XBLA in Brief examines two unusual Xbox Live Arcade titles this week. First up is Elements of Destruction which has players essentially playing as nature itself, using tornadoes, earthquakes, and lightning to destroy everything in sight. Sea Life Safari on the other hand, is a game about taking pictures of fish. See? Kind of different for XBLA, isn't it? Watch the new episode and decide if either is worth your hardearned MS Points.
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Sorta yea. Theirs a bunch of different enemies that are constantly attacking you which lowers your energy. If your blue energy drops to 0 it starts draining your red. And if that hits zero you die. Best description I can give you is red is hp blue is mp/armor.
The other way you can lose of course is by not completing the objectives in time. If you play the demo the first two levels aren't bad. But some of the later ones could make you repeat them. I've found that when i do fail it's usually from time though.
seems a lot like a beautiful katamari type game. i have only played the demo of it but you can't really lose. you just basically try to do the best you can every time. surely there is some benchmark you have to meet in the full versions of both of these though....
Sea Life is pretty funny. I've seen the "take photos of wildlife" game mechanic before but throwing little silver balls at aquatic life to get an action shot has to be a videogame first.
Looks like sea life suffers the same problem as pokemon snap, the rails. I think these games would be alot mroe fun if you were in the enviroment roaming, and had to find these animals, possibly at certain times of day and even do stuff to make them appear, like scare away fish A so later fish b can come out of hiding.
I think if these games did that they may be more interesting. I think the ps3 game "afrika" does these, but im not sure.
What's with all the annoying and not funny word bubbles? I understand that you guys are trying to add some fun to things but give me a break that's really lame.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Momer @ Jun 18th 2008 6:45PM
In Elements of Destruction, can you even lose?
Darkharmony @ Jun 18th 2008 7:00PM
Sorta yea. Theirs a bunch of different enemies that are constantly attacking you which lowers your energy. If your blue energy drops to 0 it starts draining your red. And if that hits zero you die. Best description I can give you is red is hp blue is mp/armor.
The other way you can lose of course is by not completing the objectives in time. If you play the demo the first two levels aren't bad. But some of the later ones could make you repeat them. I've found that when i do fail it's usually from time though.
Paul @ Jun 18th 2008 7:00PM
seems a lot like a beautiful katamari type game. i have only played the demo of it but you can't really lose. you just basically try to do the best you can every time. surely there is some benchmark you have to meet in the full versions of both of these though....
MrMuggs @ Jun 18th 2008 6:49PM
As always, great mini-reviews. Thanks.
Sea Life is pretty funny. I've seen the "take photos of wildlife" game mechanic before but throwing little silver balls at aquatic life to get an action shot has to be a videogame first.
webster1990 @ Jun 18th 2008 6:58PM
it's almost a first,
you had to do the same thing in Pokemon Snap..man i loved that game. I might have to try sea life safari out.
AoE @ Jun 18th 2008 8:51PM
Huh, gonna have to check out sea life safari. Thanks for the the previews Richard, you saved me a download of Elements. :)
Sean @ Jun 18th 2008 10:35PM
Anyone else thinks that the timing of Elements of Destruction is a little unfortunate with all of the weather related trauma in the US right now...
As I was watching the demo I was wincing when the tornado and lightning came out and felt sorry for the folks living in those structures.
God... I'm getting old.
Richard Mitchell @ Jun 18th 2008 10:40PM
I thought the same thing, actually.
Chase @ Jun 18th 2008 10:41PM
Well, at least Sea Life Safari isn't 60 dollars.
007craft @ Jun 18th 2008 11:48PM
Looks like sea life suffers the same problem as pokemon snap, the rails. I think these games would be alot mroe fun if you were in the enviroment roaming, and had to find these animals, possibly at certain times of day and even do stuff to make them appear, like scare away fish A so later fish b can come out of hiding.
I think if these games did that they may be more interesting. I think the ps3 game "afrika" does these, but im not sure.
Arnon @ Jun 19th 2008 12:16AM
Actually it was stated that Afrika did the same "rail" function as Pokemon Snap.
PeteL @ Jun 19th 2008 8:00AM
If something like Sea Life interests you and you have a Wii, try Endless Ocean. Similar concept, but with a lot more content and not on rails.
jtedesco33 @ Jun 19th 2008 8:19AM
What's with all the annoying and not funny word bubbles? I understand that you guys are trying to add some fun to things but give me a break that's really lame.
Richard Mitchell @ Jun 19th 2008 11:48AM
You can disable the pop up comments by hitting the little speech bubble on the bottom of the player.
Anyone can add them by the way.
Xav de Matos @ Jun 24th 2008 8:12AM
Yeah that's just part of Viddler's video player. Anyone who watches a video can make a comment...
pandlcg @ Jun 19th 2008 10:10AM
I look forward to this feature every week, and i'm enjoying the word bubbles. Good work, you saved me some time.
horngreen @ Jun 19th 2008 11:11AM
Interesting idea for a game although I didn't know hog farms EXPLODED during an earthquake.
Richard Mitchell @ Jun 19th 2008 1:42PM
Things will explode really big if you target propane tanks and the like.