Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

Any Xbox 360 owner knows the joys of the Xbox Live Arcade. This simple enjoyment comes from not only the games themselves, but being able to compare my high scores with my friends. Unfortunately, it’s not always perfect and when it fails, it’s like a kick to the gnads.

Yesterday, Assault Heroes kicked me in the gnads.

I’m sure some of you have been in the same situation. I happily purchased Assault Heroes last week and played it every other day or so since then. My score hit about 1.9 million, which at that time was ranked at about 201 worldwide which I was pretty damn proud of. I was also #1 on my friends list, so I sent out messages to others making them aware that I am the king of Assault Heroes and they can suck eggs. After all, what’re friends for?

A few days later, I fire up Assault Heroes and to my dismay…Savoy 5 had surpassed my score. Not by much, he just peaked 2.34 million, but he surpassed it nonetheless.

I dove headfirst into another session of Assault Heroes, fighting on foot for the first level to gain the much needed double-point bonus. I was a man on a mission, I knew that 1.9 million points was easy for me to reach so 2.34 million was not far out of reach.

Levels fly by and destruction ensues, I’m a killing machine. The final level arrives, I reach the final boss and the FINAL final level begins (yeah, it’s one of those). Finally, I beat the 2.34 million, hitting 2.45 in-total. I’m hardly excited *spoiler alert* because it seems the final level is the only timed level in the game (basically escaping from the fortress) and seems a bit too difficult. Either way, I died a bunch of times by running out of time and reached a Game Over prompt.

I surpassed the score, so my mission was complete. I fired up the leaderboard and saw only my original 1.9 million, second place standing. This wasn’t unusual, sometimes it takes a few minutes to update. (Geometry Wars is like that as well.) I continued from that level, starting at a score of 0 just to finish the game. I tried again and again, no luck beating the final level. I gave it a rest for the night, I can always fire up that level another day.

I exit to the game’s menu, check the leaderboard…but it still hadn’t updated. This is when the, “What…the…fuck.” comes out. I flipped through it a few times, wondering if I had somehow chosen Easy or Hard difficulty by accident….nope. My score was never updated, all progress was lost.

Then my 360 controller took flight. It flew quite well actually, those round edges sure make that sucker aerodynamic. It bounched off my christmas tree and onto the floor in my living room unharmed. This is the drawback of wireless controllers, they just keep flying. Then again, it keeps me swinging the controller like a flail in anger.

This kind of bullshit should never happen. I don’t know if I was momentarily disconnected from Xbox Live or the game has a defect in it, but my high score was wiped out for no reason whatsoever. I didn’t do anything different than what I had done the half-dozen other times I played the game. It is beyond irritating, it’s like getting kicked in the gnads, it really is.

Has anyone else experienced this in Assault Heroes or other Live Arcade titles?