[360] Official XBLA thread. Complain about the new price points but buy the garbage anyway!

Shin: If you have the game on PS2 why not just play it on that? It'll save you from paying for a broken ISO image off of Microsoft, otherwise known as 'Xbox Originals'. If the Xbox version had online multiplayer (I can see the appeal there), you'd be better off trying to track down a cheap pre-owned copy I'd say.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

So I've read a couple of reviews for Braid and this game sounds really fascinating. Since I've just received two 2100 point cards through the post I'm thinking I might pick this up tonight. Anyone else (aside from Mo0 who buys everything) thinking of picking this title up?

If you want to check out one of the reviews here to this link: Braid Review - Page 1 // Xbox 360 /// Eurogamer

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Pew pew pew

Man, I just played Braid for 4 additional straight hours tonight, in addition to the three or four I played earlier, and finished it.

I sat down to continue playing this yesterday and did exactly the same, just whipped through it all and finished (though don't think it took me as long as you Skills).

Absolutely fantastic game and well worth the money. I've played full-price games that weren't a patch on for quality, imagination and intelligence. Hell, I've played full-price games that were shorter than this too. Forget all the nonsense about it being more points than you imagined it would be, are you willing to pay $15 for a great game and a great experience. If so, buy this right now.

How ya doing, buddy?

Some news I'm sure Skills will be pleased to hear:

Quote:

V8: Arcade, the XBLA re-imagining of the Vigilante 8 series, has finally been submitted to Microsoft for certification, which means the game should arrive in late summer or early autumn.

[ source ]

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Quoting my reply from Prime Gamer:

Quote:

Having played another session with Tritoch last night I find this game more and more frustrating in certain ways. Playing last night was an absolute blast. Rather under-prepared, and Tritoch’s blue guy being rather low level, we decided to tackle the most difficult stage I had open (the ice stage) and somehow made it to the boss, albeit with both of us on next to no health and no potions. As with other later-stage bosses in the game, near the end of his life the ice boss goes stupidly mental, but somehow we persevered and managed to pull off an immense win out of the bag. It was epic, brilliant and a ton of fun. But, of course, shortly after the game crashed again (thankfully having saved our progress).

The potential for this game to be so much fun is right there within reach, but we just can’t get access to it, and that is so fucking annoying. More irritating, and rather disappointing, though is that I’ve not seen any news coming from Behemoth about a fix in the works.

How ya doing, buddy?

Joystiq quizzed Behemoth at PAX and got some answers on the online issues:

Quote:

We've been hearing about some Castle Crashers problems where people can't connect to their friends over Xbox Live to play co-op. True, the problem could have been blown out of proportion, but there are legitimate cases of connection problems nonetheless. What are you doing to fix this?

Tom: This was something that never came up in testing and now that there are problems with the Live release we're looking into it. We had six hour play sessions and nothing ever came up.

Dan: When we went through testing, Microsoft approved all our network code and we had no problems at all. There are those things in real world scenarios that we couldn't account for. Just look at Call of Duty 4 when it came out, you couldn't play for a week straight and now it's fine.

So, you acknowledge that there are bugs that need fixing?

Tom: We have some bugs that have been fixed.

Dan: Yeah, there are certain network settings where, if you're in a very specific network environment, it won't work with another person's connection and that's what's happening. But that's something we're already addressing by working with Microsoft to get a patch out as fast as possible.

Will the patch release in a few days, a few weeks or a couple months?

Tom: We're hoping soon, as soon as possible. Though, there isn't any official time frame yet.

Dan: We're trying to get it out as soon as possible, because we know it's important to people. I've played through half the game with a friend online and it runs fine. And when it works, it runs like it's local. But there's those certain people whose connections we have problems with and that's exactly the problem we're onto. It's that certain connection where two people just don't work, but we're on it. The good news is that it'll work ... at least half the time.

I don't know what they're on about, most of the sessions where I've had the game working they've died after a period of time (with Tritoch it was pretty much dead on the hour). I also find the 'very specific network' stuff to be complete bullshit, because I've read a lot of people having issues with the game, so even if we all fall into this 'very specific network' category, that's clearly a category that needed catering for you dipshits.

FELIPE NO

ramoth: First of all, thanks for the baby lesson in networking, but I didn't need it. Secondly, I don't expect 'all' set ups to be tested, my point was more that there appears to be a lot of people having trouble getting online games going. Therefore, even if it's one very particular kind of set up causing issues, it is clearly a very popular kind of set up since it's affecting many people.

Your argument also ignores the fact that many games are released with online networking (across many more than 2-4 players), which by and large work without issue. I've managed to play the online portions of a great many titles with various GFFers, but so far there's only two people I've managed to get games going with (out of about 8 I have tried with).

Whilst having Microsoft sort the netcode is a sound idea (they have the expertise after all) and a network API would probably be very useful, in reality it would probably be far too restrictive and make life more difficult for devs.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Frontlines may be different (though I didn't think it was), but pretty much all Xbox Live games use direct connections with one of the players acting as a host, which is why you get host advantage issues in some games (such as Gears and the shotgun). It's one of the things people raise when asking what it is you're paying for when you sign up to Xbox Live Gold, since a player is still relied upon to act as the server.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Yeah, what Skills said. Until there is a patch, it's just an empty promise. Even if they release a patch tomorrow there's no guarantee it will fix the problem (after all you've already assumed they wouldn't release a broken game in the first place).

You bought the game on the understanding that you'd be able to play the online right then and there, and as such are entitled to a refund because you paid for something that doesn't exist. If the person you're talking to refuses to budge you suggest to them that they put a supervisor on, or someone with some actual authority.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Miles

I managed to finish the game without encountering any saving bugs. I played online on xbl and encountered no disconnections, lag issues, or saving issues after playing for 2 and a half hours with 2 different friends.

I don't get how the game is broken. Either they patched all these problems you guys spoke of or you guys are over exaggerating this as a serious issue when it really isn't.

No one said anything about lag. The issue is entirely to do with disconnections from online games. If you managed it OK then you are lucky. My experience, and that of the majority of people here I've spoken to, is that more often than not online games will either fail to get going in the first place, or will die after an amount of time.

It would seem you've been lucky enough in that the person, or people, you've played with have not fallen into whatever random condition causes the problem. For others, like Skills, the hit/miss ratio has been heavily weighted in the other direction.

EDIT: Just seen this poll mentioned somewhere. If you ignore the idiot vote category, it's fairly clear that the majority of people have encountered issues.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

OK, I'm looking forward to the NXE (wanky name aside) because it looks like a big improvement over the current dashboard, and it adds stuff like support for group chat, but honestly, who is SO bothered that they're going to fuck with their system to use an unofficial release of it, requiring you to stay off of Live. Why? It's a couple of weeks away, have some bloody patience.

Also, this is for talk of XBLA games, there's a general thread for plain Xbox 360 discussion, so good going there Ryu.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

A bit of interesting news, Sega are bringing Virtual On to XBLA in April:

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SEGA is to convert its cult, twin-stick arcade mech fighter Virtual On Oratorio Tangram to Xbox Live Arcade, according to Japanese games bible Famitsu.

The game will release in Japan in April for 1200 Microsoft Points (GBP 10.20 / EUR 14.40).

The specific version will be Cyber Troopers Virtual On Oratorio Tangram version 5.66, the final incarnation of the NAOMI arcade board that was converted for the Dreamcast. Virtual On hasn't seen a console release since 2003's Marz for the PS2.

[ source ]

I was speaking idiomatically.

So next month it seems Microsoft will be running an awards for Xbox Live Arcade games:

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Oscars, Schmoscars. Microsoft is letting Xbox Live users cast their votes for the best Xbox Live Arcade games of 2008 starting on March 3. Foregoing any sort of web-based ballot, votes will be cast from within the New Xbox Experience's Spotlight Channel. Voting will wrap up on Tuesday, March 10, with users permitted to change their votes -- but not vote multiple times -- as often as they'd like, up to that point.

[ source ]

Here's the full list of awards and nominations for them:

Spoiler:

Best Overall Arcade Game
- Braid
- Castle Crashers
- Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2
- Street Fighter II HD Remix
- Portal: Still Alive

Best Original Game
- Castle Crashers
- N+
- Braid
- Penny Arcade Episode 1
- Schizoid
- Age of Booty

Best Family Game
- Boogie Bunnies
- Roogoo
- A Kingdom for Keflings
- Lost Cities
- Meteos Wars

Best Co-operative Multiplayer Game
- Castle Crashers
- Schizoid
- Bionic Commando Rearmed
- N+
- Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2

Best Competitive Multiplayer Game
- Street Fighter II HD Remix
- Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2
- Soul Calibur
- Meteos Wars
- Age of Booty

Best Solo Game
- Braid
- Mega Man 9
- Penny Arcade Episode 1
- Rez HD
- Portal: Still Alive

Best Innovation in XBLA
- Braid (time travel)
- A Kingdom for Keflings (use of Avatars)
- Fable II Pub Games (retail game integration)
- N+ (level sharing)
- Duke Nukem 3D (dynamic replay)

Best Graphics
- Street Fighter II HD Remix
- Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2
- Braid
- Castle Crashers
- Bionic Commando Rearmed

Best Classic/Remake Game
- Bionic Commando Rearmed
- Street Fighter II HD Remix
- Mega Man 9
- Galaga Legions
- Rez HD

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Something to make Skills happy:

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Microsoft has confirmed, via Xbox Live's Days of Arcade feature, that SEGA's OutRun Online Arcade will be released on Xbox Live Arcade on Wednesday 15th April.

[ source ]

FELIPE NO

So, it seems Castle Crashers is the XBLA game of the year:

Quote:

Castle Crashers has been crowned game of the year by Xbox Live Arcade users, Microsoft announced overnight, after 185,000 people cast their votes in a recent service poll.

Game of the Year: Castle Crashers
Best Versus Mode: Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix
Best Single-Player Game: Portal: Still Alive
Best Remake: Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix
Best Original Game: Castle Crashers
Best Innovation: Braid
Best Graphics: Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix
Best Family Game: A Kingdom for Keflings
Best Co-op Mode: Castle Crashers

[ source ]

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Q: I love SSFIITHDR to pieces, but I would happily agree with you there. In fact, apart from a couple of categories, I disagree with pretty much all those results.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by I Hate Religion™

Braid... Braid would have been an OK choice, no?

Braid would have been an excellent, and dare I say 'the right', choice. Equally so for game of the year to be honest, since Castle Crasher was fun, but not excellent (especially given how painfully long it took them to get their shit together with the online fix).

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Encephalon

Has anyone played The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai yet? I'm kind of interested in buying this game because I'm a sucker for old-school side scrollers but I don't know if it's worth the purchase. 800 points doesn't sound too bad for a game either way.

You could always download the trial and give it a whirl.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by nuttyturnip

So Lode Runner started off at 800 points this morning, but now I hear they've jacked it back up to 1200.

What the fuck, are you saying they upped the price on the day of release, because that is somewhat off.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Tritoch

EDIT: I was flipping through the comments on Nelson's blog about Lode Runner and somebody pointed out that Flock is only $10 on Amazon today. I think I might pick that up since that was another one where the demo was fun, but not worth 1200.

Because you need another game, yes?

Also, I agree, the slow shift to 1200 being the standard price point for 'big titles' is pissing me off now. When the games seemed truly worth an increase in price, when they were more full indie games, then I could swing with it, but now it's just become more of the go-to price and that's unfortunate because there's so many things I would have bought on the Xbox Marketplace if they'd been pitched at a lower price point.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Virtual On finally has a date, and it's in 4 days:

Quote:

Virtual On will be available for download on April 29. Sega's press release made no mention of price, so we sent out our Joystiq Attack Dogs™ to track down someone at Sega and extract the info. They came back and confirmed that the game will be priced the same in North America as in Japan: 1200 ($15).

[ source ]

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I remember being a little disappointed with the first XBLA Worms. I mean, it was fine, but lacked a lot of the classic Worms stuff that I really enjoyed from some of the later titles on the PC. I've not checked out any reviews of this new Worms 2 on XBLA, but how does it stack up?

How ya doing, buddy?

Sounds like it could be good, how much is it?

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Tritoch

It's only 800 points, so there's no complaining about the price either.

You've met Skills right?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I was going to ask if people were going to be picking up 1943, but after that glowing review probably not many people. I'll probably grab the trial at least.

There's nowhere I can't reach.