DUDE. I’m not talking about its fidelity to actual driving. I’m talking about the consistency of its own rules.
If it was too hard to straighten out after a drift, they should have addressed that in the driving model.
Instead, they cheat on your behalf, surreptitiously. Yeah, it helps me think “wow, I’m good!” but it also makes me go “wait, why do I suck sometimes?” and “I guess how good a driver I am doesn’t matter that much.”
It kills the fantasy of being an awesome driver whipping around hairpin turns on a mad cross-country elopement.
Game design police! My agency is being devalued!
So yeah, it does stop it from being fun. :(
VO:OT tomorrow. Who’s with me?
Eurogamer recently did a Dreamcast Cult Classics roundup, in which they mentioned VO:OT:
Sounds like it’ll be worth downloading the demo at least. Once again, have I mentioned lately how much I love Microsoft’s mandate that every XBLA game has to have a demo?
I never really got Virtual On, and playing the XBLA demo I see that I still don’t get it.
Are you coming over to play on my old Saturn? :)
In the arcade, sitting in front of a control panel with two sticks and driving your mech like you would actually drive a big mech, it’s pretty effing sweet. You get a sense of operating a big lumbering death machine that just isn’t there in the old Mechwarrior games (at least, not as much, for me anyway). As an XBLA release, I’m kind of baffled. I mean, you’ve got two sticks, so you can do that, and there’s some triggers you can use, but I suspect it will just feel weird to me, and I’m not willing to lay down all the money it will take to get an actual set of VOOT sticks, if they even exist.
ZekeDMS
1627
Now I hope they update that to a playable demo. Boo, hiss, Street Fighter HD Remix demo that was MP only.
Well, time to see if Virtual On is still great!
Nathan
1628
Tried the demo of Virtua On. It seems really, really easy. Not sure if I want to pay for this or not.
I have to admit, as much as I’m not an MP guy, it’s definitely an MP title. There might be better AI, but Virtua On was purely about the one on one mech struggle, PvP joy.
It’s too bad they won’t be able to capture the yelling at the guy in the pod across from you feeling, but if there’s good splitscreen or net, I’m there.
Agreed - I got to the first boss without any trouble, then the demo ended.
Warning: do not buy Space Invaders Extreme if you are susceptible to epilepsy.
slantz
1632
Jeff Minter (Space Giraffe) made the backgrounds. Nuff said.
The Marketplace portion of Xbox.com is absolutely awful at highlighting what’s new. I had to sort the XBLA titles by name to find Space Invaders Extreme. Shouldn’t new releases be prominently displayed on the front page? Instead, clicking the Arcade tab shows me Sorry!, Castle Crashers and a bunch of other games that didn’t release today.
Edit: Eh, if I’d scrolled down to the list without clicking the Arcade tab I would’ve seen that New Releases are at least listed. They’re not really highlighted or promoted, but they’re easy to find at least.
I agree they’re promotion part sucks as does the whole navigation thing. You have to practicaly know where stuff is before you can find it… that’s stupid. Give me a menu and a drop-down list please. No fancy animated frames.
Are those backgrounds optional? Please say yes.
Its really hard to go back to Extreme after playing so much of the sequel.
There’s a setting where you can dial 'em up or down, yeah.
Although there’s nothing wrong with the backgrounds.
That Zombie Wrangler game seemed XNA quality at best.
Not to be pedantic, but you probably mean XBLCG, not XNA. Though there are a few XBLCG games that could compete with some XBLA games, I think.
I haven’t downloaded Zombie Wranglers yet – is it just bad looking but still has decent gameplay or is it bad all around? Graphics don’t matter to me but if the gameplay is crap…
