Pretty much everyone on the planet is familiar with National Geographic and their tireless work in bringing the outdoors into our homes with award winning success. Now they are endeavoring to bring their stories of the wild not only onto our homes but through our Xbox 360 and using Kinect.
Could a once arcade and Atari fan favorite return and reclaim its title of best party game in a generation where FPS titles dominate the scene? Or does sitting on the sidelines for over 30 years age it to the point where it stumbles onto the gaming world in a wheelchair and a walker?
There was some surprise when Microsoft announced a new Halo game was in the works for the Xbox 360. Most people were aware that Bungie had ended their involvement with the franchise and that 343 had been given the job of taking on the massive task of continuing Microsoft’s flagship game. But many assumed any new Halo game would only be seen in the next gen. Microsoft had other ideas, however.
After being in development since 2008 and going through two development teams, I am Alive proved that it was resilient and not going to be killed. Darkworks was the original studio working on the game from ’08 till around ’10 when it came as a “mutual decision” that Ubisoft Shanghai would finish the game.
Released in August 2009, Shadow Complex remains one of XBLA’s best hidden gems, and is still to this day one of the best games the service has to offer.
I’ll start with a brief about my Mass Effect journey. I played Mass Effect 1 briefly. It never really clicked with me and being a bit of a noob to the genre, I just didn’t get it. I did however, like the sci fi setting, the worlds and characters but not enough for it to keep me interested. Mass Effect 2 however, I got. I spent weeks playing it, even taking time off work to play and its end was met with a round of applause from myself. I felt it deserved it, even if it did look a little odd….
One genre western developers are good at is the third person shooter. Its a type of game Japanese devs have long ignored, shooters in general, don’t go down well in the Japanese markets, but Gears of War broke the trend and did OK over there, so Sega in particular, have had a couple of cracks at creating third person shooters, and so far they seem to be doing well.
The name sounds like some school room maths battle, but Geometry Wars was the first real, must have Xbox Live arcade game. Geometry Wars 2, was more or less the same game, with added variations on its original format. If you haven’t played or seen it, its a hard game to describe….
This months XBL game of the month is admittedly, a little self indulgent of me. X Men Arcade is probably my favourite arcade game ever. I spent many a 50p playing on the massive 6 player arcade cabinet in Stockport Cinemas arcade room…
Every now and then its nice to try something different. Stuck in a rut having played countless FPS’s and third person shooters, I was starting to feel a little jaded with games recently. Rayman Origins thankfully rescued me, and now all is well in my gaming world.
