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XBLA (Xbox Live Arcade) News, Announcements, Reviews, and Impressions Thread

R

randomlyrossy

Member
Jipan said:
Did anybody know that another Double Dragon game is coming to XBLA? Apparently the achievement list is up for it. I was browsing the site and saw it on the front page which probably means that it's coming out soon. You can view it by clicking this link

It's not a sequel to Neon since it isn't developed by WayForward. And it looks much worse than the aforementioned game.
Click to expand...

Yeah it was actually announced way before Neon, but it disappeared and then Neon was announced and released. I think most people assumed it got canned but it has shown up again since Neon's release so I guess it's still a thing.
 
W

wwm0nkey

Member
1711__500x154_ares_website.png


March 7th, 2013 -Torrance, CA – Aksys Games is proud to announce that the epic world-saving platformer game A.R.E.S. Extinction Agenda will be re-imagined for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft as A.R.E.S Extinction Agenda EX. Developed by Extend Studio and Orgio Games, A.R.E.S. Extinction Agenda EX puts you in control of an advanced robot named Ares on a mission to save the entire planet from eminent destruction. With all new special content, including weapons, enemies, and new areas, A.R.E.S. Extinction Agenda EX will bring an awesome new world-saving experience to Xbox LIVE® Arcade for Xbox 360. For more on what’s in store in A.R.E.S Extinction Agenda EX, here is a quote from Adam McClard, CEO of Origo Games:

“We are tremendously pleased to be working with Aksys to bring this enhanced release of A.R.E.S Extinction Agenda. We feel this version represents the full product we had in mind from step one of the project. Aksys has been a big help to us with Xbox LIVE Arcade for Xbox 360 and we hope that the fans of both of our companies love this rendition of the game.”

A.R.E.S. Extinction Agenda EX Story Summary

In the year 2060 Earth had reached the stars; during that time an alliance was formed with a robotic alien race which the humans called Atzai. The Atzai gave humans the means to end the pollution plaguing their planet by building the Minos Space Station, where the waste of Earth was used to create efficient forms of energy for space travel. For once, Earth was at peace, and a strong bond forged between Human and Machine. However, not all Atzai agreed with helping the warmongering human race, and slowly rebel factions formed inside the Atzai ranks.

Now the year is 2094 and the rebel faction leader Zytron has attacked and taken control of all the machines onboard the Minos station. Atzai Command receives a distress call from Dr. Julia Carson, a chief engineer, revealing that there are still survivors on board and that Zytron has a secret Extinction Agenda for mankind. Atzai Command sends their best option to infiltrate and retake Minos from enemy hands, with the priority of saving the hostages at all costs.

Take control of Ares and newcomer Taurus for two separate story arcs, and uncover the conspiracy behind Zytron’s invasion of Minos Station.

Ares is a combat specialist built to run faster, jump higher, and fire quicker. Taurus is a battle veteran built for giving and taking damage with his tank-like body. Together with their orbital handler Valkyl, they must race against the clock to save the survivors and stop Zytron’s Extinction Agenda.

A.R.E.S. Extinction Agenda EX Features

Receiving Console Transmission – A.R.E.S. Extinction Agenda EX has been refitted with new console friendly designs, including a new UI, control scheme, and leaderboards.
Upgrade Complete – Armed with new weapons, abilities, and even a new playable character, humanity’s secret weapon has never been stronger.
Obstruction Eminent – Ares isn’t the only one with new tricks; new enemies and bosses have also joined the fray.
Uncharted Sectors – With readjusted maps and completely new levels, there are an abundance of areas to explore for new and returning robots alike.
Visuals Updated – New high resolution textures as well as brand new animated cut scenes.
Audio Enhanced – A.R.E.S. Extinction Agenda EX comes complete with the original soundtrack by Hyperduck Soundworks. Also now boasting a completely new soundtrack for the second campaign from Heavy Metal master Charlie Parra Del Riego, a perfect fit for Taurus the heavy metal Tanker.
Click to expand...
 
Vert boil

Vert boil

Member
Updating at the moment, double check prices before buying. I'll update throughout the day.

DOTW

GTA 4 - 800msp/10$ (was 1600/20$) US price, check your region
--Ballad of Gay Tony - 800msp (was 1600)
--Lost and Damned - 400msp (was 800)

-----

All Zombies Must Die! - 400msp (was 800)
Geon - 400msp (was 800)
Lara Croft: GoL - 600msp (was 1200)
--Challenge Pack 1: All The Trappings - 200msp (was 400)
--Challenge Pack 3: A Hazardous Reunion - 200msp (was 400)
--Raziel & Kain Character Pack - 200msp (was 400)
Mensa Academy - 400msp (was 800)
Mini Ninja Adventures - 400msp (was 800)
Puzzle Arcade - 400msp (was 800)


Battlestations: Pacific
--Carrier Battles Map Pack - 280msp (was 560)
--Mustang Unit Pack - 80msp (was 160)
--Volcano Map Pack - 280msp (was 560)

Brave - 800msp/10$ (was 2400/30$) US price, check your region

Deus Ex: Human Resources - 1200msp/15$ (was 2000/25$) US price, check your region
--Explosive Mission Pack - 120msp (was 240)
--Tactical Enhancement Pack - 80msp (was 160)
--The Missing Link - 600msp (was 1200)

Dungeon Siege 3 - 800msp/10$ (was 1600/20$) US price, check your region

F1 Race Star
--Canada track - 240msp (was 400)
--China track - 240msp (was 400)
--Europe track - 240msp (was 400)
--India track - 240msp (was 400)

Just Cause 2
--Black Market Aerial pack - 80msp (was 160)
--Black Market Boom pack - 80msp (was 160)

Kane and Lynch 2 - 1600msp/20$ (was 3200/40$) US price, check your region
--Alliance Weapon Pack - 120msp (was 240)
--Doggie Bag - 280msp (was 560)
--Multiplayer Masks Pack - 80msp (was 160)

Mini Ninjas - 800msp/10$ (was 1600/20$) US price, check your region

Sleeping Dogs - 1600msp/20$ (was 3600/45$) US price, check your region
--Deep Undercover Pack - 120msp (was 240)
--Dragon Master Pack - 320msp (was 640)
--GSP Pack - 120msp (was 240)
--High Roller Pack - 120msp (was 240)
--Martial Arts Pack - 120msp (was 240)
--Movie Masters Pack - 80msp (was 160)
--Nightmare In North Point Pack - 280msp (was 560)
--Police Protection Pack - 120msp (was 240)
--Red Envelope Pack - 120msp (was 240)
--Retro Triad Pack - 80msp (was 160)
--Square Enix Character Pack - 80msp (was 160)
--Street Racer Pack - 160msp (was 320)
--SWAT Pack - 160msp (was 320)
--Tactical Soldier Pack - 80msp (was 160)
--Top Dog Gold Pack - 120msp (was 240)
--Top Dog Silver Pack - 80msp (was 160)
--Triad Enforcer Pack - 120msp (was 240)

Supreme Commander - 1200msp/15$ (was 2400/30$) US price, check your region

Tomb Raider Anniversary - 800msp/10$ (was 1600/20$) US price, check your region

Tomb Raider Underworld - 800msp/10$ (was 1600/20$) US price, check your region
--Beneath the Ashes - 400msp (was 800)
--Lara’s Shadow - 400msp (was 800)


-----
Sales & Specials+ app

Hasn't updated again. I'll check again later.
I haven't seen the normal panel advertising the app in a few weeks. *doomy doom doom doom doom*


Released today,

boxartlg.jpg
boxartlg.jpg
boxartlg.jpg


10 Frame Bowling - 240msp

Penalty Saver - 240msp

Ping Pong - 240msp

Canada gets them cheaper again. 160msp each.

Also,

Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds
--Kurisu Pack - 400msp

Scott Pilgrim
--Online MP and Wallace pack - 400msp (not up yet)
Looks like the Tuesday date was wrong. Should be up tomorrow.

Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Decade Duels Plus
--Card Pack 017 - 160msp
--Card Pack 018 - 160msp
--Structure Deck 004 - 240msp
--Super Pack 004 - 320msp
 
P

Phonomezer

Banned
Sleeping Dogs is $10 in Australia, what the fuck?!

Edit, I refreshed the page and it went from $9.99 to $19.99. Either that or I'm blind.
 
S

Slygmous

Member
People should get Tomb Raider Anniversary while it's cheap, it's very good. Some occasional bizarre framerate issues though.

Phonomezer said:
Sleeping Dogs is $10 in Australia, what the fuck?!

Edit, I refreshed the page and it went from $9.99 to $19.99. Either that or I'm blind.
Click to expand...

Still shows $10 on my computer. That'd be 600 points for any Australians interested. Also recommended.


edit: what wtf I don't own Underworld yet! I only have 580 points! Any cheap AUS points online anywhere?
 
K

keit4

Banned
Sleeping Dogs is 10€ in Spain. Great deal, a pity that i already have a physical copy for 360, the Steam version and the digital version for PS3.
 
R

richi_one

Member
Good, bought Guardian of Light (and Tomb Raider arrived today too)...it's Lara day for me!
I hope sales & specials+ will be good too
 
M

Montresor

Member
Wow nice prices on those Tomb Raider games. And they are all short and shouldn't take long for achievements. I'm in a TR mood (I started playing the new single player)
 
A

aku:jiki

Member
canIhasAnAccount said:
Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Decade Duels Plus
--Card Pack 017 - 160msp
--Card Pack 018 - 160msp
--Structure Deck 004 - 240msp
--Super Pack 004 - 320msp
Click to expand...
Really curious what the hell happened with this game. Why was it delisted for, I don't know, a year and then re-uploaded, delisted again and re-uploaded yet again and now they're pumping out content packs for it? How does all of that even happen? And why?

Also, getting Mensa Academy at that price. I didn't hate the demo as much as everyone else seems to.
 
L

LorDjidane

Member
ResidentDante said:
This looks really fun, anybody here tried it out and have some impressions? Does it have splitscreen multiplayer?
Click to expand...

Tried it, got bored before the end of the demo.

That is too arcade/slippery for me, and not in a micromachines way. There are a few Mario Kart like bonuses that you can put away but in that case that puts away the collision between vehicles. Only four vehicles during the race, and the camera is kinda weird (but you quickly get used to it I think).

Also: no local MP. That's great for a micromachines like.

Anyway, try out the demo, that's always the best impression you can get.
 
N

Noogy

Member
Dwingvatt said:
Finally.

This was planned for the Xbox 360 years ago. I'm glad they finally found a publisher.
Click to expand...

Bit of trivia, my composers at HyperDuck SoundWorks worked on ARES, and actually sent me samples of that soundtrack, which helped convince me to hire them for my game.

That was nearly four years ago, so yeah, it's been around for a WHILE.
 
K

Keyser Soze

Member
Roland Deschain said:
Damn it, € 15 over here. I'd still almost get it but aren't the odds pretty good that there will be a GOTY type release with all the DLC included?
Click to expand...

Make sure to press X to check the Microsoft Points price. Sometimes it does not match up to the € value in certain regions. Anything under 1000 points and you'd be saving money
 
ResidentDante

ResidentDante

Member
LorDjidane said:
Tried it, got bored before the end of the demo.

That is too arcade/slippery for me, and not in a micromachines way. There are a few Mario Kart like bonuses that you can put away but in that case that puts away the collision between vehicles. Only four vehicles during the race, and the camera is kinda weird (but you quickly get used to it I think).

Also: no local MP. That's great for a micromachines like.

Anyway, try out the demo, that's always the best impression you can get.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I hoped it would be a Power Rally sort of clone (that great arcade games, remember?!) with really fun multiplayer like Micro Machines. I'll give the demo a try though!
 
J

Jhoan

Member
Same old DOTW as before for the next two weeks. What else is new? I already got The Missing Link for 600 MSP during a previous sale. I was hoping there would have been a Bamco sale because I've been dying to check out Artorias of The Abyss.

I think I'm gonna check out the latest Sleeping Dogs DLC since I've been looking forward to it. More Sleeping Dogs is always good. EDIT: Done.

Tomb Raider: Anniversary is pretty tempting at 10 bucks though. Are any of the Just Cause 2 stuff worth getting? I'm interested in the Black Market Aerial Pack even if it means that it might the game easier (which sounds like it might be the case).
 
O

Of All Trades

Member
Stumpokapow said:
Dragon's Lair: This sucks in so many ways. I don't think it's a good Kinect game--the movement cues are very tiring and often times you have cues that don't play well... for example, if the game says "jump left" and then "jump left" again, you basically need to jump left, return to neutral, and jump left again, but often times the timing window between the cues isn't really wide enough to get back to neutral. I also had a fairly tough time getting it to recognize stuff at all. The menu cursor is very good though. You can play the game without Kinect, but that's a little bit of an afterthought. You need to boot the game, use Kinect to go through a menu, select "controller", and then use your controller to start up the gameplay. With a controller, you have only movement and sword cues, not rope cues. The game doesn't tell you what button to press on the sword cue. No problem, you say, you can push start and select "How to Play"--no, you can't, you need to quit out of the game to watch the help video. They could have fixed this by just replacing the sword icon with an A button icon. The timing window is way too tight on a controller. About 2 minutes into the demo you're on an elevator which descends, and it took me 11 tries to hit a single button cue that I knew was coming. The demo version lasts 3 minutes. Also this game makes almost no sense, I forgot how every scene is just piled on one after the other with no pauses, downtime, relaxing scenes, or often transitions. Dirk is just being accosted on all sides, randomly ducking through holes into rooms not apparently connected to the room he was just in. Is this because the demo airs scenes out of order or because that's how the game is? Seems like a bit of both.
Click to expand...
Have you never played Dragon's Lair? What you're describing sounds sorta like it but with weird additional control options. If not, the non-Kinect version of the game is played with a 4-way stick and one button (sword), that's it. It's extremely canned and kinda random, although if you've played enough of it what's being asked of the player makes some arcane sense.

If you want to try the whole thing it's only a buck on iOS. I've probably bought it and Space Ace like... 5 times each over the decades, from a terrible Amiga version with two rooms on each floppy (and only 6 floppies) to a few CD/DVD versions to the iOS version, and almost purely out of nostalgia. Personally I think it's worth trying for the novelty, although I also recognize that you could watch the entire thing on Youtube and literally get nearly the same experience as playing it.
 
H

HadesGigas

Member
Noogy said:
Bit of trivia, my composers at HyperDuck SoundWorks worked on ARES, and actually sent me samples of that soundtrack, which helped convince me to hire them for my game.

That was nearly four years ago, so yeah, it's been around for a WHILE.
Click to expand...

Way back when it was still called TrashMan.
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
Of All Trades said:
Have you never played Dragon's Lair? What you're describing sounds sorta like it but with weird additional control options. If not, the non-Kinect version of the game is played with a 4-way stick and one button (sword), that's it. It's extremely canned and kinda random, although if you've played enough of it what's being asked of the player makes some arcane sense.
Click to expand...

I've played it before--on Laserdisc(!), DVD, and I want to say 3DO or Sega CD. Never played it on coin-op.

It's been many years though. I remember the timing window being more generous than what it was on the controller controls here. But the Kinect controls are totally unusable as well haha.
 
T

toythatkills

Member
Stumpokapow said:
Today's demos...

Geon: Emotions: Bad tutorial. You sort of roll around a Pac-Man ish maze getting dots, and then when you get enough of them, you roll to the edge, press a button to flip to the underside (where your opponent is gathering dots) and try to get to the center of that area to score a goal. There seems to be an attacking and defending element, I guess for some levels you try to avoid getting dots and instead just attack your enemy? Every character is called an "Emotion" and gets a slightly better version of one or more of the powerups, but this ended up being a lot of bluster for a difference that wasn't really obvious when I actually played the game. Maybe this is good, but I didn't get anything from the tutorial.
Click to expand...

Had a go on this since it's on sale, and pretty much echo the above. There doesn't really feel like there's much fun in this because it all feels weirdly pointless, as if there's not really any skill to it.

Buying Mensa though.
 
G

Gaspode_T

Member
I could swear Dragons Lair was $1 per play in the arcade back in the day, maybe it is just my imagination running wild but I remember being so frustrated that I could not seem to make it past the first few scenes...but man it was glorious looking, probably more impressive than FMV games easily because the animation was basically like "holy shit I am playing a cartoon!!"
 
O

Of All Trades

Member
Gaspode_T said:
I could swear Dragons Lair was $1 per play in the arcade back in the day, maybe it is just my imagination running wild but I remember being so frustrated that I could not seem to make it past the first few scenes...but man it was glorious looking, probably more impressive than FMV games easily because the animation was basically like "holy shit I am playing a cartoon!!"
Click to expand...
It depended on the arcade but usually it ran at least $0.50 back when that was unheard of. I think a lot of the appeal (and this is severe wayback machine for me so faulty memory and all that) was that since the game is very easy to follow and attractive that anyone playing would tend to attract watchers, which was a huge ego boost in Ye Olde Days. It's why I played a lot of Point Blank and Time Crisis in college: nothing like that feeling of looking cool (er, "cool") in front of other arcade dwellers when you can clear levels without looking at the screen.
 
S

Slygmous

Member
Legends isn't even available on the Australian marketplace :(

Underworld was $30 yesterday evening, and dropped to $10 last night, back up to $30 this morning. Very strange and annoying.
 
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