I'm a huge XBLA guy. I'm sure most people who know me know that. But this is a blog so I have to explain myself.
I love reinvention. I love innovation. I love when games break established norms with design wide open, or when they find a way to refine and add to an existing mentality. And so for the most part retail is no friend of mine in that regard as publishers are afraid to spend so much money on risky ideas for big budget retail titles, but on downloadable markets is a lot more feasible for them. And I love my xbox, thus XBLA. It's also why I write for www.xblafans.com.
The only problem with downloadable market games, namely XBLA (because that's what I'm familiar with, not because PSN etc. don't have similar problems) is that multiplayer experiences are hamstringed by the smaller player base and inconsistent match availability.
It's really unfortunate that games like Modern Warfare 3 (because call of duty is just the name attached to it to keep the brand together) overshadow some truly magnificent XBLA experiences because it's so core and bottom line that most people can play it forever despite being very bland and straightforward from a design perspective. But perhaps as people become less interested in those games due to how similar they are they'll try more XBLA beyond just Castle Crashers, magnificent though that game is.
This has been the first installment in hopefully a long series of posts done from my phone while on the bus. Hope you enjoyed it.
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