Missile Command was released on the Xbox Live Arcade yesterday. The game play, for those 2 people out there not familiar with it, is just what the title says. You command some defensive towers to keep incoming missile attacks from hitting your cities. The game was originally released in 1980 by Atari. The Xbox Live Arcade version has both the original version and a version with enhanced graphics. The new graphical version looks good for a game where the screen is pretty much the same all the time. The game is pretty simple to play. You control the targeting reticle with the thumb stick and shoot with the A, X, and B buttons. As the levels progress there are more and more incoming attacks to deal with. The game is fun for about 20 minutes, but I’m not sure that anyone will play this game for hours on end. If you’re a big fan of the original this updated version plays the same but looks a lot better. For everyone else save your $5 for something better. If you are set on getting this one the achievements are mostly get to a certain level or get a specific high score. They all look like they are pretty doable.

*** Spoiler Alert ***

I watched Eragon Saturday night. I did not have much to do and my wife wanted to watch something that she could watch while doing other stuff. So, I went with Eragon.

Eragon fills just about every fantasy movie cliche they could find, but the whole thing felt rushed. In each of these following plot segments it seemed like they could have spent a little longer on developing what was going on:

Boy finds dragon egg and it hatches next day.
Boy finds mentor and they become friends.
Boy does reckless feat to help mentor and hurts dragon.
Boy does more reckless feat to save girl and mentor dies.
Boy finds friends who helps him get to allies.
Boy joins allies and leads them in battle.
Boy fights evil sorcerer and kills him.

Just like that the movie is over and when you stop to think about it you realize the whole movie was one plot point and then the next with no explanation of why Eragon would make the choices he does.

Overall, I’m disappointed in this movie. I was not expecting much more than a made for Sci-Fi Channel movie, but at least their movies don’t rush everything along. Not only was the whole movie rushed, but the end of the movie clearly points to a sequel and leaves about 1/2 the story hanging. I don’t mind movies that point to a sequel, but the main story plot of the movie should still be wrapped up. In Eragon the main plot starts off with how an evil king rules the land and how a group of “rebels” need a dragon rider to lead them in the fight against him. However, at the end of the movie the king is still alive and the lands are still under his control. The dragon rider, Eragon, does lead the rebels but they have only succeeded in destroying most of their own mountain hideout and defending themselves from the kings army. There were some cool fight scenes, but nothing truly spectacular.

The movie is not terrible. Just not good. At least he did not kiss the girl, that he just met, at the end. They must have saved that for the sequel.

So another month has come and gone. Lets take a look at how things faired on Xbox Live Arcade. For those of you who are new to my blog I grade Xbox Live Arcade on a monthly basis for three main areas. These are the release schedule, the pricing, and the number of retro games.

Release Schedule
I’m disappointed with the number of games released last month. There were four games, Pac-Man Championship Edition, Prince of Persia Classic, Band of Bugs, and Carcassonne, and seven expansions to existing games. After getting two games most weeks the last couple months it is sad to have just one game a week. I heard on Major Nelson’s podcast a few weeks back that they are open to having more than 2 games a week being released so I was hoping that would start soon, but I guess we’ll have to keep waiting for that to happen. Standard scoring of 4 out or 4 in the releases category. The expansions are nice to see but I’m not giving any extra credit for them they are not new games.

Pricing
All four titles released this month were $10 each. Band of Bugs and Carcassonne are worth the price without a doubt, but I’m not sure about the other two. Pac-Man Championship Edition was fun, but I still think it should have been a $5 title since all of the game modes are timed. I also think that all retro titles should be $5. Prince of Persia Classic is no exception. Yes, it is a very popular game but that is not a reason to charge more for it. The graphics are not any better and there were not any major changes made to the game so why charge so much for it? In the pricing section Xbox Live Arcade gets a 2 out of 4.

Retro Titles
Only one retro title this month. Nice to see 75% of the games were original titles. Well, assuming you count an update to Pac-Man as an original title. I’m going to since how the game is played has changed so much. That makes this score a 3 out of 4.

So, that gives us a total of 9 out of 12. That is another C grade with a 75%. If these last two weeks are any indication of the games to come I think we’ll have plenty of good games, but I hope they can start getting more than one game a week released again soon.

*** Spoiler Alert ***

I saw A Scanner Darkly Friday and thought I’d see if anyone else had seen it and if so what you thought of it. I rented it because I remembered the trailed looking cool with the whole thing done in an animated style. If I understood correctly they taped the whole movie normally and then converted it to look like an animated style. Personally, I thought the visual style was pretty cool. After about 20 or 30 minutes I got use to it and did not even notice it for the most part.

The movie itself is one of the more confusing movies I’ve seen in a while. It is about an undercover narcotics agent, Bob Arctor, who gets addicted to the drugs he is trying to fight. For about half an hour in the middle of the movie the plot is a little blurry, but in the end you find out that his fellow police officers get him addicted so that they can make him go through rehab. They believe that the rehab centers are the ones creating and supplying the drugs. This turns out to be true, but Bob is not in on the plan and as a result he ends up a total burnout. The “moral” of the movie comes down to “Is it worth sacrificing a police officer’s life to fight the war on drugs for everyone else?” Going into the movie I had no idea that was what it was about, but I did not think this was how it was going to be. There are some really funny parts throughout the movie as Bob is hanging out with a group of drug addicts trying to find out who their supplier is. Since they are all high most of the time it makes for some crazy conversations and plans. Like making a homemade silencer that does not work. My only complaint besides the confusing section in the middle was that they threw in a sex scene for no apparent reason. Maybe I missed how it fit into the story since I was confused for a while, but I did not see how it tied into the story and it seemed like they put it in there just to have a naked girl in the movie.

Overall, I thought the movie was ok. I’d give it one thumb up, but not two. The graphics style was interesting, but the plot was a bit confusing.

I finally got a chance to check out Carcassonne last night and I can see why people like the board game. There are so many layers of strategy. A couple of them are obvious right off the bat, but I could tell that there will be more layers of strategy to figure out once I spend more time with the game. The tutorial was really helpful in understanding how the gameplay works and it did not take that long to go through. I like that there are multiple ways of scoring. You can try to build your own areas, or you can try to build of other peoples areas and steal their points at the last minute. Sure, it will make for some unhappy friends, but there is nothing to stop them from returning the favor. I also like that the games don’t take a long time to play. Since there are only 72 tiles to play with you know when they are gone the match is over. While the graphics are nothing spectacular there are a couple things about this game I really like.

First, you can play with 4 players on the same screen. This is a great addition to a game like this, and I think more Xbox Live Arcade games should include support for multiple people on the same system. I realize in some games this would not be possible since each person has their own cards that they need to keep hidden, but since in Carcassonne you just draw a tile at the beginning of your turn so there is nothing to keep hidden from the other player. This definitely adds to the value of Carcassonne as I can play it with my friends and family even if they don’t have an Xbox 360.

Second, I like that they make it so I can only place the tile in spots where it would fit. I think learning Carcassonne form the board game would be much harder because there is nothing stopping you from trying to place a tile in an invalid location. In the Xbox Live Arcade version they have set it up so you can only place the tiles in locations where they would be a valid play.

Finally, I like the little extras they added. They have added one of the board games more popular expansions, River II, and Xbox Live Vision support. I heard on an interview that they are open to the option of making more of the board game’s expansion as DLC if the game sells well. Give the fun gameplay I think we can expect to see some expansions in the future. I really like when companies add support for the Vision Camera in their games because it is nice to be able to see my friends while I chat with them in a turn based game like this.

While the game is not for everyone since it requires you to think and it could use better graphics it is a lot of fun. If you’re into board games or strategy games this one worth the cost.

I’ve been really busy all week and have not had time to play as much as I’d have liked. If the Rainbow Six: Vegas Black Map Pack had not been pulled off the Marketplace I would have checked it out tonight, but it was so that will have to wait. Hopefully tomorrow I can check out Carcassonne and the Black Map Pack. Once I do I’ll get back to my regular posting.

If you have not figured it out by now I’m a sucker for game demos. Earlier this week the demo for Surf’s Up was released. Even though I know the game is based on a kid’s movie and is directed for children I still had to check it out. I’m glad I did because even though it is a really simple game it is fun to play and that is what I look for in a game. Sure, nice graphics or innovative game play are great, but in the end the game has to be fun. The whole game consists of “surfing” waves and doing tricks. However, since it is designed with kids on mind you don’t have to do any of the hard parts of surfing like keep your balance or wait for a good wave. You have one continuous wave to throw down all your tricks on and you stay on your board automatically unless you run into something. Even though the game is really simple I had a lot of fun playing the demo. The simplicity makes makes it a fun game to just throw in my Xbox 360 and play for a little while without having to worry about strategies of goals. Instead I can just surf as a penguin while doing some extremely unrealistic tricks and have fun.

Band of Bugs game out today and so far I’m really liking it. It is a turn based strategy game where your army consists of bugs. It reminds me of Tactics 100 which I reviewed a while back in that you want to position your bugs in the best position to attack your opponents without putting yourself into a position to be attacked.

The tutorial is a bit slow to go through, but once you’re through the tutorial the gameplay speed picks up as you get into the main story line. In addition to the main story there is also a scenario and multiplayer modes. The scenario modes are stand alone levels that give you a specific objective. Multiplayer is what you’d mostly expect where you can fight against 3 other players in elimination and king of the hill type battles. The multiplayer modes also include some mission mode and an ‘Escape’ mode that is fairly unique. In ‘Escape” you have to get your army to a certain point on the map and keep the enemy armies from getting there. In addition to these modes there is a “Spider Hunt” mode that allows for 8 player at once.

One of the best features on Band of Bugs is the included map editor. The editor can be used for single player skirmish games or over Xbox Live. I’m really excited to make some interesting maps and see how they fair over Live.

I realize this is a quick little review, but really I don’t have anything bad to say. The game is fun to play and provides some great strategic challenges without making it hard to get into. If you’re into strategy games this is one worth checking out. Even at $10 I think this game is a good value because with the map editor there is tons of replay value.

I’ve been playing Command & Conquer Tiberium Wars 3 when I don’t have a lot of friends online playing Shadowrun or Rainbow Six: Vegas for the last couple weeks and it has really started to grow on me. I’ve been playing the campaign because it will let you save any time you want and then pick up at that exact spot later. For me this is great because some of the levels in the campaign take a while and I don’t always have a lot of time to play.

So far I’ve had a lot of fun playing the campaign. I’ve been playing it on the medium difficulty and it has not been as hard as I expected. Maybe it will get more difficult in the later missions, but in the first portion of the campaign I’ve not had too much trouble beating each missions with all of the objective and bonus objectives completed. I do have some experience playing real time strategy games on the PC which helps me with build order management, but even if I did not I think I would still be doing ok.

C&C3 really seems like a great game to introduce console games to the real time strategy genre. Most avid real time strategy fans prefer to play on a PC because it is a lot easier to micro-manage everything with a keyboard and mouse . While I do agree that real time strategy games are easier on the PC I think that C&C3 has setup the controls in a way that works well for a controller. You can easily access the most common commands and building without actually clicking on them by pulling up the control menu with the right trigger. You can also easily get back to your base on the map by clicking the thumb stick down. They have added other little shortcuts that really help as well. For example holding the left Trigger and clicking A twice selects your entire army. This is great towards the end of the game when you want to rush everything in the enemy base to finish them off. They also provide shortcuts to select all the units on screen and all of the units of a specific type. So far I’ve not ran into any times while playing where I found myself wishing I could use a keyboard and mouse.

The missions run at a good pace. If you take to long to attack the enemy trying to build up a huge army they will come looking for you, but if you send your troops out to attack to early you find them overwhelmed. I find them challenging but not so hard that they are frustrating. One item in the game I’ve really grown find of is using engineer to take over enemy structures. Towards the middle of the game this saves me a lot of resources buying additional power generators and harvesters . Instead of stopping production of my army to build more power plants I just build a couple engineers. In most of the missions the the enemy will have a couple areas they control on the map. I tend to attack the smallest one first and only take out the actual troops. I then use engineers to take over the buildings. This gives me ore power and harvesting resources without the trouble of building them. I’ve found this tactic to be very effective in the GDI missions.

One other part of the game I’ve really become fond of is the cut scenes between missions. They are very cheesy, but that makes them really funny within the confines of the game. To see actors from shows I like playing these roles, being overly dramatic, is great fun.

Overall I would highly recommend Command & Conquer Tiberium Wars 3. It is a lot of fun to play and despite being a real time strategy game it plays really well with the controller. With the release of 5 more multiplayer maps today and news that more are expected C&C3 has a long play life still ahead of it.

Welcome to the Carnival of Video Game Bloggers #5. I’m honored that I was asked to host this month’s edition.

Starting things off we have some news. Sharde26’s The Slag Report brings us the Starcraft 2 Announcement. After reading about Starcraft 2 I’m pretty excited to play it.

For the Do-It-Yourself Gamer Chris Lettieri presents an Arcade Building Overview posted at Build A Home Arcade Machine. He claims that, “By reading this simple overview you will gain a good understanding of how all the parts and pieces come together to create your very own arcade cabinet.” Personally, I’m not really a Do-It-Youself kind of guy, but with these instructions I might have to give it a try.

For those of you thinking of getting a Wii because everyone keeps talking about how cool they are MC presents I don’t think I like the wii… Is there something wrong with mii? posted at Cappycom. He makes a good point. If there is not a game that really pulls you in and gets you hooked what good is it?

Joe, John, and Greg brings us a four part discussion on Video Games as Art over at Fantastic Blognanza. They point out that is is part of a series on the nature of video games as art, including a sociological angle. After reading the post I’m interested to see the other three parts.

If you’re an avid gamer you probably play whenever you can. With all of the portable gaming devices available that means one can play just about anywhere. Brian Da Silva takes a look at Console vs. Portable Gaming (Keepin’ It Real!) on his blog Real Gaming Reviews.
He brings up some great points about both types of systems.

Gianfranco Berardi looks at one of the most important aspects of a game in Stories Aren’t That Important? Well, Sorta at GBGames – Thoughts on Indie Game Development.

Keeping things in perspective, James Nicholls presents It’s Only a Game on Gaming Legends. I know a lot of Fanboys who would not agree, but this has some great points.

Finally, we’ll wrap this carnival up with a couple top ten lists.

Over at A Top Ten List Everyday to Jumpstart Your Knowledge Ybother presents Top 10 Classic Game Remakes. He says “It is the summer holidays and many people have plenty of time on their hands. Some of us are stuck with laptops and can’t play the huge blockbuster games that require hefty graphic cards. Why not try these classic open source remakes? The underlying gameplay has already been proven and the graphics are updated to a presentable and playable level. Everyone of these games listed here were best sellers of their times and many of us hold great memories of these games.” Good points.

Or, if you don’t want to try classic titles The Free Geek presents Top 10 Free Online Games of All Time at The Free Geek.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of Carnival of Video Game Bloggers using our carnival submission form.

Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.