Grave Gamer News & Views — xbla

Slender Man Arriving on PSN and XBL

Watch your back, folks. Something awful is coming to PS3 and Xbox 360. Did you see what I did there? Something awf– Nevermind. I only just Googled it myself.

Sequel to the indie horror sensation, Slender: The Eight Pages, Blue Isle Studios’ Slender: The Arrival is being ported to PSN and XBL. No mere copy and paste here, though; the console edition is being packaged with two brand new chapters, pitting players as previous victims of The Slender Man (spoiler: they fucking die).

The port is being published by Midnight City, an experimental branch of Majesco Games that allows indie developers to keep their independent label while Midnight handles public relations, marketing, community management, and a whole host of other duties that cramp a micro-dev’s style.

Oh, and PC People. Rest assured that The Arrival’s extra content ain’t console exclusive – the additional chapters will be made available for the PC version once the console edition is released later this year. So everybody gets to brown their pants in unison.

Shit! Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and MvC2 are Being Pulled From PSN/XBLA

Thanks to the cruel deadline beset upon the publishing rights to these titles, two of Capcom’s licensed, fightin’ crossover hits are being pulled from Xbox Live and PSN.

Both Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and version 2.0 of its years estranged sequel, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, are being yoinked from digital distribution… very soon. The post on Capcom Unity isn’t all too clear on when exactly, but it does have dates for when the newer title’s plethora of alternate costumes is being axed. [Update: Both game are being delisted Dec. 17th on PSN; Dec. 26th on XBL.]

On PSN, Dec. 17th is the final day you can purchase DLC – which is being discounted by 50% – while downloadable doomsday arrives for the content on XBLA come Dec. 26th. Capcom says hold your breath for news on potential price drops for XBLA.

While both MvC2 and UMvC3 remain at their full $14.99 and $29.99 price tags on Xbox respectively, PSN has at least deflated the former, spritier fighter’s cost to just $7.49. Have PS Plus? Even better; the game is only $3.75. I wasted that in quarters within fifteen minutes back in its arcade days (I was, and am still, terrible at the fucking game… but I love it).

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Whaddaya Buyin’? Five Resident Evil Titles Discounted on Xbox Live

Welcome!  Got a fine selection on sale, stranger!  Marking Day 3 of Xbox Live’s Ultimate Game Sale, every Resident Evil title available for download through Games on Demand has seen a significant price cut.

Whether you’re just breaking into the series or have been looking for crazy deals on your horror favorites (Code: Veronica’s five-fucking-dollars?!), Xbox owners would do well to check out the sales below:

• Resident Evil Code: Veronica X HD - Was: $19.99/Now: $4.99
• Resident Evil 4 HD - Was: $19.99/Now: $9.99
• Resident Evil 5 - Was: $19.99/Now: $9.99
• Resident Evil 6 - Was: $39.99/Now: $19.99
• Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City - Was: $39.99/Now: $19.99

Unfortunately, the closest Xbox fans can get to the key hunting, backtracking days of retro Resi is in Code: Veronica which, admittedly, has not aged gracefully; HD coat of paint and all.  Still, even if it sits dormant on your harddrive, it’s difficult to feel buyer’s remorse over $5.

The rest of the collection features more modern examples of RE and their gun-toting glory, including RE4 at just $10, one of the best and most influential games of the last decade (not owning it can be called a “constant mistake” or an “everlasting D'oh!”).  For the same price, you can grab its co-op clone, RE5 (still love it, but I call ‘em like I see 'em)

And, yes, its poor performance means you’re able to snag the utterly reviled Resident Evil 6 at an all time low of $20 – if you’re asking me, it breaks into the top five of my series favorites; hell, the superior Mercenaries Mode – and the hundred hours I’ve sunk into it – is worth that cost alone.  Hmm, what’s that?  What about Operation Raccoon City?  Personally, I think free-to-play would be too high of an asking price on that clunker, but if you’ve got a strong constitution and a blinding love for everything Resident Evil…you should still stay away.  Far away.

All deals, forthcoming and currently standing, end on March 4th, so jump on them before the prices become unreasonable once more.  [Over, out, and done with.  The Res Evil sale ended the same day it started, but you can catch many more sales until the 4th.]

Jet Set Radio Dated For September, PS Plus Members Get to Vandalize Early

Kudos to Sega for not only pooling together 100% of the original Jet Set’s soundtrack, but also offering the full game download for an agreeable $9.99 (800 points in 360 currency).  I’ve received a lot less than a top notch blast from the past for that price point and we won’t go into the crashing disappointments I’ve hunkered down with for way more than ten bucks.

You can expect this Dreamcast dinosaur to arrive on PSN Sept. 18th with XBLA and Steam receiving it the next day on the 19th.  But if you’re impatient – and I hope you are so that I don’t feel like I’m alone in the universe – and also happen to be a PlayStation Plus subscriber, you can treat yourself to Jet Set Radio as early as Sept. 11th.

PS Vita owners, unfortunately, will have to be a little more zen with the upsetting wait between now and the game’s availability for the handheld on October 16th.  Assuming that your ownership of a portable system means you’re outside and on the go, might I suggest taking up real life rollerbladed graffiti tagging?  It’s a valid, wheeled art form.  An art form technically considered vandalism and could get you into legal trouble, but on rollerblades, the amount of exercise your body’s getting will make up for all the, uh, rollerblading away from cops you’ll be doing…Okay, fine, wait for October.

Sorry, Guys, the Fez Patch Isn’t Getting Patched

“It wasn’t an easy decision, but in the end, paying such a large sum of money to jump through so many hoops just doesn’t make any sense. We already owe Microsoft a LOT of money for the privilege of being on their platform. People often mistakenly believe that we got paid by Microsoft for being exclusive to their platform. Nothing could be further from the truth. WE pay THEM.”

Polytron Games explaining why 1% of you are going to continue experiencing save problems with Fez.

The initial patch that fixed a mess load of bugs in Polytron’s standout title Fez has been put back online after being removed once it was found out that a vicious little save glitch paired with the update would delete players’ entire progress.

Having investigated the matter, Microsoft determined only somewhere near 1% of the people that downloaded the patch ran into the problem, which places the patch in the “good enough” category by the company’s standards.  Microsoft then gave the indie developer behind Fez two options; pay “tens of thousands of dollars to re-certify the game” or merely put the original patch back online, bugs and all.

Without the financial backing of a larger developer, and also still being reamed by the payments the dev has to make just to have their game on XBLA, Polytron took the only feasible route they saw (which was not to succumb to bankruptcy) and reissued the patch, deeming it safe for an overwhelming majority of Fez owners, putting to bed any chance of a patch for the patch.

Want to hear the kicker?  Polytron fully admits that had they released the game for Steam, the fix would have only taken two weeks to launch without a single cost to them, Microsoft being the one factor stopping that scenario from happening for 360 owners.  Yeah, with a smoking barrel of a statement like that, I doubt we’ll see another Polytron game on the Arcade anytime…ever.