In preparation of my review of A Fading Melody, I wrote this bit to explain my feelings on XNA. What it is and why you should care about it, but don’t.
The original XNA beta that launched last year contained some pretty amazing games. I guess I was spoiled into thinking that we would see a whole bunch of creative games that even rivaled stuff on XBLA. The trails included Dishwasher: Dead Samurai, Little Gamers, and several other interesting games.
The funny thing about it is that it seems that those games good enough to actually steal market share from XBLA, were simply approved to become full XBLA titles and what was actually released with the launch of XNA left a lot to be desired.
If you’re not familiar with XNA, it’s a really interesting concept by Microsoft. You use their free development tools (Visual C# Express, and the XNA Framework) and create your own games (A good bit of software development knowledge is required of course). You can then set your price (and double it so MS gets it fair share), and release your game for all to play through the XNA channel on the Xbox Live Marketplace.
In theory this is a great step forward for the smart guy with a great game concept. Only since its launch, I hadn’t downloaded a single title.
The only one that intrigued me up til now was one about being a monster at the bottom of a pitch black pit and eating people who fell in by following the sounds they make. (That’s right basically video game for the blind!) But even that concept didn’t get me to bite.
The main problem with picking a XNA game to download (even a demo, since they are all required to have one) is that the XNA channel is already flooded with crap. There are hundreds of space shooters or puzzle games that I just don’t care about. It’s nearly impossible to find something decent in there. Everyone’s looking to make a quick buck off it, and the attempts are pretty lane. Meanwhile good games are getting lost in the shuffle. If there are a lot of good games on XNA, I couldn’t tell you. But I will keep a closer eye on these titles, so you don’t have too…
Upcoming XNA Games Reviews:
A Fading Melody
ezmuze+ hamst3r
Orbyx: Mystic Orbs of Chaos
Halfbrick Echoes
Karnn Age
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