Official "I got to play XBox 360" Impressions Thread

[Flawless]

Re: Official "I got to play XBox 360" Impressions Thread

Condemned and Madden impressions from gijello over at Team Xbox...

http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t=389791&page=1

Thanks to my local Gamestop last night I was able to play Condemned & Madden last night on their 360 kiosk. Here are my impressions of both of my 10-15 minutes with each game:

Condemned- probably the most atmospheric and creepy of the launch titles I have played. The visuals are pretty impressive with awesome lighting effects and unbleievable textures. The physics engine was also dead on- when you hit a shelf with stuff on the it the items fall in realistic fashion. The controls were very similar to most FPS type games and felt tighter than COD2. Overall I was very impressed- this could be a sleeper hit from Monolith. Probaly my favorite 360 game thus far.

Madden '06 360- I have to start by saying this game feels very different than the current generation Madden. The graphics are obviously an upgrade where the noticeable difference is in the amount of detail and facial animations. My one complaint is the player animations seemed choppy- maybe it was the frame rate? The camera angles and black & white buttons have changed so I struggled to get used to them at first. After a series on offense & defense I started getting into the grove. Overall Madden '06 is solid but really feel like another year of development will help EA work out some of the kinks for '07.

[triplej96]

Re: Official "I got to play XBox 360" Impressions Thread

lol...

seriously, i could write all night about my impressions...

however, i have been having to clean the house all day because our bama buds are coming in tonight, so i havent had time to go in depth....

if you have any questions, ill answer them on AIM

Come on give us something how were all the games?

[Brandwin]

Re: Official "I got to play XBox 360" Impressions Thread

I went to buy COD and Madden from EB a minute ago and Madden was the only one they had, only one copy left too. COd should be in tomorrow.

Anyway, they were playing Madden (the damn manager was hoggin it) and it looks real good. But I couldnt gather a whole lot from 10-15 mins of watching.

LOL I did see a toss play work two times..and they blocked well on the play.

[Victor99]

Re: Official "I got to play XBox 360" Impressions Thread

COD2 was playable at the mall EB today. It looked REAL nice running on an LCD TV.

[Jistic]

Re: Official "I got to play XBox 360" Impressions Thread

I finally played today. COD2 on a HDTV was STUNNING. Very beautiful game that made you feel like you were in a movie. The enemy AI was pretty stupid however, and I really don't see it being too difficult. Mind you there was no difficulty level so I'm sure that can be adjusted.

I can see why they say an HDTV is a MUST if you're going to get a 360. Kameo was a pretty fun game for me too. Not quite as stunning in the visuals at COD. But the surface textures were very nice. The gameplay itself was pretty fun, although I felt a little lost as to what the hell I was supposed to be doing.

I think once the devs have time we're gonna be in for some kick butt gaming in the next year or so. If I had a HDTV I would kick and scratch to get a 360. If not and you have a high end PC, you can have a better experience with your PC.

Either way I'd have to say the future looks promising.

[Victor99]

Re: Official "I got to play XBox 360" Impressions Thread

I finally played today. COD2 on a HDTV was STUNNING. Very beautiful game that made you feel like you were in a movie. The enemy AI was pretty stupid however, and I really don't see it being too difficult. Mind you there was no difficulty level so I'm sure that can be adjusted.

I can see why they say an HDTV is a MUST if you're going to get a 360. Kameo was a pretty fun game for me too. Not quite as stunning in the visuals at COD. But the surface textures were very nice. The gameplay itself was pretty fun, although I felt a little lost as to what the hell I was supposed to be doing.

I think once the devs have time we're gonna be in for some kick butt gaming in the next year or so. If I had a HDTV I would kick and scratch to get a 360. If not and you have a high end PC, you can have a better experience with your PC.

Either way I'd have to say the future looks promising.

Agreed Jistic. I think at this time next year, we're really gonna see the power of the system. Remember some of the PS2 launch games? The Bouncer? X Squad? Those games didn't give scratch the surface of the console.

[Flawless]

Re: Official "I got to play XBox 360" Impressions Thread

Impressions of most launch games and XBL arcade games from xoxoxbox over at IGN. Very nice....

For my 2000th post I wanted to do something special, so here are first-hand impressions of almost all of the Xbox 360 launch games. I’ve spent at least a good few hours with the final version of each game that I’ll be writing about. I’ll be adding to this post soon with impressions of most of the Xbox Live Arcade games for 360 very soon as well. There was a lot to cover so I kept each game fairly concise. I can go in to more depth on different games if people care.

Call of Duty 2

What can I say, a lot of great things have been written about this game already, and they are ALL TRUE. The trailers we have seen proclaim this game to be “seriously intense” and “Xbox 360’s first great shooter” and both of those statements have a genuineness to them that resounds truer and truer the more you play the game. Everything from the sound to the controls to the AI to the particle effects to the checkpoint system all scream polish. Some of the levels may have a “been there, done that” feel, but only at first, as most feature unique gameplay twists that you’ve never seen before. The variety of levels is also incredible, from all out open field battles populated with scores of characters on screen, to tense indoor fighting, to long range sniper duels, to Half-Life inspired pipe crawling; from war-shattered, snow covered cities to dusty vast deserts this game will take you places that no other WWII shooter has gone before. The only complaint that I could seriously lodge is that the default difficulty may be a bit too easy and as such it loses some of the intensity. Jack it up to “Hardened” or higher and you’re going to see why they say this game is “as close to war as you’d ever want to get”. At these higher difficulty levels you’ll also notice the excellent balancing they’ve done between the short and long range weapons, and the incredible usefulness of smoke grenades. The multiplayer is also oodles of fun, and features a cool new kill cam. When someone kills you, you see the last few seconds leading up to your death from their perspective. This insult to injury is far better than any smack talk could ever hope to be, plus it’s also useful to gameplay, especially if the person that killed you was sniping from some awkward vantage point. The only downside to multiplayer is that after every game you’re kicked back out the main menu – no real lobby system to speak of. The Xbox 360 may not have a “Halo” in its launch lineup this time around, but this game comes pretty damn close to filling those over-sized shoes. If you pass on this one because it’s “just another WWII game”, you’ll be doing yourself a great disservice. If you’re wondering whether you should get this for PC or 360, it is no question. The 360 version loads faster, looks better, runs smoother, controls more easily and otherwise beats the PC version in pretty much every category.

Kameo: Elements of Power

This one flew under the radar for a while. Expectations were probably low due to the fact that Rare hasn’t put out anything earth-shattering recently, and the fact that it has gone from platform to platform over a series of years now with no end seemingly in sight. But I’m here to tell you this game defies expectations. Rare is back in true form. If the action/adventure genre isn’t to your liking, or if you simply can’t stand a semi-cartoony art style, then you may be right to stay away, but I can’t think of any other reason to avoid this title. If this game were to come out under a Nintendo banner, it would be hyped to hell and there would people salivating to get their hands on it. And they would be right to do so. Like CoD 2, the controls are great, and the checkpoint system means you’re going to have very few frustrations playing through the game. The graphics really pop off the screen, whether it’s in a colorful happy town or a dark and fiery castle. From a gameplay perspective, comparisons to Zelda are rightly deserved. The only complaints that I have are the loading screens and the length of the game. Loading screens are fairly short and usually well spaced. But, like Conker, sometimes as you are quickly traversing through an area you run in to some loading screens in quick succession, or sometimes you need to load just to go inside a small hut. The game is a decent length, but the problem that I have with it is that once you’ve acquired all your powers, the game ends pretty quickly. I would have liked to have had more levels after gaining all my powers that really tested my ability to use them all together to solve problems. Thankfully, once you’ve beaten the game you can still wander the world and do all the little things you may have skipped on your quest, such as finding all the trinkets scattered throughout the world. This really is an excellent game in the vein of Zelda, so if it sounds at all intriguing to you I can recommend it without any reservations. My second favorite launch game.

Perfect Dark Zero

On the other side of the Rare coin is PDZ. I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but this game is a huge letdown in pretty much every imaginable way. Trust me, it's really hard to say that. I’m sure there are die-hard believers and people that will find enough good things about the game to make them overlook the bad. These people would probably string me up for saying so, but this is one to avoid. The aiming/movement is particularly bad, and this permeates the game and makes tedious what otherwise might be fun – in both single and multiplayer variants. The AI in the single player is also a particularly notable shortcoming, and yes I can say this is the case for harder difficulties as well. The problem with the AI is not that it is a poor challenge, it’s that it’s just decidedly last-gen. Even on the harder difficulties, bad guys will stand directly in front of you when they could take cover behind the crate they are standing next to. The only thing that makes them harder is that they are more accurate and do more damage. Comparing to games like Condemned and CoD2 makes the AI seem that much more brain dead. The graphics are also a very mixed bag. The levels themselves often times look very next-gen (although often too shiny). But the characters just don’t fit in these pretty environments. While the environments look real, the characters look stylized and molded out of clay. And they don’t animate well at all. And it gets worse when they open their mouths. I’m not sure whether Rare was intentionally going for cheesy voice acting, but they certainly got it. In spades. Like a bad Saturday morning cartoon. Funny enough, Chandra, a very central character in your missions, is voiced fairly well, and this juxtaposition makes the awful scientists and bad guys that much more cringe-worthy. The graphics, animation, AI, sound, and controls aren’t the end of the problems either. The mission designs are often deeply flawed. For instance, without giving away too much, the second mission starts out as a stealth mission. Since there isn’t really any good indication of what you should be doing or when you might be detected or when you should shoot, it devolves very quickly to trial and error. And if you err, that means starting the level over from the beginning, hearing lots of the same dialog over, etc. Later the level becomes a long shootout, and a fairly difficult one at that, and depending on if/when you die, you may have to do the level over again. Some levels feature one checkpoint, but they are far too infrequent. Furthermore, it's really easy to get lost and not know where to go to meet your objectives. For this reason I'd almost recommend playing through the game the first time on easy just so you can get the directional indicators to tell you where to go. That kind of mission design may have cut it in the Goldeneye days, but not anymore. To be fair, many of the later missions are far better and more interesting, but they are only good, not great. But as the missions get better, the story gets worse. Multiplayer is cool in that it features large numbers of players and many different kinds of modes (some of which are novel and I’ve been wanting for a long time) and endless options, but since the core gameplay has so many design inconsistencies, there’s not much reason to give it the time to separate the wheat from the chafe. The absolute lack of proper weapon balancing in multiplayer can be the source of many frustrations. For example, you can unload an entire clip of an SMG in to someone’s back, only to have them turn around and seemingly randomly headshot you. If there is one saving grace for the game, it is the dedicated co-op mode. This mode is done well enough to almost make you forget all the other short-comings in the game. Almost. I’ve been pretty hard on PDZ, but I don’t think undeservingly. Interestingly, the game somehow comes together to be slightly better than the sum of its messy parts. Like Vader, I sense that there is some good left in it, but with a sequel (well, prequel) to one of the biggest console shooters of all time, and one the most hyped games available for launch, I shouldn’t have to put that much effort in to trying to like it. If your expectations were for a AAA, killer app, must have game, you’re going to be let down. If your expectations were set low enough, you might be perfectly happy with Perfect Dark Zero.

Project Gotham Racing 3

Score Microsoft’s first party launch lineup 2 for 3. PGR3 is another fantastic game in the series. Take PGR2, add high resolution graphics, a track editor, more modes of gameplay, and a very intriguing online system (Gotham TV), and an in-cockpit view without peer, and you’ve got a recipe for success. The only big complaint that I have is, for whatever reason, PGR3’s graphics are rather aliased. I’m not sure how they got away with it since the platform is supposed to require anti-aliasing, but let’s chalk it up to the pressures of meeting launch day and hope that it doesn’t happen again. The cockpit view really is astoundingly awesome in every way. Unfortunately, it makes racing a little bit more difficult because your view of the race track is partially obscured (just as it would be in real life). One cool option in multiplayer though has everyone in the game agree to use the cockpit view. This way you can experience this unique treat without worrying that the other guys will have an advantage over you for doing so. PGR3 still deftly walks the line between sim and arcade racer just as well as its previous two incarnations did. And with the additional features this should appeal to any but the most hardcore purist race fans (hopefully for them there will be a sequel to Forza!). If you’re in to racing at all, this would definitely be in my top 3 games at launch.

Ridge Racer 6

RR6 separates itself from the other racers at launch by firmly pressing the pedal into unabashed arcade territory. You’re driver would spend more time looking out the passenger windows than the windshield with all the power sliding going on in this game. I’m sure there are people out there that want exactly that, but I am not one of them. The arcade experience in RR6 is not as immediate nor as immersive as the other racers available at launch. So, even though the cars are nice and shiny with a new coat of paint, the gameplay doesn’t feel at all next-gen to me. Further complicating matters are the camera modes. You have the choice between so pulled back the graphics are no longer as impressive, or so close up that you’re going to spend a long time staring at walls as you power slide around turns.

Need For Speed Most Wanted

Rounding out the racers and starting off the EA launch lineup is NFSMW. Much like in the drivers in the game itself, EA has cut some corners and taken some shortcuts, but it has all been done in the name of fun. So, while the destruction and mayhem you cause throughout the city is a little more canned than you may have been led to believe, and the races are a little more constrained than the freely traversable city might imply, it’s all there to make the game experience enjoyable. I can appreciate the ability to just drive around the city at my own pace and the ability to customize my ride even though the options are a little more constrained than in other titles. Worth noting is the attempt to meld live action actors with in-game graphics. The technique works fairly well by giving the actors and background similar color treatment so that they fit in to the scene, but is also pretty transparent in that you can tell what components came from where. In terms of where it lies on the arcade/sim spectrum, it’s probably somewhere in between PGR3 and RR6. Probably the most important part of NFS, as implied by the title, would be the sense of speed, and here the game shines. Especially in the “first person” view, where you see the detailed asphalt textures whiz by you in high-resolution-nitrous-blurred glory, the game makes you feel constantly on the edge. And in that alone the game is a success on its own merits. The AI is rather elastic, and will keep you either in the race if you’re doing poorly or on your toes if you’re doing well. So, as I said, they may be cutting some corners, but the game certainly succeeds where it needs to, namely in making the game always feel ... ahem ... fast and furious.

Madden 06

What a history behind this game! First they showed “artist’s impression” CG footage that wasn’t all that great. Then they showed up at E3 with stuff running in real time on alpha kits that looked absolutely gorgeous. Then they started releasing screenshots that were definitely a few notches less impressive. But then you start reading multiple impressions that say the game is killer. What to believe? And more importantly, what do you want to believe, considering that, for better or worse, this is now the only pro football game on the market. Well, graphically, the game came out the other end looking pretty damn good. It’s not quite NBA 2K6 great, but its pretty damn good. The widescreen format is great for football too, since you can see more of the line from behind the quarterback. Plus, the presentation is impeccable. And finally we have a Madden sans Madden. So, on the surface it looks great. How does it play? I don’t want to fuel the 2K vs. Madden debate one more time, but I will say it plays like Madden with a tweaks, all for the better. If you like how Madden plays, you’ll love it. If you hate Madden with the piercing of a six hundred blades, well... this probably won’t do anything to change your mind. But, like it or not, Madden 06 is here and it is decidedly next-gen.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06

Much like Madden, Tiger Woods has had its history of ups and downs. Unlike Madden, it came out the other side of the pipe decidedly less impressive than its higher points. I saw this myself running in real time at E3. It looked gorgeous. And along with all the other stuff that EA was showing it led me to believe they were really running full steam ahead. Hard to say what happened between then and now. But the grass and texture work certainly isn’t as sharp now as it was then. It’s still Tiger Woods, and it’s the only golf game for now on the system, which isn’t all that bad, but it just doesn’t ring in the next gen as well as it could. Although it still (obviously) looks better than the current gen iterations.

NBA Live 06

Finishing off the EA launch lineup is probably their most impressive game, NBA Live. This thing is a beauty. Probably the most realistic sweat ever. The coolest “loading screen” you’ve ever seen. And some awesome crowds and court graphics. I have to admit though that I’m not experienced enough as a basketball game player to tell you much about what’s changed in the gameplay department, or how the gameplay compares to NBA 2K6. Live does seem to be lacking anything other than the most basic gameplay modes though, which may or may not be the deciding factor.

NBA 2K6

I think the best two words to describe this title are SHOW. PIECE. The close-ups of the players are enough to make you absolutely giddy with excitement over the next generation. I can’t believe launch titles look this good. Just go take a look at the videos to see what I mean. The players’ skin is some of the best I’ve seen. And after viewing the cloth physics, games that don’t have them just don’t look the same. Plus it’s got all those other game modes on top of Live. But even with all that said, it’s not as clear cut a decision as it sounds. The audio can be a little flat and boring in this one, and for whatever reason, when the camera is pulled back, it doesn’t look quite as good as Live (probably why they have more close-ups in the replays than Live). The players animate a little better, but the controls seem a hair less responsive. I think when it comes right down to it, its going to be a matter of personal preference between the two games. Again I have to apologize for not being able to go in to more depth with respect to the gameplay. I don’t play many basketball games.

Condemned: Criminal Origins

This is definitely one of the more unique games in the launch lineup. Sure, it shares the first person perspective of a few other titles, but that’s about it. Whatever you do, don’t confuse this game for a shooter. You’ll spend very little time with a gun in this one, and you’re actually rewarded for not using guns at all. The pacing is also almost excruciatingly slow so as to build up a sense of suspense. You certainly won’t be trucking through levels at Quake speed in this one. What’s left is a game that crosses Riddick with Silent Hill with the movie Seven. The first person melee combat is done fairly well, as it was in Riddick. The atmosphere starts out almost exactly the same as a scene from Seven, but changes to become more and more like a Silent Hill as the game progresses. The graphics are absolutely awesome – with incredible high res textures, lighting affects abound, lots of post processing effects, and not a single jaggie in sight. The only downside to the graphics are some obvious polygon lines especially around the main character’s ears. As good as the graphics are, the sound is even better. Listening to this in 5.1 in a darkened room late at night is guaranteed to give you a fright. You’ll hear muffled sounds in the next room which can cause you to panic. All of this works because the intensity of the melee battles, the astoundingly atmospheric nature of the environments, and your own frailty work together to create an incredibly creepy experience. As some others have mentioned, the evidence collecting isn’t very critical to the gameplay, instead it’s almost more like an interactive cutscene. But it does show of some cool effects. I don’t want to say too much more for fear of spoiling some of the games creepier moments, but I will say that the plot is engaging, even if they leave a ton of loose ends at the end. I have a feeling there may be multiple endings if you do a better job of collecting some items in the game. If you’re looking for a scary game and don’t mind a first person game that doesn’t play anything like Quake or Halo, then you should definitely give this one a shot. If on the other hand you want more of a shooter experience or you don’t like creepy games, stay far far away.

Quake 4

Here is a sequel to one of the biggest franchises in first person shooters ever! So why aren’t more people enthused? Well, for one, they may have been turned off by Doom 3’s awesome graphics, but less than ambitious gameplay, and Quake 4 looks like it could be just more of the same. Well it is, and it isn’t. In the single player department, the game is very much the spiritual successor to Quake 2. In fact it takes up right where Quake 2 left off. The graphics have improved quite a bit since then, and we now have squadmates to help us through our mission as opposed to gunning it alone, but it is still a very straightforward shooter. The single player is much more interesting than Doom 3 though, because it eschews the monster closets of that game, and provides you with much more varied missions than just hunting demons in a dark room. Without giving away too much, there are also enough things that change throughout the course of the single player campaign to keep it from getting monotonous. In terms of multiplayer it is very much the successor to Quake 3. In fact it basically is Quake 3, with a little bit of a graphical overhaul. That means uber fast twitch shooting, rocket jumping, quad damage, and all those other things you’ve either grown to love or hate by now. The controls aren’t quite as tight as they should be, which is a critical flaw in a game this fast. So whether you love that Quake has, quite literally, stuck to its guns, or you hate that it hasn’t evolved in the wake of the Half-Life and Halos of the world, you’ve probably already made your decision about this game and you have a pretty good idea of how it will play. There’s a good chance though that if you already wanted to play this game, that you’ve done so on an awesome PC rig, which is probably the best place to experience this game if you have the specs.

As promised, here are my impressions of the Xbox Live Arcade games:

Hexic HD

Deceptively simple at first, this game is awesome! And why wouldn’t it be, it’s designed by Alexei Pajitnov, the original designer of Tetris! Gameplay is simple. You rotate sets of 3 hexagons either left or right, and if you match three of the same color, they disappear and the blocks fall down to take their place. There are two fundamentally different modes of play. Survival mode challenges you with clearing the entire screen of blocks. Blocks that aren’t removed get “locked” in to place for the next level so you can’t spin them. Survival mode is easy to beat, but if you want to get a high score you’re going to have to learn how to get the big point multipliers. Marathon mode is the core of the game. As you make blocks disappear, more just drop in to take their place. And as you progress in levels they begin dropping bombs in to the puzzle that need to be dispatched before a certain number of moves take place, otherwise your game is over. They also start dropping in more colors, which makes it harder and harder to make the patterns you’re trying to get. The kicker is that, in order to beat the game, you have to make circles of six of the same color. When you do this a metal piece will appear with some interesting properties that allows you to rotate pieces. If you then get six of _these_ together in a circle, they create a black pearl, which also has some unique properties for moving pieces around. Finally, you beat the game by either getting 3 of these black pearls together or by making a final circle of six black pearls – the latter being the toughest challenge in the game. It’s also great to have all the time in the world to make a decision about what to do next, because Hexic is not timed n anyway. Well, that’s not completely true, there’s actually a third mode which is just the Marathon mode with a timer. The challenge in that mode is really to get as many points as possible before time runs out. It may sound like simple puzzler at first, but it really has a ton of depth, strategy, and brains behind it. Plus the music is exactly the right match for the game. If it didn’t come free on the hard drive, I would fully recommend trying it out anyway. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone let some of their brand spankin’ new next gen games sit on the shelf for a few hours while playing Hexic.

Zuma

My second favorite arcade game after Hexic is Zuma. Again, deceptively simple. There is a track of balls surrounding your frog that are always moving closer and closer, and if they drop in the hole, then you lose a life. The only way to stop them is to shoot colored balls out of your mouth. You aim the balss by rotating the frog around 360 degrees. Lining up 3 of the same color will make the balls explode, and there are also special balls that have different effects on surrounding balls, such as making them go backwards or slower or explode everything in the surrounding area. There is some strategy becuas eyou can swap the ball in your mouth for the one you have in reserve, and also creating combos can get you more points as well as force the balls to move backwards at the same time. Later levels will have you shooting out balls as fast as humanly possible to stay alive. It’s hard to explain, but I suggest giving the trial version a try to see if you like it. I got hooked.

Bejeweled 2

Bejeweled is pretty much synonymous with casual gaming and for good reason. It’s pretty easy to pick up, and like Hexic it is not timed. Plus there’s a pretty consistent sense of accomplishment as you beat each puzzle and warp on to the next (trippy graphics and all). Unlike Hexic there is often one way and one way only to solve a puzzle, so it is less freeform and more reverse engineering the puzzle that they came up with. It’s pretty easy to beat to, since at any time you can ask for a hint and they will show you what pieces you need to move, or tel you if the puzzle is not solvable from your current position. You can also back up any number of steps all the way to the beginning of the puzzle. The game is a good little set of puzzles, but once you beat them there’s not a lot of reason to try again, because it will just be the same stuff.

Robotron: 2084

The original dual stick shooter is back! This one is pretty much a straightforward port of the original arcade game. The cool new feature is of course Leaderboards on Live. So for everyone that thought they were the poo when it came to Robotron, now you can find out how good you _really_ are. Robotron is a great blast from the past, but if you don’t already have a nostalgic place in your heart from the game, you may not have much reason to try it out.

Smash TV

The dual stick shooter: evolved. It took a number of years before another stand out dual stick shooter hit the scene, and Smash TV was it. The thing that really hit home about Smash TV was the uber violence, humor straight out of Robocop/The Running Man, and of course the insane amount of things flying at you fro mall directions at any given time. This version is a straight up arcade port with two very important additions: Xbox Live Leaderboards, and Xbox Live Co-op Play. That’s right, you can play Smash TV online with your friends with voice and everything all while racking up scores on a worldwide Leaderboard. “No Way!!!” And for only $5 it’s less than the cost of beating it on an arcade cabinet.

Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved

Geometry Wars comes with both GW 1 and GW 2. PGR3 comes with trial versions of each of these, which are easier, but are limited by time as to how long you can play them. For many though, lasting even the 4 minutes allotted by the trial game is going to be quite a challenge. For those that can last a few minutes in the game, you’re treated to some of the most frenetic old-school eye-blistering thumb-destroying game play you could possibly imagine. In order to succeed you basically have to fall in to a trance where all you see is millions of colored explosions. It’s incredible! The only downside is no multiplayer. If you wanted to get a dual stick shooter fix through Live Arcade, I’d recommend getting this plus Smash TV. This one for single player challenge, and Smash TV for cooperative play. Buying both games will only cost you about $10 total.

Mutant Storm Reloaded

If Geometry Wars is simply too much for you, Mutant Storm should provide a great alternative. This dual stick shooter is level based as opposed to just wave based like Geometry Wars, and the pacing is a little slower such that you can actually tell what’s going on onscreen. There’s plenty of room to amp up the challenge though, because as you stay alive longer you rank up by acquiring belts (much like in karate). Once you acquire a new belt, you can start the game over at the beginning with the new difficulty of that belt, meaning more points but more challenging enemies. It’s not as raw or as eye bleedingly fast as Geometry Wars, but there is a lot more content to explore and the games last a lot longer, perhaps justifying the higher price tag.

Crystal Quest

As if all the above options weren’t enough, there’s one final dual stick shooter in Crystal Quest. Sadly the graphics and gameplay in this one are not as impressive as the others, so this is an easy one to pass on.

Gauntlet

Again we have a straight up port of an arcade classic, only now with Live leaderboards and cooperative play. Only this time game allows 4 players to join in the action at the same time instead of just 2. Graphics appear to be slightly improved, but maybe that’s just the extra resolution helping out a bit. You know it, you love it, it’s Gauntlet, and again it’s only $5. Just don’t shoot the food.

Joust

I’m detecting a pattern here: arcade perfect port, slightly sharper visuals, online cooperative play, and worldwide leaderboards. Not much else to say. If you loved Joust, this is an easy decision.

Wik: Fable of Souls

This is one of the more unique games in the Arcade lineup. At first glance it might look like a side scrolling platformer, but that’s not the case. Each levels tasks you, Wik, to use your tongue to swing around the level, collecting grubs in your mouth and spitting them back to your animal buddy on the ground. Complicating matters are all sorts of bugs and whatnot that will attack you, but you can also use your sucking abilities to suck them in and shoot them back at their friends. Once you get the hang of things you’ll be whipping all around the levels like some sort of Bionic Commando circus freak. And if the attract loop is any indication, you’ll need to get really good at swinging before the game is over. I don’t think that I personally will spend much more time with Wik, but I can certainly appreciate having more non-puzzle/non-dual stick shooter/story based games on Arcade.

Outpost Kaloki
Like Wik, this one is much more of small game than a more typical arcade game. The gameplay here is basically StarCraft lite or a super advanced version of lemonade stand. Each level has one space station, and you are tasked to getting a particular add on attached to the space station. You do so by building shops to bring in income, power generators to power the shops an everything else, information stations to please incoming visitors, research labs to improve the efficiency of your other items, etc. You’re also fairly limited in the number of places you can put these, so you need to be smart and quick about what to build when and where. The game strikes a pretty good balance between having to think and having to act quickly. It’s a fun diversion for a few minutes at a time, and I would like to see more games like this available on Arcade.

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[SoMiss2000]

Re: Official "I got to play XBox 360" Impressions Thread

my wife is going to love bejeweled! She plays that on the pc all the time.

[Sully]

Re: Official "I got to play XBox 360" Impressions Thread

my wife is going to love bejeweled! She plays that on the pc all the time.

Same here. My wife can't get enough of that game.