X3F TV -- XBLA in Brief: Battlezone and Rocky and Bullwinkle

by Richard Mitchell { Apr 19th 2008 at 1:00PM }

It might not occur to all of our readers when they see the average episode of XBLA in Brief but, let us assure you, it is a public service. We play awful, awful games so that you don't have to. Rocky and Bullwinkle is just such a game. It is -- if there can be such a thing -- the perfect storm of bad game design. The license is used horribly, the graphics aren't good, and the game employs awkward (and unresponsive) vision camera controls. The misuse of the Rocky and Bullwinkle license is perhaps the worst offense. We hate to see a classic cartoon turned into something this awful.

Check out our video of us checking out Rocky and Bullwinkle (along with Battlezone) and be glad it wasn't you.

[iTunes] Subscribe to X3F TV directly in iTunes.
[Zune] Subscribe to the X3F TV directly (Zune Marketplace link coming soon).
[RSS] Add the X3F TV feed to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically.
[M4V] Download the M4V directly.

Tags: atari, battlezone, rocky-and-bullwinkle, stainless-games, xbla, xbla-in-brief, xbox-live-arcade, zen-studios

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

mike @ Apr 19th 2008 1:21PM

Actually, my 4 year old son loves the Rocky vs Bullwinkle. And if he loves it, and would rather play it then stab my 2 year old daughter with whatever is laying around, then I say it happens to be the best game ever invented in history.

agelgamer @ Apr 19th 2008 1:43PM

my 5 year old turned the 360 off after playing this for 10 minutes... the games go by way to quickly. There's no sense of accomplishment after 30 seconds for him... says it's too easy. which boggles my mind as to why wario ware games are so popular. There's little to no replay value. I just hope MS doesn't make a mistake and try to release too many of these types of games. Stay the course. As for battlezone... the demo time limit sucks. Probably because that's about all that the game is - it should've stayed dead on the Atari.

thanks X3F for saving me my MS points :)

Tony @ Apr 19th 2008 2:01PM

I don't know if you're basing that solely on the demo, but it gets significantly harder near the end of the first level and apparently the additional shows ramp up the difficulty. I'm sure he wouldn't suddenly fall in love with it, but it's definitely not on the level of the test show the entire game.

The Wario Ware games are significantly better. Those do have obvious challenge and replay value, but again, if you just played the first area that might not be very obvious.

Still, I understand. I wouldn't want to blow $10 on it either lol.

Paulo Eifel @ Apr 19th 2008 1:45PM

In all honesty.. X3F is my favourite Xbox site but where is the point in reviewing the TRIAL versions of games?
I mean it woudn`t kill you to add another add to your site so you could actually pay for the full version..
Cheers

JAKEJAX @ Apr 19th 2008 1:54PM

It save me the time of downloading the trial.

Tony @ Apr 19th 2008 1:59PM

What, 5 minutes? lol Sometimes it's still good to see things for yourself.

JAKEJAX @ Apr 19th 2008 2:37PM

Hey....5 minutes can add up if you keep on doing it over and over. ;)

Xav de Matos @ Apr 19th 2008 3:21PM

First time I've ever heard someone recommend a site add more advertisements.

Richard Mitchell @ Apr 19th 2008 6:23PM

Hey, if Weblogs wants to start buying XBLA games for me, I'd think about it, but I'm not about to plunk down my own money to review a crappy game. As for why I even bother with the trial games, the truth is that a lot of people don't even bother to download the trial games, there are just too many of them now. I'd like to think that XBLA in Brief is best suited to telling people what *is* worth downloading versus what isn't. This was just a bad week for that :)

There may be something to like about Rocky and Bullwinkle for some people, but not me. If you have a different opinion about the game, feel free to post it here so people can get as many viewpoints as possible.

Mr.ESC @ Apr 19th 2008 2:35PM

When I downloaded Battlezone and it only bring me back memories of Mech Warrior.

The evolved Atari games suck for the price. Maybe at 200p it would be decent but at 400p you can buy better stuff.

Rocky and Bullwinkle wasn't that bad in my opinion but I used the xbox controller most of the time, it was sort of fun but other than the characters It doesn’t feels like rocky and Bullwinkle and the shorts when you win or loose repeat them self way too often also that they missed some characters such as George of the Jungle and that’s is unforgivable.

rockeranimefreak @ Apr 19th 2008 2:40PM

You know what we need on the xbla? Columns! a classic genesis game I would totally buy that for 400 MS!

Digital Limit @ Apr 19th 2008 4:38PM

Heh, love the use of smooth jazz at the end.

Khayrhalt @ Apr 19th 2008 4:40PM

In France (where I live) the Rocky and Bullwinkle license is totally unknown. So this game is for us not an offense, but only a Warioware-like... Funny, and 12 people can play together at home... In fact, this is probably one of the first "casual game" (with this brainy-trainer-thing) of the 360... Is that a bad thing ? For sure not. Frankly, I am really not a casual gamer, but if this game is playable (and it is, for sure) and if people enjoy to play with it (the flash-style that you take like an offense is just a graphical style, y'know...)... who cares ? By the way, this game is just a game "à la Wii", and nothing more -not a devilish thing. Microsoft needs casual gamers too, so let it be :) (and sorry for my bad english, dudes ^^)

Richard Mitchell @ Apr 19th 2008 6:25PM

That's cool. I'm glad you like it. It just wasn't for me.

By the way, you should try and find some Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons. They are classic :)

ccc @ Apr 19th 2008 6:37PM

I will have to disagree with you on this one Richard.

Rand B was a great game. True I killed it and got 200 gs outa it in less than a day but I'm still playing it.

Both my kids love it and it is a really fun party game with a few pals drinking.

This game brings to the arcade what is so abundant on the Wii with out the gimmick. Which I'll admit would be better with that gimmick but still an amusing game and I can only hope that Happy Tree Friends will be in some way like this, that would be REALLY funny.

horngreen @ Apr 20th 2008 9:24AM

I thought Battlezone evolved blew AWAY the original. The timed demo is pointless but the evolved version is quite good even if that missile thingy is damn near impossible to kill.

strawhat @ Apr 21st 2008 12:18AM

i also didin't know anything about the license here in Japan, but i totally agree with Khayrhalt and ccc. R and B is i think really nice fun party game and funny enough for me. i even liked that easy jazz sequences...
i think it'd rather be for adults with some drink than for just kids. some of micro games are really tough to finish and the others are too easy. if you just can't laugh out on those silly difficulty levels along with the humor of the game itself, never recommended.