You know what's funny about Aqua? There aren't any reviews up yet, but I bet that all the reviews' biggest criticism will be for the game's horrible voice acting -- something that if it weren't even present, nobody would miss. Nobody would be upset about reading text to get the story, but bad vocal work can be so distracting. Nathan North, whatever you get paid, it's worth it!

I'm not sure the developers knew it would be out so fast. Two weeks ago they posted the trailer saying "Summer 2010". A couple days later, today's release date was announced. They haven't made a peep since. I contacted them for codes and it's been all silence since that teaser.

I think you mean "Nolan Drake".

Ok, you got me. Nolan North. You gotta admit, it gets confusing.

IGN put their Aqua review up and it's a disappointing 5.5. I guess I should have waited for that review (or any review for that matter) before buying the game; I have no idea what my hurry was to buy it this morning. I liked the demo, but I could see how increasingly frustrating escort missions could really piss you off. Oh well, what's done is done and $8 in discounted points isn't going to kill me. I'll post more of my impressions later.

I posted more details in the 360 thread, but there's a promotion to win 800 points a week.

Text shot1, shot2 or shot3 to 74139. If your first shot misses, you can take another shot. Once you make your shot, that counts as your chance for the day.

Any recommendations here for Band of Bugs? That looks like it could be a blast for 400 pts.

Is it 400? Is that this week's DOTW? I've heard some good things about it.


This week's XBLA releases are Voodoo Dice for 800 points and DOOM 2 as well.

Yep. From Major Nelson via CAG and reddjoey:

It's a decent turn-based strategy/war game. If you like that sort of thing, I think it's worth 400 points.

I bought it for 10$ as an impulse one day when i was home sick from work. I easily got 6 hours play out of it. I don't think i have ever went back to it but 5$ seems a decent price for several hours of strategy gameplay.

Holy shit! Lazy Raiders for 400 points? That's about five months earlier than I expected to see it on sale. Hell, the avatar award costume alone is worth nearly that. Sold.
Probably Band of Bugs as well -- I'll check the demo..

I got Madballs on Steam and surprisingly it's not awful, but I did only pay $2.50 for it. Not sure it's worth a full fiver. I remember they were going to sell it for 1200 points, then the Summer of the Arcade line up was announced and suddenly the price of this game dropped. Strange that way

Nice they're putting an avatar pet on sale, but did they have to pick only one - and the ugliest and least interesting one at that?

Looks like there's a third game coming out this week as well..

Ben 10: The Rise of Hex for 800 MSP

Whole bunch of new XBLA achievement sets have posted. Coupled with the pre-E3 hush-hush of what's coming up, I think it's safe to say we'll be getting at least one of these each week. Perhaps you'd like to arrange them into your own Summer of Arcade Twenty-Oh-Ten lineup?

Earthworm Jim HD

Limbo

Risk Factions

The Secret of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge

Space Ark

For the Summer of the Arcade promotion, I'd guess we'd see five of these six:

Sonic The Hedgehog 4
Comic Jumper
Risk Factions
Puzzle Quest 2
Earthworm Jim HD
Limbo

Since Monkey Island wasn't part of the SotA promo last year, I'd doubt the sequel would be this year either.

I'm thinking we'll see Plants vs. Zombies in there, along with Dead Rising: Case Zero. I'm wondering if DRCZ will be considered more of an XBLA game with achievements or a demo. I'm guessing the former.

I think these are shoo-ins for the SoA2010

Earthworm Jim
Puzzle Quest 2
Plants vs. Zombies
Dead Rising: Case Zero
Lara Croft: Guardian of Light

I don't see any way that Comic Jumper will be ready for that. PQ2 is due 6/22 on the DS, so hopefully it's around then for XBLA too. Plants vs. Zombies would be good to see.

Monkey Island 1 was the week before SoA, right? I seem to remember mentally including it

I can't imagine a SoA scenario that doesn't include Limbo.

i thought hydrophobia was a shoo-in for SotA this year.

You're almost certainly right about Lara Croft. I'd forgotten that one.

Since Peggle wasn't part of any promotion last year and since Pants Vs Zombies is such an old game at this point, I'd be very surprised if it were part of SotA. The Dead Rising paid demo -- I'm not sure. Up until today, I hadn't even realized that it would be considered XBLA content. My hunch is that MS wouldn't feature that game so prominently since so many writers will be calling it a $10 demo for DR2. Then again, they featured a very lackluster, poorly-controlling 1200 point overhead racer for their last promotion, so who knows what the fuck they're thinking?

DR 2's Wikipedia page says that Case Zero is dated for a Wednesday, June 30th release. If that's accurate, that may be too early for the Summer of Arcade--which I think started in mid-to-late July last year. And yeah, it may not even be considered an Arcade game, anyway. Really interested to hear some more details on it.

Sega has announced that Sonic 4 has been delayed until the "latter half" of 2010, so forget what I said about it possibly being part of the SotA promotion.

July is the latter half of 2010, o ye of little faith.

Need more Monkey!

I wonder if I'll have the willpower to hold off on Doom 2 until it goes on sale for $5? I really don't *need* another casual game right now, but damn do I love it!