XBLA - Penny Arcade: Precipice of Darkness Episode 1 - 1600pts/ Episode 2 - 1200pts

[quote name='Bezerker']They had the PA guys on the Vagina Clown's podcast this week. Their main reasons of the pricepoint were "We think its worth it" and "Bejeweled is $20, thats just moving jewels around"[/QUOTE]What a terrible comparison. Bejweled isn't even on XBLA, and the equivalent PopCap-type games are all $10 or less.
 
Not really a fan of P.A., mainly because I've never followed them (so I really don't know their humor and what-not), but after trying the demo, I love this game.

I didn't think I'd put down the 1,600 points at first, but after playing through, I'm really liking it. The combat seems to be very well-done, with some very nice attack mechanics - especially the "stronger" attacks. I like the story so-far, which I didn't think I would.

The dialouge, for me at the moment, is meh.. and I assume that's because I know nothing of the comics (I did laugh at some stuff, but not all that much, yet atleast).

Luckily for me, I got a 1,600 points card with my $75 GC from BlockBuster (thanks to MCR), so I think I might just drop it on this, especially since Bionic Commando apparently got delayed until July now.

For anyone who is doubting it, or leary about the game, defiantly try the demo, it completely changed my mind.
 
I tried the Demo, and Im going straight to Blockbuster when they open and use some of my credit to get a XBL point card, I thought it was funny checking one of them mailboxes out with a letter that said something along the lines of....

"Oh My sweet Dingy, how I long for you....

-Mrs DingleBerry"



The battle system is actually very interesting, why cant them 80+ Hour RPG's do a turn base system like this.

I am sold on this title

Tip: Robots LOVE oranges, who woulda thunk it
DANGER: Watch out for the Robots/w Humping motions, they look like their packing......
 
I'll bite on 400 or 800 pt games that have terrible DRM that I can't play anywhere else or get rid of when I'm through with them. But I won't spend 1200 or 1600 pts. for games with the same DRM. Just a matter of principle. If they put it on disc and have it available for mail order (either for Xbox360 or PC), I'll pick it up for $20. Same reason why everything I own on Steam was either free or dirt cheap.
 
[quote name='Bezerker']if you guys are worried about the pricepoint, just use the $10 off 360 game coupon on the MS points at Target.[/QUOTE]


Exactly what I did last week. I'm a PA fan and I love turn based RPG's, so I've planned on getting this for a while. But, getting the game (well, 1st episode) for 1/2 off made it worth it. Now that I think of it, i should go get more 1600 point cards for the other episodes!

Can't wait to get home and try this one out!
 
Even though I have recently loaded up on points due to the Target coupon, I am still not a fan of the 1600 price-point due to the precedent that it sets. If this game is a success (and I think it will be), we can expect similarly priced arcade titles in the future. XBL's Marketplace, and digital distribution in general, is still in its formative stages. Developers are still determining the amount that they can charge for a product in order to reap the maximum amount of profit. I think they will be watching the sales numbers of PA's game very closely.

That being said, I will probably end up buying the title - I am a fan of their work; I typically enjoy turn-based squad level games; and I am a strong believer in supporting independent development houses.
 
[quote name='Poor2More']^so that Target 10$ off Xbox 360 Software, works on points cardS?[/QUOTE]

I would imagine that it depends on the cashier, as it requires an override, but I haven't been denied the sale as of yet. I would recommend checking out the thread in the deals forum for more information/personal experiences.
 
I loves me some Penny Arcade but I'm not a fan of RPGs.

I don't mind paying the $20 for a game I'll actually play through and enjoy, but I'm not sure on this one.
 
[quote name='Poor2More']^so that Target 10$ off Xbox 360 Software, works on points cardS?[/QUOTE]

Based off what I read in the thread about it , it seems kinda YMMV. Some people are claiming they used it no problem , other people are having a problem getting target to accept it.

I think it had something to do with the coupon saying $10 Xbox 360 GAMES , and many target employees consider the points cards accesorries , not games. Which technically is true , but thats not the issue at hand.
 
Man, I actually really like it. I'm hesitant because of the 1600 points thing, but I think I'll probably get it soon.
 
Just out of curiosity, how do you get it on PC? Is it Steam? If it is I may get it on 360 because Steam screwed me by not allowing me to play the HL2 Ep. 1 disk I bought in a retail store and I really dislike Steam.
 
Thank you Target for the coupon, I'm not even gonna both with a demo for this game. Going home at lunch to try it out. BTW, could I get some clarification on the aforementioned "Bars" in the game. Is this a widescreen issue?
 
Wow, terrible game. So glad I dont like it. The battle system is like a bad version of Mario RPG. The presentation is nice but the game play sucks. Glad I get to save myself a pts card though:)
 
[quote name='musha666']Wow, terrible game. So glad I dont like it. The battle system is like a bad version of Mario RPG. The presentation is nice but the game play sucks. Glad I get to save myself a pts card though:)[/quote]

I have to agree to disagree with you their, the battle system is pretty good, and whats wrong with a Mario RPG Battle System, fun back then and Fun now in my eyes
 
I made it as far as the first battle with the pelvic-thrusting robots that pee on you.

If that's your idea of hilarious, you're only 1600 points away from bliss. As for me, I couldn't Return to Arcade fast enough...
 
I rather enjoyed the demo, the dialogue is not funny - but I was expecting this. It felt like an old school point and click adventure game at times which is always a plus. The battle system was my main concern, but the Mario RPG style is actually the only turn-based style I can stand so I am very happy in that respect.

$20 for episodic digital distribution is extremely ridiculous (unless a portion goes to Child's Play?), but thanks to Target, I choose to look at this as only $10 and will probably purchase it after the metacritics start rolling in.
 
IMO the battle system works better on PC. Easier/faster to click different character actions and attack variations.
 
[quote name='MSUHitman']Just out of curiosity, how do you get it on PC? Is it Steam? If it is I may get it on 360 because Steam screwed me by not allowing me to play the HL2 Ep. 1 disk I bought in a retail store and I really dislike Steam.[/QUOTE]

It's available exclusively from playgreenhouse.com. They're being very, VERY liberal with their DRM, you're only required to be online once to verify the key, then you're set.

Why do you dislike Steam?
 
Wow, I've never really played an action RPG that I enjoyed. They seem to be over my head and way to text heavy so I typically avoid them. I was worried about this one but I do love PA so I thought I would give it a chance. After about 5 minutes of playing I was hooked. Spent the $20 no problem. I'm not sure how long the game is but I just put in about 3 hours and doesn't appear the end in sight. We'll see how long it is to beat the episode before I say for sure it's worth my $20.
 
I know I'm in the minority when I say that I have always felt that PA is incredibly over-rated run by two highly pretentious douches with way too many thesauruses on their desks.

That being said, I don't blame them for the $20 price point. With the way MS is cutting royalties, most company's can't afford to make XBLA games sold for $10 unless they have 4 man teams working for no more than 3 months.
 
Blah. I got excited when I saw "Mario RPG-style" battles.

I did not like the demo. The battle system seemed very clunky to me, as did the pacing.
 
[quote name='Poor2More']^High FIVE poisonedpawn45 :)[/quote]

Haha thanks I'm a huge RPG fan so this is a great $20 game. Plus PA is great :)

Also, my wife was watching me play and saw the
fruit fuckers
... and wanted to play the game after that haha :lol:
 
[quote name='poisonedpawn45']Haha thanks I'm a huge RPG fan so this is a great $20 game. Plus PA is great :)

Also, my wife was watching me play and saw the
fruit fuckers
... and wanted to play the game after that haha :lol:[/quote]

fruit fuckers
FTW!!!! also
were do i get the ticket to enter that pelican land place....
 
:lol: at the PA haters.

Seems interesting, but I'm flat broke. I don't want to try the demo, I fear I'll get sucked in. Impressions seem to suggest that it's a good RPG worth the dough.
 
Good game, enjoyable, but pretty short. I suppose when compared to the length of many 60 dollar games though it's on par value wise. Extremely linear though. You get dialogue options but they don't take you anywhere.

I almost wish there was a way to make it more turn-based, as the more abilities you get the less intuitive the combat system feels.
 
[quote name='deadgopher']It's available exclusively from playgreenhouse.com. They're being very, VERY liberal with their DRM, you're only required to be online once to verify the key, then you're set.

Why do you dislike Steam?[/quote]

See my post. I buy HL2 Episode 1 from CC for $7 back in 06. Sealed copy. Try to register the game, says it's used already. Email Steam (since I can't find a phone number) get canned email response that doesn't fix my issue. Game sits by my computer for 2 years until I move and throw it in the trash, wasting my $7 (I got The Orange Box for 360 free during the TRU buy 2 get 1 free sale back in Oct.)

Therefore I hate Steam and I don't buy/play anything on PC anymore because many times the DRM is worse than Microsoft's.

I ended up buying the game after playing the demo, but I must warn everyone the demo does not prepare you for how hard the real game is. It's borderline frustrating hard. I died more times already in this than I did the entire way through Mass Effect on the normal difficulty setting (and I played that for 40 hours doing every quest.)
 
[quote name='MSUHitman']Email Steam (since I can't find a phone number) get canned email response that doesn't fix my issue. Game sits by my computer for 2 years until I move and throw it in the trash[/QUOTE]

That's lame, but why didn't you push further after getting the can response?
 
i loved the demo. i liked the battle system. it requires you to pay attention between each characters move, so you know when you can attack again. I'm not even a PA fan, but the demo was very funny and i think i'll pick up the game too. I need to find out more about the MS points going on sale at target though.
 
[quote name='deadgopher']That's lame, but why didn't you push further after getting the can response?[/quote]
Have you ever tried to work with Steam support? It's pretty poor. They take the attitude that your guilty of doing something wrong right from the start. You can get your account stolen (I know, don't give out info) and have it banned because the thief was caught cheating. You will never get that account working again. Even if you have hundreds of dollars worth of games on it. The proper approach would be to ban the account from the servers and that way you can still play your single player games. And no, I never had this happen to me, but I do go to the Steam forums and see stuff like this all of the time. The Steam EULA is like the bible over there.

Also god help you if you buy a game and it doesn't work right. You'll get no help at all from support. Steam has weekend sales, but support doesn't work on the weekends. So your SOL if you have a problem during the sale period. Thankfully there are a lot of people on the forums that can work with you. But you'll never get that from Steam support. And Steam does sell games that are known to be broken. Jagged Alliance 2 has been bad since it was released on Steam. Yet it's still for sale.
 
[quote name='Rig']The battle system seemed very clunky to me, as did the pacing.[/QUOTE]
Yeah I felt the same. Too slow. I like PA but the game just didn't do it for me. The visuals of the game make me want it to be a hack and slash dungeon crawler.
 
Man, I hate JRPGs so much. Definitely not buying this game, even though I do like Penny Arcade. Also, I think there's a little too much narration - I kept skipping the narrator's speeches.

I think the price is fair, though. $20 is a lot for an XBLA game, but this is no ordinary XBLA game. It's deep and has a lot more "meat" than your typical $5 shooter.
 
Enjoyed the demo, though I don't feel like spending $20 so I can continue on.
Click to expand...
ditto

Oh and one more thing, why do dev make arcade trials impossible to exit without seeing the damn buy this game now screen!

I almost thought of getting it so I didn't have to start all over again...

I enjoyed Mario RPG a lot but I'm not a big RPG fan. Also the only episodic game I'm willing to buy is HL2 since those are totally worth it and have many "wow" moments.
 
Enjoyed the demo, but like a lot of people I'm not going to pick it up for $20, way too much. Especially when I bought the entire season 1 of Sam & Max for the same price.
 
Well I beat the game after how decent length play sessions last night and tonight. For whatever reason tonight everything clicked and I didn't have my whole party die once from when I started the game at around 5 p.m. (I had done everything in the starting town and was struggling in the hobo area after about 3 hours or so of play last night) until I beat the game around 10 p.m. tonight.

I had fun although I beat it in around 7-9 hours. Be forewarned once you beat the final boss, you can't go back unless you start a new game, so if you're missing any of the artwork/music go find it before you beat the boss.

It's kinda interesting that I have 94 XBox Friends who have their XBoxes connected to Live and only 2 of them have bought this game. Might not be a good indication for the rest of the series.
 
[quote name='mogamer']Have you ever tried to work with Steam support? It's pretty poor. They take the attitude that your guilty of doing something wrong right from the start. You can get your account stolen (I know, don't give out info) and have it banned because the thief was caught cheating. You will never get that account working again. Even if you have hundreds of dollars worth of games on it. The proper approach would be to ban the account from the servers and that way you can still play your single player games. And no, I never had this happen to me, but I do go to the Steam forums and see stuff like this all of the time. The Steam EULA is like the bible over there.

Also god help you if you buy a game and it doesn't work right. You'll get no help at all from support. Steam has weekend sales, but support doesn't work on the weekends. So your SOL if you have a problem during the sale period. Thankfully there are a lot of people on the forums that can work with you. But you'll never get that from Steam support. And Steam does sell games that are known to be broken. Jagged Alliance 2 has been bad since it was released on Steam. Yet it's still for sale.[/quote]

This is the jist of what happened to me. Steam, and other PC DRM is why I quit playing games on PC and went exclusively console. I still need to beat the Vampire games and the Baldur's Gate games on the PC though, and if I ever upgrade, I need to get The Witcher.
 
I watched the X3F review, and it looks like a megaton of fun. Now, the possible, future reduced cost compilation will be a better deal, but if I feel the urge to play something new, this will be at the top of my list.
 
I played the demo last night and enjoyed it pretty well and given my fiance loves this kind of game and PA I'd say this is a definate buy.
 
[quote name='MSUHitman']This is the jist of what happened to me. Steam, and other PC DRM is why I quit playing games on PC and went exclusively console. [/QUOTE]

Well you're dealing with DRM on consoles, too. Microsoft's DRM is a pain in the ass on the 360, although I hear they're changing that... we'll see. I seriously get migraines from calling Xbox support, without fail, every time I pick up the phone to call them. I've got like 20 games that my wife can't play, but used to be able to play, because I've exchanged my system 3 times with Xbox's repair center.

I think we can all agree that DRM is just lame -- it's why I buy my music from Amazon MP3 and one of the contributing factors (in addition to better control and more HDD space) that I bought Rain-Slick on PC. It sucks to hear you got burned... I think Steam is a great service but I've only had great service from them, obviously if something bad happened and I was treated poorly then my opinion would change.
 
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