XBLA Reviews

Defenders of Ardania was developed by Most Wanted Entertainment and published by Deep Silver and Paradox Interactive. It was released March 14, 2012 for 1200 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.Defenders of Ardania is a tower defense game adapted from an iOS title of the same name. Set in the fantasy world of Majesty, the game tasks players with defending their castle against invading hordes with strategically-placed towers while simultaneously sending units to take over your enemy’s stronghold.

The game offers players the opportunity to play as one of three different races and play through a story or go head-to-head against up to three other players in online multiplayer. The game features standard RTS elements like resource management and multiple playable races.

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Sine Mora was developed by Digital Reality and Grasshopper Manufacture and produced by Microsoft Studios. It was released on March 21, 2012 for 1200 MSP. A code was provided for review purposes.

How far would you go to avenge the death of your son? If you’re a Hungarian-speaking, biplane-flying, handicapped, anthropomorphic “revenge serial-killer,” the answer, apparently, is pretty damn far. Ronotra Koss isn’t a perfect man, er, beast, but he’s one heck of a loving father. As such, he flies off into the bright blue yonder with a crew of crack-shot animal and AI “allies” to take on an imperial military with such overwhelming force that he’s essentially looking at a suicide mission. In other words, Sine Mora is a bullet hell game.

Players are thrown right into the thick of a brutal war between the Empire and the Enkies (branded terrorists by the Empire) from the onset, and figuring out what exactly everyone is talking about is more difficult than keeping the score multiplier up by maneuvering safely through the torrent of enemy fire scribbling across the screen while sending imperial pilots to their graves.

The larger story of imperial rule, terrorism, repressive caste systems and time travel is a complete mess that only dances with some semblance of coherence down the final stretch. Koss’ stubborn goal of punishing all those involved in his boy’s death is far more interesting, but it’s really the gorgeous art direction and fine-tuned combat that will push would-be diesel punk pilots forward.

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I Am Alive was developed by Ubisoft Shanghai and produced by Ubisoft. It was released on March 7, 2012 for 1200 MSP. 

It’s two hours before any act of kindness befalls Adam, I Am Alive’s gravelly protagonist. Two strangers sheltering from the callous outdoors offer him some meat. It’s cooked, Adam’s nursing wounds, and his is a world in which food is hard come by. The men huddle around a fire in full blaze and in a city ravaged by earthquakes and shrouded by a plume of killer-dust, the scene in the gloomy subway is about the most heartening yet. Adam scoffs the meat down and sets off again. Perhaps there is good still in this most ruthless of worlds. And then you stumble upon the cage; a 4×3 foot coop home to a human skeleton and some leftover slabs of meat. Damnit.

Like so much of I Am Alive, it’s a scene anchored in Cormac McCarthy’s comfortless classic The Road, but Ubisoft could hardly have chosen a more worthy inspiration for its bleak survival horror.

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Shoot Many Robots was developed by Demiurge and produced by Ubisoft. It was released on March 14, 2012 for 800 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.

Shoot Many Robots joins the realm of this recent genre deemed “shoot and loot” wherein players mow down enemies for stuff ad nauseum, laughing all the way (ha ha ha!). The premise is incredibly simple (as the title indicates) but the gameplay is solid, replayable and so magnificently supported by its features that this game’s simple concept becomes the key to its brilliance.

A sad sad day when robots destroy P. Walter Tugnut’s truck takes a turn for the worse when he finds out they also destroyed his house. Walter is able to escape in his RV where he must thenceforth embrace the best of both worlds on his crusade to eliminate the robot outbreak. Him and his three brothers (all named P. Walter Tugnut) travel through farmland, destroyed urban environments and through dark ominous factories to bring the fight to the mechanical menace.

This 2D sidescrolling shooter embraces simple platformer gameplay complete with hovering, slides and ground-pounds. Up to four players can play offline, online or any combination thereof. Each player collects loot in boxes dropped in crates and from robots which they can then purchase from the store with nuts they collect throughout each level. Equipment ranges from regular and special weapons to hats, backpacks and “pants” which alter the player’s stats and abilities.

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Nexuiz was developed by Illfonic and published by THQ. It was released on February 29, 2012 for 800 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.

Arena shooters are something of a lost art. To find a newly developed one is like finding money on the sidewalk: no matter how much is there you’re just happy to see it. But sometimes they miss the mark. The controls can be tight, the maps can be solid, the graphics can even be impressive, yet you turn delete the game from your drive and go back to one of your old staples.

Nexuiz is one of those. It’ll seem really enticing by its screenshots, but in the end there’s not much to keep you playing.

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Warp was developed by Trapdoor and published by Electronic Arts. It was released February 15, 2012 for 800 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.

Kicking off Microsoft’s House Party event, Trapdoor’s Warp is a stealth/ puzzle game that draws from some of the most celebrated franchises in the gaming library (Portal and Metal Gear Solid come to mind). Players take control of Zero; an ostensibly adorable alien held captive by human scientists in an underwater labyrinth of labs and curious mechanical contraptions. The dastardly men of science are performing all manner of foul experiments on the little fella, but it’s not long before Zero’s harnessed the power of his titular talent and is embarking on a violent quest through the belly of the science facility in a bid to retrieve his lost abilities and unite with an enigmatic alien life form that contacts him telepathically (and acts as a handy guide).

While he looks all cuddles and kisses on the outside, Zero’s a bit of a barbarian; capable of teleporting inside of his human captors, causing them to burst in a crimson shower and just about everything in Warp is anchored by Zero’s natty teleporting ability. Read More

Happy Action Theater was developed by Double Fine Productions and published by Microsoft Studios. It was released February 1, 2012 for 800 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.

Double Fine Productions is a household name when it comes to Xbox Live Arcade games. Stacking, Trenched/Iron Brigade and Costume Quest are all titles that everyone should have on their machine. They’re all original properties; they were risks for both Double Fine and their publishers to put out, but each has succeeded. Now Double Fine wants to go out on a limb with their new Kinect title, Happy Action Theater.

The game itself is a collection of 18 minigames. Most involve players viewing themselves on screen with other digitized elements added such as snow, lava, or water. Players interact with objects in the environment such as balloons or fish to have them in turn react. There is no winning the game. It’s just you and the environment and acting like a fool. To some that sounds like fun. To others, well…

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NBA Jam: On Fire Edition was developed and published by Electronic Arts. It was released October 15, 2011 and retails for 1200 MSP.

NBA Jam: On Fire Edition is the rebirth of perhaps the most influential arcade sports title of the early 1990’s. It brings two-on-two, run-and-gun basketball back to the forefront and we couldn’t be happier. For the uninitiated the game is an over-the-top arcade style basketball game. It includes famous NBA players, unlockable teams and characters, jovial commentary and insane slam dunks. While NBA Jam saw a reboot to the series with its 2010 retail release, On Fire Edition brings back all the things that made the series fun, then adds in a slew of extra content, all for 1200 MSP. It’s everything that you would expect from a reboot of a classic game series and more. Boomshakalaka!!!

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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.

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Gotham City Impostors was developed by Monolith and was published by WB Games. It was released February 8, 2012 for 1200 MSP.

The Dark Knight has finally hit his stride in video games with the award-winning hits Arkham Asylum and, more recently, Arkham City. While these games offered amazing single-player experiences, both through revolutionary gameplay and engaging stories, they have also steered away from any multiplayer experience.

While Batman and Joker have been fighting in retail games, their crazed followers in Gotham City have brought the battle to XBLA. Gotham City Impostors trades Batarangs and dark atmosphere for guns and crazy humor. It’s easily comparable to Call of Duty or Team Fortress 2, but it has unique features that doesn’t make it feel like a copy. While matchmaking can be a pain, this six-on-six comedy shooter has some of the best action on XBLA.
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