120°

LIVEapalooza: Xbox LIVE Arcade Release Dates & Summer Deals Revealed

If you didn’t have the chance to sing along to your favourite bands at summer festivals, Xbox LIVE has you covered with ‘LIVEapalooza’. From July 6th through July 12th, start a dance party on Xbox LIVE where you, your Avatar and your friends from around the globe can rally for a limited time sale on top music game add-ons. Albums, track packs and songs for Rock Band, Guitar Hero 5, Band Hero and Lips will all be available at a discounted price. From Green Day to The Rolling Stones, the stage is yours.

Read Full Story >>
electronictheatre.co.uk
RIPSKATEDESTROY5043d ago

Monkey Island 2!! i dont know how many times ive burned through this and the first game! Cant wait too test the improved version!!

AAACE55043d ago

I can't get the page to load, but i'm looking forward to Breach!

knifefight5043d ago

I love me some 360, but LIVEapalooza seems to tell of desperation... :/

160°

OG Xbox Live Replacement 'Insignia' Continues To Grow With 11 New Supported Games

Online multiplayer is back for 11 more games thanks to Insignia's XBL 1.0 replacement service running on Original Xbox consoles and the Xemu emulator on PC. Multiplayer, voice chat, leaderboards, etc. have been a monthly addition for many games from Xbox's past library thank to the team at Insignia.live! The 11 new games are now playable online once again after 13+ years.

Read Full Story >>
purexbox.com
XiNatsuDragnel402d ago

Yes yes now bring x360 xbox live then we're golden for life.

Asplundh400d ago

?? Xbox 360 servers are still online, they haven't been taken down yet.

XiNatsuDragnel400d ago

Nah they will be tho look at rscs3 they have psn made in there emulator why not xenia bro?

Blashted400d ago

Service still in beta form, sign up/player counts here: https://insignia.live/

slayereddy400d ago (Edited 400d ago )

Booo!! I was hoping that was Rainbow Six: Black Arrow...Boo!! again. I thought this coming to Xbox. I don't even read it I was so excited.

130°

Rock Band Doesn't Need Plastic Instruments to Work

TheGamer Writes "Harmonix has proven plenty of times it can make Rock Band work without instruments."

Read Full Story >>
thegamer.com
Christopher480d ago

I mean, yeah, but was anyone saying otherwise? The fact is people liked the plastic instruments rather than pressing buttons on a controller. They enjoyed the simulated experience.

isarai479d ago

"Work"? No, but to be good? It's absolutely necessary. Not having the accessories is like playing a lightgun shooter with an analog stick sure it works, but one experience is completely unique and fun as hell, and other is torture trying to make do playing in a way it was never meant to be played

LucasRuinedChildhood479d ago (Edited 479d ago )

"trying to make do in a way it was never meant to be played"

I disagree. The accessories were a fun gimmick (and very marketable) but they were added AFTER the genre had been well established with games like Frequency and Amplitude (both also made by Harmonix).

The gameplay formula is different on a controller - there's a focus on switching lanes and contributing to all of the instruments.

Never played Frequency, but Amplitude and Rock Band Blitz were really good. I would love to get more of that kind of game. It's basically a different part of the genre, and stands on its own.

isarai479d ago

The insurmountable difference in popularity between Amplitude and Rock Band proves my point

LucasRuinedChildhood479d ago (Edited 479d ago )

Popularity isn't proof of quality. If it was, then Harmonix wouldn't be making music for Fortnite now. lol. Our disagreement wasn't over which one is more popular. Amplitude and Blitz just aren't "torture" to play.

Rock Band 4 and Guitar Hero Live failed to revive their sub-genre, and Rock Band 4 caused Mad Catz to have to file for bankruptcy. Doesn't mean that instrument-based music games are bad.

It does mean that there's too much overhead and risk for anyone to take a gamble on a big budget game that needs instrument accessories now though.

For the genre to thrive, for now, it needs to do so without the instrument accessories. That's just a fact, unfortunately.

VR games like Beat Sabre (a new sub-genre) and traditional music games make more sense and are more viable right now.

LucasRuinedChildhood479d ago (Edited 479d ago )

*"If quality is always proved by popularity, then Harmonix wouldn't be making music for Fortnite now."

Yi-Long479d ago

I think CHEAP plastic instruments is THE reason why the instrument-genre ‘died’.

People invested in buying the game AND the peripherals, so the guitar, the dj-set, the drum, whatever, and the experience was absolutely fantastic. Great fun, great music, etc.

But then the instruments would break. A button would stop working, or your hits wouldn’t register, and that kind of hardware failure would end in you not being able to play the game as intended, and thus you not getting the scores you deserve.

So, now you had a great game, but a broken instrument, and nobody is gonna buy a new plastic instrument every 3-6 months in order to keep playing the game.

A solution would have been to release better quality instruments (obviously), at a slightly higher price, so you could have kept the new games coming and the genre alive, but sadly, that didn’t happen.

dumahim479d ago (Edited 479d ago )

The only issue I ever had with any of the hardware was the drum pedal on the original rock band set stared to crack in half. The reason I, and other friends I know who played, lost interest is they weren't putting out new tracks that we were interested in anymore. I think earlier this year I looked through the releases for the last 2 years or so, and there was maybe 3 songs I would have bought.

slayernz479d ago

Yeah I had this happen too with my drum controller, I ended up attaching a metal strip to it which fixed it up nicely.

sinspirit479d ago

Can it work? Yes. Does it compare? No.

monkey602479d ago

Bust a Groove, Gitaroo Man and Parrapa the Rappa were such good games. Neither needed any extra peripherals

Show all comments (20)
856d ago
BrainSyphoned856d ago

Having to do a thing three times would make my list as #1

Jeriphro855d ago

What do you mean? Like doing the same task three times in a row?

BrainSyphoned855d ago (Edited 855d ago )

Ya, find three items, kill three mini bosses, go to three dungeons. Things of three is a tired video game sweet spot number.

855d ago
0hMyGandhi855d ago

For me, it's collect-a-thons. They weren't fun in Donkey Kong or Banjo and Kazooie and they still aren't fun now. Why create these wonderfully oversized, detailed worlds if you are going to just supplement gameplay with ambiguous item fetch-quests.

There are exceptions, of course, But by and large, it just shows laziness on the part of the developer.
Good article, by the way!

Jeriphro855d ago

Yeah. It is funny some of the design decisions made by developers. Another one that irks me is unskippable cutscenes, especially after you die after the cutscene and are forced to rewatch the unskippable cutscene AGAIN. I mean, who thinks that a great idea?! haha

jambola855d ago

how about not allowing cutscene skipping
that's flat out inexcusable in any game in the last 10 years

SDuck855d ago

this comments are demanding a "The 4 Horsemen of The Apocalypse of Game Design Flaws" sequel