This evening I decided to try, then buy, a game called Soulcaster. I think it was 240 points.
I really enjoyed it.
The gameplay is... imagine if Gauntlet was an amalgam of action, strategy, RPG and tower defense. Without an energy timer or food to shoot.
So you control a wizard who can't fight directly, and he can summon a lady Elf to stand and shoot arrows, a warrior who can take a lot of damage and can't do ranged attacks, and a lobber who can kill various things over walls that others can't, but blows up if he gets killed. The wizard can also use a scroll to attack everything on screen, if he picks one up and you use the right trigger.
I really like this because I am a somewhat frustrated Gauntlet player. I like the game but... it's so repetitive, there are lots of narrow passages where you want the warrior to lead but the weak characters end up tanking... he walks into a Grim Reaper and then becomes a pile of bones and more enemies... and if you're playing online you end up playing with silly people who shoot food and wander off so the map won't scroll, and don't understand switches and teleports, etc etc.
Maybe I did always want it to be single player if I can't communicate what everyone should do. I can finally get my warrior to stand in front and have the others do a lot of damage from further back. I can power up my characters. I can maneuver when chased by things I can't kill without help. There isn't too much repetition in map layouts. And finally, it really does have an ending!
So, I found this a very satisfying game. I really liked it!
I finished the game, it says...
Completion time: 1:21:47
Normal Mode
Died: 3 times.
Summon Count:
"Elf" x 221
"Warrior" x 349
"Lobber" x 262
(well, it has graphics representing the summons, but.. I can't help but think of them with Gauntlet character names!)
Showing posts with label Xbox Live Arcade. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Xbox Live Arcade. Show all posts
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
Sunday, 28 March 2010
The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom (Xbox 360) video game review
It's a long time since I first heard of the Winterbottom game, but "The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom" came out on Xbox Live Arcade at the end of February 2010.
I played a little, then decided to buy a copy of my own and played through to the end.
Take a look at the external links above if you want to see some screenshots.
It's a collaborate-with-yourself puzzle/2D platformer with time manipulation elements, wrapped up in 1920s silent-film style graphics and a story about stealing pies. I like the style and the comedic simplicity of the story makes it charming.
Think Cursor*10, The Company Of Myself, and Braid (minus the annoying self-serving story) combined together... and you'll be almost there.
It's part action game and part puzzle game, but neither is compromised. Unlike the games I mentioned, your copies are not just ghosts - you can change what they do by hitting your copies to propel them, or get them to propel you by having them repeatedly strike thin air, then walking into them. There are also time trial and minimum-copies-made trials in the bonus levels, for those most interested in the action aspect, and those most interested in the puzzle aspect.
Overall, for a commercial game it is a bit short, but the levels have been well crafted. Maybe it could have done with a level editor and some way to share levels via Xbox Live Arcade.
I played a little, then decided to buy a copy of my own and played through to the end.
Take a look at the external links above if you want to see some screenshots.
It's a collaborate-with-yourself puzzle/2D platformer with time manipulation elements, wrapped up in 1920s silent-film style graphics and a story about stealing pies. I like the style and the comedic simplicity of the story makes it charming.
Think Cursor*10, The Company Of Myself, and Braid (minus the annoying self-serving story) combined together... and you'll be almost there.
It's part action game and part puzzle game, but neither is compromised. Unlike the games I mentioned, your copies are not just ghosts - you can change what they do by hitting your copies to propel them, or get them to propel you by having them repeatedly strike thin air, then walking into them. There are also time trial and minimum-copies-made trials in the bonus levels, for those most interested in the action aspect, and those most interested in the puzzle aspect.
Overall, for a commercial game it is a bit short, but the levels have been well crafted. Maybe it could have done with a level editor and some way to share levels via Xbox Live Arcade.
Tuesday, 12 August 2008
Thoughts on Xbox Live Arcade
General thoughts about Xbox Live Arcade.
In some ways I really like it, in other ways I really don't.
Things I like
I like that I can download game trailers and demos and trial versions onto my Xbox 360 hard drive for free.
I like that certain games available to buy are old games where buying the original version of the game for whatever platform would now cost far more than what they're asking, due to scarcity of the game (e.g. Triggerheart Exelica for Dreamcast costs about £60 for the Japanese import game on ebay, but is only 800 points = about £6.80 on XBLA... though changes are it doesn't have "story mode", and has HDTV support...)
I like that it queues things up for download, pauses the download when it needs to, and you can set it to carry on downloading while the rest of the console is switched off too (though my guess is that it uses about the same amount of power as being fully switched on).
I like the convenience of loading games from the hard drive, not having to look for discs.
Things I don't like
I don't like the way buying Microsoft points with a credit card leaves your card on the Xbox 360 by default (I mentioned this a few times in earlier posts).
I don't like the way that games are often advertised as the full game, just like the original, but they're often missing crucial parts of the game (e.g. "Story mode" in Soul Calibur and Triggerheart Exelica...)
I don't like separately priced "downloadable content" for games - the way that game publishers now charge you for most of a game when it's released, then you can buy more of the game (and avatars and wallpapers to use on XBLA) for Microsoft Points afterwards. "Beautiful Katamari" was especially terrible for this!
I don't like the way that the price is fixed for a game with Microsoft Points under XBLA and the price never comes down.
e.g. A normal game comes out on a console, the RRP is £50. After a week it's £40. After a month it's £30. After a year you'll find 2nd hand copies in the "4 for £20" section in your local high-street video-games shops, and about the same price on ebay.
That's my favourite time to buy games, when they're cheap as chips. When you have a game on XBLA, the price never drops. So you have a situation where supposedly budget releases of little downloadable games are more expensive than popular high-budget games like "Mass Effect" or "Bioshock" or "Blue Dragon" on the high street.
I bought two compilation disks from ebay of XBLA games - the one that comes with the "Arcade" version of the console, and one called "Live Unplugged". Buying them like this on disk, the games work out as about £2 each which is far closer to what they're worth.
Some examples of how contemporary price cuts compare to XBLA prices... You can buy "Doom" on XBLA for 400 points (about £3.40), or you can buy "Doom 3" for Xbox in any high-street videogames store in a "4 for £10" offer, which includes "Ultimate Doom" and "Doom 2" - for £2.50. Doom 3 was originally priced at about 20 times more than it is worth now, but now that game packaged with the original Doom as a bonus is cheaper than just Doom on its own on XBLA.
You need another game to get the most out of your "4 for £10" offer? I suggest "Midway Arcade Classics", which includes "Defender" (400 points), "Gauntlet" (400 points), Joust (400 points), Paperboy (400 points), Robotron: 2084 (400 points), Smash TV (400 points), and Root Beer Tapper (400 points). So... 2800 points, that's, oh... £23.80 for games you can buy on a compilation disk for £2.50 in shops.
The game applies to more XBLA games that are re-releases of old games - there's usually a cheaper compilation out or another remake that ends up being cheaper if you just wait patiently.
See how this all pans out? How it works against the way that high-street videogame pricing typically works, to the player's disadvantage? It feels like another method that a games distributor is using to keep prices artificially high, though I suppose it technically isn't. If XBLA games dropped in price the same way that normal games drop in price, I'd be far more inclined to buy games. I'd feel like it was a bargain, a good deal.
You can "beat" the system a little bit, by buying pre-paid Microsoft Points online from Amazon or whoever, as they sometimes undercut the RRP of those cards by a pound or two, but that's generally the best discount you can hope for.
I also don't like the way licensing works. If a friend is visiting you, and they want to play a game they bought on XBLA, they can download it onto the hard-drive of your Xbox 360, but will only have full game access on their own account - you can't play it with them unless you go to their house and play it on their Xbox 360. Or, you buy a copy. That's not very social.
I've also wanted to play some games multiplayer with a friend in my house, but it turns out that multiplayer is only supported on the game if my friend and I each play on our own Xbox 360s in our own houses, via the Internet through two Xbox Live Arcade Gold Membership accounts. Two people sitting next to each other in front of one console can't have fun playing the same game, oh no! That also makes for very un-social gaming! >_<
In some ways I really like it, in other ways I really don't.
Things I like
I like that I can download game trailers and demos and trial versions onto my Xbox 360 hard drive for free.
I like that certain games available to buy are old games where buying the original version of the game for whatever platform would now cost far more than what they're asking, due to scarcity of the game (e.g. Triggerheart Exelica for Dreamcast costs about £60 for the Japanese import game on ebay, but is only 800 points = about £6.80 on XBLA... though changes are it doesn't have "story mode", and has HDTV support...)
I like that it queues things up for download, pauses the download when it needs to, and you can set it to carry on downloading while the rest of the console is switched off too (though my guess is that it uses about the same amount of power as being fully switched on).
I like the convenience of loading games from the hard drive, not having to look for discs.
Things I don't like
I don't like the way buying Microsoft points with a credit card leaves your card on the Xbox 360 by default (I mentioned this a few times in earlier posts).
I don't like the way that games are often advertised as the full game, just like the original, but they're often missing crucial parts of the game (e.g. "Story mode" in Soul Calibur and Triggerheart Exelica...)
I don't like separately priced "downloadable content" for games - the way that game publishers now charge you for most of a game when it's released, then you can buy more of the game (and avatars and wallpapers to use on XBLA) for Microsoft Points afterwards. "Beautiful Katamari" was especially terrible for this!
I don't like the way that the price is fixed for a game with Microsoft Points under XBLA and the price never comes down.
e.g. A normal game comes out on a console, the RRP is £50. After a week it's £40. After a month it's £30. After a year you'll find 2nd hand copies in the "4 for £20" section in your local high-street video-games shops, and about the same price on ebay.
That's my favourite time to buy games, when they're cheap as chips. When you have a game on XBLA, the price never drops. So you have a situation where supposedly budget releases of little downloadable games are more expensive than popular high-budget games like "Mass Effect" or "Bioshock" or "Blue Dragon" on the high street.
I bought two compilation disks from ebay of XBLA games - the one that comes with the "Arcade" version of the console, and one called "Live Unplugged". Buying them like this on disk, the games work out as about £2 each which is far closer to what they're worth.
Some examples of how contemporary price cuts compare to XBLA prices... You can buy "Doom" on XBLA for 400 points (about £3.40), or you can buy "Doom 3" for Xbox in any high-street videogames store in a "4 for £10" offer, which includes "Ultimate Doom" and "Doom 2" - for £2.50. Doom 3 was originally priced at about 20 times more than it is worth now, but now that game packaged with the original Doom as a bonus is cheaper than just Doom on its own on XBLA.
You need another game to get the most out of your "4 for £10" offer? I suggest "Midway Arcade Classics", which includes "Defender" (400 points), "Gauntlet" (400 points), Joust (400 points), Paperboy (400 points), Robotron: 2084 (400 points), Smash TV (400 points), and Root Beer Tapper (400 points). So... 2800 points, that's, oh... £23.80 for games you can buy on a compilation disk for £2.50 in shops.
The game applies to more XBLA games that are re-releases of old games - there's usually a cheaper compilation out or another remake that ends up being cheaper if you just wait patiently.
See how this all pans out? How it works against the way that high-street videogame pricing typically works, to the player's disadvantage? It feels like another method that a games distributor is using to keep prices artificially high, though I suppose it technically isn't. If XBLA games dropped in price the same way that normal games drop in price, I'd be far more inclined to buy games. I'd feel like it was a bargain, a good deal.
You can "beat" the system a little bit, by buying pre-paid Microsoft Points online from Amazon or whoever, as they sometimes undercut the RRP of those cards by a pound or two, but that's generally the best discount you can hope for.
I also don't like the way licensing works. If a friend is visiting you, and they want to play a game they bought on XBLA, they can download it onto the hard-drive of your Xbox 360, but will only have full game access on their own account - you can't play it with them unless you go to their house and play it on their Xbox 360. Or, you buy a copy. That's not very social.
I've also wanted to play some games multiplayer with a friend in my house, but it turns out that multiplayer is only supported on the game if my friend and I each play on our own Xbox 360s in our own houses, via the Internet through two Xbox Live Arcade Gold Membership accounts. Two people sitting next to each other in front of one console can't have fun playing the same game, oh no! That also makes for very un-social gaming! >_<
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