About Nick Santangelo

We have a winner! Congratulations to reader “Matthew Donovan.” We’ll be in contact with the winner soon to explain how to claim his/her prize! The correct answer was “boss chest” from Castle Crashers (check the original image after the jump). Thanks for entering, everyone, and don’t forget to try again tomorrow!

Welcome to day five of our seven-day Battleblock Theater XBLA multiplayer beta code giveaway contest! At some point in February or March (the exact date has yet to be sorted out), The Behemoth’s Battleblock Theater will begin a closed beta, with 10,000 XBLA gamers getting access.

Sound like fun? Want in? Then all you have to do is guess which Behemoth game character (or other noun) is pictured in the above distorted image. Post your best guess in the comments below, and remember, if you don’t win today, be sure to keep coming back, because we’ll be picking a winner every day for an entire week. Good luck!

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We have a winner! Congratulations to reader Rexandelar! We’ll be in contact with you soon to explain how to claim your prize! The correct answer was “Cyclops Boss” from Castle Crashers (check the original image after the jump). Thanks for entering, everyone, and don’t forget to try again tomorrow! Check out the original, undistorted version of the image after the jump.

Welcome to day number three of our seven-day Battleblock Theater XBLA multiplayer beta code giveaway contest! At some point in February or March (the exact date has yet to be sorted out), The Behemoth’s Battleblock Theater will begin a closed beta, with 10,000 XBLA gamers getting access.

Sound like fun? Want in? Then all you have to do is guess which Behemoth game character is pictured in the above distorted image. Post your best guess in the comments below, and remember, if you don’t win today, be sure to keep coming back as we’ll be picking a winner every day for an entire week. Good luck!

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Late last week Microsoft’s most direct competitor in the home console space, Sony, announced a February 20 event that will presumably be the coming-out party for its next-gen PlayStation 4 console, the existence of which has still not been officially confirmed by Sony. Microsoft has joined its cross-Pacific rival these last few years in being equally tight-lipped when it comes to the next Xbox being something instead of nothing, the latter of which essentially being what Redmond would have gamers believe.

It’s total malarkey, of course, as Microsoft has undoubtedly been working on the successor to the Xbox 360 for years and has reportedly been kicking around the idea of holding its own special event to show and/or tell the world what’s in the (next) box.

Unfortunately for curious Xbox fans, proving a shred of any of that continues to be a hurdle that is cleared with all the ease and grace of releasing DLC for a two-and-a-half-year-old licensed XBLA game from a major publisher.

Instead we’re left with rumors, more of which popped up today on Edge. “Sources with first-hand experience of Microsoft’s next generation console” reportedly leaned in close to the Great Ear of the Internet and whispered some things that Microsoft’s PR department may or may not have wanted them to whisper. Trench coats with suspiciously popped novelty-sized collars were presumably donned by all parties involved.

Today’s gossip pertains to several rumors, all of which have been floated out at least once before by other media outlets, but Edge’s source speaking about them again only serves to lend further credence to them being grounded in reality. Word is that the next Xbox console will utilize 50GB Blu-ray game discs, require users to always be online, and, unsurprisingly, have new and improved versions of Kinect and Xbox Live. Perhaps most interesting is the assertion by said source that the Xbox Durango, as the machine has been rumored to be internally codenamed, will employ a system designed to eliminate the possibility of retail next-gen Xbox games being resold by consumers. As mentioned, Durango would require a constant internet connection “in order to function.”

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Following their bankruptcy filings in late January, game publishers THQ and Atari have recently seen several of their XBLA titles delisted from the Xbox Marketplace. The XBLA games in question can still be found on the Xbox Marketplace, but they can no longer be purchased. A total of four THQ-published XBLA games have been pulled:

• Apples to Apples — Originally released Dec 7, 2011
• Screwjumper! — Originally released Dec 10, 2009
• SpongeBob UnderPants! — Originally released Dec 26, 2007
• Voltron — Originally released Nov 30, 2011

The same fate has not yet befallen all of the defunct publisher’s Xbox Live Arcade games, though. Costume Quest, Elements of Destruction, Nexuiz, Red Faction: Battlegrounds, Rocket Riot, Stacking and Warhammer 40K: Kill Team are still available for purchase.

Only one Atari game is currently unavailable: Warlords, which was first released on Nov 14, 2012. Yar’s Revenge, which debuted on March 3, 2011, was temporarily taken down but has since burst back onto the scene, albeit at half of its former 800 MSP price tag. Haunted House, another Xbox Live Arcade game published by Atari, is also currently selling at half price (400 MSP). And finally The Undergarden is selling at 240 MSP which is 70% discount of its original price of 800 MSP.

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We have a winner! The correct answer was “the Green Knight from Castle Crashers” (check the original image after the jump). Congratulations to reader “thatpikminguy! We’ll be in contact with the winner soon to explain how to claim his/her prize! Thanks for entering, everyone, and don’t forget to try again tomorrow!

Note: Our original winning selection had invalid contact information, so we randomly chose a different winner. To avoid suffering the same fate in future contests, please remember to only post comments with an account that was registered with a valid email address, and/or provide us with a valid Twitter account. Unfortunately, readers who do not follow this protocol will have their entry invalidated. Thank you!

Welcome to first day of our seven-day Battleblock Theater XBLA multiplayer beta code giveaway contest! At some point in February or March (the exact date has yet to be sorted out), The Behemoth’s Battleblock Theater will begin a closed beta, with 10,000 XBLA gamers getting access.

Sound like fun? Want in? Then all you have to do is guess which Behemoth game character is pictured in the above distorted image. For your chance to win, post your best guess in the comments section below with an account that has a registered email address attached to it or post your Twitter handle in the comment if you’d like a faster response. Don’t forget to follow @XBLAFans on Twitter if you elect to provide your Twitter account instead of your email address. If you don’t win today, be sure to keep coming back as we’ll be picking a winner every day for an entire week. Good luck!

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Signal Studios President and Creative Director Douglass Robert Albright III was kind enough to take a break from eating dinner and making …
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Sega currently has “no plan” to release Virtual-On or Virtua Striker, the second two entries in its XBLA and PSN retro arcade …
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Following a nearly 2-year-long period of silence, Boston-based developer Moonshot Games has announced that its side-scrolling co-op shooter for XBLA, Fallen Frontier, has been canceled. The studio elected …
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Update: The story originally noted that Monaco would release prior to PAX East, but Pocketwatch has since explained that it was referring to PAX Prime. The copy below has been edited to reflect this clarification.

The three-year wait for indie developer Pocketwatch Games’ 4-player co-op heist game, Monaco, appears to be nearing its end. Pocketwatch announced on Facebook last week that it had submitted its game to Microsoft for pre-certification.

Yesterday the studio got a report back from Microsoft and stated that there was “nothing too scary in there!” Stressing the obvious, the studio now says that Monaco is “inching closer to launch.”

Exactly how close has Pocketwatch inched towards launch? Monaco will release before this year’s PAX Prime convention. Pocketwatch responded to an inquisitive fan on Twitter by saying that the game would be out on XBLA (and Steam) before this year’s PAX Prime. Penny Arcade has not yet announced a date for its yearly convention, but the event has historically been held in late August/early September.

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The Cave will make you laugh. The Cave will make you curious. The Cave will make you confused. The Cave will make you think. Yes, The Cave will make you a lot of things as you solve puzzles that are only occasionally as frustratingly obtuse as they are clever. Unfortunately, one of those things Double Fine Production’s point-and-click-is-dead/long-live-point-and-click adventure game will make you is bored. Playing Double Fine’s adventure game will inspire in you feelings of pride and contentedness during your moments of puzzle-solving clarity, but it will also inspire you to go play something else when you’re (frequently) stuck shambling along its mostly lifeless halls for the umpteenth time.

You’ll uncover the shady pasts and green-eyed and avaricious desires of the game’s seven playable characters — if you’re willing to play through the game three separate times — as you explore ever deeper while the Cave itself plays the dual roles of court jester and adjudicator. These stories are intriguing despite their simplicity, and the game will have you smiling and chuckling a bit when the Cave is narrating proceedings or morbidly recounting a character’s past. The experience breaks down, however, when you’re hopelessly stuck on one of the more perplexing puzzles without the benefit of the titular narrator distracting you from the tedium of your aimless wandering.

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