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Xbox Arcade Crystal Quest Maker Interviewed
Xbox Live Arcade is, so far, the easiest thing to point to as a complete success for the Xbox 360. The number of excellent games (some of them quite original) released for the service since the system's launch is very impressive. Gamecloud has an interview with Patrick Buckland, founder of Stainless Games. Stainless created Crystal Quest, the most recent addition to the Xbox Live Arcade. From the article: "Gamecloud - How did using the Xbox 360 Live Arcade to distribute the game come about? Patrick Buckland - It's a marriage made in heaven. We are going to do a downloadable PC version as well, but you get into the whole piracy issue again. Xbox 360 Live Arcade is just SO perfect for classic games - and for new games as well, as you'll see in the future from Stainless."
It's mostly an easy game... or at least the achievements are easy. I got the game the night it was released, and by the next morning, had all 12 achievments. Only a few were even any real effort. All I had to do was camp the levels on standard difficulty, and got most achievements that way.
Going for high scores isn't that much fun either, since you camp again, just on the hardest difficulty.
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
I thought we were moving away from this sort of interview.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Is this XBox offering just a downloadable version of the older game for Game Boy?
What's that smell? (Sniff, sniff.) Um, check the tip of your nose...
I had that game on my IIGS (Identical grpahics to the retro-style screenshot on the XBox site about Crystal Quest). That game was great. So simple, but so addicting.
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
Wow, just wow plus throw in pathetic there.
Can't you just accept that MS may actually do something right? I have thoroughly enjoyed my Xbox and still am. I don't own a Xbox 360 yet, but eventually will. It is nice to see something new in the console world, to shake things up. It was getting rather static with just Sorny and Nintendo.
The Xbox platform is a great one. Such that if you are a gamer on a budget or limited time, it is perfectly fine to only own. It more than can hold its ground in that aspect.
Anti-MS people really make me laugh, some are just downright pathetic. I am not an avid supporter of MS, in fact, if it wasn't for work and my fiancée, I wouldn't be using Windows or Windows based products at all. But I am not going to limit myself by a stupid hatred. To dismiss something just because it is MS is just silly, especially to say that you will never try. Talk about being closed-minded. Though, I guess it is a Apple Zealot thing you have going on.
I played this game on many Macs over the years, Casady & Greene did a great job on it. Mind you, I never played it in colour, but it was still a ton of fun.
Read more about the history of Crystal Quest here. Makes me wonder if we'll ever see a new version of Dark Castle. (The best black & white game ever)
The best Crystal Quest clone i've played was XQuest on my old DOS box. I see the source is out now; perhaps it's time to port it to SDL if the licence permits.
It would be nice to just apt-get install xquest one day.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
What makes me sick is watching jobs-following machead slashbots slam microsoft for no reason. I mean, I dislike Microsoft as much as the next guy but the Xbox is fucking great and the original gigantic controller is the best controller EVER if you have big hands. Which I do. And the Xbox, once hacked, makes the most bitchin' media player ever, too. Plus it plays assloads of classic games through all the really excellent emulator ports to the Xbox. Criticise Microsoft all you like but since they're not even making money on Xboxes, you might as well save your pathetic ire for someone who deserves it, like the schmucks running the patent office.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
ok so the Xbox makes a great media player once it's hacked. And that we shouldn't criticize Microsoft because they arent making any money on xbox consoles.
so basically it's yay for microsft because they made a console which was hacked easily and turned to uses it wasnt designed for and that their profits are being sucked away by their attempts to rule the console wars? uh huh?
Seriously though, I'm way tired of Macintosh users acting like Apple is the only good in the world and Microsoft is evil. If Apple had come out on top, and Microsoft had been #2, we'd all be locked into super-proprietary platforms today. As it is, we're only locked into very-proprietary ones :) Apple has a long history of keeping other people out of their stuff, and/or forcing them to obey their commands to even be allowed to remain a "licensed" developer. They are also more protective of the hardware specifications than any other developer. And they go through significant trouble to prevent me running their OS on other computers instead of just offering the product in two versions, one for Macintosh computers, and one for clones. So they annoy the piss out of me. Microsoft's not wonderful or anything, but Apple's no angel.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Im at a loss, what did they do right?
There have been clones like burble, and X-Quest. How do the gameplay stack up again Crystal Quest?
Okay Mr. Drinkypoo,
You asserted in your reply that I was a Machead/Zealot/blah blah blah... Truth be told I run primarly on SuSE Linux. I have a couple of older macs around (68K units) for nostalgia and I have a PM8150 for graphic works for my website. I use that not because I'm a Machead, I use that because the machine cost me $35.00 used and I'm using older titles like Photoshop 6.0 and so on.
You spend all that money on a game system not to play games? Ok. I'm off to the car dealer to by a new car because it's great to store my clothes in it. Whatever floats you boat, I'm glad you found a great way to justify your ridiculous purchase.
Q: I am short, useless and provide no value. What am I? A: a sig
Hmm. Let's see. This post is about a game that is being released on Live Arcade. Not sure how that slipped by you.
Geometry Wars is one of the simplest and most fun games I've played. I played it for the first time tonight and played it for hours fighting off my friends from using the 360 cause I got hooked on it so fast. I'd have to say the 360 Arcade is an EXTREMELY good setup, and a very good reason to get a 360 on top of the games you can purchase at the store.
So, what you're saying is, you like the Xbox because it's a cheap PC. PCs (and Macs) play media, have emulators, and can use Xbox controllers via an adaptor. They can play San Andreas too. I think what you actually like is PCs and money... which I think is fair enough. So no need to go flaming the Mac losers, like the troll you replied to.
Nice sig, btw. Rage Against the Playstation, baby!
I released XQuest back in 1994-ish. The gameplay was vaguely similar to Crystal Quest, but the graphics, sound etc were all original. Buckland claimed I'd violated his copyright and asked me to pull the game. I played nice and changed aspects of the game that he'd claimed were too similar to Crystal Quest but he still waved copyright-infringement threats at me and demanded I stop distributing XQuest.
Eventually I called his bluff and he gave up, but the whole experience left a bit of a bitter taste. Interesting to see that he's now made some more money from the franchise...