Liver&Onions

Or they are just getting there for the first time.

shumway

Of course, the fact that you freely admit it is probably the best part.

I know, thanks to HIMYM, that the 80s were at least 10 years late in Canada. Wondering if there are other things linking the two.

pinata242

Maybe it's possible when I lived through the 80s the first time, it was solely through movies and TV. Perhaps I never left the house... Curious.

Liver&Onions

Depends on which part of Canada. I think they're just getting to Saskatchewan now as well.

Jeremy517

I'll admit that I turned voice off in Ms Splosion Man. I might turn music off also. With the backgrounds being so busy, the constant babbling, and the music, it was a bit of sensory overload. The levels are top-notch, but the presentation got to be too much of a good thing.

MoviePage

Does anyone else have trouble seeing Ms. Splosion Man? I'm finding that to be the case pretty frequently, especially on the more zoomed-out sections. I think it has something to do with the pink color, and the fact that there's a very large pink reflection around her whenever she's standing in front of a background, and maybe because the screen is also so busy, but I've died a lot of times from simply losing track of the character on the screen. Maybe I'm just getting old.

superfro

No it's not just you..I lose track of her all the time too.

pinata242

I haven't noticed that just yet, but I'm only half-way through World 2. The secret exit out of 2-6 was totes Super Mario Bros. warpzone. And the rocket cars remind me a lot of Battletoads.

MoviePage

Spoiler!! I'm not that far yet.


(Note: I don't actually care about the spoiler.)

pinata242

Which part? The map indicates which levels have secret exits. And the SMB style is really just an homage and likely one some people would disagree with.

pinata242

Made a trip down to Austin this weekend to crash the Twisted Pixel launch party for Ms. Splosion Man. A very small event at Austin Books & Comics. It was cool to get to chat with some of the dudes there as well as Chainsaw. Got to check out the Gunstringer demo as well (no PFX2 table )

It was interesting to pick their brains about design and choices. One of the things I found most funny was when Mike Henry said that the fact people are finding the game so hard shows they failed one of their core design tenants for MSM. They hoped the branching paths to harder and secret levels would make it easier to just stick to a path that was easier. I don't know if they mean easier than the first game or just the easiest MSM can be, but they didn't seem too shaken by it.

Did hear they're about to start on two more new projects once they get back into the office. Presumably only one until Gunstringer is done.

Decker

Interesting. I can't comment on the difficulty of Ms Splosion Man since I've only played the demo so far, but I'm curious if they talked about Comic Jumper at all. As far as Ms Splosion Man goes, you can only do so much with the difficulty of a platformer, but Comic Jumper was way too hard and could have easily been made easier with a lower difficulty with less bullet-sponge enemies and more frequent checkpoints. I wonder why they never gave us a less-impossible difficulty.

What did you think of the Gunstringer demo?

Jeremy517

Ms Splosion Man difficulty seems just about right to me. The levels are longer and a bit harder than the original, but when you're playing on normal, there are plenty of checkpoints, and you only ever have to pass a section once. The shoes are much harder to find than the cakes were, and hardcore mode will be harder than in the original, so good players will still be challenged, without making things too hard for casual players.

Matt

From CAG:

Trials HD/Limbo/'Splosion Man Triple Pack disc on sale for $9.99 at Best Buy

Link

The website's backordered but they're available at the local stores--at least they are in my area.

The pack also comes with a 48 hour Gold subscription and 160 MSP.

Wick

I put quite a bit of time into Warhammer 40K: Kill Team this week. It's impressive. Really fun game. Surprised me, to be honest.

If you like mindless twin-stick shooters, it's worth checking out.

Boulder Dash XL is also pretty good.

Passed on Ms. 'Splosion Man, as it's not for me. Didn't enjoy the beta or the trial of the first game.

Kedrix

Barely available in my area, but it is still out there...so thank you, thank you very much .

Schloob1

Sweet deal, getting shipped to store. Did not have either Trials or Limbo so essentially getting 2 1200 point games for 400 points each plus the other extra points. Thx for posting.

Liver&Onions

Wish it was some older Incubus tunes, but whatever. Might grab Megalomanic.

Shagrath

Wrong thread, dude.

Decker

Um, if I may steer this XBLA thread back towards XBLA.....

If form holds to last year's Summer of the Arcade, we should start seeing some early reviews of the first SotA title, in this case Bastion coming out today. None are up yet, and checking their gamercards, it seems that our regulars didn't get an early review copy to try.

Liver&Onions

oops.

pinata242

Sorry, I meant to talk about this earlier but I haven't had much time to sit in front of my computer since Saturday night.

It was exactly what you thought it would be. While the environment there and all the bodies crowded around wasn't very conducive to Kinect playing, it still worked admirably well.

They had three sections you could choose to play and I just went with the prologue which ended with the wavy-tube man. It was simple and intuitive getting through the little level. When I got to the boss, it seemed obvious what to do but I think maybe the "lock-on" mechanism was turned off because I couldn't do what I was doing the whole way through the demo to that point. Eventually I killed the guy and I'm not 100% sure how at the end, but maybe with a proper chance to read/listen to the tutorial it would have been more apparent.

Once I did that, I stepped aside and let someone else play.

At the end of my experience I am neither more or less inclined to buy it. It was what I expected and that was enough for me.

Michael Corvin

I'm sure it would be an easier decision if it were still an XBLA game.

pinata242

That's a very good point. Though they did say that decision was Steve Ballmer's. He wanted it in the retail space. I didn't get into stuff like asking if they were "expanding" it from a $15 to a $50 game.

One guy asked them how long it was (and I quipped "Oh, the old 'dollars per hour' argument"). A couple of the guys agreed it was about 8-10 hours.

Mok

Bastion Reviews so far.

1up: A-

Destructoid: 6.5

Shacknews: no score "The overall experience Bastion provides is incredibly polished in both its presentation and the fluid, fast-paced combat. After playing through the game once, I'm already well on my way through a New Game+, and still enjoying every minute. If you're looking for a very fun, fantastically-presented action-RPG with a great story, a trip to the Bastion is well worth taking."

Joystiq: 4 Stars