More XBLA from PopCap

By Robert Purchese Published 22 January, 2007

New titles this year.

PopCap Games had a successful 2006 on Live Arcade, crowned recently with the release of Heavy Weapon.

It doesn't plan to stop there either, according to communications director Garth Chouteau, who expects more new games in 2007.

"There are of course other titles in the works for XBLA," he recently told Gamasutra. "Based on the success of the four titles we have released to date, in addition to the new one Heavy Weapon, I think that it's safe to say that other PopCap titles will make their way to the service."

"I would expect to see additional XBLA titles from us to show up this year."

He was, however, tight-lipped as to what the games would be.

Heavy Weapon broke the previous safe and friendly puzzle template that PopCap seemed to rigorously stick to. As a result, it became their most successful title, selling "an order of magnitude" more than the previous four games: Astropop, Bejeweled 2, Feeding Frenzy and Zuma.

Despite this, Chouteau was clear that the developer wouldn't be catering for one specific audience, believing that simple games can help to grow the market, as well as appeal to the underground gamers on the console.

"We would argue that hardcore gamers are still gamers. They enjoy games. While some of the most avid might look down their nose at games like Bejeweled, a significant number still enjoy these games as a break between Halo matches or other similar games."

You can catch up with our Heavy Weapon review elsewhere on the site.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (15) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • gizmo #1 5 years ago

    Bejeweled 2 is worth the price of entry for the music alone, IMHO. Beautiful game.

  • Xerx3s #2 5 years ago

    I liked bejeweled. :(

  • Retroid #3 5 years ago

    Heavy Weapon was sodding awful. I'd have laughed it off my Commodore C16, let alone an Xbox 360.

  • king_skins #4 5 years ago

    I liked Zuma

  • Fozzie_bear #5 5 years ago

    Heavy Weapon was sodding awful. I'd have laughed it off my Commodore C16, let alone an Xbox 360.

    Heavy Weapon is great. You're just biased against any game that uses more than 8 colours!

  • L42yB #6 5 years ago

    Bejeweled is nearly impossible, dammit :( Still haven't got a single achievement for that game... i must really suck at it

  • Retroid #7 5 years ago

    "Heavy Weapon is great. You're just biased against any game that uses more than 8 colours!"

    128 colours, actually: including 7 extra shades of black!

    I'm just biased against games I would've thought were shite 20-odd years ago ;p

  • Bezzy #8 5 years ago

    A good game's a good game. And a bad game's a bad game.

    And a mediocre game is a mediocre game.

    BUT! A 7/10 game is a 5/10 game, and a 6/10 game is actually 2/10.

    I forgot what I was going to say.

  • Bezzy #9 5 years ago

    I guess what I'm trying to say is, whatever the quality of a game is... that is what quality it is. It is the quality that it is. Do you see?

    But yeah, even though a game is only as good as it is, it would be quite nice to see XBLA do games which are a bit more adventurous (not that they haven't been, but it's important to give new ideas a chance - keep the balance of retro remakes and fresh blood. But then, I would say that, because I'm aspiring to get one on there.).

  • Instinct #10 5 years ago

    Bezzy, what in god's name are you on about? :p
    /goes and gets an aspirin.

  • Bezzy #11 5 years ago

    For those of you still interested, my dad finally got round to doing the humour chip for his real-life-self-aware johnny five robot. His sense of humour is modelled on mine, so YMMV.


    If only there was a Stewart LeeBot.

  • DrunKao #12 5 years ago

    Beszzy - "I guess what I'm trying to say is, whatever the quality of a game is... that is what quality it is. It is the quality that it is. Do you see? "

    Not too be funny, but it sounds like you're really stoned. Been to Amsterdam lately?

  • Phreedh #13 5 years ago

    Bezzy for prezzy! Great rant, that was. =)

  • smirny #14 5 years ago

    4 player heavy weapon over live is just frikking bonkers, but also insanely good fun :)

  • capcom23 #15 5 years ago

    Zuma and feeding frenzy are fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! even though i have finished it, but i still come back.