In my experience the best places to camp out are Sams-Club and Costco.
They typically get just as many units as the Best Buys and Walmarts
People don't typically think to camp out there
While they usually only open at 7am for premium members and 10am for regular member they almost always let console campers in at 7am (which confuses a lot of would-be campers)
They'll probably sell you a bundle but it wont be more then $50 over the price of the console and at a savings compared to the individual components
The cost of the membership deters a lot of people but I've found the discounted prices of the bundle and a game or two even after the membership cost (if you don't already have one) will still cost less then if you bought it at a best buy or walmart.
Since walmart/best buy will often do their pre-orders at midnight you can head over there after work, check out the line and wait if there is room, but if it's full up get some dinner and head over to Sam's/Costco where no one else is waiting yet
One thing I should note is that you MUST make sure you've got your own membership, while it's pretty easy to just buy something during normal business hours and walk by the register jockey without them noticing it's not you on the card, waiting for a console the Manager will probably be standing there going through every ID with a find tooth comb before he hands you a console.
Exactly when did that happen? The Xbox Live Arcade started with the Xbox 1 in November of 2004. It only had about 30 games total. Unless Nintendo was boasting about the virtual console over 2 years ago before they even announced the Wii, I highly doubt MS got the idea from them.
That's exactly the reason it's only being released in Japan, space is at a premium and if they've got a stand alone DVD player, or a PS2, they might consider getting rid of those devices to make room for a Wii.
It was the Same with the Gamecube. Nintendo released a version of the Gamecube with Panasonic called the "Q" that could play DVD movies. Just because something makes sense in Japan doesn't mean it makes sense everywhere else in the world. There is actually reasoning behind not releasing those types of things outside of japan.
In the USA it's based on the State. Most states require a seat-belt other states do not. I live in New Hampshire and beyond a certain age (I think it's 16 or 18 now) you don't have to wear a seat-belt if you don't want to. Similarly motorcycle helmets are optional.
It's really quite comical, we get a lot of vacation traffic on the weekends from Massachusetts, it's not uncommon to see bikers cross the state line pull off to the side of the highway and take their helmets off. I wouldn't be surprised if there are some people who unclick their seat-belts when crossing the border as well.
Mediocre? The few reviews I've read had mostly good things to say about this title raiting it in the 80s and some in the 90s. I haven't played it myself so I can't say for certain, but several of my friends have purchased it already and have raved about it... I lost interested in the MK series when the went 3D (I've been playing a lot of UMK3 in the Xbox Live Arcade though). However I must say that the ability to create a character that looks just like Jack Thompson as definitely made me interested... Perhaps I'll pick this title up. If midway didn't hire JT to market this game, they sould at least stend him some cookies, I'm sure they'll make money off of this.
If a company is more profitable it stands to reason that they would have more money to make more and better games for that console. It also stands to reason that you'd be guaranteed they'd stick around and support that console for a long time. Sega wasn't profitable, the Saturn and the Dreamcast suffered dearly as a result though short life spans, and thus, so did the gamers who purchased those systems. Sega certainly didn't do so bad that they went out of business, just bad enough that they decided they could no longer go on making consoles.
What are the chances that if Sony starts feeling the $$ crunch they'll start skimping on their free Online gaming servers? What are the chances that if Sony start feeling the $$ crunch they'll start cutting back on game developers, shortening timelines to get products out faster, and turning down the fresh and creative titles for safe bet generic garbage? Profitability most definitely does effect the consumer.
I don't know where you got your numbers but MS had over 5 Million SOLD in June and they're expecting 10 million by this holiday. So yes in it's first year is is outselling the PS2, for whatever reason, be it supply or demand.
You missed the part where he said a cool movie... I don't know about you but I didn't find the Pirates movies very cool at all... Particularly pirates 2 it dragged on for a children's action flick and then it had no ending!
Seriously if someone took me to see one of those movies having already seen it themselves, they've have to do something substantial to reclaim their friendship... friends don't take friends to see Pirates of the Caribbean.
The US doesn't actually have an official language. Most of the population speak english but there is a growing percentage of the population that only speak Spanish.
Speaking english certainly helps living here, but it's not required.
CRAP I put a "less than" sign in there and cut off half of my post... here is how it should have been:
Yeah I agree. When I first saw Lumines on the PSP I really wanted the title but I wasn't about to buy a PSP just for it. when I heard it was coming to the XBLA I was excited because I already own an Xbox 360. The really dirty tactics here have made me avoid this title.
I can understand splitting up the game into a couple of chunks. IIRC one of the "rules" for selling an Arcade game on Xbox live is that it must be _less than_ 50MB and if you look at the Lumines downloads they're both at the 50MB mark... leaving one to surmise that the whole game wouldn't have fit into a single download anyway. I think it's pretty crappy of them to sell it at $15 with the other half at $7.50 and apparently even with that bit it's not yet the whole game. Sure they've added new "skins" but I've made skins complete with sounds before, from a consumer perspective this would be a peace offering from making them wait so long after the PSP release, not really worth bumping up the price 2.50... add to that the fact that they don't have any distribution costs, no need to print manuals and mold plastic cases, or pay Sony to press it to a UMD, or ship around the world. I'm sure MS takes some "distribution fees" for hosting in the Arcade but I would imagine they're minimal compared to putting the content into a disc, putting the disc in a case with a manual and then physically distributing world wide.
While I really want to play this game, and I would be more then happy to pay $20 for this title complete. The way they've executed this just really rubs me the wrong way, for now I'm "voting with my feet" and not purchasing this title based on principal. I may buy it in the future if they remedy this situation by either lowering the price or offering the complete package at some kind of reasonable "bundle" rate.
I've even sent a hand written letter to Q about it voicing my concerns... unfortunately I received a package back with my letter torn to shreds and a note claiming that they "don't read unsolicited mail"... ahh, another company that really cares.
Yeah I agree. When I first saw Lumines on the PSP I really wanted the title but I wasn't about to buy a PSP just for it. when I heard it was coming to the XBLA I was excited because I already own an Xbox 360. The really dirty tactics here have made me avoid this title.
I can understand splitting up the game into a couple of chunks. IIRC one of the "rules" for selling an Arcade game on Xbox live is that it must be
While I really want to play this game, and I would be more then happy to pay $20 for this title complete. The way they've executed this just really rubs me the wrong way, for now I'm "voting with my feet" and not purchasing this title based on principal. I may buy it in the future if they remedy this situation by either lowering the price or offering the complete package at some kind of reasonable "bundle" rate.
I've even sent a hand written letter to Q about it voicing my concerns... unfortunately I received a package back with my letter torn to shreds and a note claiming that they "don't read unsolicited mail"... ahh, another company that really cares.
yeah but have we seen the price drop on any of the Xbox Live Arcade titles? Considering these are games selling for $5 and $10 what would you expect the price to drop to? And even if they did drop the $15 price of the Base Lumines Pack... you'd still have to pay for the extra $7.50 worth of content.
Most of those adapters were actually MADE BY Lik-Sang. One of the major controller adapter manufacturers were going out of business and Lik-Sang bought them up and made them their own. Re-released their line under the "SmartJoy" and a couple of other names. Basically you wont see those things on the market anymore unless some other company decides to pickup where Lik-Sang left off... which probably wont happen at least not for a while.
Play-Asia.com is probably the next biggest video game importer I can think of. though they're more heavy on the games while Lik-Sang was more heavy on the hardware...
I think a lot of people don't even realize that Lik-Sang manufactured a number of their own controller adapters under the "SmartJoy" name, Not only will they stop importing products but you'll have a hard time finding anymore playstation to Gamecube adapters, and other great products like the SmartJoy frag which allowed you to use a keyboard and mouse with the Xbox.
Theoretically it's more effective if their consumers are the ones who stop buying their products as opposed to people who didn't previously buy their products.
No it's says that because it's a "Dual-Disc" release meaning it's a double sided "flipper" disc with one side Audio CD and the other side DVD (either DVD Audio or DVD Video).
these discs change the location of the audio layer from a depth of 1.2mm to.6 mm which means some players will have trouble reading it... hence the warning.
You make the assumption that the people who complain about the blockbusters DON'T support independent filmmakers. Maybe you're right maybe not. Personally I support a lot of indy films, on a whole I enjoy them a lot more then most of the big budget blockbusters. The last two DVDs I bought were Hard Candy and Brick... both excellent indy films.. I also have some big blockbusters in my collection... they're not ALL bad they can be entertaining, but if I'm looking for something worthwhile and intellectually interesting I personally stick to the indy flicks.
I can understand why. and honestly I dont understand why directors and producers that propose a videogame movie are not beaten to death by the studios.... I dont care how good you are, Halo the movie??? I'd rather see Half Life the movie, and even then only if there is lots of crowbar action on headcrabs.
While it's true that a lot of games just wouldn't make sense in the movie realm. The differences is in the script. In comic books characters are fleshed out, they have identities and personalities, and they have years of history with how the characters interact with each other. For a movie adaptation you can strip the story straight out of the pages, or if you write it fresh you have oodles and oodles of backstory and character traits that you can easily reference for inspiration. Not only does this keep the movie true to the comic's roots (which is important in any adaptation) but it also has the added benefit of keeping the fans happy in addition to giving the script a vast amount of depth and complexity with relatively little work on the writer's part (so long as he/she is familiar with the original work, or does their research).
The problem is that NOT all video games have such a rich history. Games like Mario Bros and Doom in their infancy had a vague Shadow of a plot that was little more then a sorry excuse for why the pixels on the screen were dancing the way there were. Sure newer games have more of a script and are becoming more cinematic but even still the history isn't there, You might get 1 or 2 so-so game scripts to base your movie off of and that's if you're lucky. The rest of the movie's script and character design has to be invented by the writers, and to make it good enough to REALLY capture the feel of the game the writer has to do a whole lot more work to make it worth while for the audience.
Halo is a little different though, not only doe it have 2 games with very SOLID scripts (and a 3rd with the script already written I'm sure) it also has a series of very well written novels as well as a comic book, all based in the same world. In addition it has a loyal fan base that keeps tabs on all the little nuances of the franchise, similar to what you find in other sci-fi fan bases the likes of Star Wars, Star Trek, or Battlestar Galactica.
Halo has more then enough there to write a good movie script that will make a movie people want to watch. It's not the only game like this either, both Tomb Raider and Silent Hill have more backstory and well written game scripts then most games (though not nearly as good as what is available for Halo) and those were clearly far and wide better received films then other video game adaptations of games with little to no plot.
You're forgetting the part where the Halo games actually had a worthwhile plot, in addition to a substantial amout of backstory and a series of execlently written books and graphic novels. you can't say that about Doom, Mario Bros, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, or RE2.
I think you're just playing the wrong survival horror games, those are all good games but they all use the same formula. Its like only ever watching the Friday the 13th movies and claming that you know horror movies.
Some more modern takes on the formula are Resident Evil 4 - no zombies, rebuilt control system from the ground up, it plays more like a 3rd person shooter (think Ghost Recon or Splinter Cell) then any of the old Resident Evil games. Condemned: Criminal Origins - IMO one of the best adventure horror games availble today, I've played through it 3 times and the sense of fear from the atmosphere alone is still very real even when I know what's around the corner, this game has FPS style controlls (but NOT an FPS), more often then not you wont have a weapon and when confronted you'll have to find something near buy to to use, like an exposed pipe off of the wall, a chair, desk drawer, etc. graphics are awesome, atmosphere is awesome and the storyline is top notch. F.E.A.R. is another one, based on the same engine as Condemned, this one IS actually an FPS, basically imagine a less stealthy Sam Fisher or Solid Snake who when going about their regular work run into creapy poltergeist level paranormal stuff. Then there is Dead Rising, which is honestly more of Survival aspect then the horror aspect. The game is basically a Grand Theft Audo in a Zombie infested mall, the kind of open ended go anywhere, do-anything environment. If Resident Evil can be related to your typicall Zombie game, then Dead Rising is the video game equivalent of Shaun of the Dead. The game will definitly test your skills, become resourseful in stocking up food and weapons so you can tread across large areas filled litterally with 100s, probably 1000s of zombies as you unfold the story, and countless sub stories.
None of these games have stupid gems to unlock doors or elaborate puzzles to solve to make it into the next area. With the exception of the supernatural element these games are for the most part believable in their setting, atmosphere, character personalities, plots. If a door is locked, you'll have to find the key, and the key will be in a believeable location, most of the puzzles aren't blatent "figure this out to open the door" but they're based in skillfully crafted level designs, that feel more like a real world solution to getting around a blocked path.
Check these games out... don't think you know Survival Horror until you've played them.
The fact that is "new" on the 360 is moot. Guess what? Pac-Man is new to the 360 too, but should I be expected to pay whatever it cost when it was actually a new game? Then factor in the fact that for the PSP version you are also paying for the UMD, packaging, and transport. The 360 version has none of that unless you consider the bandwidth to be your 'transportation'... but that's what I'm paying for already with my Live subscription + cable internet. So they slap in some new content and can suddenly expect to charge me full price again? Why shouldn't I just wait for Lumines 2 on the PSP instead? Seems like the better value to me.... all new content, portable, I physically own it, and I can sell it if I get bored with it.
I think when a game comes out a short period later, when it is still relevant is different when it's an old game re-released. Pac Man has been out for years and years, Lunines has been out a short time. When GTA was re-released on the Xbox it went for full price despite the fact that the PS2 version had gone down in price at that point. Similarly when Halo came out on the PC it went for full price despite the fact that it had dropped in price on the Xbox. When Oblivion comes out on the PS3 it will go for full price despite the fact that it's been out for a year on the PC and Xbox 360 and has dropped in price.
Even still you're NOT paying full price for Lumines, despite the fact that they COULD charge full price they're charging closer to the current reduced price instead. My point is that it might be expensive in comparison to other XBLA games but it's a valid price point when compared to other late platform crossing titles. It's well worth the price for someone like me who has really wanted to play this game but didn't think it was worth buying a PSP just for it.
Slashdot Mirror
wait... so how many versions of Halo Wars will there be?! O_o
- They typically get just as many units as the Best Buys and Walmarts
- People don't typically think to camp out there
- While they usually only open at 7am for premium members and 10am for regular member they almost always let console campers in at 7am (which confuses a lot of would-be campers)
- They'll probably sell you a bundle but it wont be more then $50 over the price of the console and at a savings compared to the individual components
- The cost of the membership deters a lot of people but I've found the discounted prices of the bundle and a game or two even after the membership cost (if you don't already have one) will still cost less then if you bought it at a best buy or walmart.
- Since walmart/best buy will often do their pre-orders at midnight you can head over there after work, check out the line and wait if there is room, but if it's full up get some dinner and head over to Sam's/Costco where no one else is waiting yet
One thing I should note is that you MUST make sure you've got your own membership, while it's pretty easy to just buy something during normal business hours and walk by the register jockey without them noticing it's not you on the card, waiting for a console the Manager will probably be standing there going through every ID with a find tooth comb before he hands you a console.Exactly when did that happen? The Xbox Live Arcade started with the Xbox 1 in November of 2004. It only had about 30 games total. Unless Nintendo was boasting about the virtual console over 2 years ago before they even announced the Wii, I highly doubt MS got the idea from them.
Forgot to link to the Q: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panasonic_Q
That's exactly the reason it's only being released in Japan, space is at a premium and if they've got a stand alone DVD player, or a PS2, they might consider getting rid of those devices to make room for a Wii.
It was the Same with the Gamecube. Nintendo released a version of the Gamecube with Panasonic called the "Q" that could play DVD movies. Just because something makes sense in Japan doesn't mean it makes sense everywhere else in the world. There is actually reasoning behind not releasing those types of things outside of japan.
In the USA it's based on the State. Most states require a seat-belt other states do not. I live in New Hampshire and beyond a certain age (I think it's 16 or 18 now) you don't have to wear a seat-belt if you don't want to. Similarly motorcycle helmets are optional.
It's really quite comical, we get a lot of vacation traffic on the weekends from Massachusetts, it's not uncommon to see bikers cross the state line pull off to the side of the highway and take their helmets off. I wouldn't be surprised if there are some people who unclick their seat-belts when crossing the border as well.
exactly... I believe this is what we call "Taking one for the team".
Mediocre? The few reviews I've read had mostly good things to say about this title raiting it in the 80s and some in the 90s. I haven't played it myself so I can't say for certain, but several of my friends have purchased it already and have raved about it... I lost interested in the MK series when the went 3D (I've been playing a lot of UMK3 in the Xbox Live Arcade though). However I must say that the ability to create a character that looks just like Jack Thompson as definitely made me interested... Perhaps I'll pick this title up. If midway didn't hire JT to market this game, they sould at least stend him some cookies, I'm sure they'll make money off of this.
If a company is more profitable it stands to reason that they would have more money to make more and better games for that console. It also stands to reason that you'd be guaranteed they'd stick around and support that console for a long time. Sega wasn't profitable, the Saturn and the Dreamcast suffered dearly as a result though short life spans, and thus, so did the gamers who purchased those systems. Sega certainly didn't do so bad that they went out of business, just bad enough that they decided they could no longer go on making consoles.
What are the chances that if Sony starts feeling the $$ crunch they'll start skimping on their free Online gaming servers? What are the chances that if Sony start feeling the $$ crunch they'll start cutting back on game developers, shortening timelines to get products out faster, and turning down the fresh and creative titles for safe bet generic garbage? Profitability most definitely does effect the consumer.
I don't know where you got your numbers but MS had over 5 Million SOLD in June and they're expecting 10 million by this holiday. So yes in it's first year is is outselling the PS2, for whatever reason, be it supply or demand.
Also I believe the GP is refering to the Austrailian market who figures show that the Xbox 360 is currently the fastest selling console in Austrailia.
You missed the part where he said a cool movie... I don't know about you but I didn't find the Pirates movies very cool at all... Particularly pirates 2 it dragged on for a children's action flick and then it had no ending!
Seriously if someone took me to see one of those movies having already seen it themselves, they've have to do something substantial to reclaim their friendship... friends don't take friends to see Pirates of the Caribbean.
The US doesn't actually have an official language. Most of the population speak english but there is a growing percentage of the population that only speak Spanish.
Speaking english certainly helps living here, but it's not required.
CRAP I put a "less than" sign in there and cut off half of my post... here is how it should have been:
Yeah I agree. When I first saw Lumines on the PSP I really wanted the title but I wasn't about to buy a PSP just for it. when I heard it was coming to the XBLA I was excited because I already own an Xbox 360. The really dirty tactics here have made me avoid this title.
I can understand splitting up the game into a couple of chunks. IIRC one of the "rules" for selling an Arcade game on Xbox live is that it must be _less than_ 50MB and if you look at the Lumines downloads they're both at the 50MB mark... leaving one to surmise that the whole game wouldn't have fit into a single download anyway. I think it's pretty crappy of them to sell it at $15 with the other half at $7.50 and apparently even with that bit it's not yet the whole game. Sure they've added new "skins" but I've made skins complete with sounds before, from a consumer perspective this would be a peace offering from making them wait so long after the PSP release, not really worth bumping up the price 2.50... add to that the fact that they don't have any distribution costs, no need to print manuals and mold plastic cases, or pay Sony to press it to a UMD, or ship around the world. I'm sure MS takes some "distribution fees" for hosting in the Arcade but I would imagine they're minimal compared to putting the content into a disc, putting the disc in a case with a manual and then physically distributing world wide.
While I really want to play this game, and I would be more then happy to pay $20 for this title complete. The way they've executed this just really rubs me the wrong way, for now I'm "voting with my feet" and not purchasing this title based on principal. I may buy it in the future if they remedy this situation by either lowering the price or offering the complete package at some kind of reasonable "bundle" rate.
I've even sent a hand written letter to Q about it voicing my concerns... unfortunately I received a package back with my letter torn to shreds and a note claiming that they "don't read unsolicited mail"... ahh, another company that really cares.
Yeah I agree. When I first saw Lumines on the PSP I really wanted the title but I wasn't about to buy a PSP just for it. when I heard it was coming to the XBLA I was excited because I already own an Xbox 360. The really dirty tactics here have made me avoid this title.
I can understand splitting up the game into a couple of chunks. IIRC one of the "rules" for selling an Arcade game on Xbox live is that it must be
While I really want to play this game, and I would be more then happy to pay $20 for this title complete. The way they've executed this just really rubs me the wrong way, for now I'm "voting with my feet" and not purchasing this title based on principal. I may buy it in the future if they remedy this situation by either lowering the price or offering the complete package at some kind of reasonable "bundle" rate.
I've even sent a hand written letter to Q about it voicing my concerns... unfortunately I received a package back with my letter torn to shreds and a note claiming that they "don't read unsolicited mail"... ahh, another company that really cares.
yeah but have we seen the price drop on any of the Xbox Live Arcade titles? Considering these are games selling for $5 and $10 what would you expect the price to drop to? And even if they did drop the $15 price of the Base Lumines Pack... you'd still have to pay for the extra $7.50 worth of content.
Most of those adapters were actually MADE BY Lik-Sang. One of the major controller adapter manufacturers were going out of business and Lik-Sang bought them up and made them their own. Re-released their line under the "SmartJoy" and a couple of other names. Basically you wont see those things on the market anymore unless some other company decides to pickup where Lik-Sang left off... which probably wont happen at least not for a while.
Play-Asia.com is probably the next biggest video game importer I can think of. though they're more heavy on the games while Lik-Sang was more heavy on the hardware...
I think a lot of people don't even realize that Lik-Sang manufactured a number of their own controller adapters under the "SmartJoy" name, Not only will they stop importing products but you'll have a hard time finding anymore playstation to Gamecube adapters, and other great products like the SmartJoy frag which allowed you to use a keyboard and mouse with the Xbox.
Theoretically it's more effective if their consumers are the ones who stop buying their products as opposed to people who didn't previously buy their products.
No it's says that because it's a "Dual-Disc" release meaning it's a double sided "flipper" disc with one side Audio CD and the other side DVD (either DVD Audio or DVD Video). these discs change the location of the audio layer from a depth of 1.2mm to .6 mm which means some players will have trouble reading it... hence the warning.
You make the assumption that the people who complain about the blockbusters DON'T support independent filmmakers. Maybe you're right maybe not. Personally I support a lot of indy films, on a whole I enjoy them a lot more then most of the big budget blockbusters. The last two DVDs I bought were Hard Candy and Brick... both excellent indy films.. I also have some big blockbusters in my collection... they're not ALL bad they can be entertaining, but if I'm looking for something worthwhile and intellectually interesting I personally stick to the indy flicks.
The problem is that NOT all video games have such a rich history. Games like Mario Bros and Doom in their infancy had a vague Shadow of a plot that was little more then a sorry excuse for why the pixels on the screen were dancing the way there were. Sure newer games have more of a script and are becoming more cinematic but even still the history isn't there, You might get 1 or 2 so-so game scripts to base your movie off of and that's if you're lucky. The rest of the movie's script and character design has to be invented by the writers, and to make it good enough to REALLY capture the feel of the game the writer has to do a whole lot more work to make it worth while for the audience.
Halo is a little different though, not only doe it have 2 games with very SOLID scripts (and a 3rd with the script already written I'm sure) it also has a series of very well written novels as well as a comic book, all based in the same world. In addition it has a loyal fan base that keeps tabs on all the little nuances of the franchise, similar to what you find in other sci-fi fan bases the likes of Star Wars, Star Trek, or Battlestar Galactica.
Halo has more then enough there to write a good movie script that will make a movie people want to watch. It's not the only game like this either, both Tomb Raider and Silent Hill have more backstory and well written game scripts then most games (though not nearly as good as what is available for Halo) and those were clearly far and wide better received films then other video game adaptations of games with little to no plot.
You're forgetting the part where the Halo games actually had a worthwhile plot, in addition to a substantial amout of backstory and a series of execlently written books and graphic novels. you can't say that about Doom, Mario Bros, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, or RE2.
I think you're just playing the wrong survival horror games, those are all good games but they all use the same formula. Its like only ever watching the Friday the 13th movies and claming that you know horror movies.
Some more modern takes on the formula are Resident Evil 4 - no zombies, rebuilt control system from the ground up, it plays more like a 3rd person shooter (think Ghost Recon or Splinter Cell) then any of the old Resident Evil games. Condemned: Criminal Origins - IMO one of the best adventure horror games availble today, I've played through it 3 times and the sense of fear from the atmosphere alone is still very real even when I know what's around the corner, this game has FPS style controlls (but NOT an FPS), more often then not you wont have a weapon and when confronted you'll have to find something near buy to to use, like an exposed pipe off of the wall, a chair, desk drawer, etc. graphics are awesome, atmosphere is awesome and the storyline is top notch. F.E.A.R. is another one, based on the same engine as Condemned, this one IS actually an FPS, basically imagine a less stealthy Sam Fisher or Solid Snake who when going about their regular work run into creapy poltergeist level paranormal stuff. Then there is Dead Rising, which is honestly more of Survival aspect then the horror aspect. The game is basically a Grand Theft Audo in a Zombie infested mall, the kind of open ended go anywhere, do-anything environment. If Resident Evil can be related to your typicall Zombie game, then Dead Rising is the video game equivalent of Shaun of the Dead. The game will definitly test your skills, become resourseful in stocking up food and weapons so you can tread across large areas filled litterally with 100s, probably 1000s of zombies as you unfold the story, and countless sub stories.
None of these games have stupid gems to unlock doors or elaborate puzzles to solve to make it into the next area. With the exception of the supernatural element these games are for the most part believable in their setting, atmosphere, character personalities, plots. If a door is locked, you'll have to find the key, and the key will be in a believeable location, most of the puzzles aren't blatent "figure this out to open the door" but they're based in skillfully crafted level designs, that feel more like a real world solution to getting around a blocked path.
Check these games out... don't think you know Survival Horror until you've played them.
Even still you're NOT paying full price for Lumines, despite the fact that they COULD charge full price they're charging closer to the current reduced price instead. My point is that it might be expensive in comparison to other XBLA games but it's a valid price point when compared to other late platform crossing titles. It's well worth the price for someone like me who has really wanted to play this game but didn't think it was worth buying a PSP just for it.
yeah... just like cable internet