Gamerscore Blog

For those who have pre-ordered Fable II to get the Pub Games, the date they become available has been announced. You will be able to start earning your cash on August 13. If you haven't pre-ordered but want to start hoarding cash, you can get the games for 800MS points.

I got to check out the three games, “Fortune’s Tower,” “Keystone” and “Spinnerbox” at E3 a couple of weeks ago and had a lot of fun with them. It's obvious that each one is based on a familiar casino game but incorporate their own unique twists.

I spent most of my time (and lost all of my cash about 10 times) on Fortune's Tower. You bet against your own greed as you are dealt cards hoping to make the most cash possible from the sum of the cards in the current row. Makes complete sense, right? Let me stick a screenshot in to try and convey what the hell I'm talking about.

Your struggle with greed comes into play when you decide whether or not to keep dealing rows. If you're not careful, you may be dealt a card with the same face value as a card above it (that touches it). If that happens? Say, "Cheerio" to your cash. You can get lucky in this situation, however, if you are dealt a knight in that same row. He will come alive and magically restore a burned card.

Once, you play, you will see that my long-winded explanation actually makes sense and how easy the game really is to grasp.

Again, you can try your hand at this and the other two pub games on August 13.

This is what stupid looks like:

Not just because of that ridiculous lamp, and not because he is using a Mac.  The man you see in this photo - also known as me - was told that Geometry Wars was a great game.  Yet, at the time, over a year after the release of the game, he refused to believe it.  Now that this man produces a weekly show about games that are addictive and easy to learn, he has forced himself to play pretty much every single arcade game that ever comes out.  Last week, that game was Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2.

This is what heaven looks like:

It may not look like it at first glance, but when you jump into the game, GeoWars2 unfolds and becomes much more than a mess of color and twitch action and almost approaches a zen state.  With multiple modes that remind one of classic arcade games - like King, where you zip from safe zone to safe zone, or Pacifism, where you can't use any weapons and just dodge enemies a la Pac-Man - you can choose to play it sweaty and nervous, or in a trancelike state, finding the groove.

The facts are these:  the guy in the photo is less stupid now (though miles away from where he needs to be), and GeoWars2 is a gem, easy to play, familiar in style, but new in its execution.

Sometimes we play games that we enjoy, but that we can't recommend.  GeoWars2 is not one of those.  GeoWars2 is magic.

Today, not only was the date announced for the U.S. release of Fable 2 but were given a peek at what we can expect from the Collector's Edition.

What do you get if you order that upgraded version? Check it out:

• Bonus DVD – Includes new ‘Making-of Feature’ with Peter Molyneux and the team at Lionhead Studios and concept art viewer

• Bonus In-Game Content (Requires LIVE account) – Includes “The Hall of the Dead” Dungeon, “The Wreckager” Legendary Cutlass Weapon and Otherworldly Bonus

• Collectible Hobbe figure with accessories – From the Qee Collection comes this one-of-a-kind Hobbe figure. Nasty, brutish, and short, he roams the countryside, preying on travelers and spiriting away the children of the unwary.

• 48-hour Xbox LIVE Gold Trial Card – With Xbox LIVE Gold, players can show off their individual hero by inviting friends into their unique version of Albion or they can visit their friends’ Albion, and earn additional gold, experience and renown to take back into their own.

• Five printed Fate Cards – These five beautiful cards foretell the Hero’s great destiny to journey across all of Albion, encountering deadly enemies and enigmatic allies. The path leads to a choice that will change the world forever.

I put my cash down last week for this edition. I was hoping for some kind of figure and there it is! Also, as many know, I'm a huge fan of concept art - This set makes me happy.

The collector's edition will set you back $79.99 while the standard edition will be $59.99.

For more information, check out the media alert!

Woohoo!

Today, "Community Voices" went live on Xbox.com. This section of the site will be populated with offerings from the Xbox.com team (TriXie360, Major Nelson, Editer, etc.) and now little old me. I'm not leaving my GSB perch, this is where I live - You just get to read some more of my incessant ramblings if you're interested!

Check it out at:

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/community/voices/default.htm

The second week of Summer of Arcade is hitting XBLA with Braid on Wednesday.

While the premise sounds familiar, your surroundings and the way you play are definitely not. Rescue a princess who has been abducted but do so through incredible painterly worlds and manipulate time to solve puzzles and get through levels.

Jonathan Blow brings you this new take on the platformer through Number None, Inc. and Microsoft games. It can be yours for 1200 Microsoft Points and is rated E 10+ for Everyone over the age of 10 by the ESRB.

This one is great, and I wanted to share:

(Thanks Kotaku)

I had the Geo Wars 2 one up here, but it kept erroring our site, so I pulled it off.

One of the great things about having a blog is that it offers us each a place to give our opinions, and hopefully in a way that allows us to show that we’re more than corporate robots.  Most of you reading posts from this blog understand that we’re employees of a corporation, but we’re also members of the gaming community.  Because of that, we’re going to agree on some things, disagree on others, like some things, and dislike others.  I think it’s what makes our community great.

As a community team, we get to participate in the communities we love: Tony, Chris and Sara live and breathe harcore gaming, Nelson is the poster child for mainstream gamers, and I get to play both mainstream gamer and Daddy-gamer both at home, and at work.  Sometimes, we offer our opinions about things we like, or don’t like, to people who are like us.  And as a team, we’ve committed to being honest, authentic, and never say something we don’t mean.

Funny thing is, some of the things I once questioned have grown on me.  When I first heard the concept of GamerScore, it didn’t appeal to me—to my style of gameplay.  I’m not competitive, I won’t play something I don’t think is fun.  Before the Xbox 360 launched, I usually played without signing in at all.  Fast forward a few years, and I’m playing hours longer than usual, just to get a few Achievement Points so my GamerScore isn’t the lowest on our team (see the sidebar of the blog). 

When I first saw a demo of the new Xbox experience, I immediately felt drawn to it.

Because I’m such a visual person, the style appealed to me.  I love the idea of browsing my game library visually, and getting information about new games or PDLC in such a visual way. 

I like the idea of MMOGSGs (massively-multiplayer-online-game-show-games, my own made-up term for live server-based games), though it drives my wife crazy when I watch 1 vs. 100 and run the statistics after every decision. 

I really love the Party System, so I can hang out with my friends or family through several experiences, or chat as I walk through a slideshow of my photos with them (they may not love seeing 300 pictures of our latest weekend outing, but that's another issue). 

Because I have four “pre-teen” kids (and I can’t handle watching Camp Rock one more time), I love being able to watch a variety of NetFlix movies on my Xbox 360.  In fact, I already have Windows Media Center hooked up to NetFlix, so I can watch movies on my Xbox 360, but the new Xbox experience will make it even more seamless. 

I like the idea of Avatars.  As I spend time with the developers, I sense the passion they have for every new feature, and I caught the vision they have for extending someone’s persona online.  I’m a Facebook junkie, because it allows me to present myself to my community in such a personal way, and learn so much about my friends.  So I really like the idea of a persistent, visual presence, that I can customize from day to day. It seems like it’s going to hit the sweet spot between being too cute and being too realistic.  Avatars should say something about me, in a fun, personal way, but not be so serious I have to spend hours tweaking to get it right. 

For more about the new Xbox experience, check out an article that was published today by Dean Takahashi, of an interview with John Schappert, where the Xbox LIVE VP describes more about the new Xbox experience. 

"VB: What was the thinking behind the changes to the (newly announced) Xbox Live dashboard interface? It’s your biggest change to what gamers see on the console since you introduced the Xbox 360 in 2005.

JS: We’re happy with the “blade” metaphor that we used in the original Xbox 360 interface. It was the first video game box where you could turn it on and enjoy games right from the hard drive through Xbox Live Arcade. You could buy games on Marketplace. As we added more and more content, it became more difficult to navigate. As we added more features — video marketplace, instant messaging, and video chat – we started to think of where we wanted to go in the future. We wanted to have it be more fun, simpler to use, easier to navigate, and more social. We wanted to think about features like Netflix. We have 20 million people now. They enjoy playing “Call of Duty 4,” “Halo 3″ and “Gears of War.” When we think of the next 20 million, they may enjoy those games but they also might enjoy a different level of experience. What we hoped we accomplished is an interface that the core will enjoy – because of its visual style, better search, more functionality — and more appealing and inviting for the new users buying our console. To me it is part of the puzzle. It’s about approachability, it’s about content, and it’s about price. We will go after all of those areas aggressively.

VB: What was the genesis of the Xbox Live avatars you introduced at the show?

JS: We are all gamers ourselves and we’ve enjoyed our own avatars in a multitude of games. We have had achievements on Xbox Live from day one. We’ve had gamer scores. We’ve had the (single identification) gamertag. People have their own web sites with XML links to our data. To me, avatars are a logical extension to give us countless ways to personalize our own styles. It’s not like we are using avatars to recreate the perfect human body. And it’s not too cutesy. It’s in the middle. It dresses up the core first-person shooter, who can be edgy. And the more casual player can dress up to look friendly."

I lost a little piece of my life this weekend to Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution but I saved a bunch of cash by not leaving the house for 3 days.

The premise of Civ Rev is a great one - world domination. It's something we all dream of and I know that many of us, (ok, the three of us in this office, anyway) would trample all over your face to get to the top - I suppose that was slightly inappropriate. Oh well.

There are several civilizations that you can choose from ranging from Mongolians to Germans and you plan their existence from simple farming to space exploration. You begin with a pretty puny group of settlers and find some rich piece of the earth to stake your first claim on. From there, the world is your oyster.

The game is turn based, so you have time to plot and scheme your way to victory. One way to build your empires is by earning gold and scientific discovery. Learning new technologies helps to expand your cities and attract "special people" to aid your progress. You can either pimp those guys out to finish up some long task or have them settle in and add some advantage to your growth.

Of course, what good would it be without being able to direct armies? Join together a bunch of single "units" and there you have it - time to kick some (insert area of your choosing here). They can be used to defend your territories as well as attack others while you continue to build places of interest for your people. You'd best get onto building those temples before you are chastised for having "disgusting" inhabitants. If fighting isn't your thing, you can also get wins through winning the technology race or becoming the economic leader.

There were a couple of places that I slowed down at during the game but it was usually when I was sending out boats, busting heads with ninja tanks and causing anarchy in my cities at the same time. It wasn't enough to stop me playing, just enough to notice.

One of the things that appealed to me was that although this is a strategic game, it wasn't SO detailed that I was left wondering if I had left a level 27 Aztec Warrior army on their own picking apples in an orchard while my main city was getting attacked by a level 34 Russian submarine fleet. It was just enough to keep me interested but it wasn't tedious. I like things that aren't tedious. You know, like Excel spreadsheets... ugh

Anyway, if you're in the mood to step away from shooters and fighting games, try the game out. You might just like it.

I know many of you have been waiting patiently for an update to the two problems experienced with the game itself and with the achievement weirdness. The Mission Mode pack is now back up on Marketplace.They are going to need a little more time to figure out the freezing issue.

For those who downloaded the pack when it was available last week but didn't unlock achievements before the fix was posted, you should be good to go. For those who ran into problems with unlocking achievements, we've seen that many have had luck fixing things by either clearing the cache or recovering their gamertag. This removes the first update and allows the fixed one to be downloaded instead. (Please note that by clearing the cache, you will be prompted to update any game that has receieved updates in the past. Not really such a bad thing - at least everything will be up to date.)

Thanks again for your patience.

I kept biting my tongue.

I kept explaining to groups of 2-4 people how to "deal with" the inclusion of Avatars in the New Xbox Experience because, quite frankly, I didn't like them either.  (More on this subject in the future, but the short/worst case answer is if they bother you - ignore them.)

I kept getting angry when I saw companies plan strategy, and then apologize for that strategy to the offended parties.

Owen from Kotaku pointed out a NY Times article that got me frustrated enough to write this blog post.

As video games become more popular, passionate game lovers have to deal with the growing popularity of our hobby.  This popularity is large enough that companies are changing their strategies to market to the non-gamer - the mainstream.

I'm a "hardcore gamer" not because I need a cool term to define myself, but because they don't understand the culture, and because they need to give a term to folks who's first choice of leisure activity is to turn on a console or PC.

As Seth's NY Times article stated:

Now gamers have to share their beloved pastime with the great unwashed — housewives, the elderly, even girls. And they don’t all like it. At E3, Nintendo in particular was accused of neglecting its core fans while pursuing the broader market with a new edition of Wii Sports and Wii Music, a lite diversion.

He went on:

Call it nerd rage. Like loyalists of a once-partisan politician who tacks toward the center later in an election cycle, old-school gamers are coming to terms with the ramifications of their favorite’s newfound popularity. Though they have long craved mainstream respectability for video games, players sometimes resent the concessions their champion must make to attract mainstream adherents.

I can only speak for myself when I say, I've never clamored for mainstream video game respect.  I've clamored for more content.

By becoming popular more opportunity exists.  New companies may make products that I'm interested in.  Television shows (or whole stations) may start to develop the type of content that I'm interested in.

If the video game hobby stayed niche, it could go away because it would be unprofitable as a business, but it's never been about mainstream respect.

It's not even about being "hardcore vs. casual".  Kotaku's Owen Good nailed it:

I think we can see how it ties into the survival of the consoles and publishers we patronize, and how it affects their ability to give us what we really want.

One last quote by Seth's NY Times article:

For the game industry, these players represent a profitable expansion. For old-school gamers, they reflect a wrenching shift. The industry depended on its appeal to core players for many years. Those players, and the culture that emerged around them, came to assume that this industry should respond only to their needs and desires.

I'm selfish, but I'm not unreasonable.

If soccer moms, and mainstream gamers are enjoying casual or non-gamer targeting titles, that's fine, but don't do it at my expense.

I like Tetris, Peggle, and Puzzle Quest as much as the next guy - but without Civilization Revolution, Gears of War, Burnout, and other "hardcore" games, I would lose interest in the hobby pretty quickly, and if you lose your passionate gamers, if you lose your core - the tangential fans who only buy one game per year, won't be enough to sustain the industry, and it will die.

The beauty of my job is I don't have to care about reaching moms, or worry about "how to broaden".  Someone else is doing that.

As our team produces more video content, I realize that I may not be the best interviewer in the world.  I know I'm making mistakes.

What I'm not doing, however, is asking insincere questions to people I dislike, about a hobby I don't respect.

This week, we've got a treat for you. We're announcing four (4!), yes FOUR new arcade games coming down the pike for you to download. August is Summer of Xbox LIVE Arcade month and we're celebrating by giving you Galaga Legions, Braid, Bionic Commando Rearmed and Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2.

As well as being able to play these great games, you will be given a chance at winning up to 100,000 Microsoft Points in the "Summer of Arcade" sweepstakes.

For more information, please see the media blast.

Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 launches on Wednesday, July 30. Those who loved the first version of Geowars will be able to pick up right where they left off. There are a host of new enemies, new achievements and six game-play modes. It will cost 800 Microsoft Points and is rated E for Everyone.

Braid will be released on August 6. Jonathan Blow uses incredible artistry to draw you into the melancholy platformer world where you manipulate time in strange ways. Braid is rated E10+ for Everyone 10+.

Bionic Commando: Rearmed releases on August 13 and brings back the classic side-scroller in a new and improved form. New HD graphics bring the game into the here and now. It is rated M for Mature.

Galaga Legions brings back another vintage favorite on August 20. Sleek new graphics and gameplay make this a new experience. Galaga Legions is rated E for Everyone.

Castle Crashers comes busting onto the scene on August 27. With hand drawn characters, each with a variety of weapons, it's your mission to defend your kingdom and save the princess (is she in another castle? - har har, sorry). Castle Crashers is rated T for Teen.

 

 

Nelson's been hard at work down in San Diego, helping out the crew that's producing Bringing It Home for Xbox LIVE and MSN Entertainment, and capturing some interviews for future coverage.  Here are a couple of links to videos featuring our own "boy wonder", that are up on MSN Entertainment.  More to come, I'm sure!

 
Comic-Con 2008: New Originals

Comic-Con 2008: Community

Larry's there too, and has hosted some of the Bringing It Home content, and a few Inside Xbox pieces. See more on Xbox.com.

Warner Bros. Day

Daily Wrap, Thursday

Major's Minute

For even more, check out some of the coverage from MSN Entertainment.

Comic-Con 2008: Sights and Sounds

Comic-Con 2008: Faces in the Crowd

If you remember a few weeks back we went out to the Seattle stop of the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival and captured a bunch of footage - here's the first bit of it.

Mike is not only one of the cooler guys I get to work with, but he's also a Producer for Microsoft Game Studios working on Gears of War 2.

[Update] YouTube link for people who hate quality.

If you're not already getting your fill of the new mission modes available on Marketplace today, go do it! Otherwise, feast your eyes on another nugget of Ryu greatness.

Today, First 4 Figures announced that they have been given the go-ahead to produce a limited run of high-end Ryu Hayabusa figures. Ryu will be sporting his original black skintard (sorry, it's all I could think of - you know, skin-tight-leotard) as well as a Dragon Sword, Eclipse Scythe, and a Falcon's Talon.

The entire sculpt will be 31 inches tall so you could *almost* use him as a passenger for a car pool lane. (No, I am not recommending this use so don't blame me when you get pulled over.)

There will only be 1999 of these little guys produced so it's first come, first served. Visit the site to order here.

For more information (including pricing) check out the media alert!

Ahh it is a thing of beauty:

*Note: The team believes they have isolated and fixed the Mission Pack problem that some of you reported earlier this morning. They will continue to test it over the weekend and are hoping to get it back onto Marketplace on Monday TBD. If you already downloaded the pack, go ahead and sign into LIVE. Your achievement should update allowing you to continue playing. The freezing issue is still being investigated. Please check here for an update.

If you thought Ryu was limited to just one box full of slashing, dismembering fun, think again. On July 25, you will be given the chance to download not one, not two, but twenty four (24 for those who can't read letters) new missions.

There are two sets of missions that make up the 24. Karma missions are based on trying to achieve the highest score possible whereas survival missions have you fend off as many enemies as possible with a single weapon.

The extra missions can be yours for 800 MS Points.

Just In: You asked, and we're answering! Yes, there will be some freshly enabled achievements for you to grab - 10 in total. Point totals haven't been released, yet, but I will update when I get the info! 

Check out some screenshots on our flickr feed.