The Price Of Arcade Games

Well this weeks XBLA games are Flock and Puzzle Quest Galactrix, and I have to say that I am quite disappointed. I guess I just don't like spending money on something I can't actually physically pick up and hold in my hand. At 400 and 800 Microsoft points I didn't mind buying them as much, but since that has shot up with 1600 points equalling around £14 a game, I won't be buying as many as I would have in the past.

So just what is it that has made Microsoft put the prices up all of a sudden for most of the XBLA titles? Is it because of the developer saying they want more money? Personally I think it's because Microsoft are trying it on, to see how many suckers will pay double for a game that would have cost 400-800 points if it was released 6 months or so ago. Yet looking back my statement is incorrect.

Damn You Luminies, You Started All This!

Luminies was released on the Marketplace back in October 2006 for the price of 1600 points, this was followed up with Robo Blitz in December with the price being 1200 points. This can be seen as an experiment by Microsoft to see just how much people are willing to pay for arcade games. This seemed to work at first with Luminies being a big seller, yet Robo Blitz just didn't sell that well. The reason for this could be that Luminies was a well known title and top selling PSP game for over a year before its Xbox Live debut. So that would explain why so many people were eager to pay 1600 points for the game.

Since then there have been a few other attempts to sell games for 1200 and 1600 points, (Penny Arcade Episode One was released for 1600 points, which shocked quite a lot of people and didn't sell to well, a point proven by the sequel being released for the lower price point of 1200 points.) Microsoft saw that gamers were willing to spend the points when Braid and Castle Crashers hit the Marketplace in August of 2008, Both of these games sold as everyone bought one or both of these great titles.

Buy a 400 point game? Oh wait they no longer exist (Sad face)

It was of little surprise that just a short time later (October 2008) three games appeared with a cost of 1200 points each. (Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?, Portal: Still Alive and Penny Arcade Episode 2.) Since these sold pretty well it was of little surprise that in November 2008, Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix was released with a 1200 point price tag. December saw the release of Banjo Kazooie and another 1200 point price tag.

2009 so far has only seen a few 1200 point games so far with these being rather lack luster titles like Death Tank, R-Type Dimensions and recently March Madness 2009. We are once again seeing a return of the 1600 price point for games making a return, such games as The Watchmen and the Puzzle Quest sequel Galactrix.

1600 point arcade game or the GTA IV DLC? No contest really

Recently Botafogo did an article on Console Heroes asking where all the 400 point arcade games have gone. Well I have the answer for him, they have been replaced by the community games, you know the mass majority of shit that you can play for free on the internet but they get to charge you for. It is thanks to these that Microsoft can charge more for arcade games, as if your willing to pay 400 points for a game someone coded at home, then surely something a team of professionals have made should cost more.The only way that Microsoft would be forced to think about adjusting the price of games again is if nobody bought the games.

Retail games in the UK are seeing a drop in price as of late. Mirrors Edge is available for £13.50 in the UK making it on par with a 1600 point game. This game only came out in November 2008 and already it is at a bargain price, and it's not the only game that has seen a price reduction. Heck most new retail titles are being released at around £20 cheaper than they would have done in the past, with recent titles available from new for around £25-30 being Wheelman, Wanted (With free copy of the movie) WWE Legends and more games to boot. Even the new Bionic Commando game is available to pre-order for £30.

Mirrors Edge new and sealed for the price of an arcade game?

So why should I buy a game for half the price that may only last an hour, (80 minutes for The Watchmen game) When I can pay double the price and get a game that will last me a lot longer, and also be something that I can trade in towards another game if I decide not to keep it. A look at the recent DLC for GTA IV also shows that the price points are all messed up for arcade games, as for only 1600 points the DLC adds on 12 hours plus of game play to the original game. So which would you choose GTA IV DLC or The Watchmen Episode One?

Epic in the past said that they wanted to give away some maps for free but Microsoft wouldn't let them. This is the same Microsoft that says that the developers set the price points for their games. 1200 points for a excellent game is worth it, but 1600 points is just taking the piss. Well all I can say is congratulations to whoever is responsible for pricing the games at a cost I am no longer willing to pay, especially in this current climate. I won't even comment on the joke that is Hasbro's Family Game Night, I will save that for another time.

Gears Is Fun?

Gears of War 2 is fun! There I said it and feel a bit dirty for doing so. Gears of War has never been my favourite multi player game, with it's retarded spawns, host advantage and numerous other problems. Yet playing it yesterday with Graf1k and Jerzey Devil (You went from Spartan to that? Come on John seriously?) I had a lot of fun. It could be that yesterday was the first day in ages I have actually had time to sit down and play a game, or it could be that it's because we played over 50 rounds of Horde.

You see with Horde mode you don't have to worry about who is the host or any other crap like that. You just get to play against bot's that get progressively harder as you clear wave after wave. There is no need to worry about host advantage as the only way you can die is through your own foolish mistakes, or on the odd occasion the enemies act like cheap bastards and spawn behind you.

Wrong game? Oh noees I thought it was Fenix! (Sad Face)

After playing Horde for a while a few more people got online (Docman and Rocket) so we decided to play some Ranked Multi player. (I couldn't believe it when I found out that Epic had done the right thing, and made me the ranked number one gamer in the world.) Playing multi player started to remind me why I hated playing Gears of War online, as I blasted one player 4 times from point blank range with my shotgun and he didn't die. This will always happen though up until Gears gets dedicated servers for the game, instead of supposedly picking the person who has the best connection. (A connection that on more than one occasion last night Graf1k referred to as "Lagtastic".)

Sure I am not the best Gears player in the world, but I am also not the worst either. (Which is pretty surprising even if I do say so myself.) I managed to finish in the top 3-4 on our team quite a few times, so I can't be all that bad really. Although these kills were normally quickly followed by my death, as I chainsawed one person while his two team mates were stood at the side of them. Needless to say I was shotgunned mid-slice as I tore them a new one.

This is the right game isn't it?

I don't know what is up with the bots either, they are near enough indestructible as they go around tearing people up. This can also give the other team an unfair advantage as the bot player could be far superior to the player they are replacing. Throw in the fact that they don't suffer from lag either, and it makes the games a bit unfair when five of you play against two people and three bots.

Despite all the flaws and the odd occasions where we got our assess kicked through unfair advantages, I actually enjoyed playing Gears 2. That isn't to say I will be playing the game religiously now, I may grab the game from my shelf for a quick blast every now and then. Which is something I wouldn't have thought about before.

Happy Time

Well the last few weeks/months have been a real shitter for me, but I am finally starting to see a bit of light at last. As a result I am feeling exhausted and just need to relax and try and get a bit of normality back in my life. Those close to me know some of the things that have been going on in my life, and still currently are going on.

The year started off well for me, but just a few weeks in things started getting worse. As things stand most of the problems are still there, but a few of the things causing me stress have now been sorted out. Which is a good thing as I feel the weight slowly start to lift off my shoulders and start feeling like things maybe ok after all.

A bonus thing is I am currently also looking to improve my education, and have been working towards that with the result being a pass in my first English exam yesterday. Now I just need to follow that up with my second English exam and then my Maths. I am doing it for no other reason than to prove to myself that I can better myself, and am not worthless like I have felt so many times before.

Don't trust me either, my Engrish also the suck

Throw in the fact that if things turn out well in my job over the next couple of weeks, it could be something that is a step in the right direction towards becoming a qualified teacher sometime down the line. Something I never thought I would look at doing since I really hated school with a passion, especially the whole classroom vibe.

At the moment though it's a wait and see game with all that though, and I still have one or to other issues to deal with that are unrelated to my career. The main thing is I am feeling burnt out by everything that has happened, and just need a bit of time to relax and not worry about this or that. So as a result I am going to be taking a few days off thinking about what I have to do on Console Heroes, and just try and enjoy myself and rest up before I snap and disappear into a bottle as I have done many times in the past.

Bring on the Happy Time! (No Gayness)

So expect to see me back on Xbox Live over the next few days, and posting as a member on the forums with no intention of doing any work from 1pm today. Life is supposed to be filled with ups and downs, well I have had enough downs so it's time to concentrate on the ups for a change and try to enjoy life.

The Aftercast?

What originally started as my own blog has now changed into The Aftercast, but just how did this all come about? Well after chatting with Cody at around 6am I asked if he wanted access to my blog, so he could then post some stuff during the week instead of having to wait until the podcast to get something off his chest.

Things featured here will be things that I can't really say on Console Heroes, as it just don't seem to fit in with the site. So in other words it will be more of the same random bollocks that I normally post but with Cody's slant on things thrown in as an added bonus. So expect to see this being updated a bit more than it has recently. (It would have been updated sooner except real life got in the way, shitty shitty real life.)

Err... Hi Boss, I am on my break honest!

So basically thats it, I still haven't had much chance to game as of late which sucks balls to say the least. I am however going to be taking my DS to work, so hopefully I can hide for about an hour or five and play on that. It is rather sad that I have to do sneaky things like this to play a game, but a gamer must do sneaky things like this from time to time to get their gaming fix.

I long to just spend one evening sat in front of my TV and catch up on some of the games sat gathering dust on my shelf. Hopefully it won't be to much longer before normal gaming service resumes again.

I Want To Play A Game!!!!

Well at the moment Flea isn't a happy fellow, you see at the moment that shitty thing called real life has swooped in and fucked up my gaming schedule. As a result I have hardly had anytime to play anything at all that I want to, and lets face it I love to play games more than a cop likes Dunkin Donuts. The worst thing is that I have got more in the last 2 weeks than I have done in about 3 months, and I am not just talking about 360 games.

I think I have purchased around 15 games, in fact what here is what I have gotten or am waiting to arrive in the next few days.

DS Games

• Disagea DS
• Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure
• Henry Hatsworth In The Puzzling Adventure
• Final Fantasy Tactics A2

Wii Games

• Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time
• Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon

PS2 Games

• Burnout Domintaor
• Persona 4

PC Game

• The Last Remnant (Thanks Square Enix for sending me this even though I reviewed the 360 version already.)
  

360 Games

• Hour of Victory
• Fusion Frenzy 2
• Vampire Rain
• Alone In The Dark
• Fable II
• WarTech Senko No Ronde
• F.E.A.R. Files
• Xbox Live Arcade Compilation Disc
• Xbox Live Arcade Unplugged Volume 1
• The Grid
• Final Fantasy XI Wings Of The Goddess
• Warriors Orochi (Just because I got sick of having the promo version)
• Warriors Orochi 2 (Same with this one as well)
• Overlord
• Lego Indiana Jones/Kung Fu Panda

DS Game Of The Year? It's a Contender!

You see that by not actually playing games I have ended up going insane and getting more than I would buy, as a result my overdraft will be taking a hammering to say the least for a few weeks. Some of these I got pretty good deals on with Fusion Frenzy 2 and Unplugged Arcade Vol 1 coming as part of a set of 5 games that I bought brand new and sealed for £17. (The others were PGR 3, Viva Pinata and Kameo which my son now has claimed.)

I also nearly added a few more games to the list up until I managed to stop myself from buying them. The scary thing is I haven't just left it at games either as I also picked up some Anime DVDs as well, as I just had to buy them or the world would end. I really wish I would have kept on to the money which I should have been using for other stuff like food. It would have also stopped the postman giving me evils and muttering as he carried the games to my house. (I doubt your reading this but you get paid to deliver mail so just fucking do your job wanker!)

If it says Final Fantasy I will buy it!

One thing is for certain with my 3 Ghost In The Shell movies, S.A.C. 2nd gig, other random Anime and the games I should have no problem sitting on my arse and relaxing when I get chance. Let's face it we all have to go crazy and have a splurge every now and then, it's just a shame I will be paying for mine for quite some time to come.

Oh and about the podcast were sorry we haven't done it yet to make up for the one that got screwed up, my schedule has been hectic to say the least. We will be recording one sometime Sunday this week so expect that to be available soon.

76 Xbox Live Arcade Games

The other day I decided to make an excel document of all my 360 games, as a result I found out I own about 76 arcade games. Out of these arcade games I would say I have enjoyed playing between 8-10 of them at the most, while most of these have been nothing but impulse purchases and normally leave me disappointed that I bought them.

Sure I do have some great games like Castle Crashers and er........ some others, but I think I am like most people that buy these games and play them for 10 minutes then forget about. Pushing them further and further down my last played list until they are a million miles from my mind. I guess it wouldn't be so bad if I actually had a physical box that can sit on my shelf and remind me that I own the game. At least that way when I look at my shelves for a game to play I can see one of them and think "fuck it I may as well play that", but alas they don't come boxed so I forget about them.

It's not really big, they are just midgets!

It is pretty amazing how much we 360 gamers actually spend on crappy games just because they are new without even trying the trial mode first. If we say that each of my games cost 400 points (Even though the majority of them are 800 point games) it works out that I have used 30400 points, that works out at over £260 ($500) with the real figure being probably double that. Then we have all the other crap I have bought like map packs and other DLC, all on stuff I can't hold in my hand.

I like owning games and stuff I can hold in my hand, I hate buying all this digital media bullshit. When you buy a cd you normally flick through the booklet as you listen to it for the first time, even though you know it contains nothing of interest. If I go to town to buy a new game I normally sit on the bus and look at the booklet on the way back home, it fills the time and I find some of them pretty interesting.

Two people fighting T-Hawk? Is this the IK+ Edition?

This was supposed to be a blog about buying Arcade games, yet it has turned into me realising that I hate how things are moving more and more into digital downloads. It makes me sad to think that not to far in the future all games, film and music will only be available in this form. I like shitty box art and crappy booklets and will miss them when they are no longer packaged with games. The future sucks I guess I should go and live in the past. :(

No Digidi On Podcast Heroes???

Two weeks ago we remade the podcast that we originally recorded the week before after a technical hitch,(Our recording software decided to give us a 2 fingered salute.) As a result we had talked about everything already and the redo came off rather flat and uninspired. Something that Code Digidi, Cody and myself all felt rather shitty about, and something that we didn't want to happen again.

With the podcast being a fortnightly recording (Every 2 weeks to you Americans that don't know what a fortnight is) we should have recorded the podcast on Sunday, but due to scheduling problems Code Digidi couldn't make it as he was barbecuing his dad or something. (Apparently he tastes like chicken) So me and Cody decided to record it on Monday, But unfortunately Code was working so couldn't take part. (It also meant all my jokes about him getting drilled in the mouth going to waste.)

Have you seen Code Digidi?

As a result we slightly over ran by about 5-10 minutes over the planned amount of time, as Code wasn't there to type hurry up it is nearly time to finish. On the whole though the recording went pretty well, at least I think so but I could be wrong. We did seem to cover the points we made, it is just a shame that the trio ended up being a duo for just this week only.

I got asked if we do it all on the fly and the answer is heck no, since we restarted I make a list of possible points and send them to Digidi and Cody. Then they look at them and send them back as a reply to me and the other one, adding in any stuff that they want to talk about. (Or what crap to remove) So basically that is how we do it, We cheat!

Pictured above Cody, Flea and Code Digidi

Here is this weeks cheat sheet if your really that bothered.

1. After moaning about R-Type being 1200 points, Watchmen comes out this Wednesday at 1600 points.

Thoughts on the game news like Lost Planet 2, Remake of Death to Rights, PSP games coming (Little Big Planet, Motorstorm and Buzz)

Microsoft's Deal of the week returning.
(This week its Ninja Gaiden 2's ‘Mission Mode’ which is now 560 points instead of the usual 800points)

2. What we have been playing this week.

3. Killzone 2 (is Cody really impressed with it, and does it live up to the hype?)

3.5. Dawn of War II and Windows Live Achievements.

4. Big Games due for release in the upcoming weeks
Resident Evil limited edition Red Console being ugly as fuck.

Maybe make a joke how the Mac is getting Doom 3 next week.

5. Talk about Street Fighter 4 impressions

6. GTA IV DLC

7. Tomb raider DLC (I spoke to X3no about it)

8. XBLA game trials that don't actually let you play the game to get a feel for it. (Minesweeper flags and SF" THD Remix as examples)

9. Completion races

Just started or starting...........

Halo Wars
Eat Lead: Return of Matt Hazard
Resident Evil 5
Trivial Pursuit
WWE Legends Of Wrestlemania Completion Race

Ones about to end

Sonic Genisis Collection
Shellshock 2
Onechanbara
F.E.A.R. 2

10. Why do we still have region protection on some games? (Star Ocean isn't released until the end of April)

11. Old games from our youth that we would like to see a sequel to and why. (General bullshit and banter)

12. Question for the gamers out there. (Maybe something like what year does the game stryder take place in)

14. Shout outs before Chewy does his thing.

The podcast should be up sometime Tuesday, probably mid afternoon sometime. You can find it here if you want to give it a listen, it will be Episode 10. Also apologies to Botafogo for my last comment. (Now he has to listen to see what I said :p)