August 8th 2012 6:00 am PT

Arcade: Hybrid

Content: Hybrid
Price: 1200 Microsoft Points
Availability: Check availability in your Xbox LIVE region
Dash Text: (Online Interactions Not Rated by the ESRB) Gold subscription and internet connection required for play. Hybrid is a multiplayer third person shooter in which two factions fight for world domination on a persistent world map. Take control of a soldier fighting for the Paladins or the Variants as they race to control the world’s most powerful resource; Dark Matter. Your victories on the battlefield directly affect the course of the war!

Add the game trial to your Xbox 360 download queue

Arcade, Marketplace By Larry Hryb, Xbox LIVE's Major Nelson

permalink: http://majornelson.com/2012/08/08/arcade-hybrid/

http://twitter.com/Olimite Olimite

I smell another Nexuiz. Steering well clear.
- http://twitter.com/knarfblack Knarf Black
  
  I was in the beta and it was actually pretty neat. Everybody flies around on jetpacks between cover points (sometimes on the walls or ceilings) instead of freely running around like normal shooters. Maps and teams are small, games are fast, and your killstreaks, which start with merely one kill, accumulate robot sidekicks for you (which can be turned against you by the enemy).
  
  I don’t know if it will be everyone’s cup of tea, but it is anything but generic.
  - http://twitter.com/Superman64 Some Guy
    
    Not being able to freely move around is what makes me not like this game. And saying this game is “anything but generic” isn’t really completely true. I mean how many games use the whole…”future space war” setting?
- Thânia Santos
  
  nexiuz is a fine game. and there are some peoples playing it.
  but less peoples than on PC : ‘coz …. on PC … online play is free …
  - Russell Gorall
    
    In other words, you smell another Nexuiz, too?
Thânia Santos

Since only gold member can play online,
this will end certainly like most online games that are not Halo or CoD on Xbox : no one playing online.

That is one of the biggest problem on Xbox right now,
And it is becoming ridiculous : pay to play online.

This is a real disability for smaller games:
those who pay to play online, they pay to play big games,
not to play obscure Arcade games.
and so, all those obscure game got their servers empty.

Microsoft should really re-think their pollicy about online play:
ok for “only gold member have access to deals and full online support”
but why not a smaller service to non paying customers? like “only on some days of the weeks”, or “at certain moment of day”, or “100% online access to unpopular online games”? That would be a start (but I certainly hope that online play will become fully free one day). it will be good for everyone, even gold members! and certainly better for smaller games and for those who wish to play them online… (I am a gold member who wish to play online unpopular games)

BTW, anyone around here would like to play a few SkyDrift matches on 360… server is ALWAYS empty!!
- Ian Erb
  
  Honestly, P2P online has little to do with why these games have no longevity. The reality is that people play/buy games solely based on title, rather then originality, or quality. A XBLA game could be the best game ever made, yet it will always be outplayed by CoD Modern Op 6 or Halo 12…or whatever generic FPS is the flavor of the month. This is the same on PSN, as it is here, it’s even the same on PC (for the most part). AAA titles get the most play, and the indie titles that get even a fraction of the following are few and far between. For every Minecraft, there are a 1000 indie (or small) titles that people play for 10 minutes and forget about.
  - Thânia Santos
    
    I know perfectly what you say,
    I know that most peoples, on any machine, paying or not for the service, would mostly play big AAA games.
    
    What I just wanted to point is that with limited access to online play to gold member, the situation for all those smaller game is even wrost than with a fully open online access. (“peoples would not give their money just for an obscure game no one might play” and if everybody thing like that when thinking about gold membership, no one will never play those games)
    
    A good solution might be to give easier access to games proportionally inverse to their popularity.
    That should dispatch gamers all around the games available.
    those that do not pay, will increase the number of players on unpopular games.
    (I said ‘unpopular’, not ‘bad’ games).
    I will be a more happy gold member, if there was more player on unpopular games.
    - Matu_Flp_Krawfe
      
      That would be an interesting move for the XBLA, free online play for silver members for games like this. Larger titles and the AAA games everyone buys live for would be unaffected (so you wouldn’t be undercutting gold subscriptions) but it would really help these little guys along while giving the xbox a decent stepping stone if they ever want to push a little further and invest in F2P.
- http://twitter.com/seekul Luke Es | sE ekuL
  
  “100% online access to unpopular online games”
  I know what you’re really trying to say, but that’s hilarious as a marketing bullet point.
  “All the bad food you can eat!” ;D
TheDoveOfPeace

I’d like to see sales figures for this game.
ChinoM

What about this Microsoft?
”HYBRID SERVICE ERROR

The Hybrid service is not available. Please try again later.

(A) OK”

It’s unacceptable for multiplayer only game. Kinda i feel bad for the people that have bought this game.
http://www.thetjhzone.blogspot.com/ Tylerh1701

Yawn…
Russell Gorall

Online will be dead after two weeks, just like any other shooter DLC.
- Lee Rayson
  
  Wrong there is one online shooter that was THE first on console and people still play it
  battlefield 1943
  - Russell Gorall
    
    My bad.
    
    Online will be dead after two weeks, just like 99% of shooter Arcade games.
    - Lee Rayson
      
      Much better
      I do agree that these type games are good for a tech demo(which is what battlefield 1943 was it was to test frostbite engine out) but to actaully develop a game to try compete with top titles like halo or CoD is very silly which why none of them have worked.
Flawless

i wonder how many sales stuff like this costs the developer,i for one dled the demo and once i couldnt connect i deleted it so thats at least one potential sale,had the same problem with Nexuiz.
http://www.facebook.com/moose.mcmoose.54 Moose McMoose

Gotham city impostors >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
http://twitter.com/NERVI0_Xbox360 Toni Masana

3 vs 3 with matchmaking only of 3 friends list searchning unknow players?
And in down servers?
10 maps only without maps editor and with 10 maps very simples?
Dedicated server in a game of 8 or 10 weeks of life.
Fail of game.
Fail of Summer of arcade.

I buy Minecraft and compared with PC release is very poor.
I buy Deadlight, bad control and developed by spanish and the game with voice only english… o spanish… incredible.
And Hybrid, I say o my friends the news for download and this out of marketplace… buf…
With servers down…
Perfect.
- ChinoM
  
  Hybrid is even pulled from marketplace atm. Disaster! Overall, i can’t believe how poor is ”Summer of Arcade 2012”.
- Z4M0
  
  It actually isn’t a fail of a game. Searching for a match takes longer than the match itself but it have enough good ideas to be taken in account (a more arcadey gears of war cover system as only movement allowed with bits of dark void into it).
  
  It will fail however, cause online-only XBLA titles SHOULD BE FREE to play online for both gold and silver users, and thus maxizing its target audience. All FPS XBLA failed so far (cept for BF1943) cause 99% of GOLD members just care about Halo, COD, BF, GoW and FIFA.
  
  About Deadlight, you can blame devs for its brief lifespan and if you wish, for it being “just” english dubbed but not Microsoft’s fault. What’d you spect ? the events of the game happening in Mostoles Spain, just cause the Devs are Spanish ? …i.e. Carlos Pacheco is also spanish and comics (masterfully drawn TBH) he did for Marvel were all written in english !
  
  Minecraft on 360 might be poorer than it’s PC counterpart but it’s also cheaper price-wise, so IMHO no complains about it.
  
  You rant about so many different things in the same post and done in so lousy engrish it would be hard to take in account.
  
  Tal vez con un cursillo de idiomas por correspondéncia solucionaría gran parte del problema.
  
  Cheers.
http://twitter.com/Superman64 Some Guy

I heard that Hybrid has been pulled from the marketplace due to “server issues” in the game. I think this solidifies that this is the worst Summer of Arcade ever. You guys could have easily had better games in this promotion, but since you have a somewhat childish policy of “IT MUST BE AN EXCLUSIVE”…this is what we get…Hybrid (aka Nexuiz 2: The Search For Curly’s Gold).
- http://twitter.com/Navarin Buster Wolf
  
  THPS HD isn’t an exclusive. Limbo and Castle Crashers weren’t exclusive. Maybe temporarily but it doesn’t “have” to be an exclusive.
  
  So why Jet Set Radio HD wasn’t included boggles the mind.
  - http://twitter.com/SamboTaylor Sam Taylor
    
    Timed exclusives.
http://www.facebook.com/moose.mcmoose.54 Moose McMoose

Gotham city impostors >>>>>>>>>>
http://twitter.com/Navarin Buster Wolf

Oh wow, they couldn’t even launch properly! Well at least there wasn’t a beta to help them get it right or anything. Oh wait…
http://twitter.com/MykeJayy Michael J

There really should be bots added to XBLA Multiplayer games since like most people said these games tend to be dead after a few weeks, least it gives people the chance to get a little more out of it rather than requiring other people to play it.
Russell Gorall

The demo is actually more awkward than it looks. The level I played online you start out by flying towards a barrier/cover, yet to really work it you seem to have to take you right thumb off the A button or your right thumb off the right analog. Kind of sums up the game. It seems like a Vanquish knockoff, yet I can get Vanquish used for cheaper. It also seems like a Gears knockoff, yet I can get Gears 3 used for about the same price. It also seems like a Dark Void ripoff, yet I would not want to play that because it probably plays like Hybrid.

I can guarantee this game will have a permanent discount within a month, and sadly this seems to be Microsoft trying to show off something first party that is a new IP.

“sounds rad”
st0rmgazer

Hybrid’s an awesome game that’s better than a lot of $60 releases out there.
ElektroDragon

This was so bad I could not even finish the tutorial.
Nick Peck

Well that sucks, sorry guys! I never bother to even look at MP only XBL arcade games because they never stick around that long and are usually lower quality. I’ll always just wait for the the bigger games to come out to spend my money. Oh well, it can happen to anyone
Z4M0

Games like this should feature FREE ONLINE PLAY for both gold and silver members so the target audience would be broader.

Or maybe making the game be 200 msp with just one or two maps and then charge for small packs, ala Pinball FX.

I’m no wizkid, but I know people gets paid for those ideas, so let the geniuses work and make it happen.

Whatever makes people play this kind of stuff will be worth it. Otherwise, online-only game with no userbase = unplayable game = game barely selling a copy.

Same happens for black light tango down, etc.

August 8th 2012 6:00 am PT

Arcade: Hybrid

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