livearcade
Latest
Eternity's Child jumps from phones to XBLA?
Discovered as a hopeful Xbox Live Arcade title in October, Eternity's Child has made some progress in the last few months. Originally published as a game for mobile phones, Eternity's Child is a traditional 2D platformer with hand animated sprites. Furthermore, the game features an orchestral soundtrack and is billed as a "fairy tale for adults" by its creator, Luc Bernard. While Live Arcade head honcho, Ross Erickson, earlier denied the game's status as an Arcade title, Bernard now says that he is under NDA and working through the process of making it official. We've contacted Ross Erickson to see if Eternity's Child is confirmed, and we'll let you know as soon as we hear anything. In the meantime, check out the mobile version of the game (it's free) and some animated sprites as well.
Xbox 360: The Best of 2007
2006 was a great year for the Xbox 360. We saw tons of great games -- Oblivion, Gears of War, and Dead Rising just to name a few -- Xbox Live Arcade showed signs of maturity, Xbox Live grew by leaps and bounds, and overall 360 sales are closing in on the 10 million mark. Yes, it was a good time to be a gamer if you had a 360. What about the future? What does 2007 hold for the Xbox 360? Read on and join the discussion.
New Rally X hits the Arcade
It was sweet while it lasted, but the Xbox Live Arcade streak has come to an end. We had 4 original Arcade titles in a row: Small Arms, RoboBlitz, Assault Heroes, and Novadrome. This week ... well, this week we get New Rally-X. Think Pac-Man, only with cars. There's a new assortment of Namco picture packs, too -- one each for Galaga, Pac-Man, and Dig Dug. It's a shame we couldn't see the continued downpour of XBLA goodness (what we wouldn't give to see Castle Crashers or Worms HD). Then again, what should we expect? You always get leftovers after Christmas, right?Here's hoping 2007 brings a slew of original titles to our favorite download service. That's right, a slew. What Live Arcade game are you anticipating the most? Are there unannounced games you'd like to see?
X360F review: RoboBlitz
RoboBlitz has had a lot going for it from day one. Since it was first announced, it was something special. Oddly enough, the hype surrounding RoboBlitz had little to do with gameplay, but rather the fact that the game uses Unreal Engine 3. Of course, that's a huge claim coming from an Xbox Live Arcade title that has a mandatory size cap of 50 MB. RoboBlitz's other major bullet point was physics driven gameplay. According to Tian Mu, co-founder of RoboBlitz devs, Naked Sky, every element of gameplay is driven by physics, right down to character animation. All in all, RoboBlitz was trumpeted as a game that could redefine the retro-friendly Xbox Live Arcade. We spent a good week playing RoboBlitz, delving into its physics, killing baddies, and, ultimately, finding out if it lives up to its promise.
Novadrome: how not to make a trial game
There are two ways to make a trial version of a game. The first way is to give players a healthy chunk of gameplay that gives a sense of the fun and variety that a game has to offer. The idea here is to get a player genuinely excited to own the game. Some good examples of this are the Prey and Lost Planet demos, which allowed players to experience several levels, play online, and gave them access to lots of cool weapons. The other way to make a trial game is to give players a very narrow view of the overall game, hoping that players will buy the full version just to see what they are missing. Unfortunately, this method can backfire and make players assume that the entire game is limited and not enjoyable. Such is the case with Stainless Games' latest Arcade offering, Novadrome.
Novadrome rolls onto XBLA, gets power-up
This week's arcade release, Novadrome, is now available on Xbox Live Arcade. We mentioned yesterday that we were very excited at the chance to bring the pain in some car combat on Arcade, and today is no different. We're downloading it now and we'll give you our impressions as soon as possible. Oh, and there's a video for a small art house production called Halo 3 available as well. Just for kicks, we'll download that too and give you the skinny.
Assault Heroes assaulted with co-op issue
As Jerry Seinfeld might put it, "what's the deal with Assault Heroes?" We posted our favorable impressions of the game last week, and we have since encountered a serious problem. During our first play test we encountered some connection problems with co-op games. In some cases we could never get one started and were left hanging on a "waiting" screen. Other times, we've been left hanging at the same screen in between levels -- after we've already established a connection. Playing with a blogger from Joystiq today (Ludwig Kietzmann), we managed to join 1 out of 3 games. According to Kietzmann, the one successful game we played was the first one he had ever been able to join since the game's release. We haven't played the title enough to assess how serious this problem is, but if it is widespread, then it needs to be dealt with. Have any of you encountered this problem? If so, speak up.
Novadrome battles onto XBLA this week [update 1]
Update: Reader, DJ Dunk, has unearthed 8 screenshots of Novadrome. Check them out here.We love it when rumors pan out (it makes us look so cool). Last week's rumor that Novadrome was this week's Arcade release have come to fruition. A car combat game from the makers of Carmageddon, Novadrome could bring an entirely new experience to Xbox Live Arcade. The title promises 8-player Live play(!), more than 20 vehicles, 15 arenas, and loads of different weapons. Strangely, there is hardly any media available for the title whatsoever, so right now we're stuck hoping for the best. We're just going to put on our hoping hats and assume that Novadrome will be Live Arcade's answer to Twisted Metal. For 800 points, it had better be the answer to one of the good Twisted Metal games, too.Full press release after the break.
Katamari rolling onto XBLA?
Flying in the face of Namco officially ending the Katamari series, the latest Electronic Gaming Monthly contains a rumor that a new entry in the series is slated to hit PS3, Wii, and Xbox Live Arcade. We find the disparity between platforms to be a little strange. Perhaps the game would be published on PS3's online service as well? Putting aside the platform distinctions, seeing Katamari on XBLA would be welcome indeed, especially for Xbox die-hards who never found out what all the fuss was about. What would you like to run over with your Katamari?
100,000 MS points ... for free [update 1]
In celebration of the release of Assault Heroes on Xbox Live Arcade, Sierra is giving away 100,000 MS points (technically 100,800). The award will be dealt out as an unwieldy stack of 63 separate 1,600 point cards. The best part is that it will take you only seconds to enter. The only info required is a name, email, birthday, and zip code. Hit submit and BAM!, you're entered. The winner will be announced in March. Sure, there's basically no chance that any of you will win, but there are certainly contests that require you to jump through more hoops for much less. As our informant XBLArcade mentions, this is enough points to buy RoboBlitz 84 times, so the prize is sweet. Go enter while the entering's good.Update: This contest is open to US residents only. We apologize for not mentioning this earlier.[Via XBLArcade]
Assault Heroes impressions: shoot it all!
We hooked up with Gamertag Radio's Godfree to play some co-op Assault Heroes earlier, and except for some connection problems, we enjoyed the game quite a bit. Assault Heroes is a top-down shooter akin to many shooters of the nineties. The only direct comparison we can thing of would be Jackal, which also involved a jeep. Assault Heroes finds players driving and shooting in multiple directions, à la Geometry Wars. You start the game driving a heavily armed jeep, not unlike Halo's Warthog. There are three selectable weapons: the minigun, flamethrower, and flak cannon. The minigun is your all around weapon; it's medium range, rapid fire, and effective against most targets. The flamethrower is powerful but has very limited range. The flak cannon acts like a gauss rifle: it's long range and causes heavy damage, but it has a slow reload time. Players also have access to limited grenades that are great for causing heavy damage to structures and bosses. Finally, there is, of course, a screen-clearing nuke.
Assault Heroes assaults XBLA today
Just a reminder from your friendly neighborhood fanboys, Assault Heroes is now available for Xbox Live Arcade. We've downloaded the trial version and look forward to blasting baddies to bits. As soon as we get a little "me"-time with the game, we'll post some impressions. We do this as a service to those that are chained to desks (office or school) and cannot try the game themselves. As for the rest of you -- the crazy ones who stay up past midnight just to download Arcade titles -- do you like it thus far?
Biggest thing to hit XBLA: butterflies?
Take a gander at the image above. No, it's not a shot from the Discovery Channel, it's a new game -- Butterfly Garden -- coming to Xbox Live Arcade. We've certainly seen a jump in the visual fidelity of Arcade titles as of late, but this is just downright pretty. Sure, RoboBlitz has all the right curves in all the right places, but it distinctly lacks flora and fauna of any kind. Mike from the Xbox Domain had a chance to sit down with the developers of Butterfly Garden, Autonomous Productions. The object of Butterfly Garden is not dissimilar to Viva Piñata, in that you want to breed and discover new species of butterfly. The beautiful environments -- much like RoboBlitz -- are all procedurally generated. Autonomous Productions hopes to separate Butterfly Garden from the XBLA crowd by introducing social, non-competitive gameplay to the service. Players will be able to visit each others' islands, trade genes (we're guessing you use these to create new species), or just fly around, enjoying the scenery. Granted, being a butterfly doesn't rate as high on our list as, say, being a badass soldier with a chainsaw on his gun, but we have admit we're intrigued. Unfortunately, all the butterfly dreamers out there will have to wait: the game isn't expected before late 2007.
Live Arcade challenge: win a plasma HDTV!
Xbox Live is hosting an Arcade contest starting December 17th. If you think you're hot stuff at either Lumines Live or Small Arms, head over to the official tournament page and sign up. The actual contest page is a little fuzzy about the rules and requirements, and we know you don't want to sift through the official rules, so we'll summarize them (because we're cool like that). See the full breakdown of the challenges and their prizes (plasma HDTV!) after the break.
Rumor: Novadrome is next XBLA release
A batch of review scores cropped from the most recent Official Xbox Magazine have raised an interesting question. Among the reviews are several scores for recently released Xbox Live Arcade titles, including RoboBlitz, Defender, etc. However, there is one score there that does not belong, Stainless Games' next title, Novadrome, which has yet to see the Arcade. We don't know much about the game except that it's a car combat game from the makers of Carmageddon -- we also know that Stainless Games is planning to have ten Arcade titles available by the end of next year. The fact that this unreleased Arcade title is listed with several released titles has led some to assume that Novadrome will be the next Xbox Live Arcade release. Frankly, we're skeptical. Some of you may recall that Lumines was reviewed in OXM months before it was actually released, and this could be a similar situation. Still, it's in Microsoft's best interest to put its best foot forward this holiday season, both to keep current 360 owners from defecting and to bring new ones into the fold, so it is possible.[Via ILoveXBLA. Thanks, Hexx.]
RoboBlitz hands-on impressions
So, my 360 automatically downloaded the trial version of RoboBlitz this morning, and I finally got a chance to sit down with it around lunch time. The first thing you will notice about RoboBlitz is that it looks gorgeous. It looks like an original Xbox game and is even decent as a 360 title. Squeezing all this into 50 megs is a work of technical wizardry and other developers should pay attention. Once you're done marveling at the graphics, it's time to start the game proper.
RoboBlitz makes physics phun on XBLA
Boy, oh boy, do we love fresh, new content on Xbox Live Arcade. Today is a landmark day for the service, as it's receiving its first game powered by the Unreal Engine. We've covered all the RoboBlitz we could stand since we first learned of its existence, and now we finally get to try it out. If you're currently unable to grab the game yourself -- say you're at work or school -- then why not have some with physics all on your own? It's almost as good as playing the game itself! See that pencil on your desk? Pick it up. Now drop it. Did you see it fall? That's physics. Now just keep doing that all day until you get your hands on the game. It's like infinite entertainment. If that doesn't do it for you, rest assured, we'll get some hands-on time with the game and give you our impressions as soon as possible.
RoboBlitz rolls out this week
With all the Halo 3 news today, we almost lost this week's Live Arcade release in the shuffle. It looks like the new content stream that started with Small Arms is still flowing, as this week we get the Unreal-powered, physics based RoboBlitz. We've just about covered RoboBlitz to death, with coverage including an interview and a five day contest (those shirts are shipping soon, we promise). If you haven't heard about it by now, check out the video above for a rough idea. All in all it looks like another quality title that shows us what Xbox Live Arcade can do. If RoboBlitz tickles your fancy, you can download it this Wednesday for 1200 points. Full press release after the break.
Double Dragon coming to XBLA
UK's OXM is reporting that Double Dragon, the classic arcade beat 'em up, is coming to Xbox Live Arcade. No date has been announced, but it's a safe bet that it probably won't see the light of day this year. Still, overall it's great news for classic arcade fans. The game is set to feature enhanced graphics and Xbox Live co-op play. Let's just hope Double Dragon does co-op better than Contra. (Uh oh, I can't get the Double Dragon music out of my head now.)[Via Evil Avatar]
Small Arms debuts in XBL top five
Gears of War may be king of the hill for the second week in a row, but it isn't the only game making statistical waves on Live. Small Arms, you know, the game we've talked about incessantly for months, debuted at number four on the overall 360 Live charts -- and number one in Xbox Live Arcade specifically. It's really no surprise that the latest XBLA title would debut at number one in the Arcade list, but making number 4 overall is very impressive. For our part, we probably played Small Arms for 4 hours straight the night it came out (and that was just me). As long as you're not stuck in a room full of Unit 51 electricity gun spammers*, there's a lot of fun to be had. How many of you spent time with Small Arms this weekend? *Seriously, that gun could use some tweaking.
