IGN, X3F and Joystiq - Sierra's Digital roundup

Websites outside of Team Xbox have started putting up their previews of Sierra's XBLA titles from their recent expo.

Zombie Wranglers

Amy, for example, is the "cool kid" of the group. With Boombox gun in hand, she fires CDs to cut into the undead. She can also unleash a Sonic Boom Zombomb which first stuns zombies and then lets loose a sonic boom. Another of the Wranglers, Uju, can drop voodoo dolls, which gets the zombies to ignore their hunger and dance in the streets. He also uses a special blow dart gun that drives zombies into an insane frenzy. You damage zombies enough and they are ripe to be wrangled. So, they are more like cows than your traditional zombies.

IGN Preview
Xbox 360 Fanboy - Sierra XBLA Roundup
Joystiq impressions: Assorted Sierra XBLA games

Sea life Safari

Sea Life Safari is a colorful kids' game that casts the player as an ambitious underwater photog. Your goal is to snap as many high-quality fish pics as possible with a limited number of exposures. As you float through a pre-set course under the waves, fish will appear briefly and you'll have to quickly compose a good shot before they swim away.

IGN Preview
Xbox 360 Fanboy - Sierra XBLA Roundup
Joystiq impressions: Assorted Sierra XBLA games

Assault Heroes 2

The graphics in Assault Heroes were quite good for an XBLA game, and what we've seen of the sequel so far looks impressive, too. Environments are more destructible than before – trees can be set alight or even frozen solid, depending on which weapon you're wielding. Wanako has also paid close attention to perspective, adding nice touches here and there to create the illusion of depth.

IGN Preview
Xbox 360 Fanboy - Sierra XBLA Roundup
Joystiq impressions: Assorted Sierra XBLA games

Gin Rummy

So it was with a bit of suspicion and bitterness that I sat in on a recent preview of Sierra's upcoming Xbox Live Arcade version of the popular card game. The game was being shown at Sierra's recent Gamer's Day event in San Francisco, and it was my briefest preview of the afternoon. So I can confirm that the game exists, but it still hasn't really been shown in action.

IGN Preview
Xbox 360 Fanboy - Sierra XBLA Roundup
Joystiq impressions: Assorted Sierra XBLA games

Source: IGN, Joystiq, Xbox 360 Fanboy

Told you so #2, #3, and #4 - Gin Rummy, Sea Life Safari and Zombie Wranglers announced!

Team Xbox seems to be all nice and snug with Sierra lately - Sierra's online branch has exclusively announced Gin Rummy, Sea Life Safari - which XBLAH did some digging about some months ago - and Zombie Wranglers which we discussed just four days ago are all coming to the Xbox Live Arcade.

Gin Rummy is a classic card game, which is being brought to the XBLA supposedly by Sierra Shanghai - who just last week brought us Lost Cities, another card based game.

Gin Rummy for XBLA will feature the original game for playing over Xbox Live, along with many variations including Oklahoma Gin, Hollywood Gin, Three-hand Gin, as well as your own Custom Gin game. It will also support 4-player multiplayer with some Gin variants - which you can read up about in this page.

Secondly, Sea Life Safari is a photography game similar in design to the Nintendo classic - Pokemon Snap. As the player, you must go through different environments trying to get sea wildlife to 'show their best side' for the camera.

As mentioned in XBLAH's previous article, Wanako Studios are behind SLS (just like.. well, almost everything else for Sierra) and is already available for the PC, and had an achievement system set up inside it. Probably not too big of a job to port - certainly helps the casual demographic Microsoft wants!

And Lastly, Zombie Wranglers. This game allows the player to run around as one of 4 characters as you... well, Wrangle Zombies. It actually looks a little like Monster Madness that came out as a retail title last year (which really should have been XBLA material). It looks okay - it needs to be seen in action before any real comments can be made, at the moment they've just shown off the equivalent of a Ghost Buster Proton Pack or Luigi's Vacuum which turns Zombies into energy.

We can now confirm that this game IS being made by Frozen Codebase - the people behind Screwjumper last year and the upcoming Elements of Destruction sometime this year. Both their previous games were published by THQ - it's a little odd that this has now been picked up by Sierra. I may have stepped on a few toes with the last post too, since the blog and websites were taken down. Apologies to those involved! It'll be interesting to see how it holds up against Wiiware's Animales de la Muerte, which also seems like a lot of fun. Hopefully Sierra will spill some beans soon.

Check out Team Xbox for all the new images and previews for each game. Each of these games is currently slated for a Summer release.

Source: Team Xbox Sierra’s Summer ’08 XBLA Lineup Hands-On Preview

Edit: Fixed some information regarding Zombie Wranglers.

Ratings update - More games get more details

All major rating websites have been updated with a slew of new ratings of upcoming games, lets have a look!
First, the OFLC for Australia Classification. Double D Dodgeball - which popped up on the USK a week or so back - still no official word or announcement of the game though.

The second game - Block Breaker Deluxe - is pure speculation. It's a game made by GameLoft for Mobile Phones, iPods as well as PC, and is essentially a clone of Breakout or Arkanoid. However, it hasn't been rated before this, and I don't believe iPod or Mobile games have required ratings before either. At the same time, their previous game - Brain Challenge - at least mentioned Microsoft, while this one does not. Keep a look out though!


The USK has two new inclusions - Penny Arcade Episode 1 (I doubt "On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness" worked well in German) has been rated - the other is also up in the air - Golf: Tee it up! A game being published by Activision, I'm adding it here since I can't find ANY information about the game at all anywhere - which usually means something. We'll have to wait and see if it pops up anywhere else.



Lastly, the ESRB - They've now added Gin Rummy - previously mentioned here, and Lode Runner.

Source: USK, OFLC, ESRB

OFLC Rumor Update: XBLA to get Gin Rummy, Sea Life Safari?

OFLC watch appeared to be uneventful this month - but it looks like we may have overlooked some very possible upcoming games for Xbox Live Arcade service!

Two games have popped up on the classification website - Sea Life Safari and Gin Rummy. Though they do sound a little like simple PC games - it's the Authors of these classifications which raises our eyebrows - Sierra On-line.

Looking up previous classifications which have been published by Sierra On-line, we find that all of them are Sierra XBLA titles - Carcassone, Boogie Bunnies, and upcoming Assault Heroes 2, Aces of the Galaxy and Lost Cities!

Sea Life Safari is currently available for the PC through the WildTangent game network, and is in essence a Pokemon Snap styled game underwater, where you take pictures of fish and other wildlife. There is a PC demo you can download here, or watch this video:


Playing the demos shows two things - 1. It has some sort of Achievement system already in place for the PC users, and 2. It's made by Wanako games, creators of Assault Heroes and 3D Ultra Mini Golf on XBLA! Sounds like all we need is an official confirmation.

Gin Rummy is a popular card game played usually with two players - but can be played with 4 cooperatively! You can read up more on the rules at this Wikipedia page. If this is an XBLA game, Sierra might be betting on the popularity of other games like Uno and Texas Hold 'em and add to the card playing pile!

Both are situated at "Rumor" though considering the evidence, we can assume these are Unannounced. Let's hope we here more soon!

Source: Gin Rummy OFLC Rating, Sea Life Safari OFLC rating