Live Arcade Wednesday (6/17)

[Queasy]

Sam & Max Save the World
Price: 1600 MS Points ($20)
Size: 475 MB
Description: Get ready to Save the World in this side-splitting six-episode "season" of gaming's first sitcom. Canine shamus Sam and his hyperkinetic rabbity-thing partner Max are faced with a baffling mystery. All around them, people are ending up hypnotized. Washed-up child stars. The host of a popular television talk show. Even the President of the United States! Can Sam & Max find the mastermind behind this evil scheme before the entire world slips into a hypnotic trance? In this first ?season? of the episodic Sam & Max series, you get six full games that take Sam & Max deeper and deeper into a sinister mind-control plot. Uncover clues, interrogate suspects, crack all six bizarre cases, and find out why Sam & Max is the funniest game series in years! This game requires the Xbox 360 hard drive for storage. There are no refunds for this item. For more information, see www.xbox.com/live/accounts.

Queue up the Full Game
Queue up the Trial Game

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Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers (metacritic)
Price: 800 MS Points ($10)
Size: 281 MB
Description: Ready to dominate the infinite planes of existence as a planeswalker? Unlock the full version of Magic: The Gathering ? Duels of the Planeswalkers now and start forging your destiny today! Engage in a single duel, attempt an entire campaign, team up with a friend for a cooperative ?Two-Headed Giant? campaign, or overcome challenges that pit you against impossible odds with a single opportunity for victory. With multiple game modes, an interactive tutorial, leaderboards, and achievements, Duels of the Planeswalkers has something for everyone! This game requires the Xbox 360 hard drive or the 512MB Memory Unit for storage. There are no refunds for this item. For more information, see www.xbox.com/live/accounts.

Queue up the Full Game
Queue up the Trial Game

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Rocket Riot (metacritic)
Price: 800 MS Points ($10)
Size: 77 MB
Description: Insane, fast-paced, visceral bazooka-on-bazooka arcade action. Can you survive the madness with rockets flying past your head and the level exploding around you? Try your luck at 80 single player levels, multiplayer matches with up to 8 people, 4 different multiplayer modes and the Endurance mode. What are you waiting for? Get into the bazooka action today!

Queue up the Full Game
Queue up the Trial Game

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Original Post:
These two games were announced earlier to be released this Wednesday on Live Arcade.

I never got into the Magic: The Gathering scene so I've no idea what to expect of this game. The game page says it supports 2 player co-op and User Creatable Content though. That's always a plus. M:TGotP will be 800 MS Pesos ($10).

Sam & Max Save the World doesn't have an Xbox.com page yet but Googling around reveals that this is all six episodes of the first Sam and Max season that was released earlier on the PC and Wii but updated with widescreen, achievements, and controls. S&MStW will be 1600 MS Pesos ($20).

 

[erwos]

The MTG site seems to imply that it's going to have cards from all sorts of sets... I'm guessing we should expect a DLC fest. I loved MTG in the day, though, so I might give in.

 

[smackababy]

I used to have a ton of MtG cards. I had such an amazing deck, but all tournys banned my cards because they were legacy cards. Lame to the extreme. I might end up picking that one up though.

 

[tatteredpotato]

Anyone know what time XBLA games are released? Is it midnight pacific (3am Eastern)?

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: ObscureCaucasian
Anyone know what time XBLA games are released? Is it midnight pacific (3am Eastern)?

Generally, yeah.

There will supposedly be a third XBLA game tomorrow, Rocket Riot.

 

[Queasy]

Well, despite what its developers stated yesterday, Rocket Riot did not make it on to Xbox Live this morning. And Magic: The Gathering is listed on the Marketplace -> Games page but isn't actually up yet. Must be a hangover from the maintenance that ended late last night.

 

[jdport]

I can't wait to try out MTG.... I hope it will play well!

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: jdport
I can't wait to try out MTG.... I hope it will play well!

It's available for download now.

 

[UpgradeFailure]

I tried downloading the demo of Sam and Max this morning, but I kept getting an error. I added it to my que on xbox.com and it got to 1% then error. I hope it's working tonight, I'm interested in trying it out.

 

[erwos]

WTF happened to Rocket Riot? IGN gave it a pretty good review.

 

[Jules]

Originally posted by: UpgradeFailure
I tried downloading the demo of Sam and Max this morning, but I kept getting an error. I added it to my que on xbox.com and it got to 1% then error. I hope it's working tonight, I'm interested in trying it out.

same problem with MTG and Rocket Riot

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: erwos
WTF happened to Rocket Riot? IGN gave it a pretty good review.

Sounds like Rocket Riot was put up and is available through the 360 Dash but hasn't been put up on Xbox.com.

There seem to be problems with the Marketplace in general as others have noted.

edit: In the Rocket Riot Xbox.com forum, they are saying it will be available between 1PM and 5PM PST. (?) Weird.

 

[Queasy]

Rocket Riot finally made it on to the Xbox.com page. Added it to the OP along with metacritic lists for it and Magic the Gathering. No 360 metacritic link for Sam & Max yet but the first six episodes scored around 79 to 85 for the PC.

 

[gorcorps]

I played the first 3 episodes of the sam and max series on the PC. Solid point and click adventure game, but I don't think it's going to translate well into console controls at all. Some things should be left on the PC.

 

[jdport]

Is there a place to go check on announcements or status of the XBL marketplace? I was waiting to get home from work so I could download MTG and it seems to be broken, as others mentioned above. The game is "there" to download, but when I try it just gives me an error. They didn't have any trouble accepting my payment for points or deducting said points....

I went to the xbox website but I didn't see anyplace to look for announcements on the problems.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: jdport
Is there a place to go check on announcements or status of the XBL marketplace? I was waiting to get home from work so I could download MTG and it seems to be broken, as others mentioned above. The game is "there" to download, but when I try it just gives me an error. They didn't have any trouble accepting my payment for points or deducting said points....

I went to the xbox website but I didn't see anyplace to look for announcements on the problems.

Xbox Support Page

edit: There's also the new Xbox Live Operations Blog

 

[tatteredpotato]

Originally posted by: jdport
Is there a place to go check on announcements or status of the XBL marketplace? I was waiting to get home from work so I could download MTG and it seems to be broken, as others mentioned above. The game is "there" to download, but when I try it just gives me an error. They didn't have any trouble accepting my payment for points or deducting said points....

I went to the xbox website but I didn't see anyplace to look for announcements on the problems.

Yea, me and my buddy have been waiting for months to play this game.... I guess what's a few more hours.

 

[bl4ckfl4g]

dang I hope they fix it tonight. I want to play mtg even if it is a little gimped.

 

[Queasy]

Marketplace Issues Update

As e stated, we are tracking and in the process of resolving an interesting issue around Marketplace. As a part of the work we did yesterday, there were some updates to the tools we use to load content onto the service, and there are some unexpected failures with those new tools that affect new content added to the service in the previous 12-24 hours leading up to the downtime. That is the only issue of significance we are tracking at this time.

The feedback around issues on this forum has really helped ? please keep the feedback coming.

When the issue is resolved with the new pieces of content, and you are attempting to re-download, please be advised if it appears that you are being charged again, you aren?t. You can click straight through the messages without being charged. We have stepped through this ourselves, we know the experience is poor, and are working to see what we can do about it.

For those who offered critical feedback on our performance yesterday, and the fact that this marketplace content issue got by us, I understand and appreciate what you are saying. Its our job to be flawless, and we clearly didn?t meet the bar yesterday. I am incredibly proud of the teams for the work that was done, and how hard folks worked to get us where they did ? I also appreciate that we work on a service with a demanding customer base; it is as it should be. I love that part of it. Please have faith that we are trying really really hard, and are making improvements as fast as we can.

If you are having any other issues, please post. Thanks again.

 

[tatteredpotato]

Thanks for the update Queasy... Sometimes I swear you keep ATCG more updated than the professional blogs (or even Microsoft itself).

 

[Queasy]

Looks like they fixed the problems. I'm downloading Magic The Gathering now.

 

[erwos]

Yeah, I grabbed all three games this morning. Nice week for XBLA.

I also sucked it up and bought the Fallout 3 expansions, since Operation Anchorage was on sale. I'm a bad person, I know.

 

[Pheran]

I got the MtG demo, looks pretty good, but can anyone who has gotten the full version confirm that you can construct a deck? If so I will buy.

I am having some Magic culture adjustment - for those of us from the Lightning Bolt era, Shock sure is a crappy card.

 

[tatteredpotato]

Originally posted by: Pheran
I got the MtG demo, looks pretty good, but can anyone who has gotten the full version confirm that you can construct a deck? If so I will buy.

I am having some Magic culture adjustment - for those of us from the Lightning Bolt era, Shock sure is a crappy card.

From what I gather you can't "construct" a deck, you can only modify existing ones (by swapping up to 17 cards).

 

[BoberFett]

MTG sounds like it's too gimped to bother with.