Free Arcade Game Revealed

The free XBOX Live Arcade game promised by Microsoft as compensation for the downtime has been announced. Undertow (normally 800 Microsoft Points) will be available to download from Wednesday 23rd January 2008 till Sunday 28th January 2008 for free.

Continued at the source.

[Dudeson42]

I'm actually reasonably pleased with this. I don't use Live all that much so I guess it wasn't a huge inconvenience for me, and a free game is pretty cool. I was worried they were going to give away Tron or something, at least Undertow looks like a decent game.

[Mr Murda]

I agree, normally 800 points ($10) and it's a new game, and not some rehashed arcade classic. This is better than what I expected, so I'll happily download it free of charge. In all fairness, I think this is a good compensation for lost time on LIVE for those few weeks. People were wanting free year subscriptions and 2000 MS Points, and that simply was not going to happen nor was it even owed to us for the inconvenience. This is fair.

[Johnny Blaze]

Major Nelson has commented on his site:

"If you have already purchased the game, you can contact support and they will take care of you."

Just so you don't go crazy for nothing....

[Close_Second]

...a half decent game. I felt a little ripped off that I paid $14 NZD for it as its not as good as I was hoping. The graphics are certainly very smart but I was hoping for a 3d, sideways scrolling shoot-em-up and not a game based on a headquarters multiplayer game.

I think MS should have given everyone 800 points so they could decide how to use them how they wanted. I find it really unfair that if you already own the game you now have to chase up with MS for another deal.

Oh well, never mind as I sold up my 360 in favor of the PS3 this week. On-line console gaming has never been better...or less expensive.

[InMyOpinion]

You could have downloaded the free trial demo before you bought it. If you had ever owned a 360 you would have known that. Stop trolling.

[Close_Second]

...as you can see I still have my 360 avatar displayed in my profile. I downloaded the demo and was not 100% happy about it. However, my two boys thought it was pretty cool so I purchased the full game. Still does not change the fact that I thought it could have been better.

I am annoyed that you consider it trolling when I owned a 360 for over a year and was an avid on-line Xbox Live gamer. However, we have had connection issues for some time in New Zealand and I was sick of paying near $13 a month for the service.

[ben hates you]

you pay 13 dollars a month i pay like a dollar a month???

[InMyOpinion]

$13 NZD or $13 USD?

[Close_Second]

...VISA charges it cam to about $13 NZD per month. A real rip off considering you can get 12 month memberships for $80 NZD. Problem was, I paid for one month Xbox Live using the VISA and MS automatically kept rolling it over without my OK. However, I just got use to paying by VISA.

All I can say is never pay month by month!

[Carbon]

Gay, I won't even waste my time thanks for nothing MS.

[Syko]

I love how people b!tch about free $hit. If you want more than this Kelkoski go join the $5 million dollar lawsuit. That would probably make you happy, and also show the true depth of your douchebaggery. Now would you kindly not download the game and move on.

[Syko]

Ahhh, Why do I bother with you asshats anyway? So one month of LIVE at it's most expensive (Month-to-Month Membership) is $7.99. While the yearly membership is $4.16 a month. This game is worth $10, Yeah it sucked LIVE was down but I am not an unrealistic prick that can't understand that $hit happens and life sucks. DEAL WITH IT.

Best part of all is if you read the Xbox LIVE TOS, They don't owe us a god damn thing. Of course I wouldn't expect you to worry your sweet little brain with all that info. Something for FREE when they could of told us to suck it up, is fine in my book. If it happened all the time I would be really pissed. At that point I might stop "swallowing MS cum" as you so eloquently put it.

So by your same logic since you don't pay for PSN and it goes away for 3 or 4 months with no access at all you have no recourse because you pay nothing for the service. Just use some logic dude it will serve you well in the future.

Well that's 2 trolls fed, Anyone else hungry?

[urban bohemian]

He probably doesn't even have a 360.

[wageslave]

Dont worry, Undertow wont play on your PS3 anyway.

[Feihc Retsam]

Seriously, Syko just served up a nice facial on the turds above...

I have to say, Microsoft is doing OK with this compensation, but ultimately, I would have been happier with 500 MS points instead of limiting the selection to one game...

Yeah, it's probably a great arcade title, but I prefer to spend my points for DLC and other content...

[christopher6453]

Yea, RRoD allright...Whatever, I've had my XBox 360 since DAY ONE, and still running perfectly.

[EastCoastSB]

Yea, I'm sure you and the other 5 people feel special.

[Lex Luthor]

ROFL, bubbles for Syko.
Why are sony fanboys in this thread anyway?

[gta_cb]

i bet he feels as though the RRoD is a bit overhyped by all of the Sonyfanboys, not saying its not a problem but they have nothing else to speak of so they concentrate on this and this only. i have had my Xbox 360 since Oct 06 so it is the old motherboard design and i have had no problem what so ever, oh but dont worry IF i have a problem with it like the RRoD i will say about it, so dont start calling me an Xbot either.

[Mwaan]

I have a launch day 360. Never had a problem. The secret is letting it breathe. I'm satisfied with this news. Undertow is one of the highest rated games on XBLA.

[AngryTypingGuy]

Great post Syko. People always feel like they're entitled to things, when they are really not. That is pretty good compensation for the time that Live was down.

[EastCoastSB]

I was just kidding around with my comment. I know the RRoD is not THAT rampant, but it is pretty widespread.

I'm not a fanboy because I have both consoles. I'm just partial to the PS3. ;)

[RadientFlux]

Nice, I wanted to try Undertow at some point.

[gta_cb]

i have only played two Arcade games, but never purchased them (free trail) so this is going to be my first :p just didnt like the way the trial arcade games stuck on your played games list :(

[rogimusprime]

yeah, it would have been nice to "try", but that's where demo's come in.
The previous posters are dead on when they say M$ should have just given us the points instead.

The poster above me had a point when he referred to M$ not owing us anyything because of the TOS. But that's garbage customer service. If you prefer to grab your ankles at every turn based on some agreement M$ paid 10 laywers to draw up that you probably didn't even read anyway, then you are the ultimate lemming consumer and don't deserve to keep a penny you earn. But at least you will stimulate our $hitty economy!

I'd be pissed if Sony's Network went down too, but since THAT is a FREE SERVICE, then they actually DON'T owe me anything.

It's not like they charge you at the end of the subscription. If I miss a week of my sports illustrated magazine, I expect to be compensated somehow....and SI would do it no problem. So should M$.

But if you want my money up front, then you have to deliver.....
just like prostitutes.

I understand $hit happens, but for the service to go down during a time of year WHEN EVERYONE ACTUALLY HAS TIME TO PLAY is pretty bad.

At the end of the day, I'm glad M$ did SOMETHING!

[shotputking]

i was already thinking about buying this game at some point... on eof the highest rated games on live arcade, much better than the frogger type game i was expecting.

[Skerj]

Damn I was hoping for Omega 5, but hell it's free and I'll just buy Omega 5.

[Dudeson42]

Omega 5 is awesome, I've been playing it non-stop for the past 3 days. It's insanely hard though, just warning you =) I still think you should download it though, it's so damn good.

[niall77]

.. just a idea

[whoelse]

They should give away a free 360!

[ChaosKnight]

They actually gave me PGR3 when my first 360 hit the RRoD... but they don't do that anymore =( Oh well, I learned not to expect anything that is over $50 for free.

[CNIVEK]

This is a brand new XBLA title, and one of the most impressive to date (still under 50mb, even though MS upped the size limit to 250mb awhile back...yet, it looks AMAZING). Considering this is free to ALL 10 million subscribers, that MORE than covers the petty $5 million lawsuit. Hell, they'll even be giving refunds to those that already bought it. One thing I'm not sure about, is how the dev will be compensated for this, if at all. Maybe MS pays a predetermined amount for completed XBLA titles, and then a royalty for units sold??

[mistertwoturbo]

Free is Free... Best price ever... Stop complaining folks

[wageslave]

No one is "complaining". The intermittent issues that happened during the holiday affected very few people -- no one I know, nor myself.

The only people who arent overjoyed with getting a free $10 Xbox LIVE Arcade game are the Playstation 3 owners.

They're just here to spread their misery as best they can...

[DrRage77]

the only reason i am disappointed with this is because i already have undertow. i think it was on my xbox360 elite harddrive when i upgraded to from the premium, because i only had the demo, then i upgraded and then i had the full version of this game after i transfered all my content from my 20gb harddrive to the 120gb harddrive

can anyone else please confirm for me if the full version of undertow comes free on the 120gb harddrive for the elite? maybe i somehow got it unlocked by accident when i transfered all my stuff from one harddrive to the other

[iceman2929]

i dont think it comes with the elite... mine didnt have it but im not sure when the game came out so maybe i bought mine before ( i still very much doubt that it would come with the xbox, otherwise it would be adverstied)

[mboojigga]

If anyone has bought the game you can contact MS for a refund.

[sak500]

Cool something new for 360 not some old rehashed turd of old arcade coinop being given. I'm glad i own a 360. Now that the service is also back up to its normal level.

[Feihc Retsam]

Nice ass

[miked808]

I hope we don't crash LIVE with all the simultaneous downloads.

[CNIVEK]

...they're giving us 5 days to download it, silly. ;)

[Draugr]

Sweet, hope this is good game.

[jmiscavish]

This won't help me next time live goes out because I won't be able to play any arcade games because of their DRM.

This also doesn't give me back the month I lost (and am still losing) since I can't sign in.

But, free is free.

[wageslave]

That is some seriously inaccurate shiat you're making up there.

[jmiscavish]

I'm on my third console. Anything I bought before hand I can't access without being signed in. I spent three weeks not being able to sign in. Therefore, I couldn't play my arcade games.

Let's just add undertow to the list of stuff I won't be able to access. What's so inaccurate about that? It's pretty much the exact situation I've been in for awhile now.

[ReBurn]

When I got my 360 back all I had to do was download the stuff I had again and it all worked fine when I wasn't signed in to Xbox Live. It took all of 5 seconds per item.

[jmiscavish]

done that. Redownloaded several times since that seems to be the consensus solution to the problem.

It's like people think I'm lying. When I'm not signed in, I can't play. When my XBL is broke (now and the last three weeks), I can't sign in. All I'm saying is this will be one more game I won't be able to play the next time XBL breaks. I'd merely rather have my month of live back rather than the game.

[Charlie2688]

Somehow fate is wanting me to play this game, first the GS contest were I was seconds away from winning this game but I couldn't well now I can finally get it free :)

Bummer for the people that purchased it recently :(

@CNIVEK: they are?

[CNIVEK]

They'll get a $10/800 pt REFUND. ????

[jack who]

good i dont have it

[xSithx]

I wish they would have just transferred 800 points to your account. My 360 is currently awaiting the box to send it in for RROD so now I don't get the game...

[Feihc Retsam]

Pop your hard drive (or memory unit- whichever has your profile on it)
in a friend's xbox360 and download it that way..
Even if you don't download it to your hard drive, as long as it's done with your gamertag, XboxLive should remember that your account owns the full version, and you can re-download it when you get your 360 back

[GITPWNED]

Cool, uhh, I guess. No where's my free month, f*ckers.

[Lord Cheese]

well at least its a very highly rated game. rather have the points and pick my own though...

[AceLuby]

This is really the same as giving a kid candy so he'll stop crying. I'm still pissed I couldn't play Halo for 2 weeks. I should be able to DL any game I want, just give me the points.

Anyway, to the person talking about PSN being down, you wouldn't see nearly the amount of uproar. Here is an analogy I've used many times:

Say N4G goes down for two weeks, should we get compensation? No, it's free, why should we be compensated. Now say that WoW goes down for a week. Should they get compensation? They better, they paid for it. Now, what if WoW went down for a week and instead of compensating them w/ more time, money off, or a choice of compensations they said, 'Everyone gets sword xxx as compensation'. Would you not be pissed? I would, and I'm still angry about this, regardless of the 'candy' Microsoft is giving me.

[socsca]

Awesome, NOT. Don't care if its free, I'm not even downloading that crap.

[Emmo]

Undertow is a great game and most people who download it will be more than happy.

Problem is I already have it and now have to go through the hassle of contacting MS support to try to sort something out, I suggest anyone who's machine is in for repair contact support too.

PS. Omega 5 is brilliant, if you are finding it hard, the longer you play it the more continues you get. Then when you complete the game, the fun begins. New player modes are opened (which few of the reviews mention).

[KidMakeshift]

Same here.

How do you get ahold of them? Can you do it off xbox live or do you have to call/email?

[witchking]

I already picked up Undertow. So now I get what, nothing? I think I'll move up the timeframe on my PS3 purchase. Maybe that'll ensure my online service is always working... and hey, it's free!

[Emmo]

The article says to contact MS support for a refund on your points if you have already purchased the game.

[Teabag Sony]

dark sniper = poo stabber

[zonetrooper5]

Lol I did laugh at the "dark sniper = poo stabber" bit. Anyways I'll be downloading this, its 10 days away until its free as of writing this comment. Not bad, I haven't been on XBL or PSN in some time now. Playing too much CSS.

[heavyarms]

Freaking bs if you ask me. I dont want no freaking arcade game i want some points instead. This sux no other way around it, it plain sux arse.

[TrevorPhillips]

thats alright atleast usually microsoft are cheap they usually give us a free arcade game that is 400mp but now there actually giving us a good game which is 800mp finally good job microsoft for not being so cheap =]

[WilliamRLBaker]

undertow is an awesome game.

[numba1baller]

good for us 360 owners 10 bucks for free,if you dont owe a 360 plz dont make up stuff u dont know
baller

[Iron Man 2]

Better than nothing I guess,and I ment it for you guys,you know,the ones that got shafted,(YET AGAIN)luckily for me I don't own an Xbox 360 and I never will:)

[mintaro]

im actually really pleased, undertow is a really good game. i was afraid they were gonna give us some rehashed, super old game, super lame game, like zuma

[kornbeaner]

It would've been pretty sweet if MS would've had a few more games to try to please everyone, but free and by the sounds of it, the game is good.

Free + good = Happy (most people anyway)

maybe the points this game is worth would've pleased more people.

[KidMakeshift]

I already bought it. I shouldn't have to contact Xbox support for a refund. It should be automatic. Anyways, Microsoft should of just gave everyone 800 points instead, since most people don't want this game in the first place.

[Emmo]

Contact support on www.xbox.com

[Jikla]

I didn't want this arcade game, but since it's free I don't mind taking it.

[NoxiousD]

I like the demo! i am happy this will be free!!! i am so gonna download this lol

[permutated]

I'm happy as a...clam!

HAH, pun ;)

Doesn't look like Microsoft will be feeling anymore...undertow...for the live problems.

Hah, pun-again!

Someone stop me.

Please?

[TheHater]

Why couldn't they just give us a free month of xbox live instead. I don't want that game, I just want another free month of xbox live.

[OmegaKulu]

not a bad choice really. considering they really don't own u crap.

[brothersimon]

You know wut i sayin! :D

[the1ej]

this is good. LOL

[Mr Playboy]

I love free stuff

[Gazman]

better than nothing i guess

[sleepbox]

They should have given everyone a month of free XBLA gold membership.

[brothersimon]

why are people moaning?

Microsoft owe us nothing for this, yet they still give us a FREE game that looks really good

if ur that bothered go buy a ps3 waste ur money and play on a crappy online service when it goes down u cant complain then eh? :)

[UltramanJ]

Just played it for the first time. I was expecting an underwater shmup with great graphics, and I got some lame control the base points in a closed environment until your enemies run out of "tickets" game. I'd have rather just gotten 400 M$ points.

[captainpwn]

XBLA might be down again. Or, your 360 may stop working. Or, the servers will get messed up and MS will blame it on the huge rush. You know, the usual. Of course, it's granted that the game will just plain suck on top of all that.

[Skizelli]

Personally, I'm not pleased with this decision. I have not purchased Undertow myself (so good for me, I suppose), but what about the people who have? Microsoft should have just credited everyone with 800 MS points and let them choose what game they want. It's appalling to me that we're all forced to deal with Xbox Live's issues for a month or more, with no real response from Microsoft about it and what they're doing to remedy the problem, only for them to dictate what game we all get for free as compensation when many already have it in the first place. It's a slap in the face.

[JasonPC360PS3Wii]

Thanks for the free game MS, I wasn't expecting anything at all so it's a cool gift.

Where is your free game Sony PS3rd Droids? oh thats right, nevermind. I forgot Sony doesnt give you guys any games they just package the PS3s with movies instead.