Arcade Marathon - Mini Reviews

Anyone that knows me, knows that I buy way too many XBLA games and never play them....retail games too. I decided to spend a week or two cleaning up a few titles I've bought. Here is the result of this arcade clean up session. I also picked up Dreamweaver CS3 because I am tired of the piss poor editor interface on blogspot/blogger or whatever they are called this week. So expect a bit more professional looking layout in my blog posts. And remember to visit www.x360a.org and www.xbox.com....it's where I thieve 99% of my images from.

Arcade Completion #37 - Altered Beast

Estimated Time For 200/200 - 1 hour Difficulty - 2/10 Achievement Rating - 7/10

Altered Beast is one of those titles that people fondly remember but it just doesn't hold up over time. This title has been released quite a few times over the years in various Retro Game collections and online game offerings. People still have not learned their lesson that this is a horrible game now. It has one thing going for it on XBLA, easy achievements and it is quick. I don't care how bad a game is if it meets those two criteria as evidenced by my played games list. The hardest achievement in the bunch is to reach the 3rd level without dying....but even that is easy with the save anywhere feature built into the emulator that runs the game.

Untouchable 25 Reach the third level without losing a life.

Rating -

1 Fro out of 5

Arcade Completion #38 - Sam & Max Save The World

Estimated Time For 200/200 - 5 hours Difficulty - 2/10 Achievement Rating - 9/10

What can I say about Sam & Max? If you like adventure games... or you can tolerate them for the story and dialog, then Sam & Max Save The World is a real treat. It plays like your typical point and click adventure game. The enjoyment of this game comes from dialog and the characters. Save The World is Season 1 of the episodic releases on PC and it is ported well as a whole package deal on XBLA. All of the achievements are easy and creative. My favorite is Master Whacker for the name. Though asking people to rub my unicorn in the last episode for another achievement was too damn funny. This is the type of game we should be getting on XBLA, as it is a welcome break from the longer retail games. Good news is that we can expect Season 2 to come soon and I hear it's even funnier than Save The World.

Master Whacker 10 In Episode 3, get a perfect score on Whack-Da-Ratz.

Rating -

5 Fros out of 5

Arcade Completion #39 - Comix Zone

Estimated Time For 200/200 - 2 hours Difficulty - 3/10 Achievement Rating - 6/10

Comix Zone was an innovative Beat-Em Up released on the Sega Genesis. It oozed and showcased style not seen in video games at the time. The whole game takes place literally in the pages of a comic book. Having said that, it was an extremely hard game at the time. Luckily the save anywhere feature of the emulation makes this a quick and easy 200. I just picked a random achievement from the game to showcase. Not much else to say because besides the style, it was a typical beat-em up from that time.

3rd Grade 15 Use a paper airplane.

Rating -

3 Fros out of 5

Arcade Completion #40 - Family Game Night

Estimated Time For 1400/1400 - 10 hours Difficulty - 2/10 Achievement Rating - 5/10

Family Game Night is probably the biggest rip off that has ever happened on Xbox Live Marketplace....and that includes horse armor. Actually I might go as far as to it's the biggest rip if digital distribution history. Family Game Night is a 20 dollar Wii game....NEW. To get the full FGN experience, you will have to shell out 70 bucks in microsoft points. That being said, each game is relitively easy and a few gems are actually fun to play. The best game would have to be Yahtzee and the worst being a tie between Connect 4 and Sorry Sliders.

Enough Already! 10 Shook the Boggle box for longer than 10 seconds

Rating -

1 Fro out of 5

Arcade Completion #41 - Gunstar Heroes

Estimated Time For 200/200 - 2 hours Difficulty - 3/10 Achievement Rating - 5/10

Gunstar Heroes is a unique Contra clone. It has simple yet fun gameplay and a great co-op mode. The achievements are relitively easy outside of the Crab Attack achievement which can be a tad random. The gameplay still holds up over time basically due to the simplicity of the genre. It is definitely worth 5 bucks.

Crab Attack 10 Defeat Crab Force in the Underground Mine.

Rating -

3 Fros out of 5

Arcade Completion #42 - Worms

Estimated Time For 200/200 - 2 hours Difficulty - 3/10 Achievement Rating - 5/10

Don't tell Rand Al Thor...but I don't hate this game. I spent months saying I hate worms whenever it was mentioned in parties. After trying this game, I found out that I hate Worms 3d, not Worms. That being said... I didn't find this to be a good game. Completing all challenges in Single Player Deathmatch was annoying and lacked variety/strategy. That being said, the 2nd game Worms Armageddon is a tons better and the next arcade post should contain my opinions on that.

Challenges 15 Complete all twenty single player deathmatch challenges.

Rating -

2 Fros out of 5

Arcade Completion #43 - Sonic 3

Estimated Time For 200/200 - 2 hours Difficulty - 3/10 Achievement Rating - 7/10

I enjoyed the Sega Genesis Sonic titles and actually beat the 1st and 2nd one 20+ times each over a couple summers. I never got around to actually beating Sonic 3 or Sonic & Knuckles back in the day. So I really enjoyed the chance to knock out Sonic 3. I have to say that while it was a good game, the first is still the best. I think the points achievement is the most rediculously easy achievement in any of the Sega Games. There are 3 of them and I had them all unlocked before I finished the first level....yes the first level. Just perfecting the first bonus area nets you 50k points. I think they could have put more entertaining achievements in or at least raised the number. But you won't hear Fro bitch too long about easy achievements.

Points III 25 Score 80,000 points.

Rating -

3 Fros out of 5

Arcade Completion #44 - Pirates Vs Ninja Dodgeball

Estimated Time For 200/200 - 4 hours Difficulty - 4/10 Achievement Rating - 4/10

I HATE THIS GAME!

Reboot 25 Beat Robots Story Mode.

Rating -

1 Fro out of 5