In case you were wondering, I have no idea why the last post is on the blog twice. It's some weird glitch and I can't get rid of it. Here's the latest news.
Arcade Me - One of the coolest features of the Xbox 360 is the Xbox Live Arcade, a bunch of fun games that can be downloaded online for a small fee. Those games have now been put together as its own seperate game called "Xbox Live Arcade Unplugged" that will sell for a tentative price of $39.99. The release date is set for September 2. The list of games hasn't been confirmed but judging from the box art for the game on the right, it includes: Geometry Wars, Wik: Fable of Souls, Bejeweled, Hardwood Backgammon, and Texas Hold'Em Poker. What I want to know is - where the hell is Cyberball!
Oh great, just what I always wanted - Nintendo has announced that the DS Lite will be available in "Noble Pink" in Japan starting July 20. There was no announcement on when/if everyones favorite color will be available in the U.S.
This game just keeps getting better - Showing how to keep a great game fresh and relevant, Activision recently released five new multi-player maps for the Xbox 360 version of "Call of Duty 2". The pack is currently available for 800 Microsoft Points (about $10) on Xbox Live Arcade and includes the following locales: Antonville, France (Crossroads), St. Louet, France (Newvillers), Amaye sur Seulles, France (Normandy), Alam Halfa, Egypt (Decoytown) and Rostov, Russia (Harbor).
Since "Duty" (tee hee, I just wrote duty) came out Activision has released 9 multi-player maps. Sheer brilliance! Here is a game that came out in November of last year and through its excellent game play, superior graphics and frequent updates remains one of the best games on the 360. This is the way gaming companies show that they still care about a game, and gamers, after its been launched. I know for a fact I'll be snapping up "Call of Duty 3" when it comes out this fall, if only because I know Activision will keep adding content to an already great game. This is how Xbox Live Marketplace should be used. Now EA should follow this lead by offering updated rosters and player rankings on its sports games.
2 comments:
I wish Microsoft would offer SOMETHING for free. Yeah we get the game demos for free but all that does is give people a taste so they'll go out and pay money for the full game. And when there are demos on the 360 marketplace, they are offered for free by the game developer. Not Microsoft. The somewhat cheesy arcade games and games like Poker, Billards and Uno should be free. I shouldn't have to pay a free, no matter how little, to get the full games. It's not like Microsoft is in danger of going under if they offer a free thing once in awhile. You can't even download picture theme for free! My 50 bux a year for Xbox Live service (great price BTW) should get those arcade games for free. Now they want to sell them for 40 bux AND charge me another 50 to play them online? Please... Now why would I pay good money to play poker or spades on the 360 when I can go to many gaming sites like yahoo or MSN (where MOST games are free) and play games for free and have many thousands more people to play with at any given time? I don't think they put alot of thought into charging for these games. Oh yeah I forgot...plus the 300 or 400 bux just to get the machine.
I definetly agree that themes and pictures should be free. I'm cool with demos and movie trailers being free but I don't really look at those. I see enough trailers on TV and if I'm interested in a game, chances are I've already read about it and will buy it anyway. Give me something worth a little bit of coin.
The games on Xbox Live Arcade are only around $5, which I think is a pretty good value. While it would be cool if they were free, you can download demos and play them forever. I downloaded Geometry Wars for free and my son plays it a lot.
The free download demos and $5 charge for these games is fine with me. I want to try them out and if I like it I'll buy it. If not, I'll play it somewhere else for nothing or not at all. Xbox Live will get really cool when it offers classic games on the cheap. Cyberball, Paperboy etc. - you know, games that are old school and you can't play anymore. I'll be more than happy to drop a five bucks so I can play online Cyberball, then turn around and play Halo 3.
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