Its “Deal of the Week” time once again over at XBLA with three great titles, all up for discounted prices this week and guaranteed to make a big splash in the savings department too. If you missed some of these titles when they first came out or simply felt the price was just a bit to high, then now is the time to dive in and pick up Aqua, Hydrophobia, and/or Hydro Thunder Hurricane.
Aqua, Hydrophobia, and Hydro Thunder Hurricanehave all been slashed for “Deal of the Week”, an Xbox Gold Exclusive Price offer and savings from 33% to 50% off these selected titles for this week only. Check out our reviews here on XBLAFans and take these demos out for a spin if you haven’t tried them yet. Then go on and pick up some of these for a savings as a Gold member exclusive for this week.
Aqua is a steam-punk Naval warfare game of epic proportions, that any strategy/action adventure fan is sure to love. The game has been slashed for only 400ms for this week and saves you 50% off the original price. Next up is Hydrophobia, a third person action adventure/shooter that is set in an amazing floating city. This game has also been slashed for only 400ms and saves 50% off the original price too. Then finishing up this weeks savings is Hydro Thunder Hurricane, the fast paced racing game for speed boat racing fans . This game has you throttled in at only 800ms and at a final savings of 33% off the original price. That brings you three great deals here and all of them are to good to pass up here on XBLA.
Quake Arena Arcade was developed by id Software and published by Bethesda Softworks for XBLA on 12/15/2010 and retails for 1200 ms. The publisher provided a copy of the game for reviewing purposes.
Prepare to experience Quakelike never before, as you fight for ultimate survival on 33 classic maps and in 12 Xbox-exclusive Arenas. The latest from id Software for the Xbox Live Arcade is packed full of many features for all Quake fans to enjoy, as you select from six playable game types to lay waste upon your enemies while using 12 brutal weapons in fighting for the top spot.
With the latest news coming out from Microsoft, that their Kinect has already sold 1 million units within the first 10 days of release, it only stands to reason that developers will be taking a harder look at this new peripheral device for the Xbox 360. Designed to extend the Xbox 360s life cycle for at least another 5 years, its Kinect’s NUI that makes you the gamer an actual game controller.
If you’ve ever been asked to name a video game heroine before, then Lara Croft should be at the top of that list in more cases than none. After all she’s been around for the past 14 years in the Tomb Raider series of games alone, as well as a few feature movies, some animated short films, and other various printed adaptations too. The sexy bombshell explorer has dropped the name Tomb Raider for the very first time now and has some help in the form of a co-op player for the very first time in franchise history, and the game is also in an all new isometric view point for Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light.
Now I’m far from a fanboy of the Tomb Raider seires of games, having never really played them in the past, aside from a couple demos that I’ve checked out. My experience with the movies is where it pretty much ends for me and Lara Croft in general here. I think it might be the fact I’ve just never thought much aboout playing a game from a girl characters perspective really. But when I heard that this game was going to have co-op built into it, I was very much interested and from what I saw back in the E3 reveal and hearing how much they had focused on the co-op from the start, I knew then and there I would have a date set with this heroine once the game had launched on the Xbox 360.
Rare has revealed to OXM that the Avatars we all love will soon see a makeover of sorts this November, timed along with the launch of Kinect of course. Nick Burton, senior programmer at Avatar Creators Rare, says that they’ll become more realistic and will essentially become ‘Avatar 2.0′.
Apparently the problem and reason for an upgrade, appears to be more of a perception issue among gamers and their current Avatars during game play using Kinect. The proportions are expected to become more realistic and less cartoony in their proportions after the upgrade. I can only imagine these new Avatars will also show up in all of the Avatar games and even the soon to be release Windows Phone 7 devices that will have Xbox Live on them.
Hopefully this will allow us to have a few more options where the younger gamers in our families are concerned as well. I have to admit in just looking at the current Avatars, they all seem to be around the same shape and sizes. My only question is will the current clothes they have be upgraded as well? Some of those outfits look a bit short in places as is and my Avatar might look funny wearing a pair of jeans that are even shorter after I gain a bit more height now.
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light arrives this Wednesday, August 18th on Xbox LIVE Arcade for only 1200 Microsoft Points and is sure to be an instant hit. The only draw back on the Xbox 360 launch could be the absence of Xbox Live Co-op at the start for some people though. Perhaps this is the reason that the Square Enix publisher has decided to sweeten the deal a bit for Xbox Live gamers.
So not only do you have a little over a full month to play the game on the Xbox 360, before its release on the PlayStation ® 3 PlayStation ® Network and the PC (via Steam) on September 28th, but now you will also have 30 days to download the first DLC pack for FREE on the Xbox 360 only. That is in addition to the full title update that will include Xbox Live Co-op, Voice Chat, and full leaderboards in September when the game finally releases on the other platforms.
”We believe we have delivered a game which opens up new types of gameplay that will excite not only Tomb Raider fans, but all fans of digital gaming. The launch of Guardian of Light is just the beginning, we have a lot of additional content planned and we will be offering the first DLC pack for free for the first 30 days, exclusively on the Xbox 360, so that gamers can get a taste of some of the exciting extras we have in store,” continued Gallagher.
I can’t help but think that this first DLC pack might even show up before the launch of the other platforms and the Xbox 360 title update. So get into the action from the start and grab this game tomorrow on Xbox Live. Don’t look at it as not being able to play on Live with friends, but look at it as playing early before the full release happens. Invite a friend on over to play along through the whole experience or simply start up an Xbox Live Party and then chat with your friends while everyone plays through the solo campaign. Then watch here later for news on the Free DLC pack becoming available and before you know it, the title update will be available as well.
Talk about one strange glitch for sure… this is the latest from the Modern Warfare 2 series, only this time the victim is none other than Japanese developer, SNK Playmore. After all of the bullets have stopped flying about in what looks like a digital drive-by of sorts, SNK is left wondering why this happened in the first place and who is to blame between what appears to be Activision’s Modern Warfare 2 and/or Microsoft’s Xbox Live service.
Now I’ve heard from a few sources on the Internet that the so-called MW2 Free Game glitch does in fact work as was described over at Worthplaying. Just how someone figured out this in the first place, by starting up Modern Warfare 2 or even the Demo of the game and then with only a few clicks you’d be able to unlock the trial versions of some SNK games and then play the full version… it just boggles my mind. Fact is, it’s a glitch that is very easy to perform and people have more than likely stumbled upon it without even knowing it in the first place.
But we all know how fast things like this can really spread on the web and I can only imagine we’ll see a huge spike in downloads for Garou: Mark of the Wolves, The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match, Metal Slug 3, Metal Slug XX and Samurai Showdown II over on Xbox Live because of all this. I myself plan to stay clear of this glitch and I only hope between Modern Warfare 2 and Microsoft a fix will come about very soon for SNK’s sake. Do you plan to accidentally pull the trigger here on this MW2 glitch and claim you had no idea that the game was loaded?
The new game marks a lot of first in the Lara Croft series too, one being the first fully downloadable arcade game based on Lara Croft, it also has an all new isometric view that looks incredible for not only a single player but will also include for the very first time a franchise two player offline cooperative experience as well. Oh, did I mention the title is also coming to the Xbox 360 first as well? This only marks the beginning of the Downloadable Lara Croft campaign which is slated to run until the end of 2010.
Next up for the DLC campaign will be a free update for Xbox 360 gamers on September 28th that will include the much anticipated two player online co-op, as well as full leaderboard support and voice chat functionality for the title. This will also mark the release date for Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light on the PlayStation Network and PC (via the Steam network) with full online support.
Microsoft has a lot more than just Windows 7 going for them these days. Believe it or not, it’s Entertainment that appears to be a huge factor for Microsoft, who reported earnings of 4 billion in Net profit for Q3 2010. Things are looking pretty good for Microsoft with this increase of 35% over last years Q3 filings as they head into Q4 now.
Microsoft also revealed this past Thursday that their Entertainment and Devices Division, which includes the Xbox 360, PC games, Zune and the Xbox Live service, posted $165 million profit on revenues of $1.67 billion for the quarter — this is alongside a record revenue of $14.5 billion for the company as a whole for that period.
Katherine Egbert, an analyst with Jefferies & Company, has forecast that Microsoft could generate up to $1.3 billion in sales of the Project Natal systems over the first year of the product’s release if it is priced at about $100.
Looking ahead now at those upcoming releases of Project Natal, Halo: Reach, and Windows Phone 7, it is pretty clear that Microsoft has high hopes to continue down this same path reporting high profit returns. Now that’s what I call Entertainment!
