Category: Xbox 360 to One BC

Welp, I did it.  I finished Valkyria Revolution.  100% and all that jazz.  According to TruAchievements, I was the 50th person to do so.  Well on that site anyway, I’m sure there were others who never bother with that site.  But it’s done, and that’s that.  I did not start any new games this week, but I did go back to an old favorite, Ziggurat.  And guess what?  I finally beat all 5 floors.  After 30 freaking tries, I finally beat it.  I promptly died the next 10 tries (I was screwing around honestly)…but I made it happen.  Also got some of the other achievements too.  I’ll probably keep playing it until I reach a couple of milestones (5,000 kills, 50 deaths) and then put it down for another six months.  It’s a perfect palette cleanser.

I would love to bring you some 360 sales this week, but there isn’t any. Just Xbox One sales at this current point in time.  If I was going to recommend any Xbox One sales, I’d probably say Divinity and Dangerous Golf.  Dangerous Golf I’ve spoke of before, but it got a lot better with patches and is worth playing start to finish.  I stuck with it through all of the floating obstacles, stuck balls and graphic collision and came out loving it once it came together.  Now people who buy it can just enjoy what the game has become rather than how it got there.  Anyway, I’ll update this column once we get some 360 sales.  Enjoy your week.

F’ing Finally.  That’s all I have to say.  Fable freaking Anniversary.  This has been on my top 5 for quite sometime.  Fable II will still be my favorite when it comes to this genre, but the first one does come pretty darn close.  Speaking of Fable II, Pub Games is a nice little companion piece.  It was originally distributed with pre-orders of the game (which is where i picked it up) but is worth playing if you never messed with Fable II before.  Besides it gives you goodies that you can use in the main game (always useful).  Anyway, it’s a great day and Anniversary might just be cracked open this weekend.  Enjoy.

• Fable Anniversary $39.99 (much cheaper on disc)
• Fable II Pub Games $9.99 (I would say wait for a sale, but I don’t think it’s ever had one)

Welp, I finally got the alchemic weapons achievement in Valkyria Revolution.  All 12 freaking characters maxed out.  Now on to the two last achievements, secondary weapons maxed out and spending 300,000 at the shops.  I currently have a smidgen over 200,000 from doing all of these missions.  I figure I’m about 10-15k from getting the secondary weapons and at max, about 50k away from having enough to spend at the shops.  This game does not put you down the path towards spending a lot at the shops but I figure that to this point I’ve spent close to 50k.  And for those doing the math, yes when I get done with secondary weapons, I will not be saving the game, just letting the achievement pop and reload my previous save so I can keep my money.  No way in heck I’m grinding double the amount I need.

In a semi-BC related moment…the remasters of the first 2 Batman 360 games or what is known as Return to Arkham for the X1 and PS4 are $19.99 for a physical copy this week at Best Buy.  Amazon might price match, but no guarantee.  I have my copy reserved at one BB here.  Unlike a lot of remasters, this one is supposedly quite worth it.  Anyway, we got sales. This week we got a lot of Lego and a lot of Bioshock & Borderlands.  That pretty much sums it up.  As far as things I might be interested in, on the X1 side, I’m looking at Lego SW: Force Awakens which is $7.50 for the deluxe, $5 for the vanilla and then on 360 side, I am tempted by the Borderlands 2 Season Pass since I have the game in digital and mess with it all the time (but I’ll probably just save my money for a physical copy of the Triple Pack).  We’ll see, just maybe we’ll get some new Lego games in BC this week.  Enjoy.

Another day, another Call of Duty added to backwards compatibility.  I’m sure the Call of Duty people are happy…oh wait…this just in, they wanted Modern Warfare 2.  (This just in, I don’t care.)  And wait for it, wait for it.  We have a Tekken Tag Tournament 2 special!!  Cue the siren, Paulie.  Yes, Advanced Warfare is on sale this week at…$19.99.  $19.99??  WTF is it normally?  $49.99…*facepalm*  Alright, kill the siren Paulie.

Sonic Adventure is the more interesting of the two to me because of the DLC which consists of a DX upgrade at a mere $2.49.  The upgrade also gave 60 new levels and allowed you to play with a new character too.  That’s about as good as cheap DLC will get.  I would advise waiting for Sonic Adventure to get a sale (normally $4.99 but I have seen it for $2.49) and then grab that and the DLC in one bite.  But that’s it for this week, we’ll see what happens in October.  Enjoy.

• Call of Duty Advanced Warfare $19.99 ($49.99 normally) (disc is much cheaper than either)
  • Call of Duty: Season Pass $49.99 (comes with Havoc, Ascendance, Supremacy, and Reckoning)  (wait for a sale)
• Sonic Adventure $4.99
  • Sonic Adventure: DX Upgrade $2.49

Well, I had a feeling this would be announced this week, but it comes across as a minor disappointment. Gone Home is a good and easy freebie as far as that goes.  And I’ll download Rayman 3 (because it’s a game I like playing but would never pay for)…but that’s about it.  Medal of Honor games put me to sleep (much like Call of Duty) and Turing Test or Portal like games give me actual physical headaches.  No, I mean really.  They last 2 or 3 hours, no thank you.  A 3 hour real headache is not worth an easy completion.  Enjoy.

Xbox One

• Gone Home (October 1st-31st)
• The Turing Test (October 16th – November 15th)

Xbox 360

• Rayman 3 HD (October 1st-15th)
• Medal of Honor: Airborne (October 16th-31st)

Still grinding away on Valkyria Revolution.  At some point, you would think I be bored of it.  And you are right, the boredom is setting in.  I am however 7 of 12 (with two pretty close) done with the upgrading of everybody’s skill trees.  It also helps I have now made a pouch that gives me 25% more drops.  Though in all honesty, that 25% works out to more like 50% or more from what I’ve ran so far with and without it.  So, I should be able to finish that with any luck by next week.

Anyway, we have sales. This is a pretty good week and there are some interesting things to talk about even if you don’t like Call of Duty (those suckers are all over this thing) or Cabela’s.  In the non-BC department we have Deadfall Adventures and Painkiller Hell & Damnation both at 90% off which are giveaway levels.  But the question there would be…are either of these going to be made BC?  I’d venture to say probably not.  So only get them if you intend on playing on the 360.  Welp, have at it.  Remember we only have a couple of more days with the Indie Games.   You can read my article here if you need the info or advice on games to get.  Enjoy.

Well, if you like Halo this is certainly the day for you. Basically, this is a big middle finger to the Master Chief Collection in my opinion (which I bought on digital for less than $10 and never played it).  To be frankly honest with you, some of my most memorable moments online were with Halo 3 (and I ran through the story campaign with a friend as well).  But I think I sold my steelbook a while back, I’ll have to check.  The CE: Anniversary looks probably the most enticing to me due to the old school feel.  I might even spring for the disc which should be around $10-$15 from what I’m seeing.  Last, don’t forget all of the FREE DLC for these games.  This was announced a while back, but many of you might have forgotten about it.  Enjoy!

• Halo 3 $19.99
  • Legendary Map Pack – FREE
  • Mythic Map Pack – FREE
  • Mythic Map Pack 2 – FREE
• Halo 3 ODST $14.99
• Halo 4 $19.99
  • Halo 4 War Games Map Pass (includes Majestic, Castle & Crimson Map Packs) – FREE
  • Halo 4 Champions Bundle (includes Bullseye pack) – FREE
• Halo CE Anniversary (disc only; should run you about $10-$15)

Welp, I did finally get the achievement in Valkyria Revolution for “S” Ranking all my missions.  Chapters 7 and 8 proved to be the most problematic.  The rest of the achievements at this point are now grinding.  No skill, no luck, just simple repeated tasks.  Problem is, it is a lot of grinding and while it took me probably 2-3 months of beating the game, it will probably take me another couple of months of grinding to 100%.  This is going to turn into another Diablo III where I slow grind for months while I play something else….hopefully I finish by the end of the year.

Anyway, we have a few sales this week. For the X1, I’m looking at Dex.  50% is usually enough for me and the story setting (very cyberpunk) always interests me.  On the 360 BC side, we have a ton of Battlefield stuff to compliment the fact that Battlefield is a Games with Gold title.  So enjoy, and maybe I’ll be back later with a few new BC games.  One can hope.

While I wouldn’t call this a Backwards Compatible thing (though the argument can be made that a good handful of these should be made backwards compatible), I certainly think its worthwhile to spend a post talking about these.

Here is the post from TrueAchievements:

https://www.trueachievements.com/n29764/xbox-bids-farewell-to-the-360s-indie-game-program

Basically, after the day is done on September 28th, we will no longer be able to buy a 360 indie game.  Whatever money was made will be distributed to the developers and that’s that.  Here is a list of all current Xbox 360 Indie Games to date, a whopping 3,404 games.

https://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Games/XboxIndieGames

You can also look at these through the Xbox 360 console under Indie Games which might or might not be easier depending on how you are.  If you just want a quick leaderboard list, then hit this link for a top 40 and assorted discussion.

It also looks like some of these will make the jump with various platforms such as Monogame to facilitate this process.  Also, from looking at many of the games last night, I can tell you there are several of these that have already made the jump with hopefully more to come.  I will also take to heart, Microsoft’s statement that says they will conserve much of this content as they should.

However, there is some very valid reasoning to argue that if you want a few of these games and don’t want to rely on conservation efforts, get them now or at least in the next two weeks.  Remember, any purchased games will always be in your digital history to download in the future.  After the -more-, I will list some of my personal choices.  Links are also added along with the US price.  Feel free to comment on your own personal choices or to provide further information on this effort. Enjoy.

Continue reading “PSA: 360 Indie Game Program (XBLIG) to be “Delisted” on September 29th, 2017″ →

Wow, count em out folks, SIX GAMES.  And a couple of them are actually decent at that.  Saints Row the Third has been coming for a while but honestly since IV was on BC a year and a half ago, I kinda forgot about it.  I nearly sold my copy of it as well (I have the Full Package edition).  Monopoly Deal is only $4.99 and I could probably be talked into it as it’s easy to beat and has a full 1,000 gamerscore which is rare for a 360 digital only title.  I might even have fun doing it.  There is also Super Contra which if you own Konami Classics Vol 1 (which also has Castlevania: SOTN and Frogger) you already have.  Even if you don’t, it’s only $4.99 by itself digitally.  Good, good selection this week.

Tweet 1 – Undertow, Monopoly Deal, Virtual-On (JP)

Tweet 2 – Slender: The Arrival, Super Contra & Saints Row the Third

• Cyber Troopers: Virtual – On (JP Only) ¥1,029
• Monopoly Deal $4.99 (there is an Xbox one port as well for the same price)
• Saints Row: The Third $14.99 (also available on disc cheaper)  (If you can find it for a reasonable price (~$20), it is further recommended that you pick up “The Full Package” edition which has all of the DLC)
  • DLC w/Achievements: Trouble with Clones $6.99
  • DLC w/Achievements: Gangstas in Space $6.99
  • DLC w/Achievements: Genkibowl VII $6.99
• Slender: The Arrival $9.99
• Super Contra $4.99 (Also available on Konami Classics Volume 1)
• Undertow $9.99