| 
| | May 18, 2007
More cool announcements this week!
Another week, another exclusive game launch on MSN Games! (Just one of the many reasons I love working here… we get to play stuff first!) This time, it’s the hotly awaited sequel to one of our most popular game-show titles: Wheel of Fortune 2. If you’re a Wheel fan, you’ll definitely want to check out the free trial download. There are even new game modes. | |
| You know, this is kind of weird to admit, but I think I’ve only seen one or two episodes of Wheel of Fortune on TV. I’ve never really been a big TV watcher, unless the Seahawks are playing or there’s a new episode of Heroes. But wow, I’ve played just hours of the first Wheel of Fortune game. After that, I can’t imagine just sitting down on the couch and watching somebody else play it; I know I’d go absolutely crazy yelling at the screen. “R? You’re kidding! There aren’t any Rs in that thing! Haven’t you solved it yet? It’s totally obvious! No, I mean literally: the answer is “TOTALLY OBVIOUS”, and there aren’t any Rs in it!”
Yes, it’s probably best if I stick to the digital versions.
Oh! If you have an Xbox 360, there’s another spiffy game you’ll want to check out this week: Aegis Wing. Last year, three interns here at Microsoft Games spent their summer designing and developing a space-shooter game from scratch. With a little help and advice from the folks at Carbonated Games, they made a remarkably exciting game, and we released it for free (FREE!) on Xbox Live Arcade. Lots of great action, online and local multiplayer, symphonic music… and did I mention free? Yeah, it’s free. Go play!
Spring + games = GameSpring
I think I mentioned in the last Coffee Break that I’d recently treated myself to a GameSpring subscription. So no surprise that one of the games I’ve been losing plenty of sleep over lately is the GameSpring title Mystic Inn. It’s kind of Diner Dash-ish… well, it would be if Flo was an alchemist, her customers were wizards, and tiny dragons kept running off with the merchandise, anyway. So maybe it’s not actually very Diner Dash-ish. But the gameplay is similar, and I always enjoy the challenge of keeping track of what everyone wants and how long they’ve waited and whether they’re going to storm off without paying their bill. And the dragons are cute.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Mystic Inn has since been retired from the GameSpring library. However, the PC download version is still available right here!]
Also on my playlist this week was Chicken Chase, a download game that I can’t really describe by comparing it to anything, mainly because it’s all about hatching chickens, and that’s not a very common game genre. Of course the wolves would like to eat your chickens, and the crows would like to eat your chickens, and just when you get the hang of things, you discover a little-known Virtual Poultry Tax that keeps you from buying more than two or three powerups, and suddenly it’s two in the morning. Definitely worth a look if you like quick-reflex games!
Mooning over my future
Okay. As you may have seen elsewhere on this site, my coworkers decided to send me to the moon this month. (Was it something I said?) I’m pretty sure the whole thing got started one day at lunch, when one of our network folks was reading off the number of hours that everyone had collectively played on MSN Games over the past month, and I said something about wishing we could harness that power, and then somebody else suggested space travel, I made some wisecrack about a couple of neighbors (and their habit of mowing the lawn at 7am on Saturdays) that I’d love to send to the moon, and the next thing you know… Moxie to the Moon.
I’ve actually had a lot of fun keeping track of my alter ego’s progress on her way to the lunar surface. But one little problem is becoming obvious: she might not actually make it. By the 15th of the month, we’d only logged a little under 15 million gameplay hours. Out of the 35.7 million hours we needed. I may not be the world’s biggest math genius, but I do know that 15 is less than half of 35, so unless everyone starts playing more games, I may be stuck in space for a while.
Need a good excuse to play some games? Help me land on the moon! | |
| Tech talk
Today’s tech issue involves one of my recent favorite games, Cradle of Rome. Some people have said that the game runs veeeeerrrrrrryyyyyy slllooowwwwwwwllly, and I’m happy to say that we have a fix for that. An updated version of the game is now available, so just uninstall your current game, download the new version, and you’re good to go.
See you next time! | |
