Everything to do with our favourite pastime! Reviews, recommendations, sells/swaps, problems etc. Whether they are on the latest consoles, arcade or retro classics. It's not the winning or losing, we came to play!
juice wrote:I've finally gotten around to something I've been intending to do since the whole Community Games thing kicked off: I've added an XBIG review section to my website. Over the last month or two, I've ploughed through around 200 of the games (many don't require in-depth analysis!) and the first 40 reviews have been formatted and uploaded for the world to peruse. The rest should follow fairly quickly - now that the UI and XML has been defined, they're basically in need of just a cut-n-paste session.
As with the Spectrum reviews, the focus is mostly around analysing the design and possible improvements - generally presented in a positive way and backed up with justifications. Unless it's a pong clone, in which case it deserves everything it gets
I'd appreciate any feedback people might have on both the UI and the reviews themselves - the UI is an evolution of the one implemented for the Spectrum section and I was playing with a more complex filtering mechanism (i.e. unions and intersects, in Set notation), but the visual details were getting messy, so I stuck with a simple "A or B" system.
A couple of things I'm aware of:
1) The prices need to be updated
2) There's no media on the reviews - there's very little on Youtube for the ones I've checked to date, and my X360 is hooked up via DVI, which means my only video-recording option will be to park a digicam on the table: not an ideal setup.
3) the underlying CSS/HTML is a bit of a mix/mess: as ever, the focus was on getting things working before going back to rationalise the underlying code
4) A couple of the reviews are missing (Arriba, Artoon, Awesome Tank) - they're sitting on my netbook and need to be transferred across!
Nice. We XBIG devs need all the publicity we can get. And having played almost every XBIG release to date myself, I feel your pong clone, screensaver and rumble joypad inducd pain.
Just a quick comment on the format. I've no idea what the difference is between "Play" and "Try". Just having the 3 ratings makes a whole lot more sense (Avoid, Try, Recommended)
And as I guess you already know, it really needs some screenies rather than just a list of text. You should be able to get what you want from the Creators Club catalogue.
Good news Batman fans, Eidos today announced that the demo for their upcoming Batman: Arkham Asylum is coming this Friday, August 7th, on the Xbox Live Marketplace.
I may have no control over the length of my life, but the depth & width is entirely up to me.
Nice. We XBIG devs need all the publicity we can get. And having played almost every XBIG release to date myself, I feel your pong clone, screensaver and rumble joypad inducd pain.
Just a quick comment on the format. I've no idea what the difference is between "Play" and "Try". Just having the 3 ratings makes a whole lot more sense (Avoid, Try, Recommended)
True. I wanted to avoid the standard numeric rating system, as it's always seemed pointless. There is meant to be a difference between "Try" and "Play", but trying to express that in a single word is somewhat awkward I'll have a ponder...
fog wrote:
And as I guess you already know, it really needs some screenies rather than just a list of text. You should be able to get what you want from the Creators Club catalogue.
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Mmm. The terms of use for the website appear to prohibit the use elsewhere of the images hosted there - while MS are unlikely to object, I'd prefer to capture my own media.
Out of interest: if you sign up for a premium creators account, are you able to access the .ccgame for games which have already been published? The main problem I have with generating media at present is the difficulty of pulling things off the X360: I have absolutely no problem with grabbing images/movies off a PC...
juice wrote:Out of interest: if you sign up for a premium creators account, are you able to access the .ccgame for games which have already been published? The main problem I have with generating media at present is the difficulty of pulling things off the X360: I have absolutely no problem with grabbing images/movies off a PC...
No. If you paid for a Creators Club Premium account then you could access .ccgame files from Playtest or Peer Review, but once released the only access you have is through XBox Marketplace like everyone else.
And just to clarify, none of these .ccgame files would work on the PC anyway as they are packaged as 360 games. You'd need a PC specific version of the game for that.
I'll make sure to have some screenies of Echoes+ ready for you if you review that
juice wrote:Out of interest: if you sign up for a premium creators account, are you able to access the .ccgame for games which have already been published? The main problem I have with generating media at present is the difficulty of pulling things off the X360: I have absolutely no problem with grabbing images/movies off a PC...
No. If you paid for a Creators Club Premium account then you could access .ccgame files from Playtest or Peer Review, but once released the only access you have is through XBox Marketplace like everyone else.
Makes perfect sense.
fog wrote:
And just to clarify, none of these .ccgame files would work on the PC anyway as they are packaged as 360 games. You'd need a PC specific version of the game for that.
Ah - from what's been written about it, I assumed the .ccgame was the PC version. I have XNA and a X360 hooked up to the network, so I should be able to run pre-release games without any problems as and when I go for a Premium account (which will happen, as I'm aiming to write a game or two of my own once I've finished ploughing through the reviews).
fog wrote:
I'll make sure to have some screenies of Echoes+ ready for you if you review that
That'd be cool:)
I've been working through the games alphabetically and have just finished off "G", so Halfbrick Echoes might even get written up tonight. I wouldn't worry too much about it - it's one of the games I've actually purchased!
juice wrote:...so I should be able to run pre-release games without any problems as and when I go for a Premium account (which will happen, as I'm aiming to write a game or two of my own once I've finished ploughing through the reviews).
Excellent. I'm loving XNA myself.
juice wrote:
fog wrote:
I'll make sure to have some screenies of Echoes+ ready for you if you review that
That'd be cool:)
I've been working through the games alphabetically and have just finished off "G", so Halfbrick Echoes might even get written up tonight. I wouldn't worry too much about it - it's one of the games I've actually purchased!
Completely different game lol One is an innovative puzzle game and the other is a generic twin stick shmup.
juice wrote:
I've been working through the games alphabetically and have just finished off "G", so Halfbrick Echoes might even get written up tonight. I wouldn't worry too much about it - it's one of the games I've actually purchased!
Completely different game lol One is an innovative puzzle game and the other is a generic twin stick shmup.
That'll teach me to pay more attention
The vids on xnplay look quite shiny - I'll look forward to having a blast!
Thanks to Chub I picked up R-Type as the deal of the week. I have just finished Farcry2 (brilliant game BTW) and needed a palete cleanser. R-Type is just the ticket. I think 800 points is a steal. Cheers Chub for the heads up!
ESY wrote:Thanks to Chub I picked up R-Type as the deal of the week. I have just finished Farcry2 (brilliant game BTW) and needed a palete cleanser. R-Type is just the ticket. I think 800 points is a steal. Cheers Chub for the heads up!
No problem! Bought it myself as well, but I've only had time for a quick go so far.
"In case of a nuclear attack, the protection of records is essential, if this country is to carry on its economy, and maintain our way of life."
chub wrote:Looking good! Hopefully it'll get an XBLA release once the XNA version is done.
For the developers sake I hope you're right. If not then it still gets an XBIG release though so either way it gets released and isn't another game left in limbo after being rejected by Microsoft.
chub wrote:Looking good! Hopefully it'll get an XBLA release once the XNA version is done.
For the developers sake I hope you're right. If not then it still gets an XBIG release though so either way it gets released and isn't another game left in limbo after being rejected by Microsoft.
Yeah, it's just that if it only gets released via XBIG then I won't be able to play it.
"In case of a nuclear attack, the protection of records is essential, if this country is to carry on its economy, and maintain our way of life."
And having played almost every XBIG release to date myself, I feel your pong clone, screensaver and rumble joypad inducd pain.
