on keeping the board clear instead of throwing down blocks as quick as possible. You should get the hang of it after a while when everything just clicks and you'll be throwing down blocks left and right.

Thx guys.

UMK3 thread at GWJ. It's up... it's bloody.... who's naked?

Ummm... did anyone else notice that the high scores are gone from Lumines? The other day when I played Poly was number 1 on my list with 300k, but today, my wife was the only person on my list with a score. Has anyone else noticed this with their list of friends high scores?

Dont worry, Im still #1

There may have been some scoring bug people were exploiting (although no update was downloaded, it could have been server-side) On the first night the high scores were in the 2 million range. Now they're 1.4 million.

My Friends leaderboard is empty, including no score for myself. Lame

Remember this?

Contra
Coming Soon!

In the year 2633, the alien force known as Red Falcon emerges to threaten the total annihilation of humanity. Lance and Bill, two veteran Special Ops soldiers, must battle through exotic jungles, crumbling fortresses, and frozen tundra to destroy Red Falcon and all its minions before it's too late. Use high tech weaponry like the Mini Laser, the Fireball and the dreaded Spread Gun to run and gun the alien forces into submission. Enhanced for Xbox Live Arcade, this new version of Contra includes online multiplayer, Leaderboards, achievements, updated graphics and new sound effects.

Lance and Bill! Help! The aliens!

Mills wrote:

Remember this?

Contra
Coming Soon!

In the year 2633, the alien force known as Red Falcon emerges to threaten the total annihilation of humanity. Lance and Bill, two veteran Special Ops soldiers, must battle through exotic jungles, crumbling fortresses, and frozen tundra to destroy Red Falcon and all its minions before it's too late. Use high tech weaponry like the Mini Laser, the Fireball and the dreaded Spread Gun to run and gun the alien forces into submission. Enhanced for Xbox Live Arcade, this new version of Contra includes online multiplayer, Leaderboards, achievements, updated graphics and new sound effects.

Lance and Bill! Help! The aliens!

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left Right, A, B, A (it's been awhile so I probably butchered this cheat code)