XBLA Catch-Much: Farewell to XBLA

*Legion* wrote:

Got it. Only played for about 10 minutes, but very disappointed so far.

Visually, the characters do not stand out, from the background or from each other. Constantly I am losing track of my character amid the chaos.

Gameplay-wise, I might just not "get it" yet but I haven't identified much in the way of strategy beyond "spray and pray". I certainly don't have that crisp, in-control feeling of Super Smash Bros.

Oh man, that's disappointing to hear. Is this based off of the demo? Did you go ahead and buy it? How much do you get to play in the demo?

There are twitch games, and then there is Small Arms. Seems OK, the detail does get lost when the camera zooms out. At first you can't pick out your characters and sometimes jumping is a task in multiplayer. The single player seems to have difficulty on loan from (insert difficult game name: here.) It is probably a blast to play with a room (virtual and non-virtual) full of drunks on a big television, but on the standard TV is, like in Dead Rising, a detriment. But, for a $10 game, and seeing what kind of $20-to-$60 tripe there is out there, it is worth $10 (for those of us who like this type of "UBER-TWITCH" game.)

Is it really so hard to get brawlers right? Anyone ever play Stake? Game inspired by Power Stone, where they took all the bad stuff from Power Stone and cut out anything even remotely good.

Guess there's no substitute for Smash Bros. At least the Wii version is supposedly multiplayer online.

Rocky wrote:

Oh man, that's disappointing to hear. Is this based off of the demo? Did you go ahead and buy it? How much do you get to play in the demo?

I didn't touch the demo, I went right into the full game.

LobsterMobster wrote:

Is it really so hard to get brawlers right? Anyone ever play Stake? Game inspired by Power Stone, where they took all the bad stuff from Power Stone and cut out anything even remotely good.

Guess there's no substitute for Smash Bros. At least the Wii version is supposedly multiplayer online.

To go a bit off-topic.. Power Stone is one of the best fighting games of all time. Lobster, have you tried the Naruto line of games? I imported both for the PS2 a few months ago, and they reminded me a bit of power stone. I haven't tried the english release yet, but I assume it's a pretty basic port..

Power Stone is so great. I'd love to play some more fighting games like them. (But Naruto? Sad. Teletubbies would be a more appealing license to me)

I'm certainly enjoying it, like Legion said, the start was a bit confusing and the controls took some getting used to, but now that I have it down I am having a good time.

I bought it as well, and it seems pretty fun so far. It gets hard real fast though.

Just use Unit 51, he's extraordinarily unevenly balanced.

well geez, that was easy!

This week's XBLA release is _______________________ and will cost m$_________.

At least there is a free Burger King Picture Pack..

Who wants to bet that it'll be another classic title? I'll throw down $5 right now.

*Legion* wrote:

(But Naruto? Sad. Teletubbies would be a more appealing license to me)

Same.

Though a Teletubbies brawler might be cool in its own right.

Asz wrote:

Who wants to bet that it'll be another classic title? I'll throw down $5 right now.

Considering they released an original title last week, the odds are good.

I bought Small Arms this weekend and its been pretty fun.

I'd pony up the $5 if it's Gyruss.

Maybe it's Mad Tracks, it's the most recent article on 360 Fanboy. You never know! Major Nelson's page is still blank with information.

Mills wrote:

Maybe it's Mad Tracks, it's the most recent article on 360 Fanboy. You never know! Major Nelson's page is still blank with information.

Microsoft wrote:

Microsoft has announced that as part of the Xbox Live Arcade Wednesdays program, it will offer a full-featured update to one of the most popular titles on the service – Texas Hold "˜em.

We've listened to our community and as a result, a host of features and improvements have been added to Texas Hold "˜em to speed up game-play, eliminate cheating and ensure proper competition. As a result, the online multi-player leaderboards will be reset to eliminate the inflated scores that currently appear. In a future update in early 2007, we'll be adding Xbox Live Vision Camera support as well.

The update will be available for download on Xbox Live Arcade for Xbox 360 beginning Wednesday, November 29, after 0800 GMT (1:00 a.m. PST).

Below is a full list of the new features and changes in the Texas Hold 'em update:

Game-play has been sped up:
o Post the blind and play right away! – Players can now, if they wish, start playing immediately when joining a table by posting the big blind, rather than having to wait for the blind to come to them.
o New "˜Away' mode – Players can now set their status to "˜Away'. Hands will be auto-folded and blinds auto-posted until the player returns.
o New "˜Auto-boot' mode – Players who continuously let the timer expire (more than three times in a game) will be booted from the table
o Faster overall pacing – Timers and messaging durations have been adjusted to speed up game-play among experienced players, but still allow novice players plenty of time to play.
* Improved blind structure – Initial blinds, as well as blind increases, are now more proportional to table stakes, ensuring more meaningful increases during game-play.
* Matchmaking improvements – Players are no longer matched into games they cannot afford
* Improved interface controls – Improvements to controls, such as increasing/decreasing stake amounts
* Leaderboard display – A player's full winnings and rank are now properly displayed
* Art and text improvements – Game art and spelling issues have been addressed
* Online exploits addressed – Certain known exploits that enabled cheating have been addressed. As a result, the online multi-player leaderboards will be reset to eliminate inflated scores as a result of these exploits.

Yep our release this wednesday isn't even an Uno deck, no no we get a patch as our weekly release.

Yay.

On the one hand, those are some nice improvements. On the other hand, what a lame excuse for a release.

Gamespot says that Double Dragon is entering the frey/fray/ XBLA family sometime. That game always pisses me off somehow (the NES version, that is,) but it would be great to play 2 player DD if they get it right on Live.

My first thought was "Whoopty Doo".

Fedaykin98 wrote:

My first thought was "Whoopty Doo".

Whoopty doo?

It's Double Dragon! At least, I'm excited if it's the arcade version, not the crappy NES version. Ah, such memories of beating up bad guys in the pizzeria. Die, Abobobobobobobo!

S'nice... I may have a chance now in poker to honestly go up in the leaderboards. That, and when I pass out on the couch at 3 a.m. I'll be booted automatically instead of abused in my rep stat.

Double Dragon... Meh.

Double post: I doubt this deserves a new thread, so I'll put it here.

Mad Catz is releasing an arcade controller. The pics won't make it through my firewall here at work though. Enjoy.

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?op...

Well even more good news about todays patchstravaganza!

The patch completely breaks online play for Texas Holdem, it 100% doesn't work anymore!

Hooray!

Yeah, I definitely won with three jacks, then it told the guy to my left that he won instead after he had folded. I lost 4k. Good times, very pissed, chainsaw all greased up.

Hooray for QA. I hope they fix it before next Thursday's game.

I haven't had that problem with holdem...

No solid release announcement yet for this week- maybe another patch for Poker? Space Giraffe makes a sneak appearance at 1up.

Evil Avatar is saying RoboBlitz.