12 years ago
Alan Wake’s American Nightmare review (XBLA)
Alan Wake’s American Nightmare was developed by Remedy Entertainment and published by Microsoft Studios. It was released February 22, 2012 for 1200 MSP. A code was provided for review purposes.
This time around, Emma wasn’t going to allow things to play out the way they had the previous two. She wouldn’t just sit idly by playing the damsel-in-distress role while Alan did his hero thing, hiding away in a supposed bastion of light from the Taken. No, she’d had quite enough of that already, thank you very much.
This time they’d play things her way. This time, she had already collected all of the pieces of the oil rig puzzle and even had the motel keys. However, she wasn’t about to just hand it all over to the Champion of Light and help him along in his quest to put a halt to this perverted little desecration of reality, one in which the two remained imprisoned. That is to say, not unless he would first do his part to protect her from the Taken, at least.
Most readers are probably wondering what the heck all of that means. How would you feel if a game inspired those same sensations of confusion by seemingly starting in the middle rather than the beginning? This is the reality of playing through Alan Wake’s American Nightmare. It’s a reality that will become all too familiar to players as they relive the three same sections of the game over and over again, with the events altered just enough to keep things interesting. Don’t expect to jump right into this spin-off of the original Alan Wake and have a grasp on what is going on out in its quiet little stretch of the Arizona desert: you’re not meant to. Though the plot will of course clear up as players progress, the onset leaves one feeling as if they’re reading a library book from which the first chapter has been ripped out by some juvenile miscreant.
Alan went missing for a couple years after the events back in Bright Falls, and he know finds himself in a version of the Twilight Zone-inspired program he once wrote for: Night Springs. Only this iteration of it has been twisted into a disgusting apparition of a Night Springs episode. Mr. Scratch, who plays the role of a sort of “Nega-Alan,” is pulling the strings here, thinking Wake nothing but a puppet in his little game.
Al, being the crafty little scribe he is, has built in a backdoor to get out of this nightmare, though. Trouble is, he’s not really sure how the narrative goes — and neither is the player. Cue a frantic “fight with light” struggle against Scratch that can’t live up to the excellence of its predecessor, but still offers a fun excursion on a scale that is rarely seen on XBLA.
12 years ago
Dungeon Defenders DLC and update submitted to Microsoft
The latest title update and DLC for Dungeon Defenders has been submitted to Microsoft and Sony for their approval, according to Trendy Entertainment’s Development Director and Chief Technology Officer Jeremy …
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12 years ago
XBLIG gets a new home in the Dashboard
Microsoft has finally made a move to rectify one of the most longstanding and common complaints about the 360’s dashboard: Xbox Live Indie Games had extremely low visibility. Effective immediately, gamers will no longer be required to manipulate their way through the deepest bowels of the dash in order to peruse the list of available indie titles. A tile labeled “Indie” is now prominently located right underneath the Arcade square on the Games Marketplace.
Independent Xbox 360 developers are also about to get some more love in the form of an XBLIG companion app for Windows Phone 7. The app — currently being beta tested by a few select individuals — is said to be about 90 percent of the way to completion and will provide gamers with a simple way to keep up-to-date on the 360 indie scene. It works by yanking data from RSS feeds of blogs covering the XBLIG scene as well as the XML and CSV data from all the titles. In addition, the developers themselves will vote upon titles that they feel deserve to spotlighted on the service.
12 years ago
XBLA Publishing negotiations underway for Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath remake
Just Add Water has revealed to VG 24/7 that they will not be publishing the XBLA version of Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath, nor will Microsoft. However, fans shouldn’t take that as a signal to dive into a well of despair. There is reason for hope, as the developer also confirmed that they are currently exploring their options with “two or three” external publishing partners. News of a concrete deal could surface as soon as April 8.
12 years ago
Kung Fu Strike rising up on March 9
Update: Rob Burman of 7Sixty confirmed that it won’t be released March 9 and currently has no release date. Keep it here for future updates on the publisher’s …
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Scratch that itch with the third Alan Wake’s American Nightmare developer diary
Alan Wake’s American Nightmare will debut on XBLA next week, and Remedy’s offering gamers what is probably their last pre-release look at the title in the form of its …
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12 years ago
Jordan Mechner announces Karateka remake
Jordan Mechner, the man who made the original Prince of Persia back in 1989, is returning to game development to remake another of his classics, Karateka. Venture Beat reports that Mechner plans to release the game later this year on XBLA and PSN. The original was developed as “a labor of love” on an Apple II and released in 1984.
“It is amazing to me how many people still remember Karateka and talk about it after all these years,” Mechner told Venture Beat. “Somehow, the 1980s seem to be in the air again. People ask me about Karateka on my website all the time, and I keep seeing videos and retrospectives of the original game posted online. I was astonished when I was in Moscow at a press conference for the Prince of Persia movie opening in 2010, and Russian journalists asked questions about Karateka.”
12 years ago
Xbox 360 was U.S.’s top-selling console in January
The Xbox 360 outsold the competition in the U.S. last month and held down its position as the most popular console, reports Microsoft on its official blog. More …
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12 years ago
Twisted Pixel challenges players to ‘Shoot the Glass’ in Ms. ‘Splosion Man
Twisted Pixel is rolling out the third entry in its series of thematic challenges for Ms. ‘Splosion Man starting on Valentine’s Day, which, for any forgetful male readers …
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12 years ago
Remedy says Alan will awaken again
Not content with simply crafting an experience which the team believes there isn’t “anything quite like” on XBLA, Remedy Entertainment’s CEO, Matias Myllyrinne, informed Joystiq yesterday that his team is likely to deliver more content for the franchise onto Microsoft’s downloadable platform. Furthermore, even if Al doesn’t get another at the XBLA scene after American Nightmare releases later this month, Remedy will “certainly continue with Wake” in some way or another, according to the Myllyrinne.