Ready Up

Arcade games – the wallet assassin

With both PSN and XBLA titles showing no signs of slowing down and titles getting more and more complex it’s no wonder that an increasing amount of gamers are starting to put some hard earned money towards this area of gaming. And why not? Many arcade games give you more hours play than some retail titles and surely that makes them a bargain? Even with the increase in price on certain XBLA titles this still means at least an equal amount of gaming for your money, with the set back being the lack of a physical item to trade in IMHO.

I love you, even though you're high maintenance. Zoey + XBLA 4Ever!
I love you, even though you're high maintenance. Zoey + XBLA 4Ever!

But what if you’ve been there from the start? What if, since XBLA titles were launched you’ve been there slowly gathering them. Just one a month, maybe two if there’s a good run, can soon add up to shocking proportions. I almost died of shock when for purposes of this blog I counted up my XBLA titles – total count to date is 51 full games. Let’s average those out at 800 points a time and you’re looking at upwards of £325 that I’ve spent on XBLA titles alone in the last 3 and a bit years since I joined Live. Scary.

So is this revelation going to stop me buying arcade titles? Not a chance. I’m a bit more careful and frugal on my Microsoft spending these days but there’ll still be plenty of arcade titles winging their way onto my console I’m sure, especially with so many episodic games being released. They’re just the perfect filler whilst I’m staring at the calendar waiting for the influx of good retail titles to hit again. Plus, I do have an excuse – you guys need reviews, right? Yeah, that’s why I play arcade games…honest!

With such a variety of titles, how can I say no?!
With such a variety of titles, how can I say no?!

Posted

in

,

by

Zoey

Tags:

Comments

5 responses to “Arcade games – the wallet assassin”

  1. Ben avatar
    Ben

    I’ve managed to stay clear of the XBLA so far, the odd game but nothing to drastic. Problem I have though is that I know as soon as I start I’ll get sucked in, and that’ll be it.

    I’m so tempted to get Trials, even though I know it’s the sort of game that will eventually cost me a new controller as mine will get thrown against the wall and explode into a thousand tiny plastic shards.

    Sooner rather than later I imagine I’ll crack.

  2. MarkuzR avatar
    MarkuzR

    I have to say that I find a lot of the XBLA releases to be more worthwhile than a lot of the addon DLC that’s being released by the larger studios.

    To date, my DLC has consisted of the full set of Oblivion downloads (including the pointless horse armour), full set of Fable 2 downloads (although I’ve still not played the last one), full set of Burnout Paradise downloads and the full set of Fallout 3 downloads.

    I have no idea how many hours each of these will notch up in total, although I think it’s fair to say that only the Big Surf Island pack for BP has been used to the extent that a full game would. The others have been fun to play, or have added some decent playable value to the main games, but none of them have really made me sit up and think “now THIS was worth every single point spent”.

    I’ve not bought many of the XBLA releases to date, but I have to say that the 1200 points I spent on Trials HD… which I thought was a hell of a lot at the time… has been worth every single penny, and then some. I’ve put more hours into that game than I care to ponder, and spent over three hours yesterday creating a single custom track… three hours!! Wasn’t bored for a second… and then spent another 3-4 hours trying to get a Gold medal on it.

    It’s made me wonder what other nuggets are out there waiting to be enjoyed 😀

  3. Duncan avatar
    Duncan

    I love XBLA – somehow that Microsoft moon-money makes it seem more tempting than the PSN credit card situation.

    Though aside from Fallout 3, I don’t think I’ve ever been too excited for DLC of games… I don’t know why.

    I think my current stock pile of 9,000 or so MSP will all be headed to some more Arcade games. ;P

  4. Van-Fu avatar
    Van-Fu

    MarkuzR, I am just samping your custom track. Which one is it? FumbleRunner? Or FumbleRunner 2?

  5. mrcuddleswick avatar
    mrcuddleswick

    You’re right Zoey, they’re just so tempting.

    Case in point – Monkey Island is £2.39 on iPhone right now……but I still might go for the XBLA version at £6.80 just for achievements. Bah!

Leave a Reply