XBLA Catch-Much: Farewell to XBLA

Holy crap PvZ FINALLY came out... I'm so pumped... but also poor... but pumped too.

File this under the "about damn time" um, file.

Radiant Silvergun coming to XBLA.

Is it just me of has XBLA had a stupendous last few months? I've hardly gotten any new boxed games, but have been subsisting on a diet of cheap XBLA stuff.

This week, I could happily buy all 3. Sonic Adventure is a bit of joyous fluffy nostalgia, Space Invaders: Infinity Gene seemed superb from the demo, and KOF is a competant shmup and I'm not sure there's such a thing as too many shmups for me.

Yeah, it has had a great 2 months but It actually is making me very picky. Any other time of the year I would of picked up Monday Night Combat, Hydro-thunder, and maybe a couple of the others. The problem is that they stuffed those between Limbo and Tomb Raider which were "must buys" for me.

The Dreamcast Reprint Project. The "reprint project"? Who does Sega marketing, anyway?

IMAGE(http://dc.sega.jp/img/lBanner_top.jpg)

Jonman wrote:

Space Invaders: Infinity Gene seemed superb from the demo, and KOF is a competant shmup and I'm not sure there's such a thing as too many shmups for me.

Infinity Gene was so awesome based on the E3 demo, I can't wait to get my hands on it.

If you're curious: GameStop has in the last few weeks started selling cards with codes for the Summer of Arcade games. This is a good way to get those games for cash if you, like me, aren't really that fond of Microsoft's silly points system.

Major Nelson just posted the next several week's worth of titles:

September 22:
Alien Breed 2: Assault Episode 2, 800 Microsoft Points
DeathSpank 2: Thongs of Virtue, 1200 Microsoft Points
Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter, 1200 Microsoft Points

September 29:
Hydrophobia, 1200 Microsoft Points

October 6:
Comic Jumper, 1200 Microsoft Points

October 13:
Pinball FX 2, Free game download. Tables purchased individually with free import from original “Pinball FX”

October 20:
Super Meat Boy, 1200 Microsoft Points

October looks pretty good on the XBLA. Comic Jumper sounds awesome from the impressions of people who have played it at conferences and such, and Super Meat Boy seems cool too.

Plus, I love me some pinball.

I bought Infinity Gene and have been playing it today. It's really good. The music is excellent, although my wife doesn't appreciate the soundscape at all - I can get that, but I adore it. The difficulty is spot on thus far. I like the way it slowly opens up more and more options and doesn't show its hand right away. Recommended!

Crazy Taxi is coming "November". Maybe it'll be a "Happy Thanksgiving, we just f*cked your weekend!" title. Also it looks like Blade Kitten came out of the chute last week on 9/22 and landed straight in the (wait for it)... kitty litter. Sounds like it's a stinker.

Deathspank 2 is just like the first game, with guns and grenades in plentiful supplies. Awesome, awesome, awesome and cool.

Thirteenth wrote:

Deathspank 2 is just like the first game, with guns and grenades in plentiful supplies. Awesome, awesome, awesome and cool.

Do you get the error screen pop-up every 30sec about Leaderboards?

Nei wrote:

Do you get the error screen pop-up every 30sec about Leaderboards?

I did the first time I played it. Oddly, it seems to fix itself after you quit and restart the game for the first time. It works fine after that.

Nei wrote:
Thirteenth wrote:

Deathspank 2 is just like the first game, with guns and grenades in plentiful supplies. Awesome, awesome, awesome and cool.

Do you get the error screen pop-up every 30sec about Leaderboards?

No, I wasn't even aware of that until you mentioned it. Will that be a problem?

Thirteenth wrote:
Nei wrote:
Thirteenth wrote:

Deathspank 2 is just like the first game, with guns and grenades in plentiful supplies. Awesome, awesome, awesome and cool.

Do you get the error screen pop-up every 30sec about Leaderboards?

No, I wasn't even aware of that until you mentioned it. Will that be a problem?

It shouldn't be.

Maybe they just fixed the server that tracks progress or something. If you watch Giant Bomb's Quick Look for ToV you'll see the problem. I guess whenever you do something in game that updates your leaderboard ranking you get a pop-up window saying there was an error connecting. This got annoying as a lot of stuff you do updates your ranking so the window was popping up a lot.

I looked on the NeoGaf thread and someone said it only happens the first time you fire up the game, but exiting out to your console's dashboard and then back into the game completely fixes the problem. You only have to do this once, not every time you turn the console on. Like I said, the game worked just fine for me after I tried that. No problems since.

I haven't tried the new Alien Breed yet, but I'm playing through the first one now and it's enjoyable enough. I hope they tweaked the sound design in the sequel so that everything feels like it has a bit more oomph.

Aaron D. wrote:
Thirteenth wrote:
Nei wrote:
Thirteenth wrote:

Deathspank 2 is just like the first game, with guns and grenades in plentiful supplies. Awesome, awesome, awesome and cool.

Do you get the error screen pop-up every 30sec about Leaderboards?

No, I wasn't even aware of that until you mentioned it. Will that be a problem?

It shouldn't be.

Maybe they just fixed the server that tracks progress or something. If you watch Giant Bomb's Quick Look for ToV you'll see the problem. I guess whenever you do something in game that updates your leaderboard ranking you get a pop-up window saying there was an error connecting. This got annoying as a lot of stuff you do updates your ranking so the window was popping up a lot.

I looked on the NeoGaf thread and someone said it only happens the first time you fire up the game, but exiting out to your console's dashboard and then back into the game completely fixes the problem. You only have to do this once, not every time you turn the console on. Like I said, the game worked just fine for me after I tried that. No problems since.

I'll try it out. I have not gone back to the game since I initially played it and got annoyed by the error messages.

They finally announced NBA Jam as a stand-alone purchase coming to PS360. One of the game news places has been listing it as a Wii360 item, and on NBA Elite for PS3 & 360. In any form it HAS to be better than that crap that is NBA Unrivaled.

BOOMSHAKALAKA

Man, I still remember the time me and my friends discovered the code to dunk from anywhere on the court.

That. Was. Awesome.

Anyone else tried Hydrophobia? I grabbed the demo and gave it a go. It has a cheap sort of feel to it. The VO is am dram cack. Accents go all over the place. The climbing, jumping animations and movement are a bit out. It's interesting to compare them to something like Tomb Raider or Enslaved. They feel "off".

The environmental effects are excellent, however. The water physics are really good, streets better than anything I've personally seen before in a game. The OXM review talks about how it feels like a small team with no money punching way above their weight, and I think that's accurate.

I think they would have been better off having the demo pick from the story later on. The other reviews talk about the environmental combat, where you fight baddies by shorting fuse boxes, exploding barrels or moving water around rather than actually shooting the enemies directly, and the demo doesn't give you any feel for that.

I wanted to like the game, but the story, acting and climbing/jumping bits I've seen so far don't really merit a purchase at 1200 points. Not in an October with New Vegas, Fable, Rock Band 3 and all that coming out.

I picked up Hydrophobia. I agree that the graphics aren't great, but the water sure does look pretty. I'm not very far in the game yet, and have yet to encounter my first enemy, but the story seems interesting enough.

It's probably not the best $15 you can spend, but it kept me from buying the new Guitar Hero or Dead Rising 2 this week, so that's a win for my self control.

Clemenstation wrote:

Man, I still remember the time me and my friends discovered the code to dunk from anywhere on the court.

That. Was. Awesome.

Beastie Boys vs. Bill Clinton trumps that, but just barely.

The interaction between the water and the character isn't as good as the water alone. I'm avoiding it.

Super Meat Boy soon. Avoid if you hate N+.

The commentary and demonstration of the first 20m is pretty hilarious and gives you a good idea of what you're in for.

October 13th has 3 titles coming:

Pinball FX 2, Free game download. Tables purchased individually with free import from original “Pinball FX”, package is $10 for PFX2 tables
Dead Space Ignition, $5
Sonic 4 Episode 1, $15
..
Looks like it could be an expensive week.

kincher skolfax wrote:
Clemenstation wrote:

Man, I still remember the time me and my friends discovered the code to dunk from anywhere on the court.

That. Was. Awesome.

Beastie Boys vs. Bill Clinton trumps that, but just barely.

Unlocking the tank game with the joystick and button combos was near impossible, but I actually did it twice.

Dead Space Ignition... huh!? ...off to Google.

Nei wrote:

Dead Space Ignition... huh!? ...off to Google.

It's a mini-game collection that unlocks a visual comic that fills in some of the story gap between Dead Space and Dead Space 2. Even as a big fan of Dead Space, I have no interest in this.