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| XBox 360 Live Arcade Roundup by Jerry Whorebach 12/20/2006, 11:19am PST | ||||
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| There are presently 40 games on XBox 360 Live Arcade, all are under 50MB and all offer a (usually very) limited trial version. I have evaluated all of them and ordered none of them, yet. These are my impressions.
Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved Almost exactly Grid Wars 2, which makes it I guess the best arcade game to never see the inside of an arcade since Tempest 2000. The trial version gives you a meaty four minutes of play and the full version costs only $5. Everyone says it's the best value on Live Arcade and who am I to argue? This will be my first purchase once I figure out how to convert all of my useless cash money into Microsoft Fun Bucks. Alexey Pajitnov's Hexic HD You get a whole grid of multicolored hexes to fuck around with, spin them, combine them, don't worry if they start disappearing, you get free refills of hexes for the life of this product. Anyway, it's basically Who Wants to be a Millionaire to Tetris' Jeopardy. There are no time limits, usually the right moves are immediately obvious, and sometimes you get such a ridiculously obscure combination of hexes that no amount of knowledge or skill can help you. The full version comes pre-installed on your hard drive, I've probably spent twelve hours with this one already. Assault Heroes; Novadrome; Small Arms These "action" games are all utter shit. Assault Heroes is probably the worst, it's Ikari Warriors for people on medication. Small Arms is like Smash Brothers with a cast of ridiculously unlikeable anthropomorphic animals instead of beloved mascots and machine guns instead of anything even remotely fun. Novadrome was just released this evening but plays like terrible 3D shareware from 1996, it reminded me of Necrodome even though the only things they have in common are futuristic dune buggies in gladiatorial arenas and a strong assy smell. Roboblitz Physics-based 3D puzzle game. I fired it up and my commanding robofficer instructed me to pick up the barrel to begin the tutorial or pick up the crate to jump right into the adventure. I have no idea what would have happened after that, maybe in the next room the designers said they were just kidding and I should pick up the big-titted roborgasm device to begin the real game, who knows. Marble Blast Ultra More Marble Madness. Super Monkey Ball proved that this formula has room for innovation, there's no excuse for skirting copyright infringement this closely. Still fun for those who enjoy tedious rolling around bottomless drops, but the levels are tiny and the full version only comes with sixty of them, compare that to the three hundred or so banana-filled boards in SMB Deluxe for the original XBox (which you can probably find for about the same price now). Don't misinterpret that last sentence as an indication that SMB Deluxe is compatible with the 360 because, although I haven't actually bothered to check, it's not. Lumines Live! I had never played Lumines before, now I know what all the hype was about. Another meaty trial version, I made it to the third "skin" (sort of a combined tile/rule/sound-set) yesterday without hitting any sort of limitation. Good thing too, because it'll probably take a lot of convincing before anyone shells out $15 for the "base" game and $5 for the "advanced" game and whatever they decide to charge in future for the remaining locked content. Get what's available now like Cloning Clyde Side-scrolling puzzler. I haven't played one like this since The Lost Vikings Vike Back or whateverthefuck. Full of that embarassing programmer humour involving sheep and exploding barrels and cute little playtips that no one used to stop nerds from putting in games. Hopefully the full version is a lot more challenging than the trial, because I'll probably order it just for nostalgic purposes. Crystal Quest; DOOM Two old computer games, one that everyone played to death and one that no one played at all. Who exactly is the market for these? Wouldn't it make more sense to release a popular game that, due to appearing on only one format or something, lots of people never got the chance to enjoy? For fuck's sake Microsoft, you own the developers of MARATHON! And how hard could it be to secure the rights to the much-talked about Atari Jaguar version of Alien vs. Predator? Texas Hold 'em I didn't care to learn the nuances of this game when it was called "Poker," a stupider name isn't going to change that. Hardwood Backgammon Finally, something I can do with checkers that's more boring than just playing checkers. Hardwood Hearts; Hardwood Spades Hearts and Spades are the same game, and it isn't even a good game. A real deck of cards comes with both of these and Microsoft Solitaire, making it clearly the better deal. UNO Tom Chick fucking loves this shit, maybe you can join his buddy list? Outpost Kaloki X Fun little Theme Hospital-type simulation with plenty of character that plays well on a gamepad. What more can you ask for? Well, all the missions in the trial seemed to lead you around by the narrative as a substitute for meaningful choice in developing your space station, hopefully the full version opens up a bit. The typical nerd will buy this because it reminds her (haha, him) of Futurama, I'll buy it because it reminds me of the far more obscure and unfunny Captain Star. Mutant Storm Reloaded A Robotron clone with beautiful graphics, inventive gunplay, and at least one too many unnecessary words in the title. Now I'll own two! Various emulated classics Buy Pac-Man and Street Fighter II Turbo for $5 and $10 respectively, then feel like an asshole when Ms. Pac-Man and Super Street Fighter II Turbo finally trickle out of Microsoft's painfully narrow gamehole. You can replace those examples with Contra and Contra III, Scramble and Gradius, or virtually any other combination of available game and vastly superior sequel. Bankshot Billiards 2 I might have warmed to this one if the trial hadn't cut short my game of eightball after only three shots. Now I have an appetite for virtual pool, but I haven't bonded with this particular simulation either, so someone's getting my money but it probably won't be these guys. Feeding Frenzy Vaguely original premise. You're a fish who grows bigger by eating smaller fish. Predators at one stage of growth become prey at the next. Unfortunately the whole game takes place on a single screen, making everything feel cramped and unimpressive, and you never do end up eating whales or giant squid or pleasurecraft. Blame Katamari for raising the bar. Various PopCap puzzlers Bejeweled, Zuma and their ilk have been around for a long time and I still haven't given them a chance, maybe I will some night when I have nothing better to do. I assume these all must be pretty good games with typically crippled trials, so when the time comes I'll just pick one and order it, no questions asked. Wik: Fable of Souls The grubby-yet-whimsical art design is reminiscent of Oddworld, but the controls are vastly more fiddly. You aim your little goblin's jumps much the same way you aim a bazooka in Worms, and slap the button at the right time to latch onto grapple points with his tongue. Another game stuck in the age before Super Mario Bros when all levels had to fit on a single screen. Not bad, but not a traditional platformer, which is what I wanted at least one of in this whole batch of titles. Maybe the sales numbers from Nintendo's Virtual Console will inspire some? Hard to believe that's all MS has managed to squeeze out over the past year. I can appreciate not wanting to deluge the casual gamer with low-quality titles, but frankly I think they've managed to cross that bridge anyway. I think the first two Playstations proved that success requires the broadest possible selection at the lowest possible price point, and the consumer is generally capable of sorting the wheat from the chaff all by herself (haha, himself). See you next week when I cover the new release and anything I forgot this time. |
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