Xbox 360 Fanboy

TeamXbox pulled some strings and got the pre-E3 dish on three new XBLA offerings from Sierra Online. Over on their site they posted a dump truck sized load of screenshots, game details and videos for Sierra Online's three Arcade games including Switchball, Commanders: Attack!, and Battlestar Galactica. No word yet on the games' release dates or how much they'll cost, but we're sure more info will trickle in when the games get officially announced at E3. Fanboys: Attack!

Let's say your game shipped with a horrendous multiplayer bug that prevented many people from connecting to online co-op sessions. Would you fix it? Would you fix it quickly? If you're part of Wanako and Sierra Online, and your game is Assault Heroes for Xbox Live Arcade, then your answer is clearly "no." Yes, Assault Heroes was added to the XBLA library last December and played host to a serious co-op problem, namely that co-op games could not be joined by many people. Now, seven months later, a title update for Assault Heroes has finally been released. There's only one problem: you can't download it. In a particularly delicious bit of irony, you are greeted with an error message the moment you accept the update prompt. Oy vey.

Let's hope the Assault Heroes team gets their ducks in a row and fixes this problem soon.

Sierra Online announced that Carcassonne will be hitting Xbox live Arcade this coming June. The last we heard from the title it was being announced back in August alongside Catan and Alhambra. There are no specifics as to when in June, but one could surmise that the release will fall on either the 6th, 13th, 20th, or 27th. How can we be so sure? Well, they're Wednesdays, for starters. If you want us to narrow our prediction down, we're going to stick with the 13th, as the number is lucky. Are you down for some tiling city action on Live Arcade?

[Via QJ.net]

Wanako Games, makers of the Live Arcade shooter, Assault Heroes, has been acquired by Vivendi Games. Given the (relative) praise that Assault Heroes received, the deal makes sense. Also, it has already been announced that Sierra Online -- a division of Vivendi Games and Ross Erickson's new home -- and Wanako are set to deliver another Arcade title 3D Ultra Minigolf Adventures. It seems that both parties must have synced quite nicely, as representatives from both companies seem to share the same vision. Said Ed Zorbist, president of Sierra Online, "Wanako exudes the commitment to quality and a passion for developing great games that we ourselves strongly believe in."

Alright. Yes. Good good. Now, can we please get to work on fixing Assault Heroes' co-op problems?

[Via Joystiq. Thanks, J. Goodwin]

As Jerry Seinfeld might put it, "what's the deal with Assault Heroes?" We posted our favorable impressions of the game last week, and we have since encountered a serious problem. During our first play test we encountered some connection problems with co-op games. In some cases we could never get one started and were left hanging on a "waiting" screen. Other times, we've been left hanging at the same screen in between levels -- after we've already established a connection. Playing with a blogger from Joystiq today (Ludwig Kietzmann), we managed to join 1 out of 3 games. According to Kietzmann, the one successful game we played was the first one he had ever been able to join since the game's release.

We haven't played the title enough to assess how serious this problem is, but if it is widespread, then it needs to be dealt with. Have any of you encountered this problem? If so, speak up.