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!

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!

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.

It seems weird playing a game that back in the 1990’s was deemed ‘inappropriate’ for children and was demonized in the press for it’s violence and nudity as compared to your Manhunts and GTAS of today it is pretty tame. Duke Nukem 3D was originally released on the PC back in 1996, this was one of the first wave of FPS games after Doom and Castle Wolfenstein.

Duke back then was a character straight from an 80’ action movie, with all the corny catchphrases. One of the main reasons that the game was criticized was the sexism, it seems ridiculous now and out of place but I still can’t help laughing at it. The game play is still great though, ok the AI is limited with enemies zig zagging towards you but for a Live Arcade games its fantastic.  As with many other retro games you play on a smaller screen with a Duke Nukem wallpaper in the background, this helps keep the graphics pixel sharp like the original, I’d love to be able to have it in full screen but I don’t think the programmers had 32 inch Samsung HDTVs in mind back in 1996  The controls have been fixed to work on the Xbox 360 controller keeping the gameplay tight and responsive. Since moving from PC to 360 two years ago I have found the 360 controller to be perfect for FPS games and would find it hard going back to mouse and keyboard.

There is also an online co-op mode, for some reason there is no split screen so no couch co-op I am afraid though you can play the entire campaign with up to 8 players which is quite unique seeing as many of today’s games seem to not take full advantage of co-op. There is also a whopping collection of 39 (yes 39!) multiplayer maps to frag your pals on.

Duke Nukem 3D is one of the best Arcade titles to come out in a while and with the co-op and multiplayer it has great replay ability making good value of your MS points.

This is great, just great. We’re getting ready to relaunch Live Arcade Review, and what happens? Red Ring of Death. Blam. That’s one dead Xbox 360.

I’m sending it in this week. Hopefully it’ll work itself out, but there might be issues here, since I got my Xbox 360 as a press representative and everything. Fingers crossed. Worst case scenario is that I’m picking up a new one.

Stay tuned, yet again.

We just did another technical upgrade. We’re also happy to announce that we’re almost back in business. Bear with us while we relaunch ourselves for real.

Yes, I know we’ve been quiet, despite the amount of interesting people that have e-mailed me for a writing gig here at Live Arcade Review. I’m finally handling all these things.

Anyway, another upgrade is in progress, so please bear with me as everything breaks. I’ll post here again when it’s done. Upgrade seems to have gone smoothly.

Fingers crossed as I update the blog software, WordPress, that Live Arcade Review runs on. Stuff will break and look weird while I get it up and running.

Thanks for your patience. I’ll update this post with a status report… Everything seems to be working nicely. Phew!

Guys, sorry for the hiatus. It’s been a couple of crazy months indeed. I’d like to thank all of you who e-mailed, most of you should have gotten their replies now. Yes, we’re still looking for people to review Xbox Live Arcade games, as well as Live Arcade games for Windows Vista for that matter.

As for the Live Arcade Review site, I’ll be updating software and doing an overhaul in the coming week. Hopefully nothing will break during that period of time. After that, reviews should start rolling again. I’ll just lay low on news for now, maybe inking out a partnership with some other Live Arcade site out there that focus on that sort of thing? We’ll see. I’m open to suggestions.

Right. Thanks for your patience. Be sure to subscribe so that you won’t miss our glorious comeback!

Folks, I’m sorry for the lack of updates here. Stuff happened (it always does, doesn’t it?) and sometimes you just have to take a few steps back and realize that you need to change things. So I have.

I still want to keep Live Arcade Review going though, so now I’m looking for bloggers that can get the load of my back. This is a paid position on a per post-basis! continue reading…