Crimson Alliance out today on XBLA.

[Britton]

Don't know why this game hasn't been talked about much, but it looks good and I've been keeping my eye on it for a while. Looks to be a cross between Torchlight and Diablo and has online co-op campaign, a rarity for console RPG's. There's 3 different character, but up to 4 can play online. Choose between a wizard (whose spells looked impressive from the gameplay I saw... spells flying EVERYWHERE), a mercenary or a assassin. What's unique about this XBLA title is you can either pay 800 points and choose to play the full game as one of the three characters or pay 1200 and et all 3. I'm downloading it right now and my buddy and I will play it a bit later. Will chime in and give additional thoughts later on. I've been downloading way more Arcade games than I thought I would when they fiirst announced it. And if you go look at the review sites, lately most of the games getting really high ratings are Arcade titles.

[Eusis]

Seems to have a multiplayer focus so it's probably better here. Especially if this turns into a topic where people arrange games.

... The microtransaction angle and how it's forced on you is kind of off putting, but I'll try the demo at least. I'll probably gravitate more towards Diablo III and Torchlight II though.

[Britton]

Forced micro-transaction? I don't know what you mean. I guess while you can play it in single person, it's a much better experience in multiplayer because there's puzzles that you solve that can only be done with at least another player.

A buddy and I played about 3 hours so far, and I really like it. Controls are awesome, locales are pretty varied (I love dungeon crawlers that don't take place ENTIRELY in dungeons) and everything runs fluid. Got on and set up an omlimne multiplayer game with no problem at all, real quick-like.The only gripe I have is the story is cliche and a bit lacking, but it's par for the course for these games. Also, I have this feeling it could be a short game, but I could be wrong on that. We'll see. Damn fun though.



I'm still trying to figure out what you mean by micro-transaction. Do you mean how you can either buy the game with one character for 800 points or the game with all 3 for 1200? If so, I thought that is a nice service on their part. Or maybe you're talking about how you can buy in-game gold for real money? I bought some... 40,000 gold for 80 MSP (a buck), but you don't really need it, there's plenty of in-game gold to go around.

[Eusis]

I actually think the angle with the characters is awful, given the price just one gets they may as well have just forced you to but the game straight up. That's not what I mean though, and that's more "Do you want to buy the game and play one character only, or buy it and play all three?", I meant how I've read the game advertises to you "You can buy 40,000 gold for 80 Microsoft Points!" when you're in a store. I don't mind if the options there, or even if the title screen makes mention there's DLC to buy and what it is, but I'd rather not have that waved in my face every time I go to buy something.

[Britton]

The game doesn't advertise that, from what I saw. There's a treasure chest in each store and it doesn't say "Buy 40,000 blah blah blah" until you walk right up to it. The first few stores I actually missed it.