Popcap’s Feeding Frenzy 2 on Xbox LIVE Arcade

The place to be, this week, is Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) as Popcap’s now released Feeding Frenzy 2 on the 360 platform. Xbox Live Arcade has been the go to place for awesome new content brought in high definition on both shrink wrapped box games along with classic casual titles.

Not into casual games? Perhaps your spouse or children are into them! If you’ve got an Xbox 360 and continually consider it a “big boys hardcore console” it’s time to change your perspective because that’s old world thinking. Microsoft, together with Popcap, plans to change how people game on the Xbox 360 console system.

This isn’t Popcap’s first title, many may remember Heavy Weapon on the Xbox 360. This sure won’t be the last!

Read on for full press release details!

PopCap Launches Feeding Frenzy™ 2 Game on Xbox LIVE® Arcade

Award-Winning Sequel Features All-New Multiplayer Modes, Lite Mode and More

SEATTLE, Washington – September 17, 2008 — PopCap Games Inc., the leading developer and publisher of casual video games, announced that beginning today its popular action game Feeding Frenzy™ 2: Shipwreck Showdown is available for download via the Xbox LIVE® Arcade (XBLA) online service of Microsoft’s Xbox 360® video game console. Featuring a wealth of optimizations exclusively for Xbox LIVE, the XBLA version of Feeding Frenzy 2 includes high-definition graphics, achievements and leaderboards, and several all-new multiplayer modes. Available now for 800 Microsoft Points ($8.00), Feeding Frenzy 2 joins five other PopCap® titles already on XBLA, including Zuma™, Heavy Weapon™ and the original Feeding Frenzy.
“Feeding Frenzy 2 really improves on the original game in virtually every way, as far as XBLA is concerned,” said Greg Canessa, VP of video game platforms at PopCap. “With three different multiplayer modes, high-def graphics and some new moves that really lend themselves to a joystick controller, the new sequel is pretty perfectly suited to Xbox.”

In Feeding Frenzy 2: Shipwreck Showdown, you’re a little fish in a big sea, and must gobble your way up the food chain to solve an underwater mystery. Swim fast, eat anything smaller than you and avoid larger fish who want you for lunch. Battle everything from poisonous minnows to fish-munching orcas in your pursuit of a mysterious menace of the sea. Keep eating the power-ups to increase your speed and growth rate, add extra time, bulk up your “food bank” and more!

This new version of Feeding Frenzy makes a sizable leap in overall gameplay and XBLA-specific features, including:

  • A bigger-and more challenging single-player story mode, featuring over 60 new levels with bosses and mini-bosses for an even greater challenge!
  • New moves, power-ups and more — freeze enemies, stop time, play at night — even jump out of the water to eat bugs!
  • Frenzied fish-eating action can involve up to 4 friends in the all-new XBLA-exclusive multiplayer party mode*, featuring 10 new mini-games!
  • Story mode enables players to join with a friend in cooperative play*
  • Multiplayer Party modes come in two flavors: Party Games (pick from a list of mini-games and compete head-to-head) and FrenzyFest (compete for trophies across a series of mini-games to earn Party Points and climb the new Party Leaderboard)*
  • All-new Lite mode lets families experience the game’s Story mode without the pressure of losing lives (available for single-player and co-op play)
  • High-definition graphics and 5.1 surround sound create a more immersive experience

*All multiplayer modes are same-console only

About PopCap

PopCap Games (www.popcap.com) is the leading multi-platform provider of “casual games” — fun, easy-to-learn, captivating computer games that appeal to everyone from age 6 to 106. Based in Seattle, Washington, PopCap was founded in 2000 and has a worldwide staff of over 200 people in Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, Vancouver, B.C., Dublin and Shanghai. Its games have been downloaded more than 1 billion times by consumers worldwide, and its flagship title, Bejeweled®, has sold more than 10 million units across all platforms. Constantly acclaimed by consumers and critics, PopCap’s games are played on the Web, desktop computers, myriad mobile devices (cell phones, smartphones, PDAs, Pocket PCs, iPod and more), popular game consoles (such as Xbox), and in-flight entertainment systems. PopCap is the only casual games developer with leading market share across all major sales channels, including Web portals, retail stores, mobile operators and developers, and game device manufacturers.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Post

Sony’s E3 Conference: Fairly ImpressiveSony’s E3 Conference: Fairly Impressive

We’re all used to Sony falling on their face at E3 in the last few years, but, this year, things were different. They’re information was delivered well, they had a great presentation medium using Little Big Planet‘s game engine as a presentation platform over the standard PowerPoint slides and everything went smoothly.

The format for displaying their facts, figures and sales numbers was well played. Nobody wants to sit in front of a chart and listen to an executive blab on about what they did and where they’re going. But, when you add some Little Big Planet flair, such as having the graphs built within their game engine and Sack Boy hopping around on the statistics things smooth over well.

I was confused on why they chose to display the Little Big Planet graphic engine followed by Resistance 2 and then taper into talk about the PlayStation 2 with game previews. It seems more appropriate to bring in the PlayStation 2 product line first, then blow the crowd away with the current generation graphics. Instead, we were awed by the epic Resistance 2 graphics and then presented with old generation stale game engines… silly.

They went on to show off the wide array of PSP games arriving and a little trailer for Resistance Retribution for the PSP. The game system is definitely more mature than their DS competitor but seems to have a bit less sales momentum.

Overall, Sony did one right by talking about their three tiered solution to gaming instead of focusing too much on a single system. PlayStation 3 numbers are good but not mind boggling (like Wii) and their PSP product is doing much better than it used to and the PlayStation 2 numbers are high but falling compared to last year (as would be expected).

By focusing on the full suite of products they’ve put their eggs into many baskets rather than rely on their bleeding edge flagship product which still needs time to grow.

Well done Sony.

Episode 305: Duct TapeEpisode 305: Duct Tape

Paul and Jordan realize the brilliance of duct taping a flashlight to a gun barrel, while more Doctor Who fodder was recorded for a future outtakes episode. Jonah and Paul also express amazement there’s no Sugar Race racing based on the arcade title found in Wreck-It Ralph. Finally, the podcast eulogizes Roger Ebert.

The news for the week includes:

  • Disney shuts down LucasArts, cancels Star Wars 1313, Star Wars: First Assault
  • Thief to feature “classic mode”, removing all assists
  • Microsoft has a clear path to developing Killer Instinct after an agreement with Fox
  • The Witcher 3 confirmed to be DRM-free
  • Bethesda confirms “new version of Doom 4” being worked on, Rage 2 cancelled

There’s also Listener Feedback, and the Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm contest is still open – a winner will be announced next week.

Episode 302: Just a TwosomeEpisode 302: Just a Twosome

This week Jonah and Jordan go it alone without Paul, which is unfortunately since the Gaming Flashback is the classic Nintendo 64 title Paper Mario. It might be just as well as the events of the last week made the crew ramble on about the industry at length, making the post much longer than usual.

This week’s impressive news items:

  • John Riccitiello steps down as CEO of Electronic Arts
  • Firaxis announces Brave New World expansion for Civilization V
  • Will fans back an Alice 3 Kickstarter, asks American McGee
  • Lord British explains Shroud of the Avatar‘s offline gameplay and DRM
  • Facebook of Italian automobile company mentionsGran Turismo PS4″
  • Team Meat sitting out on developing for next-gen consoles

Lots of Reader Feedback, but no Question of the Week this week – just too much show.