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This Wednesday: Hexic 2 and Ecco the Dolphin on XBLA

by Justin McElroy on Aug 13th 2007 1:30PM

As much as we'd love to skip to commenters complaining about how this week's Xbox Live Arcade releases weren't the ones they were hoping for, we figured we should at least tell you what they are first: Hexic 2 (800 points, $10) and Ecco the Dolphin (400 points, $5) are both due tomorrow.

Ecco the Dolphin is, of course, a graphic and audio-enhanced version of Sega's classic tale of love and betrayal under the sea that manages to perfectly capture an experience that practically no one was ever curious about. Hexic 2 is a sequel to the original puzzler. Though there are new features, it sadly lacks its predecessor's most important feature: Not costing money. The complaining may now commence.

Hexic 2

Ecco the Dolphin

Source

Tags: Carbonated-Games, eccothedolphin, Hexic, Hexic-2, Hexic-HD, hexic2, Microsoft, Microsoft-Game-Studios, Puzzle, xbla, XBLAWednesday, Xbox-360, Xbox-Live, Xbox-Live-Arcade

Reader Comments (38)

Wow so they're making us pay retroactively for the free Hexic. Nice.

No one is forcing you to buy it.

I want an XBLA game where we try to make sweet love to our bikini-dropping aunt without the rest of our family finding out....haha

"Making us pay retroactively for the free Hexic", means MS would be billing us for the original free Hexic (which they're not).
That is not the same as charging for a sequel.

Next time, try learning the definitions of words, before you start using them.

interesting weekend stevo? taboo much?

Yuck, Ecco has not aged well at all.

@konny

Thats not a pic of the updated version

Therefore it is an accurate statement.

you ALMOST succeeded in trolling this xbox story, maybe next time champ

Well, it hasn't. SEGA has raped poor Ecco with this TERRIBLE filter on the emulation. Not to mention they couldn't work out the sound core for their own console and they shove all the sound for a game into audio files (a megadrive would normally have MIDI-like files to be fed into the sound chip) taken from other emulators which have poor sound cores. SEGA should've got Steve Snake and his KEGA Fusion onto the 360. That would have been some awesome.

Ecco must've fallen victim to global warming [/sarcasm]

Darn, I was hoping for Super Puzzle Fighter this week.

When you say tomorrow you mean Wednesday? I dont think xbla games ever come out on tues :P

So to make up for the fact that XBLA offerings of classic console titles are cheaper and offer better value than Virtual Console titles, the "casual" games get jacked up. Nice.

Huh? So $10 is too much now for a new game these days?

$10 for a game whose prequel was free? You tell me.

There's a difference between 'free' and 'packed in.'

Just because it happened to be sitting on your HDD when you purchased the console doesn't necessarily make it without cost.

What does that have to do with anything? Since the first was free they should all be free? Does that really make any sense? Most of the other new games are $10, why should the dev of Hexic be expected to give their away? Also, the first was only free in the sense that it was a "pack-in" game on the hard drive.

where is puzzle fighter and puzzle quest!!!
hexic 2 multi player looks fun.

Ecco is 8$ on Nintendo's Virtual Console... If this Ecco is enhanced and 5$, damn- Sega sold Nintendo out.

yeah this will be the same price as the enhanced sonic, the smoothed out graphics in sonic looked great on my hdtv, im sure this will look equally great. achievements and online rankings are another plus, sucks about the overpriced crap on the virtual console though

i have been waiting for this for a while now,especially after finding it was cheaper than the wii version. heres hoping there are some interesting achievements :)

DELICIOUS ECCO YOU MUST PLAY IT.

Ecco taste like Tuna!.

$5 for an enhanced version of Ecco on XBLA vs. $8 for a direct port of Ecco on VC... Oh, the decision is so tough!

I'm all about this Hexic 2. I became incredibly addicted to the first one so I'm more than willing to pay for another awesome game based on the ideas of the original creator of Tetris. And the multiplayer looks fun.

I'm looking forward to Hexic 2. I haven't bought an XBLA game ina while so I'll go ahead and say that 10 dollars has accumulated enough.

Hexic?,Dammit I read Hexen 2,Why my mind keeps tourturing me!!!.

Why ya Betray mah!!!.

Ecco,Is kind of lame really I mean it was cool back then but I had enough of Ecco in the Sega Genesis Collection.

From Sega I rathe have vectorman instead.

Freaking Vectorman was supposed to come out on VC for months! It's even in Europe already!

No complaints here. I get a free trial of both games (that's FREE) to decide if I want them. What's to complain about? I din't enjoy Ecco the first time so probably won't buy it. I liked Hexic 1, and having two-player might make it worth a purchase. But as I said, I get to try them for FREE -- so what's to complain about?

Let me just say this: If you can beat Ecco in one sitting, you are a gaming god.

If you can beat it, period, with no guides, you are a demi god.

If you can beat it, with or without a guide, I salute you, Defender of the Ocean.

*Ahem*

http://speeddemosarchive.com/Ecco.html

Not me, but still.

Um. Hexic 2 is not Hexic. Not even close. There are several new gameplay changes, the biggest of which is that you do NOT rotate hexes - you have a ship on the bottom that changes the hexes.

Also, there are new hex types.

So you are not paying for the original Hexic, just updated. This is a whole new game, and I wish Joystiq would learn to do a little something I like to call "RESEARCH". Sheesh.

Please let next week be Space Giraffe and Puzzle Quest...

every time I see the name 'Hexic' I think of that old 3DO game 'The Horde'

I freaking loved that game

Ecco was fun a while back, but I'm not sure if it will be the same now. Hexic 2 multiplayer looks like a lot of fun because me and my friends were completely addicted to Hexic when we first got out Xboxes. Ahh, good times.

I wonder what the achievments could be?

Hexic 2's achievements: http://www.achieve360points.com/game/hexic2/

ssuk: Funny you should mention Sega's Vintage Collection audio and Steve Snake in the same comment... a quick look at the credits list for Sonic lists one Steve Snake under "YM2612, SN76489 Emulation". And if you didn't know, those model numbers are the G/MD's sound chips.

Breaking News

This Wednesday: Hexic 2 and Ecco the Dolphin on XBLA

Hexic 2

Ecco the Dolphin

Reader Comments (38)

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