Xbox Live Arcade Desires: Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Live!

The Xbox Live Arcade service has proven to be a great platform for revitalizing older PC and console titles and delivering them to a newer audience - however there are some games missing that may prove to be excellent additions to the service. Consider this....

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Live!
Stop singing the Rockapella jingle in your head. We're not talking about that.



Many children who went to school during the 80s and 90s will recall several games fondly - Oregon Trail, The Munchers series, and Carmen Sandiego in its various flavors. A crook has committed a spectacular heist and it's your job to track them down. Fond memories include the blocky graphics chosen to represent the various cities around the world, the henchmen as they snuck across the screen when you chose the correct city to go to, and the occasional flying knife or other object intended to harm you, the gumshoe. Collect all the clues and you could get a warrant from your successful sluething. Find the crook before you get your warrant and they go free. The howls of frustration still ring in many ears.

As with the Xbox Live Arcade Desires series of titles so far, the same case can be made for this game's revival. Carmen suits the family demographic Microsoft is desperate to steal from Nintendo, by cleverly educating players while injecting a good dose of fun to cover up the "not-so-awesome" parts. Again, the title is flexible in the sense mom and dad can take part in the fun while the child can still be the star. And nostalgia is just plain cool.



Improvements here could be simply amazing, depending how much effort is put into rebuilding this title for the Xbox 360. As agents travel they could see other henchmen and have to help act as an informant to other A.C.M.E. agents working on other cases ("I saw him with a red coat.") by choosing from a few possible responses. As cities are traveled to, news feeds from the area could scroll on the screen courtesy of RSS. And of course cities could be changed and updated with new pictures and relevant information over time. A mega-case could be put out in which agents must work together to help find the ever elusive Carmen herself. The possibilities here are amazing.

So Where is it?
Carmen Sandiego has perhaps the toughest time of all Xbox Live Arcade Desires games so far - revival attempts on the GameCube resulted in a spectacular flop. While Carmen Sandiego and the Secret of the Stolen Drums was considered a decent update by many critics, marketing was poor and as a result the desired sales did not materialize. When you're expecting sales off a beloved title that flops it puts more than a single nail in the coffin for future revivals. With the economy struggling, securing funds for a doubtful sequel just may not happen.

If someone out there with power is reading this, consider a revival of Carmen Sandiego. There is definitely a market out there, but keep the expectations real.

Xbox Live Arcade Desires: Munchers Live!

The Xbox Live Arcade service has proven to be a great platform for revitalizing older PC and console titles and delivering them to a newer audience - however there are some games missing that may prove to be excellent additions to the service. Consider this....

Munchers Live!
Coming from the same vein of thought as my previous post on Oregon Trail Live!, Muchers Live! is a revival of two games, Word Munchers and Number Muchers, both of which common among the twentysomethings of the US from their school days. The sister titles revolved around the same general premise - eat the appropriate vowel or number as dictated by the information at the top of each screen. Starting slow, the pace and answer criteria would pick up in difficulty, becoming outright frantic as players struggled to much the correct answer before it was changed by the bad guys. Eat an incorrect answer or become a Troggle's dinner and lose a life. (Troggles are the bad guys, by the way.) Do well and get rewarded with a great moment in muncher history - a small silly clip showing the good guy (Muncher) trouncing the Troggles in/at a historic place/time. Between all of this, players learn their vowels, consonsants, prime factors, multiples, and so forth.


Just as with Oregon Trail Live!, a similar case can be made for re-relasing this title. Muchers suits the family demographic Microsoft is desparate to steal from Nintendo, by cleverly educating players while injecting a good dose of fun to cover up the "not-so-awesome" parts. Again, the title is flexible in the sense mom and dad can take part in the fun while the child can still be the star. And hey, whose mom and dad couldn't use a brushing up on their math and English?

Similar to Oregon Trail Live, the development and porting cycle for the nature of this title would be relatively short when compared to other games. Such a relatively smaller cost screams for a publisher to re-release and go through the process associated with it. Heck, a neat Live! enabled multiplayer mode could be thrown into the game where one set of players play as the Troggles and the others as Munchers. Imagine a four on four match inside an expanded grid with four Munchers moving frantically to eat numbers, while the speedy-yet-speed-controlled Troggles eat good answers and leave behind incorrect ones. The screams echo in my head already..."You ate my two! YOU ATE MY TWO!" The fun begs to be had.


So where is it?
Unfortunately Muchers Live! faces the same issues as Oregon Trail Live. Both original games were developed by MECC in the late 1980s/early 1990s and rights have since been acquired by The Learning Company, who has reluctant to license their properties to consoles. Speculation frequently concludes this could be because folk familiar with the game would not expect a console version to perform as well as the PC versions they are familiar with.

As with all titles that wind up in the Xbox Live Arcade Desires series, nearly the biggest hurdle is convincing the powers necessary a market exists for this title. Microsoft is tightening the requirements for the XNA platform, so its likely the capital to license and port the game will need to be fronted by a larger publisher, and even then the person spearheading the project needs to have some pull in the industry. It is not impossible, it's just very unlikely.

If someone is out there and reading with power, hear my plea and make this happen. It's an absurdly simple, yet low cost game that could draw some pretty cash into your coffers. And if, for some reason, it doesn't - hey, you didn't make Superman 64.

Xbox Live Arcade Desires: Chu Chu Rocket! Live

The Xbox Live Arcade service has proven to be a great platform for revitalizing older PC and console titles and delivering them to a newer audience - however there are some games missing that may prove to be excellent additions to the service. Consider this....

Chu Chu Rocket! Live
Sega really has a hard time releasing their games. The Xbox 360 has little Japanese penetration, the PS3's price is still forcing slower-than-desired console sales, the PS2 has little online connectivity or unique style, Sonic has crapped all over the house, and cult-classic titles sell whimsically in the US. Seems like the Wii, with it's global popularity and unique control scheme to boot is a logical choice, no? This is very true for larger titles like Samba De Amigo and Space Channel 5. One would believe there is little case then, for Sega to release much on the 360. Believe it or not, a Chu Chu release for the 360 is probably one of Sega's best ways to get their foot in the door.

The Xbox Live Arcade service's games are typically smaller, more "compact" titles that are simple, yet engrossing. In essence, most games on the service play like a true arcade game - short 3 minute games that are fun but quick to end. Chu Chu Rocket! is very much like this - a truly fun but simple and short puzzler with some whacky multiplayer on the side. Sega doesn't need 500 reasons to release this - there's one simple reason: it would simply fit in perfectly with offerings currently available. Seem weak? Those same offerings are selling like hotcakes according to official Microsoft figures, which peg downloads at 25,000,000 and counting. On the technical side the game's base code is small and compact, likely easily placed onto an Xbox Memory Unit, and the GBA port from years past also means the code base has likely been placed onto a universal platform, which makes for easy porting.

The Xbox platform also lends itself to some enhancements to Chu Chu that would be the next logical steps for the puzzler. The mayhem of multiplayer simply screams to be taken online and could easily be integrated into the game without skipping a beat. Different board types and configurations could also be stepped up to create new ways of directing the rodents to their ships. Kapu Kapus could be expanded into a variety of different kinds with different traits, such as speed, ability to jump, explode, etc. Take these gameplay changes, combine them with the multiplayer level editor and then throw in the seamless Xbox Live experience and you've got a seriously killer package.

Where is it?
Chu Chu Rocket! Live is a simple concept but is tied down under a 400 pound gorilla named...Sega. While it certainly seems certain parts of the company have managed to pull their head out of their ass and get some decent titles into the pipe (including a quiet XBLA release of Golden Axe), there are still powers that be in the company that haven't figured out any sort of road map for the company. Sega still exhibits an extremely disjointed mentality where the left hand does not know what the right one is up to. Unfortunately fixing this problem likely entails literally breaking the company down to its individual parts and forcefully extracting some deeply penetrated people that have somehow managed to screw things up for ten years without anyone figuring out who they are. Oh well, at least we can dream...

Xbox Live Arcade Desires: Oregon Trail

The Xbox Live Arcade service has proven to be a great platform for revitalizing older PC and console titles and delivering them to a newer audience - however there are some games missing that may prove to be excellent additions to the service. Consider this....

Oregon Trail Live
If you used a computer in the early to late/mid 1990s you probably have stumbled across this gem in any of its iterations. Fans of the series often recall blocky DOS graphics, the awkward but engrossing hunting experience with little square bullets, dying of dysentery, and having their hopes of winning the game dashed on a rock in the Dalles. Of course, buried in this fun was a learning experience in managing money, time, health, and also some historical facts brought to you in conjunction with MIDI sound.



Beyond the nostalgia factor and fan service, a serious case can be argued for re-releasing this game. Microsoft has been trying very hard to push the 360 as a more family friendly console and a game long respected for its educational value being placed on the console would do a lot to further this image. This is likely one of the few games that can carry a wide appeal to both younger gamers and mom and dad. The cost of porting the game is relatively low compared to writing a new engine for a game and development would fall into a relatively short cycle.

Speaking of development, should the game be released, I propose it be done in two flavors - classic and enhanced. Classic would retain the older DOS graphics (modified to be HD compatible) and gameplay, tweaked only to fit the Xbox controller layout. Enhanced would contain the graphical improvements of the newer editions of Oregon Trail and updated sound. An optional "LiveConnect" mode could also be made available for both modes, where the game would communicate with the Live servers to note where party members died or notable events occurred. Other gamers would be able to see randomly selected tombstones and such as they take their party along the trail to Oregon. Gamerscore could also have a hayday with some serious awards, such as completing the trail, and some fun awards like getting cholera.

So Where Is It?
There are some definite hurdles in making this release happen. The largest is licensing the game from The Learning Company, owners of the franchise after MECC sold the rights. Traditionally TLC-owned properties do not perform well in terms of sales on consoles, such as the case of the GameCube's Carmen Sandiego and the Secret of the Stolen Drums. The populace has come to expect some titles on a PC and in turn believe a console version may be less fun.

The other large hurdle preventing Oregon Trail Live is convincing a developer there is a market out there. Every game will sell a handful of titles but developers want million seller titles to make their profits. Unless your Atlus, finding a developer can be a hard sell on this point alone. Or has no one realized the gold that exists in this game? It's conceivable someone could attempt a release with the XNA platform, but that world has plenty of snarls that need to be worked out first, not to mention an indie developer likely cannot pony up a license fee to TLC.

If someone out there stumbles upon my idea, hear my plea. I'm sure two other people besides myself would like to relive the glory days of buying oxen and learning about Soda Springs again. Bring us Oregon Trail Live! Here are my thanks in advance.