I don't even know if "there's a place for these games", honestly. I welcome a "Hardcore" or "Insane" difficulty on almost any game, and I'm fine with rewarding Achievements accordingly, but to limit the accessablility of a new shooter to only the very good and very patient is, I think, kind of cutting off your nose to spite your face. Seriously, why not make a lower skill level with continues? I passed on the Xbox's Ninja Gaiden because it was just too hard for me. I like to relax and enjoy a game, have a little challenge, but I don't need to be constantly reminded that I suck. I already know that!

Of course there's a place for those games. Not every game needs to cater to the overly mainstream gamers who have been coddled into the "win button" mentality. Just because Checkers is more accessible doesn't mean Chess shouldn't exist.

Hey, I'm all for chess. I just don't think every match needs to be played in one sitting and against Big Blue.

Obviously there is a middle ground between "no continues, no checkpoints, no saves" and "win button". Yes, it's true, there are shades of gray out there!

fixed.

Yeah, that's a horrible analogy.

I don't understand why a game has to be one thing or another and not both. For example, they could throw in a continue option, or a level-select for those that don't have the time to devote to being perfect at the game. And those that are more hard-core can choose to ignore those options and start the game over instead of continuing. If they have no self-control to do this, then that's their own personal issue that the rest of us shouldn't have to deal with.

Or just make it all options in the option menu: number of continues (with zero being an option), checkpoints on or off, etc.

However, I do think there is a place for extremely challenging games, especially in genres like shmups where it's considered an integral part of the genre. What bugs me is when people assume that anyone who doesn't care for that level of challenge only wants easy games. That's just silly.

Or when you want a sensible save system because you can't play for 15 hours straight, and are accused of demanding an "I win" button.

I played the demo to Roogoo and I really liked it. It's got that soothing quality of Peggle or that Crayon game. This will be the first Arcade game I've bought in ages.

I played the demo for the game with no "win button" (love that trademarked contempt), and I had a tough time telling the difference between the backgrounds and the enemies. Did anyone else have similar issues, or is this just because I'm playing on a standard def tv? Either way, I didn't like it too hot. It felt a lot like the Gummi Ship levels in Kingdom Hearts, and I've never been a big fan of these kinds of shooters (save for Star Fox).

The new two games made it easy for me not to spend points this week

What does that mean? That you don't like them? And what does that mean, considering you deemed both "Wits & Wagers" and "Geon:Emotions" worthy of a purchase?

Yep, I didn't like both of them this week, and yep, I did like Geon and W&W... now if only people would be logged in to play W&W with opponents other than the PC, that would be even better.

Eh, to each his own. I really like Roogoo. It's just different enough from the standard falling block puzzle game to be interesting. For example, you can speed the rate of fall of blocks in Tetris or Lumines, but the only reason to do so is to hurry the game along. In Roogoo, it's essential to increase to speed of the blocks to unblock the hole or else you'll lose pieces. Of course, by increasing the rate of fall, you're more likely to misalign shapes and therefore lose pieces anyway. To me that's what makes the game interesting and surprisingly challenging, at least so far. The story, on the other hand, makes Katamari Damacy look like Mass Effect.

Aces looks pretty nice. It's a fine space shooter, but it reminds me too much of my least favorite parts of R&C Future. I'll pass for now, but it is a nice game. Too bad about the no continues.

And while I'm talking about puzzle games, I wanted to briefly mention Switchball. Flay didn't like it in his review, but I really do. I think it's challenging and very clever in its presentation. The puzzles are all fairly easily solvable but they do take some thinking and sometimes trial & error. It also looks great for an XBLA game. I know most prefer that other marble game, but for me the physics puzzles in Swithcball are far more interesting.

Commando 3: Wolf of the Battlefield (incl SSFIIT-HD Beta) next Wednesday, June 11th for 800 points!

Can't wait to check this out.

IGN doesn't rate it too highly,
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/879/879373p1.html
but I'm still looking forward to checking it out also.

It's by Backbone, expect the utmost of mediocrity.

But if it even comes close to Commando or ikari warriors, I'll be all over this like Martin5 to a...ah crap, I've got nothing.

Damn. Guess that goes a long way to explain the beta bundle.

Every XBLA game I get excited for seems to fall short. I need to start hating Castle Crashers now...

Tried the demos yesterday...Roogoo was decent, but it did seem a little too simplistic, and I didn't like that the rotation was controlled by the bumpers. I didn't even check to see if you could modify the controls since I just wasn't that impressed by the gameplay. If they cut the price later on, I might pick it up, but for now I think I'll pass.

The space game was just incredibly generic. Impressive audio and visuals for an XBLA game, which is nice, but there was no imagination put into the story, the level design, or the enemies. Just kinda blah all around.

Agreed. Switchball is excellent and I think it's been unfairly overlooked.

Commando 3 actually releases on PSN today in exchange for not having a SSFIITHDR beta.

SSFIITHDR is the worst acronym for any game ever. Let's make sure we use SSFIITHDRXBLA to note when we're talking about the game on Microsoft's platform.

I was playing Scrabble on my son's DS, and wondered why there isn't a XBL version. Seems like it would be pretty popular (ala Uno)

It seems like I read somewhere that Scrabble was in the works. If that's the case, it's definitely something I'd be all over.

How? Where? WANT.