Today the voting for Xbox Live Arcade Awards has officially opened. All you need to do in order to vote is visit the “Spotlight” section of the dashboard and select the advertisement pictured above. You can vote for 8 different awards and apparently you can cast a new set of votes everyday until the polls close. The nominees are:
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Xbox Live Arcade has come a long way since its launch on the original Xbox a little over 6 years ago. Back then the selection of games was in the teens but now there are hundreds of games on the service. You can play anything from 16-bit classics like Streets of Rage 2 to exceptional original titles like Shadow Complex.
With so many games to choose from it’s hard to know what to spend your good ‘ol Microsoft Points on. Lucky for you however we at XBLAFans have taken it upon ourselves to compile a list of the 15 XBLA games you must own. The games featured (listed alphabetically because they’re just too good to rank on quality) are the best of the best. If you haven’t played a game on this list then you owe it to yourself to at least download the trial (which we’ve handily linked to) and give it a go.
So let’s get on with it shall we, below you’ll find the games we decided on and brief summaries from our writer explaining why they’re deserving of the term “must own”. If you agree or disagree with the list, or just want to comment in general please feel free to do so.
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First off, if you haven’t at least tried the demo of LIMBO go do that. Since you probably have you know how simple yet effective the gameplay can be. As the top game of the “Summer of Arcade” on XBL, it has helped push the indie games to an equal footing with known franchises. Not only was it the top game, but “by a long stretch”.
The community has once again voted with their wallets and proved that gamers are willing to give something strange and new a chance. It seems to be paying off and will likely lead to more original ventures challenging our perception of what makes a game great. You don’t need 8 buttons, you don’t need HD graphics.
In LIMBO’s case, you didn’t even need color…chew on that.
The entire Summer of Arcade lineup saw some serious success as seen by the record sales in August.
Even the casual observer has probably noticed by now that August is a special month for Xbox Live Arcade Games (XBLA). This year saw the third annual Summer of Arcade promotion with titles such as Limbo, Hydro Thunder Hurricane, Castlevania Harmony of Despair, Monday Night Combat and Lara Croft: Guardian of Light. All of which, we highly recommended.
This lineup not only brought in critical acclaim but strong sales success, as market research group FADE reports that XBLA generated approximately $ 17.5 million in revenue. That number is a 6% increase over last year’s August, breaking all records for the service.
Nine downloadable games are estimated to have passed the half a million mark in sales, with Monday Night Combat the overall leader at $2.8 million and 187,000 in unit sales for August. Limbo led the lineup for overall sales numbers.
Clearly the XBLA platform is growing. We can’t wait to see what happens in the coming months. Now to go buy more points for Microsoft’s Game Feast Promotion.
It’s a rare day for us to make a post about a non-xbla game. It’s an even rarer day for a Playstation 3 game to catch our eye to the point we feel we have to make a post about it. But today, those of us who own a Playstation 3 are in for a real treat as LBP user, Bra2008, has recreated Limbo in LittleBigPlanet. If you own an Xbox 360, you need to play Limbo, as Playdead has done a masterful job. But if you don’t have access to a 360, you can get a nice taste of the game in LittleBigPlanet from one of the most impressive fan recreations I have seen in quite some time. We’ve included a video from the LittleBigplanet Fan Service and some gameplay from Limbo below. It’s not identical, but it really captures the feel of the game quite well.
Big Thanks to Sev at Playstation Lifestyle for the Tip!
LittleBigPlanet Recreation:
Limbo:
Limbo was developed and published by Playdead for XBLA on July 21, 2010. Retails for 1200 Microsoft Points.
As a child growing up, I was always scared of the dark. I had reoccurring nightmares of being unable to move, and being dragged by an invisible force into the darkest room in the house. But it wasn’t the dark that was scary – it was the thought of what unseen horror was hiding in the dark.
Unexpectedly, Limbo brought me back to these childhood memories during my time with the game, and created a sense of dread, despair and horror that I haven’t felt in a videogame for quite a long time. What terrible doom waits for me in the shadows? Where am I, and how will I get out of here? All these questions and more ran through my mind as I empathized with the poor boy you play as.
The young boy is in part what makes the game so moving and horrific. Waking up in a strange forest with no indication of what to do, where you are, or where to go, you guide him through a hellish world where a grisly death always waits a step ahead. And while seeing a boy die violently is chilling to the bone, the deaths you witness aren’t always his. Death is a major theme throughout the game, constantly reminding you that life is fragile.
Here’s what we liked:
Amazing atmosphere – “Less is more” definitely applies to Limbo. There is no story, voices or even a soundtrack. Hell, the entire game is in black and white. Yet, it manages to be so entrancing without any of these things. Ambient noises really add to Limbo’s mood, and can be incredibly striking at times. The audio also plays a major role in puzzle solving, as listening to key audio clues is crucial to solving some of them. Small graphical touches such as flies buzzing over dead corpses, thick hairs growing from an insect’s leg and the way the boy’s white eyes close when he dies add to Limbo’s creepiness quite a bit.
No hand-holding or explanations – Again, “less is more” applies here too. There are no tutorials or on-screen help indicators. There is no voice explaining the story or anything about the game at all, and Limbo is a much better experience because of this. It becomes very clear early on that Limbo’s world is brutal, deadly and unforgiving, and there is nothing or no one that will help you. It’s all up to you to survive, which is a welcome change when compared to most modern games and their 15-minute tutorials, cluttered menus, intrusive HUDs and the like. Everything is just simple, clean and minimalist.
Clever puzzle design – Limbo’s puzzles are very well designed and ramp-up steadily as the game continues. Many are based on physics, which requires the player to really think and get creative later on in the game. A couple had me so stumped that I thought I might have to resort to a FAQ, but approaching the puzzles in different and more resourceful ways helped me find an answer where I thought there was none. Being both attentive and experimental is important to solving them, and becomes all the more rewarding when the light bulb in your head finally clicks on.
Here’s what we didn’t like:
Uneven pacing – Throughout the first half of the game, you’ll encounter a number of other living creatures, some of which appear to human. While none are friendly, they really help the player make an emotional connection to the game. There are enough puzzles and these memorable encounters with life early on to keep things varied. However, during Limbo’s second half (which is heavily focused on puzzle solving) there is a complete absence of life that tends to hurt this connection. It would have been nice to have a couple more encounters with something else living, but in reality it doesn’t detract from the amazing experience.
Limbo is not an uplifting game. It’s dark, disturbing and filled with a lot of death. But it’s unlike anything out there. Ironic that a videogame without color, dialogue, story or music can be one of the best in recent memory.
I imagine that Limbo will be talked about and discussed for years to come. It seems destined to be part of the “Games are a form of art” debate, and features an unsettling ending that is open for deliberation. What is certain, however, is that Limbo is an original, brilliant and deserving game to be in any gamer’s collection. Do yourself a favor and play this game, you won’t regret it.
Score: BUY
Nothing in Limbo is clear. Who you are, what you’re supposed to be doing, and even the color of the player character’s hair remains shrouded in mystery. Utilizing a unique black and white aesthetic, Limbo looks like a relic from the silent film era. It’s grey and dreary, with its silhouette foreground and out of focus background leaving a lot to the imagination, making Limbo easily one of the most atmospheric showings at E3.
At its heart, Limbo is a 2D side-scrolling puzzle-platformer in the vein of Out of This World (or Another World as it’s known outside the States). Aside from the gorgeous presentation, the design is very simple, consisting of only two actions for its central character: jump and grab. There are no gimmicks or story beyond that the protagonist is looking for his sister, no dialogue, and the narrative will unfold entirely via traversing the environments. As such, Limbo is one of the most minimalist releases in the last two decades.
Don’t take that as a criticism. By boiling the genre down to its core mechanics, Playdead has made sure to make everything count. Even in the half-hour demo there were some surprisingly tricky puzzles relying on such simple design. One sequence had the protagonist emerging from a boat, walking through the woods, and encountering a giant (and astoundingly rendered) spider blocking progress on a tree. Get too close and a spiny leg will knock you flat before turning the poor boy into human shish kabob. Between the shore and spider the only object in view was a bear trap stuck in a tree. With no way to climb and no other objects to interact with, I started teasing the spider, narrowly evading its strikes while I sussed out what to do. After nailing a couple evasions I’d heard something crash. Lo and behold, the spider’s thumping had shaken the bear trap from the tree! It was only then a matter of placing it in the correct spot to lure the spider’s unsuspecting appendages into harm’s way.
It’s not all puzzles though. Some of the platforming challenges are extremely exciting. One sequence had me swinging on ropes, sliding down a flooding ramp, desperately rushing up ladders as water rose beneath me (you can’t swim. At all).
Sound is particularly impressive. Wearing noise-cancelling headphones on the showfloor, most of the sound consisted of the quiet, muffled wisps of wind and the swashing of waves. Though when something does make noise, it makes a lot of it. The aforementioned impalement was the only time a game made me jump at E3, as the thunderous strike of spider leg on earth is extraordinarily loud and shocking. This is a game you definitely want to play in silence.
The environments are well varied and oppressive. In my brief demo I went through the woods, set out to sea, made my way through a drowning dam, and scaled a derelict hotel. That was all in less than a half-hour, and the final game will be about 4-5 hours, according to designer, Arnt Jensen.
Limbo may not be for everyone, but I was very impressed by what I saw. Those looking for twitch-based action will do best to look elsewhere, but those who like devious spatial puzzles and a haunting atmosphere will find a lot to like in Limbo. It looks great, is genuinely scary, and the puzzles are logical. It’s been two years since Jonathon Blow took the world by storm with his XBLA arthouse classic, Braid and we’re due for another masterpiece. Limbo looks like it could be the game to fill that void.
The the third annual Summer of Arcade will be in full swing soon, which features the release of one highly anticipated title each week beginning July 21 and ending on August 18.
The release date and price of this year’s Summer of Arcade titles are as follows:
Limbo: July 21, 1200 Microsoft Points
Hydro Thunder Hurricane: July 28, 1200 Microsoft Points
Castlevania: Harmony of Despair: August 4, 1200 Microsoft Points
Monday Night Combat: August 11, 1200 Microsoft Points
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light: August 18, 1200 Microsoft Points
Stay tuned for reviews and impressions upon the release of these exciting new titles.
Along with all of the new Kinect games and slim 360, Microsoft unveiled its list of games for their annual Summer of Arcade event. Summer of Arcade began the tradition of spotlighting five games, one each week, back in 2008 and continues next month.
Starting out the list is a game that has been rumored for a while now and one that I will be buying as soon as humanly possible, Castlevania: Harmony of Despair. In subsequent weeks we will see the arrivals of Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, Hydro Thunder Hurricane, Limbo, and Monday Night Combat. We’re a bit disappointed about the lack of Hydrophobia, but all in all it’s a solid looking group of games set for release starting in July. Stay tuned for hands-on impressions of the aforementioned games in the coming days.
Playdead’s silhouetted puzzle-platformer has been given only one destination in it’s production afterlife following a mistake that was made when 2010 IGF Finalist, Limbo, was rated by the ESRB for XBLA, PSN, and PC this week. While previously announced for a summer Live Arcade release, the addition of two other platforms was a bit of a surprise to some, including the staff at Joystiq.
When contacted by Joystiq staff Playdead’s Dino Patti responded by shooting down the newly announced platforms. “You won’t see a PS3 or PC version this time around, sorry,” states Patti. He confirms that his team’s gorgeous looking title will only be released on XBLA. No specific date for Limbo has been announced quite yet, but expect it to hit around the much coveted Summer of Arcade time-frame.
Source: Joystiq
