Our friends at Xbox360Achievements.org often discover Achievements lists for games before release, and sometimes even before a game’s announcement. Actually, much of the credit goes to French gamer Zebrasqual, who one site called ‘the best Windows Phone gamer in the world.’ Mr. Squal (as I like to call him) makes it his business not just to have the most mobile Xbox Live Achievements of anybody; he’s also great at finding Achievement lists and making them public.
The latest batch of Achievement lists ousted by Zebra and Xbox360Achievements.org include: Battleship and Mirror’s Edge from Electronic Arts and Fling from Miniclip. The two EA games are expected to be timed Nokia exclusives, so don’t let’s get excited about them just yet, non-Nokia owners.
Head past the break for previews of each upcoming Xbox Live game!
Battleship
In this videogame adaptation of the classic board game, two sides take turns blindly firing at each other, trying to find and destroy the other’s ships. In addition to the Classic mode many of us enjoyed as children, Battleship features two new game types: Salvo and Superweapon. Salvo matches move faster than traditional ones because you’re allowed to fire as many shots per turn as you have remaining ships; the number of shots decrease when your ships sink. Superweapon introduces a variety of new weapons, making for much different dynamics than normal games. Plus, new weapons unlock based on ships sunk across all game modes, so it doubles as an addictive metagame.
Battleship is obviously more fun as a multiplayer game, and the Windows Phone version does indeed have a multiplayer mode. We don’t know yet if online play is supported – my gut tells me multiplayer will be limited to local multiplayer on the same device or Wi-Fi, same as the iPhone version. Lack of online play would be a missed opportunity, but Windows Phone games rarely have significant features that their iOS counterparts lack. Whatever the case, 10 of Battleship’s 20 Achievements are multiplayer-specific, so expect to put in plenty of multiplayer time if you want them all.
Mirror’s Edge
iPhone screens shown
The mobile version of Mirror’s Edge adapts 2010’s fairly-successful console 3D platformer into a 2D platformer with 3D graphics. Take on the role of Faith as she runs, jumps, and performs all kinds of crazy stunts while avoiding the corrupt authorities. All maneuvers, whether jumping or combat, are performed by naturalistic swipes.
In addition to the main game, Mirror’s Edge includes a socially-oriented mode called Speed Run. Basically, players run through stages and then post their times online – think of it as a leaderboard challenge. The iOS version posts Speed Run times to Facebook. We’ll be interesting in seeing if that integration survives the trip to Windows Phone. At any rate, three Xbox Live Achievements will encourage players to spend time going after better times in Speed Run.
Fling
Miniclip is fast becoming one of the most prolific Xbox Live publishers on Windows Phone. Unlike their last title, Monster Island, Fling isn’t a physics puzzler – it’s just a plain old puzzle game. In each level, players must flick furballs into each other, the goal being to leave only one monster on the board. Furballs can only travel horizontally or vertically and they only stop when they hit another furball, so you’ll need to experiment and/or think a few moves in advance to win.
Not only does Fling pack thousands of different puzzles (yeesh!), it has four different game modes as well. Free-play lets you play at a relaxed pace without time constraints; Arcade challenges players to solve as many puzzles as possible before time runs out; Challenge breaks groups of levels up into timed sets; and Frenzy is a never-ending survival mode. Arcade and Frenzy each have several specific Achievements, while the other modes do not.
The nice thing about Miniclip titles is they’re always available to play free online as Flash games. Just head over to Miniclip.com right now to check out Fling’s puzzling gameplay.
Source (for Achievement lists): Xbox360Achievements.org; via Windows Phone Daily
Paul Acevedo is the Games Editor at Windows Central. A lifelong gamer, he has written about videogames for over 15 years and reviewed over 350 games for our site. Follow him on Twitter @PaulRAcevedo. Don’t hate. Appreciate!
