If you go on Xbox Live today you’ll receive a notification for a mandatory system update. This update will increase performance and bring noticeable color fixes to the dashboard. Partners of Xbox Live are also applying the update to their apps. Remember, this update is mandatory, so you must accept to continue playing online.
Source: Major Nelson
Just yesterday we had a rumor about the Simpsons Arcade game possibly releasing next week. Well good news to fans, Konami has officially announced it will be coming to Xbox Live Arcade on February 3, and for the low price of 800MSP. Friday is an odd day to release an XBLA game, as Wednesday is usually the scheduled day. However, that is a full three days before the game is available on PSN, the only announced release date as of yesterday.
The XBLA version of Simpsons Arcade will feature, according to Game Informer, ”four-player online cooperative play, new modes, and additional bonus content featuring a never-before-seen Japanese version of the game, view classic flyers and posters, and a characters guide.”
Source: Game Informer
This cover surfaced earlier today and shows Dark Reign Redux, a previously published PC title, coming to Xbox through the Indie Games channel. What’s interesting about this cover is that the 800 pound gorilla publishing company Activision is apparently behind it. This would mark the first entrance to XBLIG for the company behind the Call of Duty franchise. This box art matches a cover for Dark Reign a real-time strategy (RTS) game originally published by Activision to the PC in 1997.
Activision is utilizing Auran for publishing support for Dark Reign Redux. According to their website this is the company’s first published game. The game will use the “revolutionary ‘Tactics Engine’ developed by Auran”. The website goes on to say that “Dark Reign features some of the most incredible technology seen in a strategy game to date” and “gives players an amazing level of detail and customization never before seen”.
To help develop the game is Magnetar Games a “primarily research-oriented developer” who has “developed a range of innovative technologies aimed at enhancing the game and simulation development paradigm.” Pick the game up here.
About Dark Reign:
“Dark Reign Redux is a modern remake of the classic 1997 real-time strategy game Dark Reign: The Future of War. Humans have fled a toxic, dying Earth to live in newly established colonies spread out across the known galaxy. Caught in the middle of an intense battle for power between the Imperium and the Freedom Guard, the Togran race is on the verge of extinction. Only you can change their fate.
Dark Reign Redux is a faithful remake of the original game, maintaining the same look and feel, and incorporating the many innovations that made the original game a top seller. Manage resources, build your army, design your attack, and guide your side to victory.”
Visit Magnetar Games here and Auran here.
Source: NeoGAF, Auran, Dark Reign Redux
Tequila Works announced that their first title, Deadlight, will be published by Microsoft Studios exclusively for Xbox Live Arcade. The cinematic puzzle platformer is set to arrive in summer 2012.
In 1986, a sole survivor name Randall Wayne wanders the American west coast trying to survive. The world he once knew has been engulfed by a mysterious disease that changes people into killer automatons. Deadlight takes players into the horrors of a dying world as one man tries to avoid mankind’s extinction.
Source: TequilaWorks
Ignition Entertainment and Denki announced that Quarrel will finally make its Xbox Live Arcade debut on January 25. The highly popular free iOS app will retail for 400 Microsoft Points.
Quarrel is a strategy game that pits players against each other in a battle for territorial control. Players are given eight random letters to come up with the highest scoring word possible. Each letter has a specific point value that is used to determine the overall value of the word. The player with the highest scoring word wins the battle and the territory. The game is won by controlling all territories on the board.
Unlike the iOS version of Quarrel, the XBLA iteration will feature online multiplayer for 2-4 players. However, the online functionality will only be available over Xbox Live with no option for local multiplayer.
Source: Joystiq
Happy Action Theater, Double Fine’s slightly psychotic looking Kinect title, will launch next month. No word on a concrete date at the moment, but following the announcement that Microsoft’s annual House Party event is set to kick off on February 15, it’s a safe bet XBLA will be playing host to Happy Action Theater on either February 1 or February 8.
Why wasn’t it included in this year’s House Party line up? Speaking at CES, Double Fine man Mike Schramm told Joystiq that, although they’d love to see Happy Action Theater taking part in the festivities, their target audience was predominantly 2-12 year olds. With Alan Wake’s American Nightmare and I Am Alive heading up XBLA’s digital soiree, the target audience for House Party is likely a touch older.
Revealed to the world last October, Happy Action Theater is Double Fine’s second venture into the Kinect space following its Sesame Street title Once Upon A Monster. It features a raft of quick-fire mini-games including riffs on some old classics. Company head honcho Tim Schafer said of the game last year:
”We thought it was a great idea to make a game that has no rules, has no failure state. It’s a series of activities for either a birthday party for 3-year-olds or a college dorm full of drunk 20-year-olds.”
Source: Joystiq
Larry Hryb aka Major Nelson, has let loose further details on the 2012 leg of Microsoft’s annual House Party event. This year’s festivities kick off on February 15 and pan out across the following four weeks. As previously reported, the roster of games includes a side-story to the self-proclaimed psychological action thriller Alan Wake with Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, arena-based first person shooter Nexuiz, puzzle stealth action game Warp and the once considered dead I Am Alive. As of yet there has been no confirmation on prices or the order in which the games will appear during the event. If you happen to be at CES you can play all of the House Party games at the Microsoft booth, otherwise you’ll have to wait with the rest of us until February 15.
Source: Major Nelson
Earlier today, we received an email from none other than Mel Kirk, VP of Marketing and Public Relations over at Zen Studios. Thanks to Mel, we have learned a lot about Zen’s plans for the upcoming year – and there are a truckload of them. First off, Mel has confirmed what we guessed at in our reveal of the Hulk pinball table – a new Marvel 4-pack. He also promises some additional individual DLC tables for Pinball FX 2 and “something BIG, HUGE, AMAZING for Fall 2012″, though no word on what that could be yet. We’re going to put in an early guess and say that they’re working on technology to magically transform your Xbox into a for-real pinball table, but that’s just us.
While pinball is probably what most folks associate with Zen Studios, this year they’re going to branch out a bit. We’ve already heard news about the upcoming “experimental rhythm game featuring fully 3D characters and combat, aggressive music and an East Asian theme”, including the fact that it’s up to the fans to provide a name. What we hadn’t heard before is that Zen has something else up their sleeves. They’re not ready to talk about it yet, but they did let us know that they’re hard at work on a second non-pinball game with more information coming in early 2012.
Whether or not you like pinball, Zen Studios is definitely going to be a studio to watch this year. What else should you be looking forward to? Check back on Friday for a full list of the games that are going to grace your 360 in 2012.
Coming hot off the heels of the recent board ratings for the long awaited Fez and Trials Evolution, we’ve come across quite a few more XBLA ratings as we enter the final hours of 2011. Some games have been under our watchful eye for quite some time such as A.M.Y., I AM ALIVE and Retro City Rampage. Some, like Tetris Party Challenge and Microsoft-submitted Wreckateer, are the first glimpses we have at unannounced titles. Even Saints Row: Money Shot is rated while retaining it’s title of “Worst Kept Secret on XBLA.” Below is an alphabetical list of the newly rated games along with links to their ratings pages which originate from the ESRB, PEGI, Australian Classification Board, Korea’s Games Rating Board, and Germany’s USK (Note: The USK doesn’t have separate game pages we can link to but game-specific ratings as all ratings are posted in a list as they are rated).
The best part about this is we are one step closer to many games hitting XBLA in the (hopefully) near future. Thanks once again goes out to @lifelower for being such a workhorse tipster.
A.M.Y.
PEGI
Bang Bang Racing
AU Classification
Deep Black Episode 1 & 2
PEGI
Defenders of Ardania
PEGI
Dungeon Fighter Live (this final title is unannounced.)
GRB
Happy Action Theatre
PEGI
Haunt
AU Classification
I AM ALIVE
AU Classification
Nexuiz
ESRB
Quarrel
GRB
Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc
USK
Retro City Rampage
GRB
Saints Row: Money Shot
PEGI
Scarygirl
ESRB
AU Classification
Shank 2
USK
The Simpsons Arcade Game
AU Classification
Sine Mora
GRB
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 4 Episode II (officially announced today!)
GRB
Spelunky
PEGI
Tetris Party Challenge (Previously unannounced)
AU Classification
Warp
ESRB
World Gone Sour
ESRB
Wreckateer (Submitted by Microsoft, but no details as of yet.)
GRB
Earlier this month there were rumors about the next Scene It? game releasing as a digital download via Xbox Live Arcade. Well, we now have official confirmation, and that rumor turned out to be true. Mark November 30 on your calender, folks. That will be the day you finally get to play the newest Scene It? game. Mega Movies, being developed by Sarbarkan games, will be the first bit of DLC for the game, with more question packs being available at a later date. Scene it? Movie Night: Mega Movies will be available for 800 MSP and will feature questions from hit movies such as The Terminator, Transformers, Meet the Fockers, and more. Some information that was divulged in the trailer, can be found below.
Quick Pitch- Lighting round mode, where you try to name the movie at the top of the screen as quickly as possible. Correct answers give you points, but incorrect answers will cost you points.
DLC – As revealed in the trailer, Scene It? Movie Night will have post-launch downloadable content — meaning “you’ll always have a new experience”. Mega Movies will be the first piece of DLC, and will be based on the “most memorable films of all-time”. And coming soon is Sci-Fi movies, but no date has been announced for that.
“Are you familiar with the Scene It? board games? The upcoming Mega Movie title spans the biggest blockbusters in cinema history from The Godfather to modern must-sees like The Social Network (and as you’ll see in the trailer, stuff for people like us, like Transformers!) through 14 different kinds of competitive puzzles. A great game for party play to find out who is truly a movie maven, and who fell asleep in the theatre.”
Scene It? Move Night will be available on Xbox Live Arcade starting November 30th for 800MSP.
