Hope everyone had a great Xmas and got lots of lovely MS points to spend on more arcade games! I recieved a couple of 1600 point cards and I’m looking forward to splashing out on some of the new releases (Note: Don’t forget to check out the Xbox originals store as right now there is 50% off Halo!).

So looking back over 2008 I think we can say that there have been some pretty good titles released. Here is a rundown of some of my favourites:

Castle Crashers

I loved this game and still find it tremendous fun to play. The game really makes me laugh, there’s some great power-ups and abilities and there’s plenty of violence and gore all wrapped up in cartoon graphics. Did I mention you can play with 4 friends too?

Braid

Initially I was put off by the high price of this game but it has really grown on me and I am still going back to it every other week just to enjoy the fantastic graphics and artistic design of the game. I love the time-beding aspect of the game which breathes live into a genre that is pretty dead these days. The gameplay can be fast and intense along with some mind bending puzzles. 

Super Street Fighter II HD Remix

For me this is probably the best Arcade game of the year, or maybe Braid, ok pick either one. Capcom took a game that was over 15 years old, kept the fantastic gameplay and sprinkled HD magic dust all over it to give us a classic beat ‘em up game (that is still the king of fighting games for me) but with a 2008 look. A must buy for all Live Arcade fans.

So what were your favs for 2008? Let us know!

My first introduction to Rare was back in the mid 90’s with the Donkey Kong Country games that I had for my SNES along with Killer Instinct in the arcades and they quickly became one of my favourite developers. Then in 1997 they brought out what I still to this day hold as the best game I have ever played; Goldeneye on the N64. I loved Goldeneye but after playing it I realized that I was starting to grow up from ‘cutesy’ games, I still enjoyed playing Super Mario 64 but I had forever been turned into an FPS junkie. So when Banjo Kazooie came out I never bothered to pick it up, I remember watching a few demos in my local games shop and not being interested at all. So here I am 10 years on reviewing it for Live Arcade so I must admit this is the first time I have ever played it, and I am not impressed at all.

I recently dug out my old N64 and had a quick go on Super Mario 64 and found the game to still be very enjoyable and it has aged well but I cannot say the same for Banjo Kazooie. The game has many similarities to Mario 64, just nowhere near as good though. The controls are rather limited and Banjo feels sluggish when he jumps and swims, the camera controls are sticky and not particularly easy to rotate around, getting a good view of your surroundings can be annoying. The textures in the game world seem dull and lifeless  too, I know this may all seem a bit harsh for a game that was made 10 years ago and I’m sure Rare did the best they could with the tools they had at the time but at the end of the day this game just feels like 2 steps back from the awesome Mario 64. The later levels have some very frustrating game play elements and this is all for a hefty price tag of 1,200 points. Those of you looking for a trip down an N64 memory lane will be sorely disappointed with this title. 

I’d say there’s quite a lot of competition out there for block based puzzle games, I enjoy playing Bejeweled and I still love Super Puzzle Fighter.  So here we have a new entrant into the market with Meteos Wars , it doesn’t really bring anything new to the genre but it’s addictive, there are plenty of game modes to keep you entertained and the online multiplayer is pretty fun too.

The main objective is to match three colours in a row, either  horizontally or vertically and then blast them off the top of the screen. There is a cool sci fi twist to the game also the blocks are supposed to be the alien invaders or ‘Meteos’ and you are blasting them off your planet as they land. It’s a very basic story but so what this is a block puzzle game.

As usual with these types of puzzle games the gameplay is fast and addictive but what I really liked best was the gravity effect that is in the game. Each level represents a planet and each planet has different strengths of gravity, so some of them will have zero gravity making it very easy to launch the blocks off into space but later on there will be much stronger gravity on the planets and thus the blocks get heavier which results in them being launched upwards a lot slower. This can make for some really frantic levels later on and you need to be pretty fast to get through.  There are also special blocks to destroy for certain missions along with some interesting power-ups.

When I first downloaded this game I was very skeptical with the amount of similar games there are already on the market but I am pleased to say that Meteos Wars is both unique and enjoyable and I highly recommend it as one of the best Arcade releases in a while.

Try saying that 3 times fast!!

As we wait with much anticipation for the return of the best and most well known beat-em-up series of Street Fighter in its fourth installment of the series Capcom has made the wait a bit easier by blessing us with a graphically vamped edition of the classic Street Fighter II Turbo. This is a game that was the sole result of the controllers for my SNES getting worn down to nothing during my teenage years. It was one of those games that you could even pull out at parties and everyone would want to have a go. The game overall is still very straightforward and still holds true to the original gameplay. In fact I found the gameplay so sold after all these years that it made me wonder why the majority of modern fighting games still can’t replicate it.

HD Remix has fantastic visuals that are bright and sharp, all the characters look like they have been taken straight from one of the Street Fighter anime movies, which is exactly how they should look. The sound has also been remixed by OC Remix and they have done a fine job. I found the controls to be very tight which is quite rare for games that utilize the D-pad on the 360 controller. You can of course plug in an arcade stick but I am someone who grew up mainly playing Street Fighter games from home so the D-pad is what I know best.

I haven’t tried online play due to the fact that my connection isn’t so good. Slow down in fighting games can ruin the experience so if your connection is slow like mine then stick to local games. I always found it better to be sat next to your rival when you take him down with super ‘Ha –do-ken’ anyway

Super Street Fighter II HD Remix is aimed squarely at hardcore Street Fighter fans, it can of course be enjoyed by casual gamers and first timers just don’t expect any bells and whistles though. The gameplay is probably stronger than any other XBLA action/fighting game out there though and I can guarantee that you’ll be playing this for months to come.

Kingdom for Keflings initially sounded like a teeny bopper game that I usually wouldn’t touch with a 10 yard pool but thankfully has turned out to be a real gem and a nice original title to add to XBLA and it’s heavily addictive.

The basic concept of the game is something much similar to the Civilization series but a lot simpler. This is the first game that utilizes your avatar from the new dashboard update. Your avatar acts as a giant that can interact with the Kefling people and help them out with duties such as chopping down trees, carrying them around etc, it’s quite like the giant pets you have in ‘Black and White’ and works very well. Due to using my personal avatar I felt much more attached and involved than using a pet.

So the basics of this game are resource gathering and building your town up. You can assign tasks to different Keflings by picking them up and then dropping them off say at the forest and then they will chop and gather wood. You can upgrade your resource gathering by building a lumbermill that turns logs into boards and then later a woodcarver who can make carve the planks to make more intricate designs for your buildings. Once your town is built and populated you become the mayor and then need to complete quests to improve your giant and enable him or her to move faster, build quicker etc.

Overall I found this game pretty good, I am quite into complex strategy games but I still managed to enjoy this and highly recommend it.

And they own the Wii avatars!

Back at E3 2008 Microsoft announced that they would be improving and expanding the Live experience with a new dashboard system and personal avatars for your gamertag. At first glance they seemed to be carbon copies of the Nintendo  Miis but have turned out to be have much more depth to them and it’s looking like there will be many developments for the avatars and community as a whole in the future. So now NXE (New Xbox Experience) is here and I must say that I am very impressed. The system for building your avatar is great, there are plenty of options for hair styles, clothes and accessories. The overall layout now for the dashboard looks much better too. If you haven’t updated yet then sign in now and get yourself a funky avatar built!

New Cars for Burnout Paradise - Great scott Marty!

Jansen 88 Special – Ok so it will have fire coming out the back and oh yeah one other minor detail, it’s wheels will retract so that it can fly! So yes basically it’s the Delorean from Back to the Future so that’s me sold

There will also be the  Calvary Bootlegger, Manhattan Spirit and the GT Nighthawk. DLC for Burnout Paradise is just getting better and better it seems!

A resurgence in interest for Goldeneye on Live Arcade? - I hope so…

So I was browsing through the Live section of IGN.com this week when I noticed that Goldeneye was listed in the top 10 that week, more developments maybe? I had a search for some fresh news but didn’t come up with anything really. I still can’t beleive that Nintendo, Rare and MS haven’t come to an agreement over this as it would surely bring in some huge revenue for all of them, seriously what would you pay for this on Live Arcade?

DLC for Dead Space released on 13th

So a hefty bunch of DLC has just been released by EA including: Astronaut pack, Big gun pack, Military pack and also some exclusive content for Xbox live. I still haven’t completed the game yet either!

I remember this coming out on the Playstation back in the late 90’s, if I can recall it was pretty good at the time but also there seemed to be quite a few other ‘death race’ style games around then and this one didn’t exactly stand out from the crowd. Initially I was excited to play this but I realized that 10 years on the gameplay hadn’t aged that well, for most of the battles I was either driving straight into enemies and blazing away with my weapons or I was reversing back from them whilst trying to keep them at bay with my rockets.

For single player there is a quest mode where you can choose from eight vehicles and then play through three different arenas and for each arena the number of enemy vehicles increases. Downed enemies drop salvage which can be collected to increase your damage points and weapon combos.

Single player mode gets pretty dull once the nostalgia has worn off but luckily the multi player mode is pretty solid. For online play you can have a total of eight buddies playing and there are five arenas, there’s also a split screen mode. It’s also worth mentioning that you can have 4-way split screen which is pretty rare these days. From the little amount of time I spent playing this online I didn’t incur any lag and found it quite enjoyable but I am not sure how long the online community will stick with V8.

Overall Activision have done justice with V8 and if the online community sticks with it then it should be in the top ten for a while.

Striclty speaking this isn’t about Live Aracade but I thought I’d do a post about the latest happenings on Live anyway as there’s a lot of activity at the moment.

Americans have Netflix - So what it’s rubbish…

Ok so those of you in the US of A can now get access to Netflix streamed movies via Live. A lot was made of this when the news was first released a few months ago but it turns out to be pretty poor in the end. It seems that the quality of the resolutions is low, very low. Apparently it barely touches standard defintion levels, also it uses the same resolution as it does on your PC, this may seem ok on your 17 or 20 inch monitor but stretched out on a 30 inch+ HDTV it looks simply dreadful. Oh and whilst we are mentioning PCs you should also know that you need to have your PC hooked up to your 360 console for Netflix to work.

Free maps available for Bad Company - Mortar fire on the golf course.

I loved Bad Company when it first came out, the destructable environments were a hoot, but recently I tired of it and found myself going back to COD4. These new maps, especially ‘Par for the Course’ look fun though and should keep me happy until Gears 2 and COD5 are out

Banjo-Kazooie:Nuts & Bolts Demo Available Now

The 1 GB demo just popped up on Live. Once my super slow connection finishes downloading End War I’m going to grab this too. Also look out for a review of the original Banjo Kazooie later next month.