Tag Archives: Xbox Live Arcade

The Best Humble Indie Bundle Yet Includes Bastion and Psychonauts

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The Humble Indie Bundles, which are sold for any price the customer decides, are great for a variety of reasons: They allow the spotlight to be placed upon a small number of indie games, they get games in the hands of gamers for almost no money (depending upon how generous they’re feeling), and they support charity. While they may also devalue games, as they get gamers in the mindset of potentially being able to pay a single penny for a handful of games worth many, many times that, there are still clearly many upsides to them. With that in mind, the latest Humble Indie Bundle — launched just earlier today — might very well be the best we’ve ever seen.

Despite being referred to as The Humble Indie Bundle V, there have been more than four in the past when accounting for the Frozen Synapse, Frozenbyte, Introversion, and Android bundles, among others. The best of these, in my opinion, was the fourth one, which included Super Meat Boy, Jamestown, Bit Trip Runner, Shank, NightSky, and, for those who exceeded the average sale price, Cave Story+ and Gratuitous Space Battles. Soundtracks for these games ended up being released to buyers, too, as were the games included in the third Humble Bundle. Not too shabby.

This time around, your purchase will land you copies of Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Limbo, Psychonauts, Superbrothers: Sword Sworcery EP, and, if you exceed the average sale price, Bastion. Also included are the soundtracks for all five games in FLAC and MP3 formats. Even at the current price needed for Bastion to be included, $7.43, that is an absolute steal — any one of those games is worth every penny of that, if not more. This is the third time I’ve purchased Bastion alone; the previous two times were at full price on Xbox Live Arcade and Steam, and I still feel like I’m getting my money’s worth because the game plays, looks, and sounds that good.

The Best Humble Indie Bundle Yet Includes Bastion and Psychonauts

Clearly I’m not the only one intrigued by this offer — already more than 163,000 purchases have been made, totalling more than $1.2 million. As always, Mac (average purchase price: $8.91) and Linux ($11.47) users are a good deal more generous than Windows users ($6.88). Whatever the case, all of them are getting some terrific games.

In 2011, Bastion took home 1UP’s award for Best Narrative, while we named Superbrothers the year’s Most Surprising Game. The former was also among the year’s best-looking games, and its soundtrack was arguably one of the best we’ve seen in years — and all of this in a downloadable game, no less. Limbo was the best-selling game in Microsoft’s Summer of Arcade promotion, and for good reason: Its unusual black-and-white art style made it stand out on a platform best known for shooters like Halo, Gears of War, and Call of Duty. Psychonauts never sold as well as it should have, although that’s no knock on its quality — in my eyes it remains Double Fine‘s best game, and those who have played it know why it has grown to have a cult following. Amnesia may be less known than the rest of the games in the Bundle, being an indie PC horror game, but it’s a legitimately scary game well-deserving of the acclaim it has received.

There’s not a dud in the bunch, and if the past is any indication, we may see other games added to the Bundle, possibly including the contents of previous Humble Bundle(s). Whether or not that proves to be the case, this is a Bundle that is particularly hard to say “No” to. E3 next week will be showing us what will be keeping us busy in the coming months and years, but if you even have a few dollars you’d like to see end up in the pockets of indie developers and/or charities, you could do much, much worse in finding something to play in the meantime.

E3 Thoughts and Predictions Vol. 2: Microsoft

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H

ooray for E3 2012! Each year, Microsoft, Sony, and NIntendo kick off the biggest trade show in the games industry by holding individual press conferences. This annual routine of presentations, stage demos, and unveilings brings us some of the most exciting news of the show — especially when a new gaming platform is involved. Here at 1UP, we’re just as excited for E3 as you, so we decided to throw together our thoughts and predictions in anticipation. A few days ago, we mulled over what Nintendo will do at E3 and now it’s time to turn our attention to Microsoft, a company that tries to focus their E3 presentation on everyone by combining stage demos for popular core games alongside casual fare. For more on speculation on what Microsoft will show at E3, check out the May 25th episode of the Games, Dammit! podcast.

Jeremy Parish: Of all the console makers, Microsoft seems the most adrift and aimless. I guess they’re doing pretty well, but that success almost seems to come in spite of themselves. Each year we see a smaller number of exclusive 360 titles than the last, and Kinect seems to be slowly fading from the collective conscious with fewer releases as time goes by. This year, Microsoft needs to step up and be assertive. Yeah, OK, you have Halo 4 and another Forza game. You have a handful of Kinect games. What else? Show us your cards, and cut the B.S.; we don’t want marketing speak or tiresome demos of tech that will never become a game, we just want to know why we should care. New hardware? New games? If you want to go all-in on selling 360 as a Kinect machine for casual gamers, that’s fine, too. Just give us the impression that you have a solid plan, OK? Gamers love waffles, but not wafflers.

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Scott Weber: I’m sorry Microsoft, but I’m not getting a Kinect. I know it’s a huge deal for you guys and you’ll probably devote the majority of your press conference to it, but please find a moment to confirm that there is more to your future (immediate or otherwise) than just having me convulse around my living room in front of a camera. A Halo 2 circa E3 2003-esque jaw-dropping demo of Halo 4 might do the trick. Something new from Rare, possibly Piñata or Banjo-related, would be wonderful. But also, please don’t take an hour to tell us how dope Netflix on 360 is — I’m already too well-aware of that fact any time I take a gander at my friends list.

Jose Otero: All I want for Christmas is Halo 4, so I’ll probably be the easiest person for Microsoft to please at E3 this year. But what happened to their stable of exclusive games? Granted, you likely wanted to forget Tao Feng: Fist of Lotus and Whacked!, but what about Viva Piñata, Crimson Skies, and MechAssault? Can you even remember the last time you were genuinely excited for an Xbox-only title not named Halo or Forza? Where Sony tries a little too hard to create a worthy list of exclusive games, Microsoft seems content to barely try at all. Getting DLC timed-exclusives for Xbox Live subscribers might count as a win for a Microsoft executive, but I doubt Joe Casual actually cares. A lot of resources went into making Kinect a success, but now that its established, Microsoft needs to shift priorities and show people why the Xbox is more than a Halo or Call-of-Duty-DLC box.

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Marty Sliva: I’d love nothing more than to see Microsoft step on stage at E3, pull out a Phoenix Down, and use it to revive the ostensibly stagnant Rare. For the past few years, the once great development house has been relegated to helming the Avatar program for Xbox LIVE and working on various installments of Kinect Sports. I understand that these are both crucial facets of Microsoft’s goal to capture all types of gamers, but to waste such a talented studio on these silly projects is a shame. If Microsoft stepped on stage at E3 and announced Banjo-Threeie, Nu Jet Force Gemini, and 2 Blast 2 Corps, I would sleep a lot easier at night. Better yet, instead of seeing Rare reboot a classic franchise, imagine if they were to create a wholly original one that finally proved Microsoft’s risky move to snatch them from Nintendo was well-worth the price.

Chris Pereira: It may be a pipe dream at this point, but I would still love to see Kinect used — and used well — in a hardcore game outside of Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor. And I’m not talking about voice support or something of the sort; I want to see something more legitimate than that. Maybe it’s not possible, but Heavy Armor making use of a controller in addition to motion controls makes me hopeful my Kinect purchase will have been for more than the occasional Dance Central session. Failing that, as I’m sure what we’ll instead get are more casual-focused Kinect games of little interest to me, I want to see improvements to the dashboard and guide. And by that I don’t mean new features, necessarily, but improvements like quicker load times and a more responsive UI. I’m sick of waiting ages for my game library to load each time I visit it. It’s much more of a hassle to jump between demos or Xbox Live Arcade games than it should be, and I don’t feel like I’m asking too much to be able to go from game to game without a significant wait each and every time.

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Nick Todd: Microsoft’s Xbox was always meant to be a Trojan horse.  With the PC market conquered, the pursuit of the original Xbox was to get the company into people’s livings room.  That idea has finally matured into its current form on the Xbox 360, and it’s a welcome evolution that’s pushed the industry forward in a lot of ways.  There have been rumors swirling around that there may be an Internet Explorer browser announced for the 360 this year, but the system has already made its way in front of consumers’ couches with its integration of Netflix and YouTube.  Kinect, much like years prior, will have a large time slot in Microsoft’s schedule, with properties like Call of Duty and Halo (and other IPs peppered throughout) acting as bookends for the show to encourage enthusiasts to stay interested.  If anything, Kinect won’t be going away anytime soon with its presence growing with each year’s E3.  The threshold for how many consoles an IP like Halo sells probably hit its peak back in 2007 with Halo 3, hence why new hardware like the Kinect has such a large presence at trade shows like E3.

Bob Mackey: I had to look up what happened at last year’s Microsoft conference, since I could only recall memories of child actors desperately pretending to enjoy Fake Disneyland in front of thousands of jaded adults. Microsoft seemed to place an emphasis on showing off titles for the Kinect during their 2011 event, and I expect this year to leave attendees (at least those within our ranks) equally bewildered. Halo 4 will definitely be the centerpiece for traditional gamers, and I’m sure that particular game will get the most attention from the press this year. But Microsoft needs more than Halo to survive, so, like with Nintendo, I’m hoping for some announcements of exclusive and original IP.

Awesomenauts Exhibits Publishers’ Effect on Digital Distribution

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Awesomenauts Exhibits Publishers Effect on Digital Distribution

Update: We’ve received word from Ronimo that both the XBLA and PSN releases of the game will go ahead as scheduled. There’s no word on how this may impact the plans for post-launch updates or if dtp holds the rights to a sequel if and when the time comes for that, but at least for now there won’t be any interruption in us getting our hands on the game this week.

Original Story: Awesomenauts‘ name has been mentioned a great deal as of late with its release scheduled for this week. In addition to the new trailers you’d expect to see shortly before a game comes out, it was less than a week ago that developer Ronimo Games announced Awesomenauts would be made available to PlayStation Plus subscribers for free in May. Unfortunately, as the developer is now learning firsthand, what a difference a week can make.

IGN reported the bad news yesterday: Awesomenauts publisher dtp entertainment has filed for insolvency. In other words, the German-based company has found itself unable to pay its debts and, as a result, Awesomenauts’ release has been called into question. Dtp has founded in 1995 and has published a number of titles, many of which were for the German market, including Drakensang: The Dark Eye and sequel The River of Time, Crazy Machines: Elements, and King’s Bounty: Armored Princess.

“At the moment we’re unsure what this means for [Awesomenauts],” said Ronimo’s Jasper Koning, who also noted the developer is “working hard to try and resolve the situation.” The fate of dtp may need to be determined first; having filed for insolvency, it will now need to reorganize its business or liquidate assets in order to pay off its debts.

All we know for sure at the moment is it looks like Awesomenauts will not make it out as planned. The MOBA-style game was first announced last May, Ronimo Games having come off its first major release — another good-looking side-scrolling game, Swords Soldiers. Awesomenauts is a side-scrolling, class-based shooter where two teams are pitted against each other in the same basic structure as in a MOBA game like Dota or League of Legends. It had been scheduled for release tomorrow on the PlayStation Network and Wednesday on Xbox Live Arcade.

It might seem strange for a game being released digitally to find itself in such an unfortunate position. Ronimo did absolutely nothing wrong here; instead it would appear that dtp was mismanaged or it somehow miscalculated its finances. Now dtp is in a spot where layoffs could be necessary (it employed over 150 people as of last year) and it may not be able to publish a highly-anticipated game that has the potential to do very well. Ronimo has mentioned having plans to add new characters after release; dtp’s situation could have some impact on those assuming it isn’t forced to sell the publishing rights to the game. Depending upon just how bad the spot it’s currently in is, that may turn out to be a necessary step, although one would think it would prefer to release the game and reap the benefits of a hot XBLA/PSN game.

Digital distribution was supposed to make it easier for smaller budget games to be released. It removes the risk inherent in manufacturing and distributing physical copies of a game which might sell out if not enough are produced or sit on store shelves if the expected demand is not there.

Yet here we see a game specifically designed for digital platforms that has been thrown into a position with an unknown outcome all because of a publisher’s failings. Although manufacturing and distribution (in the traditional sense) are not an issue in this case, this demonstrates the effect a publisher can have even on a digital game on the verge of release.

OP-ED: Where Do Gamers Draw the Line Between Creator and Creation?

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38244 207 OP ED: Where Do Gamers Draw the Line Between Creator and Creation?

Nearly five years after its initial announcement, Polytron’s Fez arrives on Xbox Live Arcade this week. It’s a great game that delivers on its unique premise, proving well worth the wait. And yet, many gamers have expressed their intention to forego playing Fez despite having followed its development avidly for so long. Quality and anticipation be damned; to them, Fez is simply off the table.

Why take such a strong stand about such an innocuous game? The issue isn’t with Fez itself but rather its lead designer, Phil Fish, who has earned a reputation for brashness and outspoken opinions. While abrasive personalities are hardly uncommon in the independent game development scene to which Fish belongs, he earned himself considerable notoriety last month when he roundly condemned the sum total of Japanese game design as “terrible” in response to a question during his panel at Game Developers Conference 2012. Regardless of whether or not his was a fair assessment of a nation’s collective creative output, what many potential customers took issue with was the tone of his remark –delivered directly to a question posed by veteran Japanese game developer Makoto Goto — and Fish’s subsequent defensive (occasionally hostile) rants in social media. Though he did eventually apologize both to Goto and the gaming community at large several days later, by then the damage was done and many forumgoers had turned their back on both Fish and his game, even after it won the Independent Games Festival grand prize for 2012.

38244 209 OP ED: Where Do Gamers Draw the Line Between Creator and Creation?

Ideological boycotts are fairly new territory for video games, but anyone who follows more established media — be it print, film, or music — should be well familiar with them. Roman Polanski has directed award-winning movies, including The Pianist (which won an Oscar in 2003); yet to many the shadow of Polanski’s arrest for having sex with a 13-year-old girl in the 1970s forever undermines his creative integrity and renders his films unwatchable. And it’s not just personal breaches of ethics that instigate boycotts; politics are equally turbulent. When members of country-western band The Dixie Chicks spoke out against George W. Bush and the war in Iraq several years ago, a significant portion of their audience took a stand against the band’s music and the women themselves; some radio stations even pulled their music.

As video games establish themselves and gain acceptance as mainstream entertainment, the people who create them are gaining visibility, becoming public figures in their own right. Promoting game creators is hardly a new concept, of course; both Activision and Electronic Arts (perhaps somewhat ironically, given the way both companies are viewed today) launched three decades ago with the intent of giving developers the credit that had previously been denied them by corporations like Atari. And key creators like Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto and John Romero (formerly of id) have long enjoyed “celebrity developer” status through both merit and aggressive public relations. As the medium matures, more and more creators find themselves thrust into the spotlight — and that means more and more creators have the opportunity to let their bad behavior and personal convictions come between them and their audience.

But where do we draw the line? At what point does the person behind the game overshadow the game itself? Do we apply different standards for a small game like Fez (whose four-man team means Fish really is the dominant driving force behind the game) versus a large-scale production like Valhalla’s Devil’s Third (whose executive producer Tomonobu Itagaki was accused of sexual harassment while at Tecmo but ultimately represents only the most visible of dozens of designers and programmers working on the game)? Gamers have long been quick to call for boycotts to defend their consumer rights when publishers make unpopular business decisions, but dealing with the more nebulous question of what creators do and think and how those stances affect their creations will only grow more common as developers become more visible.

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Where do we draw the line? Consider the Dragon Quest series: The great-granddaddy of console role-playing games, Dragon Quest has defined the baseline for the genre and exerted a tremendous impact on pop culture at large for more than a quarter of a decade. Yet the man responsible for the series’ memorable music since the very beginning, composer Koichi Sugiyama, is an avowed Japanese nationalist who denies his nation’s World War II-era crimes in China and Korea. Sugiyama published a paid advertisement in the Washington Post disavowing Japanese war actions including the Rape of Nanking and the use of “comfort women.” Does that mean gamers should abandon the Dragon Quest series? Do the extreme political stances of one person among the hundreds who have worked on the series over the years negate the value of Dragon Quest? If the issue seems too foreign to be trifled with, consider an equivalent (theoretical) scenario: If a German developer took out a full-page ad in the Washington Post denying the Holocaust and portraying Dachau and Auschwitz as falsehoods, would you still support his game?

Or consider something closer to home. Lorne Lanning played a prominent role in developing the classic Oddworld series. On an episode of EGM Live several years ago, Lanning espoused unpopular conspiracy theories about the September 11, 2001 attacks. Regardless of whether or not a video game podcast is the appropriate venue for that sort of talk, should Lanning’s coming out as a 9/11 “Truther” affect his game for people who refuse to subscribe to that viewpoint?

38244 208 OP ED: Where Do Gamers Draw the Line Between Creator and Creation?

Should developer politics matter at all? The GamePolitics blog reported the 2008 campaign donations of several notable industry figures. Is it fair to let the fact that Will Wright (the brilliant creator of classic games like SimCity) donated to John McCain’s campaign affect your view of his work? Is it fair to let Harmonix boss Alex Rigopulos‘ massive $32,000 donation to the Obama campaign color your opinion of Rock Band? As private citizens, these men are well within their rights to participate in the American political system… yet the money they’re donating to these causes ultimately comes from the pockets of consumers.

And what of sexual politics? Is it fair to write off the work of the developers at Eat Sleep Play simply because the studio’s former boss, David Jaffe, made some ill-considered statements around the launch of their latest game that many branded as misogynistic? Electronic Arts is currently under siege for depicting same-sex relationships in games like Mass Effect 3; a couple of years ago, Chair’s Shadow Complex came under fire for its connections to author Orson Scott Card, who is politically active against gay rights and gay marriage.

38244 211 OP ED: Where Do Gamers Draw the Line Between Creator and Creation?

Where do we draw the line? As with other mediums, it’s probably a matter best left to the individual. Personally speaking, I don’t let a single individual negate the value of game. People are entitled to their opinions, wrong-headed as they may seem to me, and the majority of games are a collaborative process by many people whose contributions shouldn’t be overshadowed by the public exploits of a single team member. A decade and a half of writing reviews has fostered in me a preference to separate creator from creation and judge games on their internal merits. Reviewing is a subjective enough process without involving individual social and political views — though even that’s not a cleanly drawn line. There’s a place for personal beliefs in critical writing, such as Ryan Winterhalter‘s withering, subjective excoriation of Duke Nukem Forever.

I wouldn’t expect everyone to share my perspective, though, and that’s where the need to be an informed consumer comes into play. Gaming news blogs and social forums exist to bring these matters to the public conscious. Advocacy sites like GamePolitics highlight the socio-political factors behind games, while industry-facing sites like Gamasutra open a window on the creative process and the real people responsible for creating games. Whatever your politics and morals, and however you feel these should affect your behavior as a consumer, you have the tools to act on your beliefs. And as games continue to insinuate themselves as a mainstream form of entertainment, you’ll find yourself forced to make these choices more and more frequently. Fez — a great game surrounded by a few intemperate comments — is only the beginning.

PS4 May Join Xbox Successor in Restricting Used Games

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PS4 May Join Xbox Successor in Restricting Used Games

The PlayStation 4 is widely believed to be between one-and-a-half and two-and-a-half years away, meaning it may still be more than a year before any official details make their way out. Yet we’re already hearing some preliminary information about Sony’s next home game console, including details which will not be welcomed by those who value the ability to buy, sell, and trade used videogames.

As digital content has become more commonplace, games have increasingly become non-tradable commodities. Anything purchased through Steam is yours forever; even if you never play a game you’ve bought (unless it’s purchased as a gift), it is linked to your account for good and cannot be borrowed or sold. Digital games on consoles, whether they be from the Xbox Live Arcade, Wii Virtual Console, or PlayStation Network are also permanent purchases. The same can be said for app purchases on iOS or Android, and this extends beyond games to digital music and movies acquired through iTunes or Amazon.

But physical games have, much to the chagrin of some publishers and developers, continued to remain free of such restrictions. Online passes restricting access to certain features in used games without an additional purchase have made some used games less desirable, but generally speaking the core experience a game provides can still be passed on from person to another without any fuss.

Gamers were understandably taken aback when it was reported that the Xbox 360′s still-unannounced successor would feature copy protection disallowing the use of secondhand games in some capacity. There are those in the games industry who have long despised the sale of used games — through GameStop in particular, a retailer accused of pushing used games that the publishers don’t get a cut of ahead of new games — but aside from the specific restrictions placed upon them through online passes, gamers have been free to trade and sell their physical games as they see fit.

There was some skepticism Microsoft would implement such a restriction because of the idea gamers would respond by flocking to Sony’s new, used-game-playing system. But if a new Kotaku report is accurate, the PlayStation 4 — code name Orbis — won’t be a bastion for used game players, either.

Describing the information as having come from a reliable source who “has shared correct information with us before,” Kotaku reports the system is currently set to be equipped with an AMD x64 processor and AMD Southern Islands GPU which would allow it to output at a resolution of 4096×2160. (1080p, for comparison’s sake, is 1920×1080.) It would also be capable of handling 3D games at 1080p, a notch above the PS3′s limit of 720p for 3D gaming. Early dev kits are said to already be in developers’ hands in preparation for a launch during the holiday 2013 season.

But the most eye-catching detail is that Sony, too, will allegedly become more averse to letting gamers play used games. The system will reportedly offer games in two ways, similar to the setup on Vita: They can be purchased on Blu-ray or as downloads through the PlayStation Network. Downloads would be locked to your PSN account, as would any disc-based games you purchase. Doing so in the latter case would enable you to save the game to the system’s hard drive or download it from PSN later, which does admittedly sound convenient.

e4974 834 PS4 May Join Xbox Successor in Restricting Used Games

It gets more restrictive from there, and it’s not just used games which are largely being given the cold shoulder. Backwards compatibility, a feature which was available on PS3 for PS2 games before it was stripped out in later revisions of the system, would be gone from the start. It was not mentioned, but it’s possible PS3 games could be made available for download on PSN, again mirroring the situation we see on Vita where physical PSP games cannot be played but certain digital games can be transferred to or purchased on the new system.

Whether you opt to download or purchase games at retail, going online would be a requirement. Even with games on discs, connecting to the Internet would be necessary for making use of them which, as Kotaku notes, is something PC gamers are already accustomed to. This is potentially a big sticking point, as requiring an Internet connection to make use of any game could make the system unusable by a certain demographic. And if the Xbox 360′s successor employed a similar scheme, it could mean that those without Internet will have a much more limited selection of game systems to choose from next generation.

Despite how it may sound, the source suggested these new restrictions would not completely eliminate the ability to buy and sell used games. Doing so would simply yield a much more limited experience, though details were not forthcoming on exactly how this would work.

From the sound of it, this would essentially be an online pass for all physical games built in at the system level. Many publishers would surely be pleased, particularly if it saved them the trouble of having to implement an online pass themselves. Ubisoft may have been able to avoid making Driver: San Francisco‘s online pass free if the system had not been in their hands to botch up. Then again, for all we know, PS4 game buyers would still be forced to input a code to prove they purchased a new game and situations like Driver’s could still arise.

GameStop CEO Paul Raines recently cast doubt on the possibility of the next Xbox (or any system) blocking used games. He may be right, but probably only in so far as used games will be playable, just in very limited fashion. A great deal of the company’s business is derived from the sale of used games, so it’s easy to understand why Raines would take such a stance. Hardware and new software sales don’t present the high margins secondhand games do and GameStop would like to keep things the way they are.

While many publishers and developers have come out against the sale of used games, there is a case to be made that their effect is not as detrimental as opponents would have you believe. It’s entirely possible that someone buys and sells only used games, never spending a dollar that ends up in the hands of those who made them. On the other hand, a used game may be sold in order to get money to spend on a new game. Alternatively, a used game may be purchased that introduces someone to a new franchise. That person then purchases downloadable content for that specific game (with the money going right to the publisher) and, when a sequel comes along, he or she is compelled to purchase a new copy at launch before buying DLC for it, too. This may not happen in every situation, but just as is the case with piracy, a used game sale cannot be directly chalked up to a lost sale and nothing more.

Keep in mind none of this used game talk is confirmed; it’s possible Sony and Microsoft are considering such functionality but will ultimately opt against it. But if they do not, we’ll get the chance to see if all of those gamers who were angry with this news when it first surfaced in January are serious about not buying a platform that inhibits the use of secondhand games.