The Xbox 360 Marketplace Thread

[samoza]

A star wars and Viva demo soon? That is great news as these are the types of gema where a demo may make me decide to buy them.

I loved the demo of Bad Company, Bioshock and many others - they do work. They can even stop you buying Hour of Victory!

[IntergalacticSpacePenguin]

I enjoyed the demo and would have bought it if I had the points. Looks like their could be a lot of depth to learning to best satellite placements and with the exception of the bloom, it is a very pretty game to play.

It is, however, the weaker of the 5 summer games so far and I can't see Castle Crashers contesting that.

[This is me breathing]

Its a good game...but if you compare it to SIE it seems to be missing something as an update.

SIE needs to come to XBLA as soon as possible.

[Johnny Ola]

I'm hearing dodgy things about Galaga Legions, and there's not a single review up yet.

DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=218825

Toppling Geometry Wars 2 from its throne is now the goal for any stripped-down Live Arcade shooter, and Namco Bandai deserves praise for delivering a game that comes within grasping distance of this lofty aim. That Galaga Legions arrives only a few weeks after Geometry Wars 2 hopefully won't count against it, with players left destitute by the buffet of quality titles over the last month. The two games actually go very well together, similar in focus and approach but varied enough to scratch distinctly different shoot-'em-up itches. It's really only the comparative lack of variety that keeps Galaga Legions from bettering its rival, and even that won't be a hindrance to dedicated shmup addicts. If you've still got MS Points to spare, it's yet another compelling purchase.

8/10

Glad I was right about this one.

Sold!

[outoftime101]

I think I'll try the demo before using up what few points i have left. I might hold back for castle crashers to be honest.

Oh and bloody good job on the first post Garth: everything you need to know about live is in there. The condense-a-thon-thingy-ma-jigs are quite clever too. Keeps the initial post from taking up an entire page.

[Sarge]

Autumn update for GTA IV DLC

Hidden at the end of a press release for Microsoft's impressive holiday line-up is word that there'll be news on the GTA IV DLC this autumn. That's 'news' and not a release date.

Whether that means we can expect a release around then or later in the year (dare we mention '09?) we still don't know.

Microsoft says: "In autumn there will be news from Liberty City; the first episodes of GTA IV will be available for download exclusively on Xbox Live, underlining Xbox 360's leadership role in the field of digital entertainment."

clicky

[Dalagonash]

Good news about the GTA content.

I've not tried Galaga yet but I think I'll be keeping my points for Castle Crashers, spend the excess on bulking out my Rock Band library, I've still got plenty of life left in Ikaruga and Geo Wars 2 to fulfill my SHMUP needs, while Bionic Commando is still giving me lots to do (tried the multiplayer last night, it's aces).

[qupe]

I quite like Galaga and brought it, also got Braid and Bionic Commando. I like games you can just pick up and play these days hardly have time at the min to get involved in deep games so keep these decent Arcade games coming please.

[Sarge]

Lode Runner Coming Soon

In the midst of a booth filled with old demos and mislabeled kiosks sat a lone Xbox Live Arcade title that has not yet been released. Lode Runner, a visually updated release of the classic arcade game, is at the Microsoft booth at this year's German Games Convention. The gameplay feels much the same as it did in the past, but no amount of staring at the German text on screen could tell me which features this release sports. Thankfully, the intrepid Charles Onyett previously previewed Lode Runner and lays out the details here.

The sole new detail comes courtesy of the placard on the kiosk in which Lode Runner was housed. That card had a snazzy "coming soon" descriptor just below the game's name. The build on the show floor looked largely done (and translated for the German audience no less) so we might be seeing this one tossed up on the Live Arcade quite soon.

clicky

[Sarge]

Vigilante 8 Arcade In Certification, Achievements Revealed

t's been a while coming, but Vigilante 8 is in the last throws of development - Microsoft certification to be exact. While Activision's testers have rigorously gone through the game and combed through it - it's now up to Microsoft to make sure everything is in order, including the TRC / TCR / TRG tests - which makes sure you're following strict guidelines.

Ever wonder why every PlayStation 2 game mentions the memory card, it's written as "Memory Card (8MB) (for PlayStation®2)"? That's why. Can't release a game without that.

"Having watched the game undergo numerous TRG sweeps at Activision QA over the past three months, we are confident it’s in a very solid state by now. We’re anticipating one re-submission at the most to obtain certification, but unfortunately there are no guarantees. Remember, a release date cannot be secured until the game is approved."

Along with the update includes the achievement list for the game. One achievement asks to collect all 100 'Alien Artifacts' in the level to unlock a secret craft. Sounds like Y the Alien will be making a reappearance.

Achievement List

clicky

[rinks]

I love Lode Runner. I even liked the N64 version, so I'm looking forward to this one.

(The image links don't seem to work, Sarge.)

[Sarge]

I love Lode Runner. I even liked the N64 version, so I'm looking forward to this one.

(The image links don't seem to work, Sarge.)

I noticed, there seems to be a problem on Suploads end. I'll rehost them.

[Garth]

Duke Nukem 3D coming to XBLA 'sometime in September'

In an interview with Xbox representative Jason Ing, it was revealed to Joystick that Duke Nukem 3D, developed by 3D Realms, has passed certification and is expected to release "sometime in September." The Xbox Live Arcade revival, which sports the same minimal graphical enhancements as Doom did on the service, is being published by Microsoft and is an exclusive release for the platform.

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/08/21/x08-d ... september/

[Monkey Man]

The features of Duke Nukem 3D XBLA:-

Classic shooter gets new features for XBLA

Yeah baby! Ok, so Duke Nukem 3D was the shooter for the redneck in all of us… frantic action, pig-cops for bad guys and the added feature of being able to throw money at scantily clad dancers.

So rumours have been circulating that Duke Nukem 3D is heading to XBLA very soon and though we haven’t been able to get a definite launch date, we have turned up so more info. What we have managed to uncover is a brief list of the new features being added to Duke Nukem 3D to bring it in-line with what today’s gamer is looking for in a shooter.

First off, there’s going to be at least 39 levels of action for you to unlock as you follow Duke’s return to Earth to find that alien space maggots have taken over the police force, corrupting officers and chasing after our babes. The wonderful Pipe Bomb makes a welcome return as does the brilliant Shrink Ray and Freezer… but there’s more to come.

Your score will be show on an XBLA leaderboard so your mates can see how much you rock and of course there’s a bunch of achievements to get grab too. Completely new is the ‘painless death system’, that will allow you to rewind the play back to pretty much any point in the last few minutes of play. Handy if you get your ass kicked or just if you want to play a section through a second time to try it differently. This ties in the new User Clip system which will allow you to record, upload and share your favourite Duke moments, purely for bragging rights purposes.

And finally there’s the multiplayer side with online MP co-op games and up to 8 player deathmatch… and having cut my online gaming teeth with Duke over serial cable all those years ago, I’m particularly looking forward to that one.

Anyway, that’s all we’ve managed to discover for now, we’ll keep you posted as soon as we have anything else.

[Garth]

Nice to see they're putting a bit of extra effort into the port.

[Dalagonash]

Duke with game recording? That's a nice touch.

I can't wait to play this game with a duel stick set up, I had loads of fun with it many years ago and I've wanted a new arcade FPS since DOOM was awesome, and Marathon was disappointing.

[Akai XIII]

I've got 4200 points on the way, what should I spend them on? I'm getting Braid, but other than that I'm not too sure... I don't want shoot 'em ups. Geom' Wars 1 and Galage were barely played, so I probably wont play Geo2, or anything like it.

There are a few games I've been thinking about getting DLC for, like Crackdown, but is it worth it?

EDIT: I've got the 120GB HD, so space isn't a problem.

[Jax]

Finally some news on GTA DLC. About time it came along.

[bear]

You should give Poker Smash a go if you liked Puzzle League on the DS Akai, it's a better version of the same sort of game.

[Akai XIII]

Which reminds me, Puzzle Quest was released on XBLA, right? I think I might get that...