Hydrophobia

If you thought this week’s XBLA sale was big, wait until you see the special one-day only offers that were teased earlier this week in Microsoft’s dashboard …
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Not one but two XBLA titles are included in the Deal of the Week promotion for August 23 – August 29. Twin-stick shooter Red Faction: Battlegrounds and third person …
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We’re starting yet another feature here at XBLAFans that will showcase any newly announced Xbox Live Arcade-based avatar awards from are friends over at AvatarAwards. They’re a great site that somehow gets news on avatar awards for all 360 games before they’re released. Be sure to check them out if you’re curious about any non-XBLA related avatar awards. For simplicity’s sake and so that we don’t leech from them, each of the links below will take you to their site. Remember, these are awards, so they’re given out to the player by completing criteria in each game. For more detail hit up the Avatar Awards site. You can also follow them on Twitter at @AvatarAwards360.

We’ve got a big backlog to fill between the AvatarAwards and things that pre-date their site, so this one’s a lot longer than usual. Hit the jump to see the list. Also, let us know if we missed one.

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Our friends at GamerBytes have discovered Hydrophobia: Prophecy listed on the Australian classification board, prompting some of us to prepare our wet suits for the game’s arrival.  The original …
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Its “Deal of the Week” time once again over at XBLA with three great titles, all up for discounted prices this week and guaranteed to make a big splash in the savings department too. …
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Hydrophobia had a shaky launch, it was riddled with bugs and clunky game mechanics. Developers of the game, Dark Energy Digital listened to critics and fans complaints however. This led to the launch of Hydrophobia Pure a significant (and free) update to the game which vastly improved the game in almost every way.

Due to the overwhelming acceptance of the newly remodeled game Dark Energy Digital wanted to make public and developer interaction much easier. And so they have launched Hydrophobia Listening Post. What is it you ask? The ‘listening post’ is a way for you to rate every aspect of Hydrophobia Pure, give your own suggestions and comments as well as request new aspects to be available for rating. The results of these ratings will directly impact the development of future games in the Hydrophobia series.

Hopefully this will become a new trend among more developers both small and big as it would change the way games are updated drastically in the future. You can read the full press release about the listening post, including a quote from Dark Energy Digital’s Creative Director Pete Jones, after the jump. Read More

Hydrophobia developer Dark Energy Digital has released details of a pretty substantial patch coming to the hugely ambitious but ultimately disappointing XBLA title. The patch, entitled “Pure”, aims to rectify the many problems that reviewers and gamers has with the game upon it’s release.

The update coincides with a 400 point discount for the game, meaning it can now be picked up for 800 points rather than the original 1200 release price.

Almost all of the games major game mechanics have been changed in some fashion, the cover has been improved, gunplay has been redesigned to be more intuitive and fun, the graphics have been bumped up slightly and the button layout has been changed to be more in line with similar titles.

Whether these changes actually improve the game remains to be seen but it’s certainly impressive that any developer would go back and change their game in such a fundamental manner in response to complaints.

Check out what Tyler had to say about the game upon release in our XBLAFans review. You can see a video detailing the changes below, along with a screenshot gallery.

Source: Eurogamer

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Hydrophobia was developed by Dark Energy Digital and published by Microsoft Game Studios for XBLA on September 29, 2010. Retails for 1200 Microsoft Points ($15). The publisher provided a copy of the game for reviewing purposes.

After more than three years in development, Hydrophobia is finally available on Xbox Live Arcade to start off this fall’s Game Feast promotion. The result is a fine action adventure game made special because of its impressive water physics, but one that is also far from perfect.

Developed by Dark Energy Digital, Hydrophobia takes place in the near future upon a massive sea-faring city called The Queen of the World, which is taken over by a group of terrorists called the Malthusians. It often resembles BioShock in both theme and setting, but stands out mostly due to the dynamic water physics. Read More

So Hydrophobia is coming to Xbox Live Arcade this Wednesday the 29th. We’ve be raving about this game since before E3 and our full review of Hydrophobia …
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[Editors Note: At the time of publication, we have already started our review of the final build of this game, which will be published on 9/28. This …
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