Category: Xbox 360 to One BC

Welp, it’s Thursday and as been the trend for several weeks now, we get a few more games added to Backwards Compatibility.  Unfortunately, these are all arcade titles this time around, but still appreciated just the same.

Go! Go! Break Steady and Gripshift Tweet

Bloodforge and Mars: War Logs Tweet

A few notes:

Go!Go!Break Steady – This is a puzzle matcher game (and here I was hoping for two people enter, both breakdance fight and one leaves), goes for $9.99.  Was released in 2008, and I sincerely doubt many even have the game.  Hard achievements mostly due to the fact that you will have nobody to play with.  But hey, it’s on BC.

Gripshift – This is a decent arcade racing type game and also goes for $9.99 (it did have a sale way back in 2012).  Achievements are a little more reasonable and it even had one pack of DLC which has among other things Penguin Bowling and goes for the price of $4.38 (who comes up with these prices).

Bloodforge – This is a $14.99 hack and slash title that has had a few sales (most recently in 2013 though).  It looks fairly interesting, with a lot of blood splatter and gore.  Achievements are reasonable.  I could see myself picking it up given a sale.

Mars: War Logs – Ooooh, I’m a little ticked off on this one.  This one had a sale about three months ago!!  And I was sitting here going, that looks interesting, that looks interesting, and then I didn’t buy it because I wasn’t a huge fan of some of the gameplay videos.  It’s normally $10 (it was only $2.50 during the sale).   It was worth the darn gamble.  Achievements are difficult, but if you were smart enough to grab it three months ago, you are sitting pretty now.

I told you it was going to happen today.  Here is the tweet, hot off the presses.  To be honest, it’s kinda lackluster.  On the Xbox 360 side, Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (which I already own) and Tron Evolution are already on the BC list, so no surprises there.  On the X1 side, the choices are more interesting (I’m certain to grab Banner Saga 2 at least), but both are digital releases.  Enjoy…maybe?

Banner Saga 2  – July 1st – 31st (X1)

Tumblestone – July 16th – August 15th (X1)

Rainbow Six Vegas 2 – July 1st – 15th (X1/360)

Tron: Evolution – July 16th – 31st (X1/360)

Last week I got absorbed in PacMan 256.  Basically they took PacMan, gave him some powerups you have to grind for, missions, made into an endless runner, and poof there you go fantastic $5 dollar game.  Oh it has themes too so you don’t get easily bored of dying dozens of times.  Which you will.  Anyway, here are the sales for this week.  No official BC sales, but a great time to get the Mass Effect 2 or 3 DLC if you’re interested which I’m still certain are going to be on BC soon enough.  I am disappointed I have not seen a sale for the XCom: Enemy Unknown DLC but maybe next week.  We should also get the Games with Gold for July announcement, probably today. Alright, more later.  Enjoy kiddoes.

Holy crap, Fallout NEW VEGAS!!!  Okay, for somebody who owns the Ultimate package, that makes me very happy.

Tweets:

Fallout: New Vegas and Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara

Blood Knights, Red Faction: Battlegrounds & Joe Danger

Crystal Quest, Comic Jumper & I Am Alive

Dungeons & Dragons I own as well, and that is quite pleasing.  It’s a really good game, and has been on sale before.

Blood Knights is an ok hack and slash dungeon crawler but pricey at $15.  At least the achievements are fairly easy.  Red Faction: Battlegrounds is a little vehicle mini game ($10 price tag) and while it shares the same name is not really the same thing as the wonderful shooter series.  Joe Danger: Special Edition is a neat little platformer ($15)  with some good achievements but hasn’t seen a sale in about four years.

Crystal Quest is only $5 for this old shoot em up game (originally made in 87, ported back in 2006) but is only good for nostalgia and nothing more.  Comic Jumper is a pretty well made action game that plays a little bit like Comix Zone but a lot better.  It’s 15, but there have been sales as recently as a couple of years ago.  Finally, I am Alive, a survival horror title and most people seem to think it is well worth the $15 price tag (but there have been sales within the last couple of years too).

Lots to enjoy for anybody.  Great news and Microsoft keeping us busy.  Take care.

As you can see below me, I finished Fragments of Him last night.  It’s decent, even really good in parts, just not great.  I am moving on to Turn On, another of the six-pack I received from Major Nelson a couple of weeks ago.  We will see what happens with it.  Of course, I am still spending time with Project Spark, less than 2 months remain and I’m about level 37 and 98 achievements.  100 achievements is a certainty, level 50 not so much.  This week we have a few sales going on.  The only thing that interests me personally is Worms: Revolution which is a very small $2.49.  The only problem is that its not Backwards compatible, but I have a feeling they are about to announce it.  The same with Worms 2 (which is also on sale and was working in the preview program at one point) and probably the other two titles in the series (Worms and Worms: Ultimate Mayhem). Anyway, enjoy your week and we’ll see what BC announcements Microsoft throws our way.

Backwards Compatible DLC on sale this week (no actual games unfortunately):

• Gears of War 2 – All Fronts Collection $4.99
• Gears of War Judgment – VIP Pass $9.99

Well, it’s not a blockbuster announcement, but at least it is 5 games including 2 retails and 3 Xbox Live Arcades.  Tweets can be found here and here.  Hopefully this is a trend in the sense that we are getting more retail titles and a little less arcade titles.  Not that I want them to stop releasing the arcade titles, but a little slowdown is inevitable. Let’s see what we got here.

Left 4 Dead – should be an easy sub $10 at used markets for the retail disc (maybe $15 if you opt for the GOTY package with the DLC). (online will cost you $20 for the game only, there hasn’t been a digital sale since mid 2014).  Achievements are not a walk in the park and you can spend a fair amount of time (40-50 hours) to get everything.

Portal 2 – another one probably worth buying the retail disc (about $15 used) over the digital copy ($20, sale was only about seven months ago though).  Achievements are much easier for this one (as long as you don’t mind your head spinning around and around) and it will take about 15-20 hours to complete it.

Flashback – a remake of the 92 Sega Genesis/SNES (and a few other platforms) game, is a $10 digital game, hasn’t seen a sale since July of 2014.  Achievements are pretty difficult and if you are good a completion can be seen in about 15-20 hours.  I didn’t even know this existed (the remake) until I read the tweet, so I could see myself buying this one if it got a sale.

Babel Rising – This was a tower defense game, I would love to tell you more about it but it was delisted in early 2016.  So pretty much if you have it, GREAT!  If you don’t…move on.

Brain Challenge – our last one, is a $5 digital title and like the namesake, a true pain in the ass to complete.  It’s not even very fun supposedly.  So feel free to give it a try, but don’t come back complaining to me if you put it down after 10 minutes.

The only question I have after the first two announcements especially is where the heck is Orange Box?  My guess with 5 bundled games it is going to take sometime, but I am confident that we will eventually see it.  Enjoy kiddoes.

Welp, E3 was yesterday, and while Microsoft had what most would categorize as a great show, I wasn’t exactly on board (except for the customized controller thing, We Happy Few and Scalebound) because of the complete lack of BC announcements.  I know, focus on new, don’t mention old.  But when its something you have been pushing for months, it seems foolish to just forget about it at such a big event.  Anyway, that wasn’t even the major disappointment as Skyrim will be getting a re-mastered version rather than be made backwards compatible.  All for mod support and a little of that extra green.  That crushed me, and there was no announcement that maybe Fallout: New Vegas or Elder Scrolls: Oblivion might be made backwards compatible to make up for any of it.  So I didn’t even report that two games would be made free this week which I will detail below.

The official sale list is not out yet so it was up to me to find somebody else who was nice enough to post it.  There are only a few BC sales but it’s structured in such a way that makes me think that just maybe we will get a few announcements of BC for some of these very soon (Crysis 2,3 Kingdoms of Amalur, Skate 3).  We can only hope.  Enjoy your E3 week, kiddoes.

11:00am Edit – For those who need an official link.

Backwards Compatible Sales

SSX – $4.99

Free Games

Limbo (X1 only)

Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (360/X1)

Welp, two announcements this week, color me a little surprised since E3 is next week and I figured any announcements be saved for then.  X-Com: Enemy Within made perfect sense after Unknown came out a few weeks ago, but I knew a long time ago not to rely on things making sense and Microsoft in the same sentence :).  I kid, I kid.  Now, if we can just get the X-Com Bureau game (yes I am serious), we can have all three XCom games on BC.

Foul Play, Monopoly Plus and Sega Bass Fishing are all what I call “interesting” additions.  Foul Play was recently put back on available Xbox list about a month ago after being delisted for a while.  It only makes sense that they would go ahead and make it BC.  At $10, it will require some thought.  Monopoly Plus was a decent and quick Monopoly game that is normally a $10 game but was a $5 sale game to those who picked it up in mid-March of this year.  Sega Bass Fishing is actually a Dreamcast port, a $5 game (received a price reduction in 2013) and good fishing fun….even though I’m not sure what that term actually means if it isn’t already grilled and on a plate in front of me.

X-Com: Enemy Within is BC, I am very happy! 🙂

It’s nice to see three games released in a day (the first in a little while), but honestly I have heard of none of them. 

Aqua is a $5 Naval based shoot em up, tough achievements but for fans of the genre might be worth a quick Lincoln.

Anomaly: Warzone Earth is a $10 strategy title, achievements look reasonable, but it hasn’t had a sale in about 4 years.

Lazy Raiders is probably the most interesting of the bunch, $10 puzzler, achievements look very doable but be prepared to pay full price.

Let’s hope there are some big announcements come next week and E3.  These XBLA announcements aren’t going to hold over anybody.  Enjoy.

There is unfortunately not much to see here this week unless you are really into sports on the Xbox One.  Honestly, I might consider a purchase of NHL Legacy on the 360 but only if they made it BC in the same week.  But honestly, it’s a bad week for sales all around.  On the upside, E3 is in a week (there should be some good BC announcements) and I’m working on my review to Dangerous Golf.  If things go well, I should have it up sometime early next week.  Have a great week.