About Author: Mark Seymour

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Follow him on Twitter: @marktseymour or read more at www.wakeupandsmelltheashes.com

Posts by Mark Seymour

5

What we are playing: May 13

By
Mark Seymour
– May 13, 2012Posted in: Feature List, Features, What we are playing

What we are playing is a weekly column published on Sunday. Select members of the team talk about the games they’ve been playing over the past week and which they’re most looking forward to. 

Perry Jackson - Not too much XBLA but I did get to play Retro City Rampage at a Playstation event this week. It was on a Vita but it’ll be an engrossing, crazy experience on any platform.

Matt Liparota - A crazy week for me, what with an upcoming move and my girlfriend’s college graduation; in my spare time, though, I managed to dig a little more into Minecraft (Get it? Dig? Minecraft? Mine? Oh, nobody understands me). Looking forward to a bit of a lighter week coming up, hopefully with lots of gaming involved (Max Payne 3anyone?).

Nathan Bowring - Can’t talk, I’ve got a ton of obsidian to mine in Minecraft but I can’t find any diamonds!

James Heiger -  Its been a really slow week of gaming for me. I am still chipping away at Trials Evolution. I also fired up Pinball FX2 for a bit too.

Nick Santangelo - I played a little bit of Awesomenauts and a whole lot of Halo Reach. It’s nice that 343 is putting more appropriate credit rewards for completing challenges in and focusing the challenges more on matchmaking modes, which I Bungie probably should have done from the start. Still, the progress bar towards Legend moves absurdly slow, so I’ll probably still be ranked Hero when Halo 4 hits no matter how much I play the game between now and then. Anyhow, I also played someXenoblade Chronicles, but I’m making slow progress in it. The “good” news is that the retail release schedule for the next several months is a barren wasteland, so there won’t be much to distract me from it.

John Laster - Awesome. Awesome. Awesomenauts!

Ross Adams - It was a fairly regular week for games and then, Minecraft.

Ben Fisher - Still rolling along on Prototype 2.

Steve Melton - Picked up Forza Motorsport 4 for myself and Cars 2 (the video game) for my daughter and myself. Who knew that a movie-franchise game would be the perfect answer to an Xbox version of Mario Kart? Cars 2 is awesome.

Christine Mitchell - Well I wasn’t playing Fez that’s for sure, since my game save corrupted (sob!). Instead I settled for more Fable Heroes and a wee bit of Dance Central 2 while I wait for the patch.

Todd Schlickbernd -I’ve been all up in and around XBLA this past week. I’ve now got over 30 hours of Awesomenauts in and over 100 games, and proud of it. A few games a day has been tons of fun. I also played some Trials Evolution with friends over the past week and Castle Crashers as well. Lastly, I ended up playing waaay too much Minecraft. Never wanted it for PC, wasn’t going to pay for it on Xbox, then I got it for free; I’ve never had a game try so hard to get played.

Mark Seymour - Chowed down on my words and spent the last few days building sky-railways and portals into the bowels of hell in Minecraft. Also preparing myself for the almighty punch to the face that will herald Max Payne’s long-awaited return. It has been far, far too long.

No lack of choice on XBLA at the moment. What’s been tickling your fancy over the last seven days? 

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8

What we are playing: May 6

By
Mark Seymour
– May 6, 2012Posted in: Feature List, Features, What we are playing

What we are playing is a weekly column published on Sunday. Select members of the team talk about the games they’ve been playing over the past week and which they’re most looking forward to. 

James Heiger - I played through The Walking Dead Episode 1 in one sitting and loved every minute of it. Will probably play through it again before the next episode drops. I have continued to improve my times in Trials Evolution. Should be able to achieve all golds at least up to Hard. The Gigatrack could be a problem though.

Nick Santangelo - I sunk several hours into Awesomenauts this week. It’s a lot fun even though I’ve been losing most matches. I also started in on Xenoblade Chronicles, which brought the revelation that my Wii is dying — getting it started takes about 20 minutes of tinkering. I have no desire to buy a new one at this late hour, so hopefully it holds up a bit longer.

Nathan Bowring - I’ve been continuing my trek through Skyrim, besting my own times and finding squirrels in Trials Evolution, and began playing Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary for the first time. Also, was blown away by The Walking Dead.

Christine Mitchell - It was a busy week in the real world for me but managed to get some Fable Heroes in and some Left 4 Dead 2 in over the weekend.

Perry Jackson - The Perfect Strangers game, over and over and over. Also Awesomenauts.

John Laster - Done with school for the summer, which means I will finally have time to play games again. I started things off with a couple marathon sessions of Minecraft. I can’t wait for all of you to have it so that we can build things together. Also, Awesomenauts is amazing. You all should definitely check it out. I love the music. Fantastic!

Mark Seymour - I hooked the PS2 up for some honorary rounds of Flame Tag on Aztec after reading an insightful but utterly dismal account of Free Radical’s final days. They don’t make first person shooters like that anymore, regrettably.

Et vous? Has Arcade Next topped House Party thus far? Who’s going to be joining John in the fathomless mines this Wednesday? Did anybody buy Fable Heroes? Let us know.

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7

What we are playing: April 29

By
Mark Seymour
– April 29, 2012Posted in: What we are playing

What we are playing is a weekly column published on Sunday. Select members of the team talk about the games they’ve been playing over the past week and which they’re most looking forward to.

Perry Jackson - After my not-so-great Bloodforge review, I jumped into The Walking Dead Episode 1 on Friday which was great. Never has a game stressed me out on the choices I made. But this weekend will mostly be the Hybrid beta which is an interesting shooter from 5th Cell.

Matt Liparota - A bit of Fez early on, but my system has mostly been used for Netflix and Hulu for the last few days. It”s been a “Veg out in front of the TV and space out” kinda week. I’m still in a lull between big console releases, too – so I’m looking forward to diving into my backlog in the next few days.

Christine Mitchell - I started the week with Fez but then my review code come through for Fable Heroes so I’ve been mostly playing that now. Find out what I thought early next week. I also demoed The Walking Dead Episode 1 and I think that’ll be my next purchase but I’m not sure whether to buy now or wait for the full thing to come out?

James Heiger - Lots of Trials … what else??

Mark Seymour - Nada. I’ve been making my own videogame, it’s AAAA.

A bit hushed in the XBLA Fans corner this week, so how about you? Thoughts on Bloodforge? Still infatuated with Trials Evolution? Finished with Fez? How about The Walking Dead? I hear it’s good. And what about the belated Toy Soldiers: Cold War DLC, was it worth the wait? Tell me it was, please.

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1

Toy Soldiers: Cold War DLC launches tomorrow

By
Mark Seymour
– April 24, 2012Posted in: Media, News, Videos

Patiently we’ve awaited word of downloadable content for tower-defence hit Toy Soldiers: Cold War and, as the adage about the busses dictates, Signal have today announced not one but two expansion packs both primed to launch on XBLA tomorrow (Wednesday 25). Both the Evil Empire and Napalm packs boast 3-level mini-campaigns, a new survival level, versus level and minigame as well as a slew of achievements, decorations, bosses and new toys. About time.

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5

What we are playing: April 22

By
Mark Seymour
– April 22, 2012Posted in: Feature List, Features, What we are playing

What we are playing is a weekly column published on Sunday. Select members of the team talk about the games they’ve been playing over the past week and which they’re most looking forward to.

Ross Adams - I played a few hours of Fez earlier in the week, it’s pretty mesmerising. However as soon as Trials hit that took most of my time, it’s as addictive as it ever was. I’m really impressed with the variety in level design and aesthetic, it’s pretty amazing. Also still trying to hit Level 50 on The Old Republic, almost there!

Perry Jackson - After finishing Fez, I jumped into Trials Evolution and was pretty blown away. As great as Trials HD was, Trials Evolution has much better level design and a fresher feeling to it for me. I also played through Bloodforge for review which you can read on Monday.

Todd Schlickbernd - I played a ridiculous amount of Fez for the guide, sure did enjoy that game even if a few bits really had me on mental lockdown. Other than that I’m playing TERA Online with a few friends for the open beta and playing Trials Evo on the XBLA side. Was never a Trials HD fan, but I’m liking this one more. Let me customize stuff and I’ll fall in love with it.

Nathan Bowring - I got Fez early this week, and already have half of the cubes. Having a really hard time trying to figure out some puzzles. Spent most of my time playing Trials Evolution, which is simply amazing. Love the multiplayer supercross!

Nick Santangelo - I played a decent amount of Fez but haven’t reached the end as of the time I’m writing this. I also got some Halo Reach multiplayer in, and I think that was it. My preordered copy ofXenoblade Chronicles finally showed up the other day, but I haven’t had the time to start it yet.

Matt Liparota -  I succumbed to the praise and picked up Fez. I played an insane amount of it this week; I can’t get over how clever and original it is. Definitely one of the best XBLA titles to hit in a while.

Mark Seymour - Trials Evo took up the lion’s share of my gaming time this week, it is indeed rather good. I also found time to wander the wilds of Skyrim again. Finally finished the two core quest lines and now impatiently awaiting Bethesda’s announcement of Fallout 4.

It’s been a bumper two weeks for XBLA with the likes of Fez, Skullgirls and Trials Evolution plugging the slight gap in retail releases. The XBLAFans team has been doggedly working away at trouncing each other’s Trials Evo times, but what have you been playing these past 7 days?

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3

Trials Evolution is popular

By
Mark Seymour
– April 20, 2012Posted in: News

Would you believe it? Trials Evolution is popular. So popular in fact, that it has shattered Xbox Live Arcade records, making RedLynx/Ubisoft/Microsoft more cash in 24-hours than any XBLA title prior. We reported yesterday that RedLynx’s hit had sold in excess of 100,000 units but PlayXBLA, who reported this latest announcement, remained mute on exactly how many copies of Evolution were beamed onto Xbox 360 consoles during the 24-hour period.

It wasn’t all champagne and pats on the back at RedLynx HQ though. In lieue of the overwhelming number of people getting their vroom on, Evolution’s leaderboards went kaput. The developer is working with Microsoft to ensure there are enough servers in place to accomodate a potential weekend blitz.

We joined the ensemble of critics showering hot praise down on Trials Evolution this week. You can peruse through our review here.

Source: PlayXBLA

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0

Trials dev talks future plans for Evo

By
Mark Seymour
– April 20, 2012Posted in: News

Expect more riding gear, editor tutorials and, of course, downloadable content for Trials Evolution in the near future. Speaking on the Xbox Facebook page, RedLynx man John Lloyd answered a raft of fan questions regarding the popular XBLA title, which has already sold in excess of 100,000 units.

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3

Fez claims weekly top spot in XBLA activity

By
Mark Seymour
– April 18, 2012Posted in: News

Exalted puzzle/platformer Fez has hurtled into pole position in this week’s Live Activity leaderboards, warding off strong competition from Skullgirls which debuted at number 2. Comments from controversial helmsman Phil Fish have done little to prevent Polytron’s title from raking in top honors having been available on the marketplace for less than a week. Despite positive reviews, The Splatters only narrowly made it into the the top 20, inching in at number 20, while Capcom’s half-game, half-advertisement World Gone Sour managed 17th.

Ubisoft’s I Am Alive and Monolith’s Gotham City Impostors each enjoyed strong weeks with I Am Alive in third and Gotham City Impostors notching fifth place. Stalwarts Castle Crashers, Trials HD, Pinball FX2 and Fruit Ninja Kinect all earned top 10 spots while critically mauled robot-brawler REAL STEEL continues a streak in the top 20 that stretches back to October of last year.

Ranks are based on full versions purchased and no sales data has been made available. However, as a rough barometer there are currently 47,124 players populating the Fez leaderboards. Major Nelson has the full top 20.

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0

Last-minute hype for Trials Evolution

By
Mark Seymour
– April 17, 2012Posted in: Media, Videos

As a salvo of flattering reviews surface across the web, Ubisoft has let loose one final trailer for the hotly-anticipated Trials Evolution (out tomorrow). At this stage pretty much everything that needs to be said about Evo has been said so we’ll let the trailer do all the last-minute talking. (Don’t be hoodwinked by the cruel “Download the game Now!” tag though, Evolution isn’t available until tomorrow.)

 

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2

Deep Black: Episode 1 out this month

By
Mark Seymour
– April 17, 2012Posted in: News

The first chunk of third person shooter Deep Black arrives on Xbox Live Arcade April 25. Scant details have emerged regarding the XBLA version, but the full PC game, which has been available since early March, saw players dabble in the art of underwater third-person combat. Biart made a bit of a splash with its underwater spearfishing game Depth Hunter earlier in the year but failed to win over pundits with Deep Black: Reloaded, which weathered a rasping volley of criticism when it launched on PC last month.

Episode 1 will cost 800 Microsoft Points when it launches on XBLA April 25.

 

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