PlayStation owners who have been smirking over the exclusivity of the excellent Scott Pilgrim vs. The World can wipe that grin off their faces. After just two weeks, the low-res, chiptune-fueled brawler is smashing its way to Xbox LIVE Arcade.
Not only that, but Klei Entertainment’s celebration of stabbing and shooting Shank is also hitting the Marketplace this week. It’s definitely a good time to be an angry person.
Scott Pilgrim will cost 800 space bucks, while Shank demands 1200 points. It’s nice to see an XBLA game weigh in under the 1200-point mark again. Especially one as good as Scott Pilgrim, a game Kombo rated 9.0 in our recent review.
Shank, too, has been looking great for some time now. The heavily-stylized, comic-book graphics and ultra-violence mean that it’s a distinctive title. With any luck, it’ll play as good as it looks, and provide sufficient value to make those 1200 points worth spending.
Conveniently, purchasing both Scott Pilgrim and Shank this week would come to 2000 Microsoft Points. For once, this is an exact denomination that Microsoft will sell you some Points in. So there’s really no excuse not to pick both up. For less than the price of a new retail game, that’s two awesome-looking titles.
Downloadable games seem to be having something of an upsurge in popularity recently. This can largely be attributed to the fact that the quality of many titles has been pretty consistently high. Xbox LIVE’s Summer of Arcade titles in particular provide something for everyone. And high-quality games such as Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light and DeathSpank provide experiences comparable to those of $60 retail titles.
The downloadable sector is the ideal place for these games, however. Developers are more inclined to take risks and try something new with a downloadable game. And so are gamers. Take Scott Pilgrim‘s art style, for example. At retail, the game would be a flop. When purchasing a retail title, many gamers are looking for a triple-A experience with presentation to match. Scott Pilgrim provides a unique experience designed to appeal to a very particular type of person. A typical gamer probably wouldn’t see the nostalgia factor be worth $60. But 800 space bucks? Sure.
Similarly, Shank’s unique visual presentation and ultra-violence make it ill-suited to a retail release. But as a $15 downloadable game, it’s bound to work well.
The other positive thing about these downloadable releases are that they provide an appropriate amount of entertainment for the money spent. By their nature, neither of them are 90-hour epics. Both can be enjoyed either for a brief play session when the player really wants to beat something about the face and neck. Or alternatively for a more protracted period, when filled with a strong desire to tackle the games’ Achievements and other challenges.
Both games will be available tomorrow, Wednesday 25 August. Enjoy. And learn to control that rage a bit.
