We first caught wind that Ubisoft was planning on releasing a Windows Phone 8 specific version of Babel Rising 3D back during Casual Connect 2013. But the word on the street was that it wouldn't be Xbox enabled due to the lengthy certification process.
While we aren't sure what happened between then and now, Babel Rising 3D was released today and as an Xbox Windows Phone gaming title.
For those not familiar with Babel Rising 3D you play the role of a vengeful god with the task of preventing your worshippers from building the Tower of Babel. You use lightning bolts, earthquakes, floods and other nasty tools of your wrath to prevent the tower from being built.
Babel Rising 3D has fifteen missions in the single player campaign along with a survival mode that will test your godly stamina. Graphics look impressive and it will be interesting to see how the latest Xbox title shakes out. We'll get our Xbox Gaming Master Paul set up with Babel Rising 3D and get a full review on the site shortly.
The only obvious downside to Babel Rising 3D is that it lacks a trial version. The full version is currently running $2.99 and you can pick up Babel Rising for your Windows Phone 8 device here in the Windows Phone Store.
Thanks, everyone, for the tips!
Reader comments
Babel Rising 3D for Windows Phone 8 hits the Store shelves as an Xbox title
This game is also available in the Windows 8/RT store with Xbox certification, but for $3.59 and also with no trial. Man, I wish there was a trial.
No try don't buy
No try, No bye. Why can you not have a trial? Android gives you 15 mins from the time you purchase to refund. If I get an expensive large game that takes me a good few minutes to download using my very fast LTE off my red 920, the refund clock is ticking during this time, by the time the game finishes installing... I've only got half the time left to try it and by the time I get it all loaded and started, the window has passed or is imminent. This is on my crappy android tablet that I hate in all ways, I just want to play the Stargate game that's only on ios and android... Lame. Luckily WP prevails on this, and it's so easy that for something to not have a trial... Just tells me they want to compel you to buy a bad game.
If the controls are fixed and the review comes out positive, I'll buy it.
I love Ubi but seriously, no trial? It's not that hard to implement and provided the app is good it increases your sales substantially.
MS is doing an amazing job by releasing one Xbox game title per week!!!
At the moment iOS and Android are receiving new games and WP is geniusly catching up by releasing one game per week and mostly 2009-20012 games!!!
I'd much rather have a handful of Xbox games on Windows Phone than a flood of non-Xbox games on iOS or Android. As Windows Phone continues to grow, so will the Xbox games library on Windows Phone. In a few years, if all goes well, the Xbox catalog of mobile games will be selling Windows Phones.
I agree with this comment like no other. I believe that in time, the store on WP8 as well as Win8 will flourish as people realize the potential these devices have. Apple has been building their app store for years and has had a HUGE head start on the WP store. Microsoft simply started off on the wrong foot, but I have never seen a company fix it's mistakes as fast. They basically recreated the Xbox one for the people, and 8.1 is an AMAZING improvement. Heck, when WP8.1 comes out, I would love see how much smack talk it gets from iOS 7.
Could you explain to me why the Xbox label is that important to you?
Achievements, socializing, and exclusivity. Achievements are the most brilliant thing Microsoft invented: they add replay value to a game by giving you incentives to play it longer, or in different ways. They increase the social aspect of gaming as they allow you easily to compare games played, achievements earned, etc. with your friends (a lot of games try to do this with Facebook or other social network integration now on iOS, which I could see many people seeing as comparable, but to me I never liked it, plus such integration is fragmented whereas on Xbox it is unified and allows you to build up your overall Gamerscore across all games and platforms), and finally, the Xbox is an exclusive label which also guarantees a certain level of quality.
I dont know what some devs dont get. If you give us no trial, its screams that you know the game sucks and trying to hide something.
This ^^^. If they provided a trial then nobody would actually buy the full game because Ubi know what a wank game it is.
I have a rule to games. If its not at least 80mb ITS not worth the time. I liked the old version, but to buggy and lacking graphics to have play value. This have to roll as a buy.
What kind of rule is that lol? My favorite games are ruzzle and arcanes td and they are 19 and 35mb respectively. They caught me more than Halo.
I bought it and it seems to work. Not super fun, but its a time killer, and you get achievements :P
Have they fixed all the bugs in this game? Not trying to start a flame war but I could've sworn it was bug ridden upon first release.
No try, no buy... Sorry Ubi, not buying your overpriced games to either pc or mobile when there's no demo/trial version.
Indeed, trials are important, and I don't get why UbiSoft doesn't have them. I made the mistake of buying Rayman when it was the Red Strip deal of the week simply because it was cheap and it had nearly unanimous 5-star reviews. I bought it and, what do you know, I regret it. I don't know why everyone else seems to like it, but I think it is way too difficult, which takes all the fun out of it. Had I been able to play the trial, I wouldn't have bought it.
That said, sometimes the trials are too limiting and there were a few times where I got the trial and I wasn't sure I'd like the full game. This happened with Mirror's Edge. I downloaded the trial like 5 months ago, thought it seemed intriguing but I thought it would get old fast. Then just the other day I decided to redownload the game and buy it this time (as my Lumia 928 money was supposed to expire). Then I was blown away with how much better the game actually was then the trial let on.
Ouch $2.99....
One Jelly Donut.
Where are you buying jelly donuts? You are way overpaying.
But you can eat a jelly donut, that game on WP7 was not worth me getting paid to play it.
Isn't this a re-release?
Yeah, it was a 7-only game before, though. It was highly imperfect, so it was pulled from that store, and it returns as an 8-only title today.
It's still in the WP7 store. It was pulled from WP8 store after a week or so as it was even buggier than the WP7 version
The only Xbox WP7 game that I ALWAYS expected that would be ported to WP8 was/is Tentacles...
Yea, bummer about Tentacles..favorite game when I had my HD7.
Oh yeah, I really miss tentacles, and the dlc too. I also miss Orbital.
+1 &+1 for both games.
I was overseas when WP7 launched and didn't get back home till WP8 launched, so I missed out on WP7 and was new to the WP community with WP8. I often hear WP7 owners complain (and rightfully so) that many apps and games are not compatible with their devices, but it also seems that there are quite a few great games and apps that only WP7 users have access to that were never ported to WP8. It's too bad Microsoft didn't do a better job of porting over the more popular WP7 games as there are quite a few that I've come across that I'd like to play. You think this would've been a priority for them since WP8 Xbox game releases have been somewhat slim. Pulling from the already existing WP7 Xbox catalog could've been an easy way to satiate WP8 users too (but I also feel for them too in the lack of WP8 to WP7 ports).
All WP7 apps were supposed to automatically work in WP8, but there have been numerous issues so it's not quite as seamless as we were led to believe.
Looks like September was a great month for Xbox games on windows phone
It's October.
give the guy a break he thought of it last week! :P
Publishers:
Please offer limited free trials of your applications so wary, new to Windows Phone users can see if your application really works.
Reviewers:
Give developers time to publish updates for their applications before you slam them in reviews.
$3.00 isn't a ton of money, but for a game that I would probably play during my breaks at work or while in the can I can't justify it just yet.
If a game releases broken then it deserves to be judged as such.
This
I normally aply the moto "No try, no buy".
But I'll wait for Paul's review and hands on to see a bit more about this. The premise sounds like something I would enjoy.
That's what I thought, very interesting idea for a game, they just didn't execute.
+1 No try, No bye.
To buy or not to buy.. Someone must decide it for me!
Buy.. No don't.. Yes bu.. Oh damn i cant
Rent
Trade
Sell Sell Sell!!!
Lack of trial from such big company, and bad previous reviews means one thing:
Do Not Buy! :)
There is absolutely no reason why this should not have a trial.
The lack of a trial wouldn't be AS BAD if it wasn't reported that this game was going to be free in the first place. I simply dont' care to spend $3 on a game I know nothing about (particularly, if I will enjoye it). Still, at least Ubisoft has made good on bringing the game back, and good stuff that it stayed Xbox-enabled--it seems like we're on a mini-roll here with consistent Xbox releases.
This looks awesome.
Careful... The reviews on it are awful
There are only two reviews when I checked 5 minutes ago!
Sorry, I meant the previous version that got slammed. I'm not sure how this one is different
I just checked the WP7 store and most reviews are 1 star, citing camera & control issues, very long load times, frame-rate issues & bugs. It might be improved in this version though.
I was one of those reviews. Worse game on WP7. Not even playable due to non responsive controls. I would have rated it donkey if the store would have let me.