Mega Man 9 and War World hit the Arcade

by Xav de Matos { Oct 1st 2008 at 10:00AM }

Retro and war fans unite. Now available on the Xbox Live for is the retro-sytle adventure Mega Man 9 and the 3D mech action of War World. At 800MS points a piece this week's XBLA releases offer two completely different experiences in another double-shot of Arcade goodness. Survive as Mega Man in the classically designed adventure that is sure to leave a pile of broken controllers strung about your room -or- jump into a giant mech and battle it out in a stylized 3D world against ... you know, other mechs in War World. What are your initial impressions of this week's newest titles?

Tags: mega-man-9, war-world, xbla, xbox-live-arcade

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

RockerAnimeFreak @ Oct 1st 2008 10:11AM

Already downloaded Megaman its pretty cool. In the process of getting War World.

HazyCloud @ Oct 1st 2008 10:18AM

War World demo is 40 seconds. I didn't even get the chance to get a feel for it. Sometimes it feels like these demos were slapped together at the last second.

PeacefulOutrage @ Oct 1st 2008 11:17AM

Yeah. I had some fun with the demo, but they needed to make it at least 1:30 - 2 minutes.War World isn't the only arcade game that suffers from a crappy demo, but whoever had that crappy idea to make the demo so short needs to get their head examined.

I was thinking it was an instant purchase looking at the details they put into the game, but when I only had time to kill a few mechs, it was over.

Ryan Brown @ Oct 1st 2008 10:26AM

MM9 was actually on my maybe list, simply because I've got so many xbla games to get. I downloaded the demo and had to buy the full version after playing through the first part of the level. Everything in the game hearkens back to the old days of MM2, and I was particularly pleased with how the game looks in 720p.

War World's demo sucks, plain and simple. You get maybe 30 seconds to try one of the worst mechs in the game. Overall it seems ok, but the controls aren't as tight as they needed to be.

craig64 @ Oct 1st 2008 10:31AM

I really want to try War World after work today. It looks pretty sweet... but I need to know how it plays!

HazyCloud @ Oct 1st 2008 10:55AM

Good luck getting that.

(points to comment #2 and #3)

Arnold @ Oct 1st 2008 11:20AM

Megaman 9 has to be the hardest in the series! worth every MS point.

Yea, the war world demo is absolutely worthless. its way too short, and it seems to want to sell you the game before you can even try it out.

ccc @ Oct 1st 2008 11:57AM

Live is still kinda gimped. I've been downloading MM9 for the last 3 hours and it is only 10 percent complete.

What free game are they gonna throw our way this time?

My money is on Pirates VS ninjas Dodgeball.
Not saying thats what I would want, just my guess.

PeacefulOutrage @ Oct 1st 2008 12:33PM

LOL!

psychedelicpaintbrush @ Oct 1st 2008 12:55PM

Is Megaman 9 supposed to be harder than it's predecessors or is it about the same? Everywhere I read about this, Megaman 9 is sooo hard. Is it really?
It's just that, while I remember having to get good at the games, I remember raping them on a day to day basis with my friends. We'd burn through 1-7 on the NES, we didn't have 8.

thesimplicity @ Oct 1st 2008 3:42PM

It's not as bad as the original three... the difficulty is average, I'd say. It's just memorization, memorization, memorization.

However, I'd say the 360 version is a lot more difficult just due to the frickin' D-pad. That thing is not designed for games like this. Get the game for another console if you can.

Buntaro @ Oct 1st 2008 1:42PM

I'd say it's right in the middle of the NES games in terms of difficulty. Bosses are harder in 1,2,3 and 4; platforming is harder in 1,2 and3, basic enemies are among the easiest in the series. (add an error margin to this, as I don't claim absolute truth. It's just an impression after playing MM9 Wii version and the 6 NES games this and last week)

The game is more trap heavy than all other classic games, death hardly comes from enemy fire.
MM9 is hard as long as the player hasn't figured out how to deal with the stage specific gimmicks.

The boss weapons are very useful and strong, too strong perhaps for some the stages.

The boss select menu also allows you to visit a shop, where you can purchase items to refill health and weapon energy, cut damage in half for a round etc.
As long as one doesn't play by a self imposed code of honor, it makes things a lot easier.

And before someone mentions this in an impolite manner: MM7(SNES) and MM8(Sat/PS1) weren't on the NES. A fan made NES-ified version of MM7 exists, NES-ified MM8 was till in the works last time I checked.

Well I hope that helped, it seems I got carried away and typed more than I intended to.

BFBeast666 @ Oct 1st 2008 7:14PM

Hm, I may be missing something, but from my point of view War World lacks pretty much anything a decent 'Mech game needs.

-No Cockpit View
-No campaign (apart from deathmatch after deathmatch) and worst of all:
-No customization AT ALL.

I could live with "Mech Arena" if they were designed for all mech sizes, but many seem to be tailor-made for the small ones - as soon as you pick the larger mechs, you're mostly spending your time fighting the scenery to get unstuck instead of battling the enemies.

And seriously, the "100 levels of campaign play" (straight from the dash text) are a joke. It's "You in a random mech vs. other random mechs in a random scenario", no briefing, no choices of mech, loadout or anything.

I haven't tried the MP yet, but the single player sucks, mightily. I understand the devs have only so much space to work with, but I think we're not talking space issues, but design issues. Wasted 800 MSP.