Xbox Live Arcade Games
August 12, 2006
Microsoft recently completed it’s Summer Promotion of Arcade Wednesday. For five weeks this Summer they released a new Xbox Live Arcade game on Wednesdays. The promotion was a smash hit on Xbox Live Arcade. I happened to download four of the five and thought I would give my impressions of them.
Frogger
This was the classic coin op game of frogger that you may remember playing when video games were just getting popular. Your goal is to get a frog across the street and across a river to a safe haven. Like most of the coin-op games that have been showing up in Xbox Live Arcade, the graphics looked like the old game. The sound was jazzed up and some new modes were added. I havent played it online with others yet. I never could compete with the “good” kids in this game back in the 80′s and nothing has changed though I have unlocked most of the achievements.
Cloning Clyde
This is a new game and not based on previous coin-ops, at least to my knowledge. It is side scrolling platformer where you goal is to get the character Clyde out of his predicament. Along the way, you will make various clones of yourself to solve puzzles and defeat enemies. Think Donkey Kong type platformer with new twists on puzzle and get past objectives. This kind of game is not really my style, but Sean has played it for hours and just loves it.
Galaga
This is one of the most popular coin-op spacecraft shooter games of all time. It’s 1981 graphics didnt get a facelift, but that’s part of the allure. This game is another scroller where your spaceship is at the bottom and hordes of alien ships descend at you from the top trying to destroy you. The object is to destroy all of the ships before they get you. As one of the early games, folks used to memorize the patterns of the ships and position themselves properly to get the kills. Not being one to like that style, I again was never elite at this game. It’s just more fun when there is randomness in the ships. Still, I quite enjoy this game and will play for some time to come. I have completed most objectives and am likely to never complete the perfect bonus one 
Street Fighter II
I have nothing to say about this game as I havent and wont download it. This is a 2-D fighting game and that is not my cup of team. Even Sean doesnt like these kind of games. It is quite popular though and was anxiously awaited.
Pac Man
The classic coin-op game made its debut on Xbox Live to close of the Five Wednesday promotion. Even though I wasnt all that good in this game during its 80′s glory, I had to have it. I wanted the kids to play it. This is another one of those games where the good kids had the patterns memorized to win with extremely high scores. I usually do the opposite and mix it up to randomize each game and try different ways. Needless, to say I dont do as well. Sean has taking a bit of a liking to the game, but struggles with it. Savannah thinks its too hard.
Overall Comments
We have downloaded a bunch of the Xbox Live Arcade stuff for the XBox 360. Its a pretty cool idea and has really taken off. The games tend to be pretty good and they are pretty inexpensive, especially when compared to their $60 full development cousins. The Wednesday promotion was so successful, that Microsoft has announced all future Xbox Live Arcade releases will come on Wednesdays, though it wont be every Wednesday.
One thing that has been pretty annoying with the coin-op games is the tightness of the controls. The coin-op arcades had really big and bulky analog joystick controls. The Xbox 360 has a wireless controller with small digital joysticks. Sean and I have found that in Frogger and Pac Man in particular, it can be difficult to get the characters to do what you want. The control scheme tightness just seems to be lacking. This may be more related to the controller than the game, but it can be a problem. Its not a wireless thing because the modern fast-paced games dont have any latency issues.
I am hoping the next Xbox Live Arcade game released is Texas Hold Em Poker. Rumor has it that it will be released on the 23rd of August, but it has missed half a dozen release dates before.
Xbox Live Arcade and My PC
July 26, 2006
Tonight has not quite gone the way I had planned. First, I planned to get in a quick couple rounds of America’s Army with my 158th clan mates. Then, I was going to play some Xbox 360 – in particular some of the new Xbox Live Arcade titles that are available.
However, when I got home tonight, I couldnt get my computer to connect up to the internet. The NIC just sits there trying to acquire a network address. I verified on the other 3 PCs and the Xbox 360, that the internet connection was indeed live. So, it was clearly isolated to my PC that just happens to have America’s Army installed on it. I rebooted it several times and checked that the ethernet cable to the PC was hot by plugging it into another computer in the same room. I powered it on and off a couple of times and still no go. I am trying my last ditch effort now of just letting it sit off for 30 minutes and then powering it on once more. It shouldn’t work after doing this but once before (about 1 year ago) a similar situation arose and that actually worked. I wont be holding my breath.
Maybe this will be enough for me to convince Suzanne to let me get a new computer. We have talked about it because that computer is also our video editing and graphics editing machine. It’s pushing 3 years old, so a new one is in order. We have talked about waiting to the first of the year though.
I will go ahead and take one simple little step before I do that. I will pick up a cheap NIC and see if its just as simple as that dying, which I believe it to be. If that doesnt work, more ammo for a new PC.
Anyways, I had intended to write about the new Xbox Live Arcade games. The Microsoft team has started a new program where they are releasing a new Xbox Live Arcade game every Wednesday. Today is the third Wednesday of this new program. I have purchased two of the three – Frogger and Galaga. Those are some classic coin-op games. After playing Frogger for a while, I still stink at it. Tonight, I will get in some Galaga time as I used to handle that one okay. Someday, I will have to try that third game in demo mode first. The title is eluding me at the moment, but I had never heard of it.
I am still waiting patiently for the Texas Hold Em release on Xbox Live Arcade. Evidently, the lawyers have gotten involved and that is holding up the release. Microsoft had originally announced that the game would be free. Recently, they have recinded that statement. The free game was going to be sponsored by an online gambling casino that was going to get ads in the game. Evidently, lawyers became involved and were worried about gambling adds being flash in front of youngsters who downloaded the game because it was free. So, the game will not be sponsored by the online gambling casino and will not be free.
If you ask me, I would rather the game not be free anyways. Hopefully, if folks have to pay to get the game, they will be more serious about poker. I absolutely hate playing with the noob idiots that join and go “all in” every hand because its fake money. Good times can be had when you find a group of players who try to play more like its real.
-
Subscribe via Email
Sign up to receive the latest Mr Papa's World site updates! -
Subscribe via RSS
