I played 11 Xbox Live Arcade games for fun in 2008 and finished one of them.

As I did last year, I’ve compiled a list of the games that I played for fun in 2008. One list per major gaming platform.

(Check out the rest of my 2008 Gaming Playlists for other platforms, updated daily until New Year’s.)

Today’s entry is all about Xbox Live Arcade, Microsoft’s long-running service for downloadable Xbox 360 games.

What did I play? And which one game did I finish?

Take a look below: Read more…

I played 29 Xbox 360 games for fun in 2008 and finished 11 of them.

As I did last year, I’ve compiled a list of the games that I played for fun in 2008. One list per major gaming platform.

(Check out the rest of my 2008 Gaming Playlists for other platforms, updated daily until New Year’s.)

Today’s entry is all about the Xbox 360, the system on which I played and finished the most games in 2008.

What did I play? And which 11 games did I finish?

Take a look below: Read more…

Homage? Inspiration? Or a case of Grand Theft ‘Shadow’?

Before I played Ubisoft Montreal’s magnificent new “Prince of Persia,” I saw that comparisons were being drawn between it and Sony’s cult favorite PS2 game “Ico.” Both games are platformers the present a hero who is accompanied and assisted by a lovely woman. In both games, the mechanic of holding hands in fundamental.

But if you thought the “Prince of Persia” team drew a lot of inspiration from “Ico,” then wait until you see how much they drew from the other celebrated game made by Fumito Ueda’s team at Sony, “Shadow of the Colossus.”

Without going into spoilers, let’s look at some striking similarities: Read more…

When Soulja Boy challenged MTV Multiplayer’s own blog editor Stephen Totilo to an Xbox 360 face-off in October, we couldn’t let it go unchallenged. Stephen recently responded to his offer, and the rapper, famous for his dislike of “Braid,” stopped by the MTV offices to put all this smack-talk to rest.

The competition went down today, but check back tomorrow for the full video and to see who won (and if developers’ tips helped Stephen at all). For now, take a look at some photos from just a few moments ago…

Read more…

Here’s one more important “Halo Wars” fact that I learned during my recent interview with the game’s lead writer, Graeme Devine:

-The Game’s Text Won’t Repeat The Mistakes Of “Banjo-Kazooie” — Several prominent Xbox 360 games have been programmed to display text in such small sizes that words can’t be read on standard definition TVs. Pity the gamer who hadn’t splurged on an HD set. This was an issue with Capcom’s “Dead Rising” in 2006 (which was never fixed) and Microsoft/Rare’s “Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts” earlier this year (which Rare plans to be fix).

A few of recent console real-time strategy games, notably those from Electronic Arts, also had text that was hard-to-read on standard TVs.

That would seem to make “Halo Wars” a likely suspect for the same failings. Not to worry, said Devine: “We’re proud of the experience on SD.” How come? “Half our play-test lab is full of the crummiest standard sets you can find,” he said.

Breath easy, gamers living in the SD era who want to play “Halo Wars.”

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“Colosseum” is not the best selling Community Game, according to Microsoft’s early results released last week, but it was one of the top 5.

It was also the most expensive.

When I met with the developers of “Colosseum,” Shortfuse Games, at a San Francisco launch party for Community Games in October, they weren’t sure how to price their creation.

I made the argument that pricing low would garner them the requisite fan base for a more expensive second game. They didn’t follow my recommendation.

Instead, they priced it at $10. How do they feel that’s gone over with gamers?

Read more…

We recently showed you what kind of fashions you can spend about $20 on to make your PlayStation Home avatar look just a little more snazzy. For 49 cents, you too can wear a virtual cowboy hat — or at least your Home avatar can.

So is this the future? A world of cheap avatar fashion purchases?

Sony seems to believe in it. Microsoft, I’ve learned, does not.

The day before Home launched I got a (clearly unrelated) briefing from Xbox product manager Aaron Greenberg and I brought up this topic. I asked: When/how/how-often will we see cheap clothing options for our Xbox 360 Avatars available for paid download? Read more…

Late last week I was given a demonstration of “Halo Wars,” the real-time strategy game that will be the first of at least two “Halo” games coming out in 2009.

As it was at E3, “Halo Wars” appears to be light on resource-management and high on multi-unit action. Controls were simple and the potential for coop campaigning over Xbox Live was intriguing.

With lead “Halo Wars” writer Graeme Devine at my side while I played a pair of the game’s missions, I picked up a number of facts and clarifications about this March 2009 addition to the Xbox 360’s biggest franchise:

-No Playable Flood — While it has been revealed that the infectious Flood species will appear in the “Halo Wars” campaign, they will not be playable. Only the United Nations Space Command forces of Master Chief fame and the enemy Covenant are playable in the game’s campaign and/or skirmish modes. Devine said the team struggled to find a good way to make the Flood playable. Whatever they thought of, Devine said, “felt to much like the ['StarCraft'] Zerg.” So they left them out.

-No ‘ODST’ Or ‘Fable’ Connections In The Works Read more…

Remember when Soulja Boy challenged me to an Xbox 360 face-off? Here’s my response.

The battle commences next week at MTV News headquarters — if he shows up.

But what should the third game be?

(Videos not viewable by users logging in from Canada or the U.K.)

Related Posts:
Soulja Boy Challenges Me To An Xbox Duel — How Should I Crush Him?
Disproving My Theory, Soulja Boy Clarifies Dislike Of ‘Braid’
Soulja Boy Updates Us On Beating 360 Gamers, Hating PS3

No one’s ever satisfied, right?

During a call that was meant to trumpet the successful recent launch of the New Xbox Experience and certainly had nothing (really!) to do with the impending launch of PlayStation Home, I asked Xbox director of product management Aaron Greenberg about two complaints I keep hearing about the Xbox 360’s Netflix service.

People want more movies on them, and they’d like to update their Netflix queue on the 360, instead of only on their computer.

To the first point, Greenberg said: Read more…

When news broke yesterday that Atari is acquiring MMO developer Cryptic Studios, we wondered how this would affect their upcoming titles “Star Trek Online” and “Champions Online.”

In a statement made to MTV Multiplayer, Cryptic’s Chief Creative Officer Jack Emmert said, “This deal allows Cryptic to put its full focus on both games, as opposed to trying to do that and steer the boat of [business development]… Atari has been awesome. They’ve made it clear that they bought Cryptic for who we are and what we do. I’ve asked for as much feedback as they can handle, while Atari has made it clear they trust us to make these titles great.”

When we asked if it was more likely to see the company’s MMOs on consoles given Atari’s console background, he said, “I’m afraid I’ll just need to answer this one, well, cryptically. We’ve built ‘Champions’ to run on the Xbox 360 and there’s absolutely no technical limitations there. As for the PS3, we haven’t announced anything.”

And as for how this will affect the current publishing deal for “Champions Online,” which is being published by 2K Games next year, Emmert declined to comment on those details.

Microsoft has released the first sales data for their experimental Community Games endeavor for Xbox 360, providing our first glimpse into gamers’ buying habits.

The looming question before launching Community Games was pricing. Developers weren’t sure how gamers would react and reacted by typically low-balling on price.

The best selling games so far, as released by Microsoft — listed alongside their price:

1. Word Soup (400 MS Points / $5)
2. Golden Royal Blackjack (200 MS Points / $2.50)
3. Weapon of Choice (400 MS Points / $5)
4. Colosseum (800 MS Points / $10)
5. ZSX4 Guitarpocalypse (200 MS Points / $2.50)
6. Sin(Surfing) (200 MS Points / $2.50)
7. In the Pit (400 MS Points / $5)
8. Head Banger (200 MS Points / $2.50)
9. Snake360 (400 MS Points / $5)
10. Swords and Monsters (200 MS Points / $2.50)

While the list seems to shows gamers overwhelmingly preferred to experiment with games at 200 MS Points, logic dictates that’s because most game were priced at 200 MS Points. But with “Word Soup” coming out at on top at a higher tier, and “Weapon of Choice” following close behind, there’s an encouraging trend that high-priced games will be rewarded if they resonate with gamers. Even more interesting is “Colosseum” making it into the top 5 at $10!

We’ll keep watching Community Games to see how it matures, but the signs so far are promising. What have you bought on the service so far?