Xbox Live Arcade House Party Games Announced

So hey, remember that Alan Wake: American Nightmare trailer back at the Spike VGAs? Turns out it's going to be coming out pretty fucking soon... Like, "next month" soon.

Major Nelson threw up the details on the four games being released under the "Xbox Live Arcade House Party" banner. If anything, I'm...pretty sure I'm going to buy them all. The list is:

• Alan Wake's American Nightmare - February 15th
• I Am Alive - February 22nd
• Nexuiz - February 29th
• Warp - March 7th

I'm just assuming the dates on this one, so those are subject to change. However, going by the logical "one per week" release period starting on February 15th, that's what makes sense.

The announcement also includes release for the "Must Have Games For Xbox Live on Windows Phone", which is a much less appealing banner name for an event. Nonetheless, those games include:

• BulletAsylum
• Chickens Can't Fly
• Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit
• Splinter Cell: Conviction
• Toy Soldiers: Boot Camp

No pricing has been announced for any of that stuff.

So...GET HYPE? It's interesting to see that American Nightmare is getting released this fast after announcement.

Source: http://majornelson.com/2012/01/10/house-party-details/

Neat. I'm only really interested in Alan Wake, and possibly I Am Alive if that ends up being good.

When did I Am Alive become a downloadable game? Whatever, I'm excited and that is a fine list of games.

I'm curious to see how Nexuiz turns out, especially since Quake Live Arcade was not necessarily super great and Unreal Tournament III didn't exactly pan out the way I had hoped. That style of shooter just doesn't really have much of a place on consoles, but hey...maybe they'll pull it off.

However, I'm super interested in Warp. I've loved everything I've seen for that game.

But yeah...Alan Wake is the big draw for me, especially given how much I loved the shit out of the first game.

Warp seems cool. Nexuiz seems like something I wouldn't want to play with a gamepad, that is unless it's a very different game to the PC version. At least, what very little I've played of it.

The other two I could go either way on.

I was interested in Alan Wake until I learned it was less atmosphere/story and more action, now I'm on the fence. Quite curious about I Am Alive though.

@Pezen said:

I was interested in Alan Wake until I learned it was less atmosphere/story and more action, now I'm on the fence. Quite curious about I Am Alive though.

If I remember correctly, Remedy simply said it was "1/3 story, 2/3 action compared to the 2/3 story, 1/3 action of Alan Wake". I doubt they'd cut back the atmosphere, as it's part of what made the first game so goddamn great.

At the same time, you have to think of it like this: Alan Wake's action was fine, but it peaked out too early because of the length of the game. Therefore, if this is a shorter piece of content...say, Dead Rising: Case Zero style, that action gameplay could easily work just fine. They've also said that they added some new stuff to the combat itself, which would be cool if it were something interesting like they did in that one DLC for Alan Wake where you had to shine the flashlight on the words...or even avoid shining the words.

Honestly, for me, it just comes down to "I love the Alan Wake franchise and I'll buy literally anything they put out". I doubt there will be a weak fiction to any of the stuff in this downloadable game. It just won't be as overwhelming as the first.

@EuanDewar said:

Warp seems cool. Nexuiz seems like something I wouldn't want to play with a gamepad, that is unless it's a very different game to the PC version. At least, what very little I've played of it.

Yeah. I remember Jeff saying something about it on the Bombcast ages ago, and if I remember correctly, it was over at Ubisoft at that time. It's now being published by THQ, which is an interesting move as THQ has been really trying to build its portfolio a bit more to be a contender against the big boys. Nonetheless, I can only think of Nexuiz as a PC game, so it's tough for me to dedicate dropping money to it.

However, I have a feeling that they'll have the "if you buy all four, you'll get blah blah blah for free" thing going with this...and I already know I'm going to buy three of them, so I might as well get Nexuiz in order to pick up whatever free shit they decide to throw out there.