Zune HD Marketplace now loaded with free 3D games
By Vladislav Savov 
posted Nov 11th 2009 8:24AM
posted Nov 11th 2009 8:24AM
Over the weekend we pushed out a Zune HD firmware update, version 4.3, which enabled 3-D gaming on Zune HD. Today six new games are available in the Zune Marketplace. The new games take advantage of Zune HD's beautiful multi-touch OLED screen and accelerometer and some (Project Gotham Racing: Ferrari Edition, Audiosurf Tilt and Vans Sk8: Pool Service) utilize the powerful NVIDIA Tegra processor to deliver immersive, 3D gaming to Zune HD. As with the other games offered for Zune, these games are available for free to Zune HD users and feature a short ad at start-up. In addition to existing games on Zune HD the new games include:
* Audiosurf Tilt: Audiosurf creates a rollercoaster ride from any song. Choose any song from your music collection and watch Audiosurf turn it into a unique roller coaster track for you to ride. The song you choose determines the shape, the speed, and the mood of each track. Tilt your Zune like a steering wheel to collect colored blocks and avoid speedbumps. Unlock more than 30 designs, each with its own special theme and color palette.
* Checkers: Enjoy the classic game of Checkers in a beautiful outdoor park setting. Play against the computer or against a friend.
* Lucky Lanes Bowling: Bowl in different game modes: exhibition, blackjack, golf. Play in five different bowling alleys with unique themes, all with the swipe of a finger. Choose from twenty different bowlers and twenty two different ball styles. You can play against the computer or play with up to four friends.
* Piano: Play your own tune, or play along with your favorite music on this electronic piano.
* Project Gotham Racing: Ferrari Edition: Tear through the streets of London, Tokyo, and New York in the Ferrari of your choice using multi touch controls and the built in accelerometer.
* Vans Sk8: Pool Service: From the Admiral to the old abandoned rec center pool, Bucky Lasek and Omar Hassan know a good bowl to skate. Hit the pools and put these Vans skaters to the test with all the tricks in their bag and achieve hero status once you unlock their pro model skateboards.
We're excited to be bringing these games to Zune users today. And, as we've said in the past, we will be delivering additional applications for Zune HD including Facebook and Twitter in the future.
* Audiosurf Tilt: Audiosurf creates a rollercoaster ride from any song. Choose any song from your music collection and watch Audiosurf turn it into a unique roller coaster track for you to ride. The song you choose determines the shape, the speed, and the mood of each track. Tilt your Zune like a steering wheel to collect colored blocks and avoid speedbumps. Unlock more than 30 designs, each with its own special theme and color palette.
* Checkers: Enjoy the classic game of Checkers in a beautiful outdoor park setting. Play against the computer or against a friend.
* Lucky Lanes Bowling: Bowl in different game modes: exhibition, blackjack, golf. Play in five different bowling alleys with unique themes, all with the swipe of a finger. Choose from twenty different bowlers and twenty two different ball styles. You can play against the computer or play with up to four friends.
* Piano: Play your own tune, or play along with your favorite music on this electronic piano.
* Project Gotham Racing: Ferrari Edition: Tear through the streets of London, Tokyo, and New York in the Ferrari of your choice using multi touch controls and the built in accelerometer.
* Vans Sk8: Pool Service: From the Admiral to the old abandoned rec center pool, Bucky Lasek and Omar Hassan know a good bowl to skate. Hit the pools and put these Vans skaters to the test with all the tricks in their bag and achieve hero status once you unlock their pro model skateboards.
We're excited to be bringing these games to Zune users today. And, as we've said in the past, we will be delivering additional applications for Zune HD including Facebook and Twitter in the future.
loving my HD... that thing is balls to the wall times infinity! :D
(and for the record... i didnt even know it had a playcount... am i the only one who found that the most insignificant problem ever?)
No, I knew it had it but the fact that it wasn't working for a while didn't even seem like a problem to me. I don't understand why some people feel the need to work them selves up over such a minor issue. Seemed pretty stupid to me.
skyblaze returns??
he's been back since the 6th. Rejoice!
btw, how's the browser on the new 4.3 firmware?
snappier! it won't blow you away but you'll definitely notice a speed increase... can't really compare to that other popular pmp with the fruit on the back cuz i never owned one... ahk, what was its name again? ugh, stupid tendancy-to-forget-inferior-tech-syndrome
and yup, im alive.. once again THANK YOU engadget for finally making my account accountable again.. took long enough.. anger's still BLAZING here, ya digg
Any of you lucky Zune HD owners (still rockin' my brown Zune 30) please post some videos of what the games are like on YouTube :) If they're anything like those in the promotional shot, I will again import my Zune.
Audiosurf ain't even free on the PC, this is just too good.
hurry and make a 64 gb zune before i have enough money to buy the touch. plz hurry.
Hear hear, I friggin love my HD. Being able to download music on the fly is blowing my mind. My only regret is buying the 16 instead of the 32.
Wow!!! PGR is awesome!
@Daza: Here is one:
Project Gotham Racing: Ferrari Edition on Zune HD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSi5DDKvc2M
@Tiptup
Zune is open in the same way as Xbox 360 via XNA. You can make your own homebrew right now.
@Kaz, are you serious? I mean have an indie arcade. I obviously know you can create homebrewed games. I just posted a link to a game I just made using that...
yes!!!! its here!!!!
Pfffffffffft. I wish I had Audiosurf on my iPod touch. :(
Pfffffffffft. I wish I had Audiosurf on my xbox 360. :(
...for streamed music of course.
Yay! Now I can play audiosurf with Zune Pass songs!
If it were on the iPod touch you'd have to pay $0.99 for each extra track to play with. Oh wait, that's EA. Screw you EA!
I am entirely jealous of Worms on the iPod touch though, that game alone nearly made me buy one. If that ever comes to the Zune HD..
WIth exciting extra advertising content while loading?
I guess if they're free you can't complain about ads as loudly.
I hope Ad-Block Plus also will be available.
instead of wishing MS would give you Adblock, why not just wish the damn thing wasn't made by MS (who put the spam there) in the first place.
iPod touch rules.
This is funny, i just looked last night for new games and there were none, i will be doing some downloading later tonight.
Awesome!
Except, I hope the game is not as "jagged" as the screenshots in Zune show them to be.
audiosurf is almost enough to make me go buy this even though I am happy with my little 8gig zune
I just got done playing all the new games (a short skim anyway).
Audio surf is far and away the best app. It was the only one that really kept me from wondering about the remaining apps I had not seen yet for at least 30 minutes. Being able to play it with all your tracks gives this almost unlimited replay potential too. The graphics are as smooth as butter (not surprising as there are next to no textures to render) and give a real sense of speed on faster songs. The design of the tracks do seem to at least try to fit the music to often having you pick up "dots" to the rhythm of the song. Control was tight, responsive and amazingly controllable for a tilt racer. I've never been a fan of tilt racers as they are usually very difficult and tedious to control (see below), but this one seemed to solved it by limiting movement to three lanes and not "crashing" on the sides. Simply LOVE this game!! 9.4
PGR is next in quality. Graphics blow Audio surf away, but control can be overly sensitive and difficult to pick up. I've never been a fan of tilt racing games for this reason as I stated above and this game is no exception. Still, it's free and I'll try to get the hang of it. 8
Next is the skater game. It's ok. The graphics are a step below PGR and seem to fit right between DS and PSP level. The framerate dropped SEVERAL times in the short test I gave it, but I doubt that is because of tegra and more because of flawed coding that will probably be optimized later on. The real issue with this game is very complicated, tedious, and unintuitive controls. The Zune MUST be held parallel with the ground to work right. It took me 5 minutes just to figure THAT out because the tutorial doesn't say so. Even after I figured that out, my neck did not like the proposition and it did not make control much easier. Once again, perhaps it will be more fun after I get the hang of it, but for now.....6.
You'll feel right at home with the bowling game if you've ever played Wii sports. It's very cutsy and almost "Mii"ish. The graphics are about right on par with Wii bowling as well. You can control it by either drawing lines or swinging your Zune. Simply put....the controls need a lot of work. The movement of the ball seemed to have little correlation with the lines you draw. And just forget about the swing method. No really....just forget about it. It was HORRID. It works with the Wii because the TV doesn't move. But swinging the Zune means you have to imagine what you are aiming at and the controls were simply laughable in its interpretation of your movement. Simply UNPLAYABLE by this method. The designers really could have put a better foot forward here especially for such a simple App. 6....but only because the line drawing method is at least playable.
The piano app is a piano app.....what do you really expect out of it? lol n/a on a score.
Anyway, download them all because they are free and take up very little space on the Zune, but the only real app that you simply should not miss is Audio Surf. This this app NOW! It should be a standard on all PMPs from now on IMO. It simply makes that much sense and is that fun.
A play-count is NOT a significant issue.
DUDE IT WAS SERIOUS!
Its like gaming without a gamerscore or something, if you don't get a number or an acknowledgment for doing something, its not worth it at all! That's pretty fucking significant. I cannot live my life without getting a pat on the back for everything I do (achievement unlocked: posted a reply on Engadget)
=P
you guys forgot to turn on your sarcasm detectors.
If they we're redeemable for points or something MAYBE, otherwise it makes it look you have no life. I always wondered how people actually got gamerscores over 20,000
Gamerscore over 20,000 is beating 20 retail games. The system has been out for four years now, so that's 5 games per year. And that's having no life? Please.
@ premature
here you go:
http://www.justasktheitguy.com/tools/achievement-unlocked/achievement-unlocked.php?achievement=5G+-+posted%20a%20reply%20on%20engadget
@premature:
http://www.kongregate.com/games/ArmorGames/achievement-unlocked
you forgot the bleep bloop.
The playcount failure was only a big deal if you rely on Zune pass and the Zune software to tell you what you should try listening to. If you use the related artists or discover music in some other way it didn't really matter.
woot! Cant wait to play them :)
Finally! I'm gonna have to run out and get me a Zune HD!! (:
Is that Twitter and Facebook client there? I havent checked yet..
m.facebook.com and twitter.com on the Zune browser.
Awesome... Look forward to loading these up tonight.
touch.facebook.com doesn't work on the ZHD. The top bar loads split, nothing else loads, and the bar isn't clickable (per say).
Engadget, please ban this spammer.
Finally. Lets see what this Tegra can really do!
what about the controllers? Zune uses accelerometer as well?
affirmative
Bowling you can swing it like a Wii Mote.
Very nice news. I still think that Microsoft's strategy is completely wrong with the Zune HD but if you are effectively going to "do it yourself" then at least they are getting content out there. Fingers crossed this doesn't turn into Windows Vista Ultimate Extras in the future and we'll have more articles like this in the future announcing additions.
True, it is spam but the point is correct.
I have been playing the games and they are fun. Especially the PGR, Skate, and Bowling. Audio surf is a kool little game also that utilize your songs on your zune HD. All in all very impressed
But I don't understand...why is it free? Surely you must go to the app store and pay $1.99 for farting sound games?!
Serious question. Do they have pre-roll ads like the other games did?
They do have the ads, but I can understand it.
It just said "Try ZunePass free for 14 days, download unlimited songs" (Or close to that) and it was only there for about five seconds. I have heard the rumors about a 30 second ad but I am yet to encounter one.
So I don't have too much beef with the ads.
i shouldve checked this morning before heading out to work! :(
Of all days to not bring mine with me to work. Fail on my part......
Noooooooo!!! This is one of the moments I have been waiting for, but a few days ago my girlfriend accidently washed and dried my Zune HD )=
What do you guys think my chances are of telling MS "It just stopped working after the 4.3 update" and getting a new one? I hate to be a jerk and lie, but that thing was expensive! But ya, to stay on topic, the Zune HD is a great little device and these recent updates are just making it better and better. (=
Dude, I hope you broke up with your girlfriend after that one--either that or she offered you crazy uninhibited (rhymes with) banal sex...
Just kidding dude--actually, you did break up with her, right? Yet another reason not to trust women with electronics or driving cars.
Jk;)
Almost all pocketable electronics have a little sticker inside that changes color if it gets wet. Once you send it back they will likely deny your warranty claim, since water damage is one of the two things they're actually likely to check for (the other being obvious physical damage, like a shattered screen).
@rickjames: rofl... i wasnt really mad at her because of the zune but moreso the fact that she just threw my favorite jacket(which was hanging up in the closet) without bothering to check the pockets, into the laundry, when i specifically told her i'd do my own laundry. so yeah, she's lying somewhere at the bottom of the hudson river right now... just kidding! lol, i got over it.
@chefgon: yeah, i'm hoping the zune hd doesn't have a moisture sensor... tried googling it, but can't find out. but hey, better for me to try than to continue using it as a paperweight, right?
Just buy one at walmart and return yours
Your girlfriend does your laundry? That's worth it in my opinion.
"Banal" rhymes with "canal", not the kind of sex you're thinking of, unless of course you say it with a French accent. :)
@alan: lol, I was thinking the same thing.
@tlarkin: haha yea, that's why I forgave her, it was still a sweet gesture on her behalf.
@everyone else: i know it's still early, but someone please post a youtube video of the audiosurf app. I mean I like rockband and guitar hero and all, and i'm really happy for them, but audiosurf is one of the best music games of all time... of all time!!
@Alan:
You couldn't tell I was French from my posting? Haha. Perhaps I should have said "I hope your girlfriend lets you make backdoor trench runs on the dirtstar". Probably would have appealed to engadget readers more with the Star Wars reference and all;)
Haha, but touche!
The odds are fair but the bad karma is forever.
Not gonna work. It probably has water sensors like the ipod/iphone.
did you buy your Zune with an AMEX? Most times you get a nice warranty through them for damaged/stolen goods issues. I'd check with your CC company.
and most of the world yawns.........
... and downloads another fart app.
@Xsytrance: Just play dumb and say it's not working. Worth a shot.. I had an iPod (an old HP rebranded one) that sat in a pool of water in my Jeep due to wifey leaving the sunroof open overnight. They replaced it with no problems. I just told them it stopped working.
What's a Zune
Why is this person being downranked? Only people who live in the Americas can buy one so for the rest of us its pretty irrelevant.
Its a device that makes you so bitter as to type what you have typed.
@fanman: Its typical apple fanboy modus operandi. Besides that factoid, the other fact is that they most likely have access to Google if they can comment on here.
Hmm.. no camera. It must be a great gaming device.
I see what you did there.
That's what Steve said.
Physicals controls are a bag of hurt.
Perfect! I'll try it, thanks.
Still not available outside North America? awesome.
still a stranger to ebay?
http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=site%3Aebay.com+zune+hd+worldwide
And when it fails, to whom i'm gonna talk when the closest store is 6k miles away?
(crappy comment sytem)
You do have a good point there. Basically you have no warranty =/
Welp, hope you can enjoy it soon enough.
Exactly this...I risk it and got the Zune 80 a couple of years back...I broke it and couldn't do anything about it. I LOVED that thing, I was bummed for months.
Slowly but surely.
Audiosurf is definitely the killer app here. This is going to end up as my go-to game for airport waits and general mobile time-killing. I played through Authority Song and it was as good looking as the PC version of the game, and just as entertaining. It's also capable of analyzing/playing tracks downloaded as part of a Zune Pass, which is a nice benefit over the 'real' game. I'm actually kind of surprised that Apple didn't try to snag something like this for the iPhone - it makes perfect sense for this to be portable.
PGR is much much better looking than I expected. It's really impressive for such a small handheld. I've never seen the iPhone do 3D as I don't have one, but PGR wouldn't seem out of place on a PSP from my brief look. The game controls with touch-sensitive gas and brake pedals in the bottom corners of the screen, and you rotate the device to steer.
Audiosurf is great! This will never get old considering you can play it with all tracks. Brilliant.
30,000 games and not a one worth playing except for maybe that Mario Cart knock off.
(unless your talking about the jail break app that lets you play play station games).
He's probably NOT talking about jailbreaking because it would offend his god. :)
you forget that these are free? how many free games does the touch have thats actually worth keeping again?
James would know since he has tried ALL of them.
Don't try to argue, it's a FACT
Project Gotham is rubbish, crap controls and graphics worse than a 5yr old PSP launch game.
I couldn't care less about games, i'd really like to see some apps that use the wi-fi to access movies or music from a media server etc.
Actually, I think the accelerometer is more precise and responsive than I had expected.
A what? A Zune? LOLOL
Haha, in the bowling game, you can swing it like a Wii Mote, or just swipe it with your finger.
that's hilarious. the iPod had iBowl and iGolf like in July 2008.... *slow applause
apparently you never played them
Mike:
When were they free?
I had an OG iPod touch, and i got it for christmas the year it launched. I jailbroke it and restored it multiple times to play games and other things, putting emulators on it, all that. I sold it to one of my friends a while back, and a few months after I heard about the Zune HD on engadget, and followed the story from rumor to release. I think its kind of stupid to say that "oh the zune has 10 games and the ipod touch/ iphone has 10,000 apple rapes microsoft blah blah blah" I don't really like to take sides, because both the zune and ipod have their faults, but i mean come on. At least the HD had a few games and apps at launch, and microsoft didn't wait months to finally start putting such things on the zune. Although that's probably because they learned from apple's mistake, I honestly think if it were the other way around, apple would have done the whole app store deal at launch. And, even though the app store does have 30,000 something games, not all of them are free, most ranging from .99 to 10.00, and i would take a quality over quantity any day, even if i have to see a few ads before i play a game or use an application.
That's just personal opinion, and in my opinion if i didn't have either and i was attempting to choose which one to buy, i'd probably buy the HD.
yahhhhhhhhh cant wait to update and download some games...
Audiosurf is pretty damn awesome and the PGR game is also great. I'm loving the Zune HD.