#xboxlive arcade

[pitagain]

#365DaysOfVGM Day 90:

Tim Trance (Marble Blast Ultra [2006])

This Trance (With some Techno parts mixed in, such as the Drums) masterpiece composed by Tim Clarke is part of what led me to having a soft spot for the game itself, and it needed to fulfill this aspect, given it’s the only track in the whole game!

From the moment I started this game’s trial version on the Xbox Arcade Live Compilation disc on the console’s launch day, I knew this was a game worth playing the full version of, and while I don’t have that version anymore, it’s freeware on PC now, so recommending this game is very easy! It’s 3D platforming with a healthy mix of simple and challenging for those aiming for better records, taking advantage of the aspect of how it’d feel to control a round object like a marble

(Length: 5+ minutes)

[livefromthearcade-blog]

Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon – In the future of the past

Game: Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon

Released: 2013-05-01

Age rating: 18+

Price: 1200 MSP / £10.20

Genre: First person shooter

Gameplay: Usual FPS rules apply so don't worry about having to learn fancy new controls or anything, just jump right in a get blasting.

That is of course if you want to get blasting, the game's open world forefathers have left their mark on this spin-off and the game allows you to take the route of stealth should you so wish. Given the quite weedy guns and relative lack of ammo this is often the prefered option.

Don't worry if you do get spotted though, just keep on nailing the headshots and you'll do fine.

Visuals and Sound: You would expect a game from the Far Cry stable to look spectacular and this game does not disappoint. They were clearly going for an 80's vision of the future, this game just about nails it. From the enemies wearing bike helmets to the thumping electronic soundtrack it's all very Terminator, Escape from New York and any other dark futuristic eighties film you could mention.

Visually and aurally then, it's a treat.

Like it:

Daft humour.

Cyber neon retro future look.

Cool electronic soundtrack.

Loathe it:

Shooting feels quite bland and inaccurate.

No mulit-player.

Worth a purchase?: If you are a fan of single player FPS games (there must be some of you still out there) this was probably on your 'to buy' list the moment it was revealed this was not an April fool's joke.

Other than the humour and the past's future setting there is little here that you haven't seen or played a hundred times before. It plays like a diet version of the regular Far Cry franchise but at least the window dressing is nice.

Rating: 3/5

Available on: Xbox 360, PS3 and PC

[livefromthearcade-blog]

Xbox Live Sales: 2013-04-02 to 2013-04-09*

I've avoided talking about sales on XboxLive for a while, partly because I'm lazy, but mostly because they've been rubbish...at least until now.

Now there's suddenly a huge selection of Live Arcade titles that are discounted, so first up let's look at the 'Microsoft Studios Sale' which should appear on the home page of your Xbox dashboard. Games I have reviewed appear as links (underlined and sometimes in blue depending on where you're viewing this post), just click them see the review.

Live Arcade games:

A World of Keflings – 400 MSP

Castle Crashers – 800 MSP

Deadlight – 600 MSP

Dust: An Elysian Tail – 600 MSP

Full House Poker – 400 MSP

Hydro Thunder – 600 MSP

Hydrophobia – 200 MSP

ilomilo – 400 MSP

Magic the Gathering 2013 – 400 MSP

Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 Expansion – 200 MSP

Mark of the Ninja – 600 MSP

Trials Evolution – 800 MSP

Origin of pain add on – 200 MSP

Trials HD – 400 MSP

There's also a few tables available for Pinball FX 2 at half price:

Pinball FX Classic Tables – 400 MSP

Marvel: Avengers Chronicles Tables – 400 MSP

Plants Vs. Zombies Table – 120 MSP

Other sale items:

Forza Horizon December IGN Car Pack – 200 MSP

Nike+ Kinect Training – £24.99

Upper Body and Core Workout add on – 200 MSP

Next up is the usual 'Deal of the Week' or 'DOTW' which can be found under 'Sales & Specials' in the 'browse games' tab on your dashboard:

Axel & Pixel – 400 MSP

Mercury HG – 200 MSP

Pool Nation – 400 MSP

Puzzle Arcade – 400 MSP

Quarrel – 200 MSP

Retro City Rampage – 600 MSP

Swarm – 200 MSP

Winterbottom aka The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom – 400 MSP

If that's not enough the price of all three 3D Serious Sam games has dropped to 800 MSP each, along with Asteroids Deluxe which is now 240 MSP.

There's a lot of good stuff in that selection, my top picks being: Dust: An Elysian Tail, Mark of the Ninja and Retro City Rampage. Whatever your tastes you should find something to amuse so go to it right now and happy gaming!

*Sale dates are approximate, the XboxLive dashboard is a fickle place with sales sometimes disappearing when you least expect. My advice is that if you want something that's on sale get it sooner, rather than later.

[livefromthearcade-blog]

Ecco the Dolphin – Beware the tides in March

Game: Ecco the Dolphin

Price: 400 MSP / £3.40

Age Rating: 3+

Genre: 2D underwater adventure game

Gameplay: Who hasn't wanted to swim with dolphins? Well now you can go one better, you can be a dolphin...at least in a twenty-year-old videogame.

Controlling Ecco is fairly simple. Directions move him through the water, A button speeds him up, X is a dash attack, useful for attacking foes and eating smaller fish to replenish health, and B uses Ecco's sonar which let's him interact with other creatures as well as the mysterious 'glyphs'.

Gameplay revolves around finding a specific creature or glyph, without dying or drowning, then moving on to the next section. This starts of fairly simple, a matter of jumping up and out of the water to get over a land barrier, but soon you find yourself deep in underwater caves, with limited breathing holes and fast currents to catch you out.

It's a unique experience, feeling a bit like a platformer, but with no platforms. It's by no means easy and it gets confusing and frustrating very easily.

Visuals and Sound: Despite being an update, there have been very little enhances to this game over it's Mega Drive original. The only options being the addition of pixel 'smoothing', which actually makes the game look worse, and enhanced music, which to me sounds sound no different at all.

Lack of polish aside this game actually looks and sounds pretty good. The animation of the dolphins and other creatures is smooth and quite believable, with interesting a quite detailed scrolling backgrounds.

The music and sounds too enhance the overall effect, making the game feel dark, brooding, ominous and strangely lonely as Ecco searches for his missing pod.

Like it:

Be a dolphin!

Very atmospheric, even for an old Mega Drive game.

Loathe it:

High price.

High difficulty.

Worth a purchase?: This game was a weird and distinctly 'out there' release even when it first appeared, and unless you have a lot of patient for all things retro, this is just a bit too odd to play seriously these days.

You can buy the Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection, which includes this game, it's sequel and another 38 Mega Drive games for a few pounds more than this XBLA release. This makes Ecco just not worth buying from the Live Arcade, even if you really want it.

Rating: 2/5

Also available on: Wii via Virtual console, PC via Steam and iOS

[livefromthearcade-blog]

Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams – Doin' it for themselves

Game: Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams

Released: 2013-03-20

Age rating: 7+

Price: 1200 MSP / £10.20

Genre: Platformer

Gameplay: The Giana Sisters was once a rip-off of the Mario Bros. that was so blatant that the makers were forced to take the original game off sale. Over 25 years later the Sisters are back.

History lesson aside this a fairly basic platformer with one interesting mechanic: 'twisting' between the two sisters 'dreams'. See what they did there? This basically amount to making platforms appear that weren't there before, or reversing the direction of lifts. Never the less it makes for and interesting challenge.

The two sisters each have a different special move: a 'twirl' that allows floaty jumps and a move that turns them into a fast moving ball of flame. Both can be used at any time, but this switches the 'dream' back to the relevant sister's move. It might sound complex but it really isn't once you get the hang of it.

Sadly for a game that demands perfection, things are woefully imprecise, jumping immediately feels awkward and weightless and when using the fireball attack you often find yourself being thrown towards your enemies at high speed with no chance of avoidance.

Visuals and Sound: Aside from the sisters themselves, who are rather ugly, this game is quite a looker. It's bright and bold, but annoyingly everything sort pf moulds into one colourful blob while moving, making it hard to see your foes properly.

The most impressive feature is that when switching between the two 'dream' states it's completely without a just. It goes from everything being one thing, to everything being another instantly. Plants grow and die, enemies turn from goblins into birds. I can't even being to imagine how difficult that must have been to program. This even goes so far as the music, which changes for cheesy synth to cheesy rock. It's really quite something.

Like it:

Switching between the two 'dreams' is a good idea and adds interest.

Switching between said 'dreams' is seamless, both visually and audibly.

Loathe it:

Brutal difficulty. (Often caused by points two and three).

Frequently quite hard to spot what will kill you and what won't.

Physics of jumping and twirling feel imprecise.

The sisters have the ugliest character models in the game by far.

Why can't I change the controls? This is becoming a pet peeve of mine lately.

Worth a purchase?: It's better than Wednesday's Alien Spidy, but not by much. The game's core mechanic, switching between the two sisters and their planes of existence, works well enough and looks great. However, the imprecise nature of the sister's jumping and attacks makes it too much of chore to be fun.

Another one for hardcore platformer lovers only.

Rating: 2/5

Available on: Xbox 360, PC, PS3 and Wii U (TBA)

[livefromthearcade-blog]

Earthworm Jim HD – He's such a groovy guy

Game: Earthworm Jim HD

Price: 800 MSP / £6.80

Age Rating: 12+

Genre: 2D run and gun platformer

Gameplay: As an earthworm in supersuit Jim has all the moves you'd expect...er wait, what? Jim certainly is one of the more original platform heroes to emerge from the nineties.

Controlling Jim can take a little getting used too, for instance you can't jump and shoot at the same time. Nor can you jump upwards while hanging from ropes, which makes sense when you think about it, but just feels odd in comparison to more modern platformers.

It's also damn hard, enemies come at you from pretty much anywhere, and with only limited ammo things can get pretty hectic from the outset.

Visuals and Sound: The HD-ification done on Earthworm Jim HD is probably one of the best examples on the XboxLive Arcade, the updated graphics look fantastic. The tunes and sounds have been updated too but have lost none of their original charm.

Like it:

HD graphics look great.

Quirky humour.

Loathe it:

Jim is quite to hard to control.

Difficult and confusing levels.

Worth a purchase?: If this were 400 MSP I'd recommend it as a history lesson and a curiosity. At 800 MSP? It's one for lovers of old-school platformers only, simply because even with the addition of multi-player, there's not a whole lot of content for your cash, even if you can hack the hardcore difficulty.

Rating: 3/5

Also available on: PS3

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Dungeons & Dragons Daggerdale – Got dwarf?

Game: Dungeons & Dragons Daggerdale

Price: 800 MSP / £6.80

Age Rating: 16+

Genre: 3rd person Action RPG

Gameplay: Standard action RPG controls apply here, which is probably a good thing. Your attacks and actions are assigned to the ABXY buttons, with specials being accessed by holding the left trigger. Moving and camera controls work nicely, though targeting enemies with ranged weapons can be a bit hit and miss until you find the perfect range.

Weirdly for an RPG of this type the characters run almost too fast, which is a welcome change from the plodding you have to put up with in most games.

If you've played any action RPG in the last five years or so, you'll be on familiar territory here. Everything clicks straight away, leaving you to get stuck in adventuring.

Visuals and Sound: It looks pretty bland and pretty cheap, and isn't help by it's stock elves-dwarves-humans fantasy setting. It's again very familiar territory, which given the fact it's a D&D game shouldn't surprise anyone.

Music is orchestral and grand, sound is grunty and clangy. You know the drill.

Like it:

Solid gameplay.

Loathe it:

All feels far too familiar.

Lame text dialogue.

Worth a purchase?: If I had to write reviews in a single word the one I'd use for this would be: 'generic'. The setting, the gameplay, the XP, it all gives you a strong sense of deja vu. In fact I had to check several times while writing this review that I hadn't done one for it already.

It's by no means terrible and with friends the joys of adventuring are doubled...but it's nothing special.

Rating: 2/5

Also available on: PC and PS3

[livefromthearcade-blog]

WRC Powerslide – Fast and Furious

Game: WRC Powerslide

Released: 2013-03-08

Age rating:

Price: 1200 MSP / £10.20

Genre: Arcade rally racing game

Gameplay: Four cars compete over various rally stages around the world. However, in a change from usual rally games, you can bump and barge your opponents instead of ghosting through them, in fact it's actively encouraged.

With this combative edge in mind, there a six power-ups to help harass your competitors:

Hailstorm – Everyone but the user gets slowed down.

Lightning – Hits the competitor in first place only (or second place if you use it while in first).

Cloud – Leaves a dust trail behind you that is almost impossible to see through, careful using it on hairpin bends or you'll be partially blinding yourself.

Shield – the increases you top speed and blocks attacks

Nitro – Gives a huge speed boost, almost too fast on the tighter stages.

Horn – Launches a projectile that slows down whoever it hits.

The power-ups are mostly there to keep the racing close, which in that respect, works a treat. You really have be at full throttle; sliding, thrashing and fighting your way to the front, it makes for intense races.

Visuals and Sound: If you've played WRC 3 this look and feel will be very familiar, only the music is slightly different, being annoying rock instead of annoying dubstep.

That said, there's actually nothing wrong with WRC 3's graphics, if anything the high up camera perspective shows them off better. It's quite pretty and runs smoothly even if the stages in each country all look exactly the same.

Like it:

Fun, always sliding sideways handling.

Power-ups are useful and make for very close racing.

An interesting use of the World Rally Championship licence.

Loathe it:

Lots and lots bit recycled from WRC 3; the cars, the stages, you name it.

Circuit racing would have made more sense, some stages are perhaps a bit too long.

Car classes are all much the same, where are the group B cars?

Worth a purchase?: Had I not bought WRC 3 yesterday, this would be a completely different review. As it is, this is basically a diet version of that game with slightly easier handling, a different camera viewpoint and the chance to smash into and use power-ups on your opponents.

It's good fun for race fans but it's not exactly got a wealth of options for the asking price. Give it a go and maybe you will enjoy the ride too.

Rating: 3/5

Also available on: PS3, released 2013-03-13