XBLA’s Most Wanted Archive

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XBLA’s Most Wanted: Riptide GP

By
Steve Melton
– February 18, 2012Posted in: Feature List, Features, XBLA's Most Wanted

Riptide GP. It was the flagship game for NVidia’s Tegra 2 chip on Android devices, and the second release from Hydro Thunder Hurricane developer Vector Unit. Having gained footing as a developer with Hydro Thunder, Vector Unit took the opportunity to go indie and put their amazing water engine to use on mobile devices. The result is something that is truly one of the best mobile gaming experiences to date.

The game is essentially a futuristic jet ski racer. Like the now-aged Wave Race 64 water physics play an important role, but instead of canned water, Riptide uses a dynamic system. Jet skis produce wakes, which in turn change up the way you have to race. The environments are over-the-top, just like another classic favorite, Jet Moto. With racers a dime a dozen it takes something special to stand out–something that keeps you coming back. Riptide GP has it in strides.

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XBLA’s Most Wanted: Tokyo Xtreme Racer

By
John Drawdy
– February 12, 2012Posted in: Feature List, Features, XBLA's Most Wanted

It’s the middle of the night, you’re roaming the highway in your supped up turbo-charged Supra, headlights flash in your rear view and, in a blink of an eye it’s on. This is the premise behind Crave Entertainments classic racer Tokyo Xtreme Racer, originally launching for the Dreamcast in 1999. This game had huge aspirations when it launched. Not only were they venturing into new territory as being one of the first mission based games, but they were also introducing a new style of racing that most people didn’t even know existed.

Tokyo Xtreme Racer broke the mold in many ways for the racing market, introducing a huge line of non-licensed look-a-like vehicles and aftermarket parts. Everything here was customizable: rims, body kits, wings, paint, ride height, gear ratio-giving you an amazing since of realism and depth. Sure, today this seems standard, but for the late 90′s this was huge. About the only thing this deep was Gran Turismo, which was exclusive to PlayStation. It was one of the 20 or so titles available for the Dreamcast at launch. It completely stood out against all the other racers that launched, including the hugely loved Hydro Thunder. Let’s jump into the drivers seat and see why Tokyo Xtreme Racer is on the Most Wanted list.

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XBLA’s Most Wanted: Crimson Skies

By
John Drawdy
– February 4, 2012Posted in: Feature List, Features, XBLA's Most Wanted

Crimson Skies is a very elaborate universe set during the 1930′s, or to be more accurate an alternate 1930′s. The United States is in ruins, having Balkanized into several small jurisdictions. Planes have become the most common form of transportation, leading to the birth of air pirates.

There have been two video game installments, Crimsons Skies and Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge. Both games revolve around Nathan Zachary, leader of an air pirate gang known as the Fortune Hunters. Crimson Skies always provided players with great flight controls, minor plane customization and a world that is deep, rich, and very intriguing.

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XBLA’s Most Wanted: Blood Wake

By
Steve Melton
– January 28, 2012Posted in: Features, XBLA's Most Wanted

Back in the winter of 2001 eager gamers stood in the cold overnight in anticipation of getting their hands on Microsoft’s first console, the Xbox. They took their new console home along with their selection of about a dozen launch titles. About a month later a second wave of games were released, among them was Stormfront Studios’ Blood Wake. It was an innovative title that focused on combat on the open waters. Like many titles from that time the plot had a certain amount of cheese factor, but somehow was still incredibly satisfying. But the real gem was the water physics, something ahead of its time.

Funny thing is, without Blood Wake we wouldn’t have Hydro Thunder Hurricane. See, Stormfront housed the brains and brawn behind Vector Unit, Hurricane‘s developer. Ralf Knoesel and Matt Small both worked on Blood Wake as a programmer and artist, respectively. Knoesel designed the water simulation which became one of the building blocks for the system in Hurricane. These guys have a special place in their heart for this little gem, and there are a lot of good reasons why.

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XBLA’s Most Wanted: Castlevania

By
John Drawdy
– January 21, 2012Posted in: Features, XBLA's Most Wanted

Castlevania has been a major part of the gaming world for over 20 years, bringing us many a Dracula slaying tale. This story encompasses many families, crosses thousands of years, and tells stories of love, betrayal, power and revenge. Each game delivers a solid story, but some lack the gameplay it takes to keep non-enthusiasts interested. Through out the years Castlevania has appeared on almost every system since the NES, telling one piece or another of this amazing story.

Though this is a huge story encompassing many years and games, it all started with just one game. The basis was simple: every 100 years Dracula comes back from the dead unleashing his evil terror upon the world. You control Simon Belmont, a man who comes from a long line of Vampire hunters. With Dracula awake and doing his worst, Simon sets out to send him back to where he comes from, just like his family members before him have done.

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XBLA’s Most Wanted: Fester’s Quest

By
John Drawdy
– January 14, 2012Posted in: Feature List, Features, XBLA's Most Wanted

The Nintendo has always had a fond place in many gamers hearts and one of the forgotten games from that era is Fester’s Quest. It was a top-down view action game based off of none other then Uncle Fester from the Addams Family. The story line was completely off the wall, Aliens appear and start taking over the town, so you (Fester) grab your gun and go forth to become the savior. Encountering many of the Addams family members along the way who help you and make for some rather funny run-ins. Fester’s Quest was was a fun adventure taking you all over town, creating chaos with all sorts of aliens and bosses.

Fester’s Quest relied heavily on the actual fun of the gameplay, which is all games really had back then, requiring you to stay in-tune with what was going on if you wanted to continue on to the next section. The over-head view  gives a very Zelda-like feel, but was not the only one you encountered during this journey. As you find out the developers ventured into 3D with mazes that you had to journey through in certain sections. Filled with tons of weapons, characters, enemies and collectible items, Fester’s Quest provided an abundance of entertainment for its era.

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XBLA’s Most Wanted: Cel Damage

By
Todd Schlickbernd
– January 7, 2012Posted in: Features, XBLA's Most Wanted

Meat cleavers, a harpoon, shrink ray, a bottomless hole generator, and a massive shredding lawn mower; what do these things have in common? They’re just a few weapons of the incredibly strange arsenal featured in GameCube and Xbox hit, Cel Damage. Drive around big open arenas, pick up weapons, unleash all insanity and manner of projectile and melee destruction on your opponents and hope you come out on top; these are things Cel Damage loves to do and does well. This demolition derby is one to take lightly, as it’s even more hectic than some of the most random of kart racers, especially when all four players are tearing up the couch together.

Cel Damage is all about destruction, demolition and chaos. Players compete across a few different modes including a flag capturing mode where a certain amount of flags must be delivered to a point to score, a gate-based race mode, and the infinitely replayable “smack attack” mode where players beat the chassis out of each other to score points. Each character has their own vehicle with its own statistics and feel to it as well as a special weapon.

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XBLA’s Most Wanted: What’s yours?

By
Steve Melton
– December 17, 2011Posted in: Feature List, Features, XBLA's Most Wanted

We still have a two more XBLA’s Most Wanted features waiting in the wings for Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, but we thought we’d take a minute and ask you, the everyday gamer, what your number one XBLA game wish is. Remember to be realistic–we aren’t going to see any Super Mario games on XBLA–but have fun with it. Who knows, you just might have your favorite game featured in a future Most Wanted column, and if you do you’ll have all of your wildest dreams come true.

If you need a refresher, hit the jump to take a look at all of the games we’ve featured this year. If a game seems interesting to you, be sure to comment on it. We can’t guarantee it’ll come to XBLA, but we do know that developers and publishers frequent forums and journalistic sites looking for what the fans want.

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XBLA’s Most Wanted: Unreal Tournament 2004

By
Steve Melton
– December 3, 2011Posted in: Features, XBLA's Most Wanted

Ahhh Unreal Tournament. The Quake killer. The time sinker. The first worthwhile shooter that didn’t have some over-the-top story. It was just you, a gun, and an agenda. There were no worlds to save, no personal vendetta, just the tournament–the Unreal Tournament. And 1999′s success story was followed up multiple sequels and even a console spinoff, the Unreal Championship series. To most the culmination of UT hit with Unreal Tournament 2004. Sure, 2007′s Unreal Tournament 3 was great, but it went up against the likes of Halo and Call of Duty. It’s not surprising it didn’t float.

That’s why today we set our hopes on a digital UT2004. Xbox Live Arcade is a unique beast; a game can be successful on gameplay alone. It’s a place where flashy graphics are nice, but not necessary. And more importantly, it’s digital. That means people won’t be trading the game in as soon as they get bored. They’ll put it aside for a bit and come back to it once a week or so. And that, my friends, means a persistent community.

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XBLA’s Most Wanted: Super Monkey Ball Arcade

By
Steve Melton
– November 19, 2011Posted in: Feature List, Features, XBLA's Most Wanted

So many of us still mourn the delisting of Marble Blast Ultra. It was one of the classic greats of Xbox Live Arcade, and still has no equal in its genre. Those who missed out may never know the joy of the marble genre. There’s something about feeling the weight of the marble in your thumbstick while trying to navigate stupidly hard (read: extremely hard) levels.

The Super Monkey Ball series is a different spin on the same idea. Instead of controlling the marble (in this case a monkey inside a clear ball) players have control of the game world. The left thumbstick tilts the world in a given direction, then gravity does the rest. Super Monkey Ball Deluxe added several fun minigames such as soccer and bowling. Super Monkey Ball Arcade would take all of those ideas and…well, roll with them.

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