Board game aficionados may have noticed that the Ticket to Ride: Europe DLC that was promised last week is nowhere to be seen. As the name implies, the Europe DLC allows would-be railway commissioners to lay tracks across Europe (though we see that Ireland is left out of the fun) and also adds a plethora of new features (ferries, tunnels!). Joystiq has contacted Playful Entertainment, the game's developer, but has received no answer thus far. Our conversation with Microsoft turned up similar results, so for now we remain in the dark. We'll post any new information once we hear it.
Stock up on coal and keep the train engine warm, because next Wednesday, July 30th Xbox Live Arcade board game Ticket to Ride will be hauling in a new expansion. The upcoming European expansion board DLC will give players a new board to choo-choo on and add new game elements to the mix including ferries, tunnels and train stations. All that excitement and more for (deep breath) only 600 Microsoft points. Yowzaz! We never knew that getting a European ticket to ride the rails would be so darn expensive. Darn the economy!
Hey kids! It's Xbox Live Arcade Wednesday and that can only mean one thing. That's right, it's time for some new XBLA games. Huzzah! This week's releases are Happy Tree Friends False Alarm and Ticket to Ride. False Alarm has you guiding your favorite furry friends through various hazards, doing your best to keep them from being sliced, diced, burned, or otherwise mutilated. Ticket to Ride, on the other hand, is a board game in which you relive the spirit of expansion brought on by the advent of railroads. In other words, you build trains. It's more fun than it sounds. Both are available now for 800 MS Points each. Stay tuned for the next XBLA in Brief and we'll tell you whether or not they're worth the scratch.
Source - Happy Tree Friends False Alarm on Xbox.com
Source - Ticket to Ride on Xbox.com
Yeah we know the post title is a bit needlesssly grim. Let's face it, we're going to still be getting some information about releases from the ESRB. And hopefully some publishers simply won't much care about putting their games up there early. Others like Playful Entertainment, publishers of Ticket to Ride, seem to still want their ratings to go up at the last minute (TtR releases this week).
However, if we're to believe that the publishers of the other two XBLA games on the list (Rocket Riot and Cribbage) also want their games to pop up at the last minute, we could be looking at the first hint of next week's releases. Or we could just be paranoid about this whole ESRB thing.
This week's Xbox Live Arcade releases (yup, plural) will both make your inner violent self cheer with bloody enthusiasm and your inner train conductor toot with excitement, because both Happy Tree Friends False Alarm and Ticket to Ride are releasing this Wednesday, June 25th to an XBLA near you.
This XBLA twofer will be a nice mix of variety seeing that False Alarm is more along the lines of "cartoon violence adventure game of blood, guts and survival" whereas Ticket to Ride is more "card game of choo-choo traveling fun". Though, there is one similarity, both will available for purchase this Wednesday for 800 Microsoft points. Now go and practice the elite art of video game screenshot viewing using the elite screenshot galleries below.
Y'know, this seems familiar. Hmm ... yes it does. While we already knew the solid release date of Happy Tree Friends: False Alarm (June 25), Ticket to Ride has been something of an unknown quantity, with not much information about the game having ever been relased to the press. However, the last time xbox.com pages appeared for unreleased XBLA games, they released exactly one week later. And with HTF:FA definitely hitting next week, we think we can say with some certainty that the electronic adaptation of the classic board game about building railroads will be hitting next week too. To tide you over until then, marvel at the screenshots below.
Gallery: Happy Tree Friends False Alarm (XBLA)
Gallery: Ticket to Ride (XBLA)
[Source, Happy Tree Friends: False Alarm]
[Source, Ticket to Ride]
Back in March, we learned that the train based board game Ticket to Ride was chugging its way to the XBLA thanks to an entry on German's video game ratings board website. Now, thanks to the Gamerscore Blog, we get a few more details, albeit very little. Details including confirmation that Ticket to Ride will be releasing to the XBLA sometime this Summer, will allow for five player versus over Xbox Live, four player versus locally and will have Vision camera support. We're also told that Ticket to Ride provides "hours of family-friendly fun", but we think that's too subjective of a feature to mention.
Having revealed games before, the German games rating board the USK is at it again, exposing previously unknown XBLA games. Shown over at xblah.net there are a myriad of titles across several genres, but the most stand out title would have to be a virtual version of the classic board-game Ticket To Ride in which players compete to build railroads across the countryside. From the sound of things it'll be similar to the conversion from the board game version of The Settlers of Catan and the XBLA version, Catan.
The other titles rated by the USK include the Penny Arcade XBLA game, the puzzler RooGoo, and a golf game entitled Golf: Tee it Up! Not only that, but there were also a few more games revealed by the American ratings board, the ESRB. Those two games were the ancient computer game Lode Runner, and the card game simulator Gin Rummy. None of these titles are official of course, but as with all games revealed in this fashion we must remember that rating's boards are not in the business of making of games, nor is having a game rated at all cheap. This is great news though, and should portend the approaching release of said titles. With such an ever expanding library of titles it seems XBLA is really coming into it's own, catering to a variety of demographics and hopefully with something for everyone.
