TMNT Turtles in Time Reshelled

Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday, on Xbox Live, Microsoft had a bit of a black friday sale on some of their arcade games, Some were really good prices, others not so much. Included in the good priced games, was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Turtles in Time Re-shelled, which originally is 800 Microsoft Points, but was lowered to 120 points yesterday.

Seeing as how I had 300 extra points after my recent DLC purchase, and seeing as how you can’t really do anything with 300 points normally, and seeing as how Turtles in Time was one of my favorite SNES titles back in the day, I went ahead and made the purchase.

After buying, and downloading the game I quickly began playing it. When I first started playing, I was flooded with nostalgic memories of my gaming yesteryears! That feeling of Nostalgia alone was worth it! I enjoyed it now, just as much as I enjoyed it then.

One thing to remember with this game, is that it’s a button masher. There’s not much to the game, other than smashing the buttons down, until the bad guy is K.O.’ed. That’s the whole basis of the game, that’s how games were back in the day! Games didn’t have huge epic storylines, they didn’t take days or weeks to finish. In fact, many games could be finished in one sitting. So, if you go into TMNT Turtles In Time, thinking you are going to be treated to a long epic story, that will give days of enjoyment, you would be wrong.

What you will get, is a classic gaming experience, with updated graphics and an hour or so of pure mindless bad guy thumping entertainment, that you can play through all by your lonesome, or with a buddy!

However, one of the things I like best about this game, is the new graphics! They are gorgeous! How gorgeous? Let me show you a picture containing a before and After screen, just so you can get an idea of the visual enhancement.

My only complaint, is that you can’t switch between old school classic graphics, and updated enhanced graphics. I mean, sure the new graphics are great, but sometimes, I like a full-blown retro gaming experience.

Problem with Joes Adventure (Mafia II DLC)

Image by bigdigo via Flickr

When I first heard the news that Mafia 2 was being released, I was drooling at the mouth. The screen shots, trailers and everything else seemed incredible! I pre-ordered the game, and loved it as I played it, but ultimately found the game way too short.

However, recently Mafia II has been releasing some Downloadable Content, which is adding extra missions, and more story. This of course is costing you extra, however after spending double the amount of the game on DLC, you end up with a game about as long as a regular game should be.

Obviously, I didn’t purchase any of the previous DLC for Mafia II, because while I like the idea of DLC, I hate when companies ship out a partial game and then fluff it up with DLC at extra cost, just so you can get what should have been included to begin with.

However, when Joes Adventures got released, I did have to buy it, because Joe was my favorite character. So, I bought it! I plopped down 800 Microsoft Points, and I began to download. After the download, I dusted off my Mafia II disc, plunked it in and began playing.

That’s when the problem occurred. After choosing to play Joes Adventures, choosing a save location and then picking a game difficulty setting, the game began to load, and load, and load. Basically, it would keep loading and not begin the game! This ticked me off, and I figured it might be a bug, and thought I would need to wait for a patch or something.

After waiting awhile, I began to get anxious, because I wanted to play what I had paid for. So, I tried clearing the cache of my xbox 360, and then tried playing the game, and associated DLC. After choosing the difficulty, it switched to loading, and then when I thought it was going to stick again, it loaded!

Bottom line: Clearing Cache seemed to do the trick, so if you are having problems with Joes Adventures, try that! It also speeds up some games, like Dragon Age, Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, Mass effect series, Fallout Series, and pretty much any game that relies heavily on DLC. So, it might be worth doing, even if you aren’t having problems with Joes Adventures or other Xbox 360 DLCs

Battlefield 1943: Xbox Live Arcade

There’s a game for the xbox 360 called battlefield 1943. It’s an online war shooter, and is available in the Xbox marketplace in their arcade section. Now, to begin with I want to say this game is a bit expensive compard to other arcade titles. However the graphics are great, the fun factor is superb and it’s exciting! Great way to kill a few mins or a few hours! Taking all that into consideration, it would be totally worth the cost.

Don’t go spending your MS Points yet though, because there’s a downside, and it’s a big one! It’s the lag! It’s insane! In fact, the lag makes the game nearly unplayable. When the game first came out, the lag was fine! So, naturally I bought it. The lag was fine for a few weeks too, I enjoyed the game, was happy with my purchase. Then the lag hit! It started about 4 months ago, and it’s a common problem, look it up online.

The lag is so bad in fact, that it makes the game almost useless! It’s practically unplayable and the purchase of the game was a waste of money. Honestly, I feel Microsoft should remove it from the marketplace until whoever is hosting the servers gets their act together and gets the lag taken care of.

Bottom line, stay FAR away from this game. Its a great game, ruined by poor servers.