The long-rumored death of Microsoft Points is just around the corner, according to The Verge’s sources. Recently, Microsoft has been slowly transitioning away from points across its various stores. While XBLA games can only be purchased with points, the Games on Demand platform uses real-world currency in addition to points. When Windows 8 launched, app, music and movie purchases defaulted to real world cash pricing.

The Verge’s sources report that Microsoft may unveil the new payment standard as early as E3 (Microsoft’s pre-E3 media briefing is scheduled for June 10), and a full launch is expected by the end of the year to coincide with the release of the next-gen Xbox. The gift cards will reportedly function like iTunes gift cards many people are already familiar with, and credit and debit cards will also be accepted. The new pricing/purchasing system will supposedly span across Microsoft’s various marketplaces: Xbox, Windows Mobile Store and Windows Store.

Going to a real currency system lifts the veil of confusing point conversions to determine how much something costs or the requirement of buying points in bundles instead of exact amounts. This much more consumer-friendly approach makes console holder’s purchasing ecosystem easier for everyone in the household, which will help in Microsoft’s battle for the living room.

Source: The Verge

Rumor: Microsoft to ditch Points for real currency gift cards

Your Xbox dashboard may be getting another facelift soon! Anonymous sources whispered to The Verge that Microsoft is planning an update to prepare for the still-unknown 360 successor’s style and networking specifications. It will allegedly enter public beta in late June or early July, giving us ample time to recover from the massive reveal event coming next week.

Chances are this update will lay the foundation for cross-compatibility in the network. When the system launches, Microsoft wants to keep you in touch with friends and updates while also supporting the new features of its new machine. They did the same thing when they carried over Xbox Live from the original Xbox to the 360.

Furthermore, rumor has it this update will end the cumbersome Microsoft Points system. Finally, we will be able to shop with real money!

Source: The Verge

Rumors of dashboard update to match new Xbox style

Dead Space’s Isaac Clarke once had to drill into his own eyeball in order to survive a ship infested with mutated freaks. Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad of Assassin’s Creed fame was made to part with a portion of one of his fingers in order to join the Levantine Brotherhood of Assassins. Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft once had the misfortune of falling onto a piece of sharpened rebar that pierced her midsection — and all she was trying to do was go for a nice little exploratory boat ride. And that’s not even mentioning the myriad scores of locust soldiers that have found themselves on the wrong end of Marcus Fenix’s trusty chainsaw or colossal boots over the years.

You don’t hear any of them complaining about having to endure those, shall we way, slightly disagreeable circumstances, though, do you? That’s because those mere flesh wounds were nothing when compared to the great tragedy of our time: working with a certain platform holder to release your independent studio’s game on Xbox Live Arcade. I shudder at the very thought.

If you’ve followed Xbox Live Arcade over the past several years here and on other sites, then you already know of what I speak. There lives in Redmond, Washington a great beast, massive in size with glowing red-ringed eyes of fury. It is a devious creature hellbent on tricking those smaller than it into believing they’re partners, only to turn on them in their hour of need, stomping down on their hopes and dreams harder than Fenix has brought down his boots on so many locust heads. Such disdain does this gluttonous monstrosity have for the smaller creatures roaming the forest of the game industry, that it is more than happy to sacrifice its own interests if it means snuffing out the light of those cowering under its great shadow.

So evil is this…Wait. Isn’t this getting just a little out of hand? Is Microsoft really that terrible of a company? Does it truly care nothing for the needs of independent game developers? Is its thirst for video game console dominance so insatiable that it doesn’t mind torpedoing its, um, pursuit of video game console dominance so long as it means making life miserable for independent game studios that, by developing games for its platform, are actively working to help it succeed with its, uh, video game console dominance? It is if you’ve listened to the little guys with big megaphones.

I don’t like you either!

They don’t much care for Microsoft, those poor little fellas whose voices have been magnified by social media platforms and major industry publications. And if you listen to them, you’ll likely conclude that some of their complaints are indeed valid. Take Uber Entertainment’s Chandana Ekanayake, Bob Berry and Johathan Mavor, for example. The trio recently told Polygon a horror story with Microsoft’s arduous patch process and elongated publishing negotiations doing the scaring. The Monday Night Combat developer elected not to return to that old haunt that is Xbox Live Arcade with its next game. Super Monday Night Combat released exclusively on PC as a free-to-play title.

Their tale is fascinating and a bit sad, but it’s far from unique. Braid creator and noted Microsoft detractor Jonathan Blow had some not-so-nice things to say about Microsoft in the wake of that story’s publication in March. Blow publicly picked a few bones with Microsoft on Twitter along with Berry and Ekanayake. He accused the publisher of creating “a great deal of ill will,” lacking a global view and driving developers to competing platforms.

Answering what seemed to be a rhetorical question from Blow, Berry posited that the reason Microsoft treats indies poorly is that “they believe there will always be new teams to exploit. As long as devs keep signing, it wont [sic] change.”

The Polygon story and the ensuing tweets came just weeks after Blow and Super Meat Boy creators Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes told Edge and Eurogamer, respectively, that they would not be releasing any more games on XBLA (or consoles in general in McMillen and Refenes’ case). “It costs zero dollars to develop on Steam if you already have a computer,” Refenese told Eurogamer. “When you look at PlayStation and Xbox and Nintendo, you have to buy thousand dollar dev kits and pay for certification and pay for testing and pay for localisation – you have to do all these things and at the end of the day it’s like, ‘I could have developed for other platforms and it would’ve been easier.’” Well, at least Microsoft could take comfort in hearing that it wasn’t the only bad guy on the block in developer Team Meat’s mind.

Of course, not everyone feels the Big Three are equally guilty of indie bigotry. “Sony’s been incredibly supportive and promoted [Retro City Rampage] very well,” the game’s creator, Brian Provinciano, told Wired. Those kind words for the competition came In April, about two months after he took aim at the beast on Twitter, accusing it of overcharging developers and burying them in mountains of red tape.

And then there’s Polytron. The independent studio released the charming Fez on XBLA last year to mostly critical acclaim, but it was none too happy with Microsoft’s alleged $40,000 fee for patching the game. Fez released with a number of bugs, so Polytron hashed together a patch designed to fix them. It did. Unfortunately, it also caused some save files to be corrupted. The patch was yanked only to be re-released once its creators decided they didn’t want to hand Microsoft another forty large for a second patch that would presumably fix the corruption issue.

Certainly $40,000 is an imposing number for a small studio with limited resources. And certainly it’s unfortunate that gamers were made to suffer as a result of it. However, as the Penny Arcade Report pointed out at the time, Microsoft didn’t exactly blindside Polytron with the charge. The two sides signed a contract that surely contained details of the cost to patch a game. Moreover, it was Polytron that released a bug-riddled game and followed it up with a patch that brought with it problems of its own.

The unsilent majority

The stories recounted above were ugly and couldn’t have possibly benefited developers, gamers or Microsoft. That last one is important. Why would Microsoft want to step into this sort of public relations fiasco, upset its customers and drive away talented content creators? And if it truly is a soulless, indie-devouring beast, then why would any independent studio want to release its games on Xbox Live Arcade when Sony, Apple, Valve and even historically difficult-to-work-with Nintendo have better deals on the table?

“You know, we’ve never had a problem working with Microsoft,” John Baez, president of The Behemoth told XBLAFans during a PAX East interview. “And when independent developers say that they have a problem — our background is coming from console development where you had to get everything right on that disc because 10 years ago when Alien Hominid came out, there were no title updates. There was no way to update stuff. So from the very beginning our mentality has been: get it right the first time.

“I think it’s something that both sides are gonna have to learn. I mean, Microsoft, they have a certain perspective on how things needs to be done, and that’s totally legitimate, because they’re building a proprietary network for us to sell our games on. And it’s kind of, you know, you gotta go into it knowing that. It’s not going to be, like, free — the PC world. It just never will be, and I don’t think it should be.”

Yes, it’s true: XBLAFans found the one man running and independent game studio who’s actually happy making games for Xbox Live Arcade. Then we found a few others.

I made it a point to ask as many independent XBLA developers at PAX East as possible about their feelings towards working with Microsoft on an Xbox Live Arcade release. When questioned if he was happy with Microsoft, Supergiant Games Studio Director Amir Rao confirmed four times that he was: “Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah!” He would continue on to say that Supergiant, the creators of Bastion and the still-in-development Transistor, has “tremendous respect for the platform, because some of the games that caused us to start our company — like Castle Crashers and Braid and stuff like that — that started there, and we wanted to be a part of that.”

Supergiant did just that, releasing Bastion as part of the popular Summer of Arcade promotion in 2011. Twisted Pixel became a part of it too, albeit it in a much more literal sense: Microsoft bought the studio up last year. Word was that Microsoft got the studio better chairs when it purchased it. Laughing, Community Manager Jay Stuckwish confirmed as much. Twisted Pixel actually got a whole new office in which to sit in its comfy new chairs, and that’s about the long and short of changes that have come down from Microsoft. “We were in this ****** little office complex in Austin, just outside of town, and we finally moved into a real studio space, which was awesome. And that’s really the only thing that’s changed. It’s business as usual. They leave us be. They pop in and check us out a little bit, and then they leave.”

Ska Studios’ James Silva and Michelle Juett Silva were also both quick to confirm that there’s little interference from up high when developing games for Xbox Live Arcade. It’s just game development as usual. “Yeah, but that’s never newsworthy,” Silva went on to say. “I don’t want to say names, but I generally get a feeling that if you make things as difficult as possible as you can for Microsoft…it becomes a mutual issue.”

The XBLAFans staff aren’t the only ones Silva spoke to about his satisfaction with Microsoft, either; he wrote a blog post shortly after PAX East laying everything bare about his affable relationship with the publisher. It didn’t demand much headline space in the press. It didn’t get its own feature. As Silva alluded, “Developer enjoys working with publisher” doesn’t exactly inspire gamers to click on a story the way a good publisher-developer dispute does.

So what, then, is the root problem causing a growing number of XBLA developers to speak out against the platform and its caretaker? Is it a case of some developers not doing enough research and not having realistic expectations when making the decision to release on Arcade? Baez believes that’s the case. “I think so,” he agreed. “You know, it’s really sad to say that of my peers, but I think if you go in with the right expectation you’re not going to be disappointed.

“It’s just, when I read the reports by these people, and they’re breaking NDAs all over, it’s like, are you stupid? I mean, literally. It’s not…aaahhhh! It’s unfortunate, and I think that will change because the major majority of people are not dissatisfied with Microsoft. It’s the vocal people. It’s the vocal minority.”

Your vision, not Microsoft’s

Baez had some advice to offer to those peers he referenced. “When I read those [complaints about Microsoft] it’s just like…’How could it ever get this bad?’” he asked with a sincerely puzzled look on his face. “[Microsoft is] just people. There’s no massive agenda. No conspiracy. Sorry. It’s just: chill out, make a good game. If your game is what they are looking for for their portfolio…” He trailed off at that point of the interview, not bothering to finish the thought, but his message was clear: make a good game. Make your game. If it’s the game Microsoft needs, they’ll play nice with you.

The free advice kept on coming. “I mean, what a lot of independent developers don’t realize is that if you are in a managed portfolio, it’s a good thing, right? Because you have your own proprietary network, whether it’s Sony or Nintendo or Microsoft,” he continued. “And there’s only, like, 200 games. It’s curated! So work hard to be the curated one, you know? And once you’re curated, don’t screw it up.”

He makes a strong point. If developers feel they have a strong product and they want to get it onto a curated platform, then they must be prepared to work at getting it through the actual curation process. For those who aren’t, there are other options. Today there are more platforms to release a game on then ever before. If a Microsoft contract doesn’t seem right for a studio, then it need only take its game elsewhere.

Even if a studio is certain it wants to release its next effort on XBLA, Baez cautions against designing the game said studio thinks Microsoft wants. “I would be very hesitant to ever tell anyone to make a game so that it will sell, or so that it will be accepted to a curated group of games,” he said. “And, because you’re going to have to work on that game for two, three or five years, and you’re going to get sick of it, make the game that you want to make. And, hopefully, the circumstances will coincide with somebody wanting to take that game. Otherwise, make an iOS game and join the other half a million apps that are out there. Just persevere, and, really, don’t fool yourself.”

For those studios that truly believe they have a vision for a good game, however, XBLA is indeed a viable option, says Dan Vader, lead writer and designer behind Capybara’s upcoming Super Time Force. He told XBLAFans that Microsoft knows exactly what sort of game Super Time Force is. “They know that people are excited about this game and not another game,” he said confidently, “and they don’t need it to be anything else. They’re very hands-off. It’s been awesome.”

According to Vader, Microsoft is more than capable of understanding artistic vision and seeing to it that the games released on XBLA embody those visions. “They know [Super Time Force] is a crazy, old-school pixel art game. We’re not trying to make it something else for a different audience,” Vader explained. “I think they know like we know there is an audience for this out there. We just want to give it to them, and they want to give it to them, so they’ve been supporting us that way.”

Even when it doesn’t work out, it can still work out

For studios like Ska, The Behemoth, Twisted Pixel and Capybara, XBLA development is pleasant experience. But what happens when things don’t quite work out? Maybe you hear stories like those told by Uber and Team Meat. Maybe not. Dutch development house Ronimo Games had a vision, one that it probably had no less confidence in than Dan Vader does in Super Time Force. Ronimo had ambition. It would be the first developer to bring the PC MOBA experience to consoles, and it would do it with something none of those other studios had: a third-party publisher.

When Ronimo and publisher DTP Entertainment released Awesomenauts in May of last year, it at first appeared that the team had largely realized its vision. MOBAs, however, need constant updates, which is something that hasn’t been possible on XBLA for just about everyone not named 4J Studios (Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition) or Warner Brothers (Guardians of Middle-earth).

Producer Robin Meijer recounted why that became such an issue. “The problem for us with XBLA was that our publisher went bankrupt a couple of days before the game came out,” he said. “And, as other indies have told plenty of times, it’s not that easy to get patches out, and it gets a lot harder if your publisher is in a state of bankruptcy.”

Ronimo wanted to keep the updates coming, but it wasn’t able to do so. The studio was left with no option but to focus the bulk of its post-release efforts on the Steam version of Awesomenauts. Fire the game up on your PC and you’ll find a plethora of extra content that isn’t available in the XBLA release. Meijer said that Ronimo investigated some of the workarounds other studios have employed to get additional content out for their XBLA releases, but that “it didn’t really seem viable to get the vision we have for the game back on track.”

The team reportedly gets regular requests from the XBLA community for the content that’s only available on PC. Meijer has taken it as a sign that XBLA gamers are happy with the experience his studio has been able to bring to them. “In that way, I’m very happy with what we did,” he said.

Happy with the XBLA version or not, there’s no denying the superiority of the Steam port. Despite that reality, Meijer wasn’t ready to outright proclaim Valve’s digital distribution platform to be better than Microsoft’s. “I think there’s enough to be said for both approaches,” he said. “In this particular case, Steam just works better for us. Because we want to do regular updates, and that’s just easier on Steam. But, I don’t know, for us it’s always been really kind of a bummer that we couldn’t do it on XBLA. Because we’ve always wanted to have Dota or League of Legends on console, and that vision just kind of died along the way after the game came out. We were able to continue it on Steam, and it’s doing very well on Steam. It’s still going strong there. I think we could have done the same on XBLA. It just wasn’t to be.”

Is the grass really greener?

Things rarely go exactly as they were planned in game development, and so it was for Meijer and his team’s post-release Xbox Live Arcade experience. And yet, you haven’t read any headlines in which Ronimo derides XBLA or Microsoft in general. Meijer still considers the release a success, and while there’s no questioning the superiority of the Steam version of his game, there are few who would question the fact that Awesomenauts is a fun multiplayer experience on XBLA.

For the five independent game developers XBLAFans spoke with that have worked more directly with Microsoft, the experience has been an excellent one. Capybara is being allowed to make exactly the game it envisioned in Super Time Force. Same goes for Ska with Charlie Murder and The Behemoth’s recently released BattleBlock Theater. Supergiant Games achieved critical and commercial success with Bastion, and though no platforms have yet been announced for Transistor, it seems likely the game will come to Arcade. Twisted Pixel got a swanky new office when Microsoft acquired it, but it hasn’t had to deal with anyone from its new corporate owner breathing down its neck. Sounds like a pretty good deal thus far.

The XBLA experience, though, is not the same for everyone. Some of the complaints originating from studios such as Uber Entertainment are legitimate. Uber had a vision, and a good one at that. It worked hard to craft it into a tangible product and gamers responded mostly positively. In Polytron’s case, there is almost universal love for Fez, and Microsoft’s supposed cost for releasing a patch to fix the bugs that dampen the experience does seem exorbitant for small studios with limited resources and budgets. However, it was a cost that Polytron should have been aware of going into the agreement to release its game on XBLA, and the bugs that have gone unfixed are present because of the game’s creator, not its publisher.

On Steam, it likely would not have been an issue. Valve allows for unlimited free updates to be made for games on its platforms. It also doesn’t wrap updates and deals up in all of the red tape that Microsoft does. Valve, however, is not Microsoft. It isn’t one of the 50 largest companies in the world, and it doesn’t have shareholders to answer to. Valve is in a position to do whatever it feels is best for gamers rather than its stock prices. These are all facts that should be obvious to anyone considering developing a game for Xbox Live Arcade.

It’s also important to note that what’s easy, cheap and convenient for developers doesn’t always equate to what’s best for gamers. And ultimately, for everyone in this industry, pleasing you, the gamer, should be priority one. As gamers and Valve have discovered, letting developers do whatever the hell they want isn’t always a good idea. Of course, sometimes consumers don’t really know what they want, either, and Valve’s also run into some problems as a result of letting gamers do whatever the hell they want.

Steam isn’t the infallible mecca of digital game distribution that some would have you believe. It has discoverability problems. Of course, XBLA has those problems, too, and they seem to get worse almost every time the Xbox 360 Dashboard is updated. PlayStation Network, the competing platform with perhaps the most in common with XBLA, is another possible platform upon which indies can release their games, and Sony continues to work at making it ever more attractive. That’s exactly what Microsoft needs to do with Xbox Live Arcade, and hopefully it will show signs of doing so when it reveals the next-gen Xbox this Tuesday.

You kids play nice now

Microsoft needs to make things easier for independent developers, or more experienced indie studios will walk away from XBLA development in the next generation. There are other options out there, but Microsoft’s console has a bigger market share than Sony’s does and a more curated system — which, as The Behemoth’s John Baez asserted, is a good thing — than Apple or Valve’s platforms. Developers and gamers need to think about how much they’re willing to give up in order to have a more curated system that usually allows the cream to rise to the top. Meanwhile, Microsoft needs to think about how much of its profit margins and quest for all-purpose living room entertainment dominance it’s willing to give up in order to keep as many talented independent game developers working on XBLA as possible. Ultimately, these actions will benefit all parties involved.

This fall represents an opportunity for everyone to start over. No system will ever be perfect; each will always have its pros and cons. But creator and publisher should, and probably are, work harder to make the next-gen XBLA a better experience for consumers. Over in Steamland, they’re doing just that. Soon enough, we should know whether or not the XBLA crowd is going to follow suit.

Let’s hope it does. For your sake.

For indies, working with Microsoft is a horrifying mess…right?

• Fez had an outstanding soundtrack, and we were all spoiled last month with the release of the remix album. Well, it looks like we’ve been given another gift, as a second remix album for Fez has popped up seemingly out of nowhere. It has already been released, and you can give it a listen or download here.
• For any fan of Bastion, you’ll be well aware of Supergiant Games new title, Transistor (re-watch the awesome reveal trailer here!). While it will be taking a lot of influence from Bastion, it looks like Transistor will enjoy quite a different approach with the inclusion of multiplayer. Before you get angry, let us clarify that it won’t be a traditional multiplayer mode, but something more subtle. You can read more about it over at Rock Paper Shotgun.
• Have you been following Ascend: New Gods? Well, if you’d like to continue to do so, you’ll have to search for it by its new name Ascend: Hand of Kul.
• Darkstalkers Resurrection hasn’t exactly been lighting up the sales charts, and Capcom U.S. senior vice president Christian Svensson took to the Capcom Unity forums to express his disappointment. He also brought up the possibility that the lack of success could potentially mean an end of Capcom bringing out new digital releases of their fighting franchises.

Newsbits: A new Fez soundtrack, Transistor multiplayer and poor sales

Fans of Monolith Studios’ Lord of the Rings: Guardians of Middle-earth have a vast array of characters to choose from. In addition to the characters included with the game a whopping 14 DLC characters have been released. The latest of these additions are the Elf lord Elrond of Rivendell, and the villainous Mouth of Sauron — once a member of the race of men, now corrupted both morally and physically from years of service to the dark lord.

Both characters are now available for 160 MSP each, and are not included as part of the season pass. Of the 14 released characters, only the first eight are part of that pass. Should you be new to Guardians, the season pass nets you those first eight characters plus a new survival mode for 1200 MSP. Purchasing these nine items separately is 1600 MSP, so you’re saving 25% if you want it all. The Mouth of Sauron character trailer can be viewed above. Hit the jump for Elrond’s.

Guardians of Middle-earth gets Elrond, Mouth of Sauron DLC characters

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, the 80′s inspired spin-off to the Far Cry franchise, took us all by surprise when it released earlier this month. The game that began as an April Fool’s joke is already a critical and commercial success. In an interview with Major Nelson, Sergeant Rex “Power” Colt’s voice actor Michael Biehn stated creative director Dean Evans is already in discussions for a sequel.

“Dean called me last night, he was pretty jacked up… He was going into a meeting today to, you know, I think he wants to turn it into some sort of franchise. He’s got a sequel in mind.”

Biehn continues to say that Evans’ vision of the franchise goes beyond another game:

“He has so many ideas coming out of his head that he can hardly contain them… He can be talking about the video game, the sequel, the sequel to that, and immediately move into movies — and start talking about movies he wants to do and different timelines on the movie he wants to do.”

Ubisoft was unable to comment on the possibility of a Blood Dragon sequel, so we’re left to wonder where the franchise will go. Youtube user MikeDiva is already ahead of the game, having created his vision of a Blood Dragon movie in the fake trailer above. He highlighted the best aspects of the game and re-imagined them as an 80′s action sci-fi that you have to see to believe. Warning: contains large amounts of awesome.

Source: Major Nelson via Polygon

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon sequel possible

Update: Following the possible outing of its release date (see original story below), State of Decay has “entered final certification,” according to Undead Labs Community Director Sanya Weathers. In a post on the official State of Decay forums, Weathers went on to explain that “The game is out of [Undead Labs'] hands.” Continuing, she stressed that this news has “nothing to do with a release date!” Weathers explained that, as it is with all XBLA games, the final release date will not be set until after final certification has been completed. Original story follows.

There are quite a few high-profile Xbox LIVE Arcade games releasing this summer, and the team over at IGN got their hands on a photo allegedly showing a few of the release dates. According to a listing from GameStop, we’ll see three big releases next month: State of Decay on June 5, Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara on June 25, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows on June 26. Ducktales Remastered has a placeholder date of August 1, but that seems unlikely considering that date falls on a Thursday. Of note here is that retailers often put placeholder dates in to secure preorders, so these may or may not be accurate.

IGN contacted some of the developers, but none would confirm any of the dates.

Source, image source: IGN

Rumor: DuckTales, State of Decay, TMNT, other XBLA game dates outed

XBLA gamers had to wait about six months longer than their PSN counterparts did, but the waiting finally ended on Monday. That’s when the frequently delayed Skullgirls Slightly Different patch finally arrived on Xbox Live Arcade. Just one day later, on Tuesday, it was followed by the release of the Color DLC, which offers eight packs of four new character color palettes for $1 each or $8 for the entire pack.

Slightly Different is the same patch that Peter Bartholow, CEO of Skullgirls developer Lab Zero Games, told XBLA Fans last month would likely be releasing within two weeks of his statement. (That didn’t happen.) It’s the same patch that Lab Zero said in January was unable to be released due to Microsoft’s stingy patch size limitations. (They eventually downsized it.) It’s the same patch that was in November revealed to have been developed by new studio Lab Zero Games, not original developer Reverge Labs. (It’s the same core team.)

Yes, Lab Zero’s biggest little patch has had quite the pre-release history on XBLA. But now, it’s all just that: history. “#Skullgirls owners on Xbox 360…please load up your game now!” Lab Zero tweeted Monday morning. The patch that contains new features, bug fixes, tutorials, gameplay changes and more was finally out.

Lab Zero previously informed XBLA Fans that it worked closely with Microsoft to shrink down the 590 MB size of the original file that was submitted to Microsoft for certification many months ago while, somewhat miraculously, retaining all of the content. Of course, no one in the development community has ever accused Microsoft of working quickly to get XBLA patches released. And so fans of the XBLA version of Skullgirls waited for months without any reliable indication of when that wait might finally end until Bartholow spoke up in late April. He mentioned that approximately two-week release window that the parties involved (Microsoft, Konami, Autumn Games and Lab Zero) were ultimately unable to meet.

Speaking with XBLA Fans via email on May 1, Bartholow was unwilling to say on the record what the issues were that caused this latest delay, instead preferring only to confirm that there were “hiccups” in the certification process. It was clear from the tone of his emails that his frustration level with the situation was high.

On Monday, the tone of his emails changed. Obviously relieved and excited, Bartholow confirmed the release. He wasn’t alone in that feeling. As seen in this impressively silly picture, Skullgirls designer Mike “MikeZ” Zaimont appears to have been experiencing similar feelings Monday morning. In conjunction with that picture tweeted by Lab Zero, the studio told fans that it was “Sorry it took so long” to release the patch.

Following its wildly successful Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign that raised $829,049, Lab Zero has much more in store for fans in the months ahead. Those fans who pledged contributions during the campaign recently voted Eliza, who is described as an “Egyptian-themed lounge singer,” as the third character to be released as part of the DLC funded by the campaign. Lab Zero says that Eliza is “the ultimate attack-from-disadvantage character” and that she will have two different modes revolving around the way in which a blood-sucking parasite that accompanies her into battle is used.

Sources: @LabZeroGames 1, 2, 3, PlayStation Blog and Lab Zero Games on Facebook

Skullgirls ‘Slightly Different’ patch, ‘Color’ DLC out now

Telltale Games is no stranger to making games based on comic book properties, whose successes include their Sam & Max series to last year’s hit The Walking Dead. This summer they will release their take on Bill Willingham’s Fables universe in The Wolf Among Us. The first screenshots of the game have been released, staying true source material with cell-shaded graphics that give a strong comic vibe.

The Wolf Among Us will take place before the events of the Fables series. Players will control Bigby Wolf, the sheriff of a hidden community in New York City that is home to exiled fairy tale characters. He’s trying to leave behind his past as the Big Bad Wolf, tasked to protect his fellow mythical creatures and keep them a secret to the outside world. He’ll interact with many characters from the comics, including Snow White and a chain-smoking member of the Three Little Pigs. The Wolf Among Us is coming to XBLA this summer.

First screens of Telltale’s The Wolf Among Us

The folks at DarkSeas Games are huge fans of the classic Road Rash series, but we haven’t seen a new entry in over a decade. DarkSeas is fixing that. After releasing a trailer showing their current prototype, they turned to Kickstarter to enlist public help for Road Redemption, a spiritual successor that will bring the beloved classic into the 21st century.

That Kickstarter ended on May 12 only $5,000 short of its stretch goal to bring it to Xbox Live Arcade. Luckily, that goal of $178,000 was reached through a secondary fund through Paypal after its finish. DarkSeas still has a lot of work to do, so don’t expect a release before their target of August next year.

Road Redemption enlists you in a motorcycle gang fighting for control of the roads across the American Midwest. DarkSeas promises a significant learning curve true to the classics. High-speed chases throw off your shooting, but with a little practice you will be shoving intruders into oncoming traffic and slicing off their heads with a katana. DarkSeas also plans to incorporate a multiplayer network that escalates online matchmaking into full-on gang warfare between your own factions.

To see more about Road Redemption, watch their pledge video on their Kickstarter page.

Road Redemption Kickstarter meets its goal

It’s a bit of a shorter episode this week, but we’ve got three fun tracks for all sorts of riders. First up is a simple-yet-deceptive supercross track. It runs around 1:30 and is great for casual plays. Following it is another stupidly difficult ninja track that most of us will never be able to finish. Rounding out the the courses this week is a fun under the sea adventure. It’s short enough to keep you hooked, yet has enough routes that it’ll take time to get that perfect score.

To download these tracks enter Track Central, select Get Tracks, then press X to search. Enter the gamertag in the video to find the track. Be aware that the search is case-sensitive. Our videos also assume that you own Trials Evolution (obviously) and the Origin of Pain and Riders of Doom expansion packs. If you haven’t picked them up be sure to head over to xbox.com to grab them. You won’t be disappointed.

Trials Tuesday – Episode 13

It was revealed back in March that Payday 2, the sequel to the popular PC and PSN co-operative heist shooter Payday: The Heist, would be heading to XBLA too this time around. However publishers 505 Games along with developers Overkill Software have today announced that the game will also be released globally at retail for both consoles alongside the downloadable versions. The game’s director David Goldfarb said in a press release:

“We have a bit of a problem here at Overkill – there are just too many great ideas and none that we were really happy to throw out – so PAYDAY 2 has become just too big to reserve release on Xbox Live and PlayStationNetwork alone.”

Head of Global Brand at 505 Games, Tim Woodley added

“It’s an incredible position to be in, having a game that just keeps growing and getting better all the time. We wanted to do everything we could to make a game that truly fits the vision of the team at Overkill but most importantly delivers an exciting, rewarding experience for the player – be they a long-time fan or new to the series. We’re expecting great things from PAYDAY 2 and are really looking forward to working with our retail partners all over the world to make it the huge success it deserves to be.”

Whether this means the game will now be sold within the Games on Demand section of the Xbox Marketplace rather than XBLA remains unclear but it won’t be too long before we find out, Payday 2 is set to launch this August. Check out the game’s debut trailer here.

*Update*

505 Games have tweeted that the game will be retail only for consoles:

@lifelower Retail only with the exception of Steam/PC. Too much awesomeness to contain within the console digital max size requirement.

— 505 Games (@505_Games) May 14, 2013

Thanks @lifelower

Payday 2 now too big for download only

Mere weeks after the launch of the hotly anticipated Xbox 360 in 2005, rumor spread like wildfire of a dreaded video-game Grim Reaper. We didn’t know why, how or when he would strike — all we knew was that he manifested himself with three red lights, cursing 360 consoles with a permanent GAME OVER. Microsoft ensured us that it was a minor problem that happened only to a select few, but time eventually revealed the ugly truth: everyone was at risk. After class-action lawsuits and bitter word of mouth, Microsoft finally put a three-year warranty in place, guaranteeing that all systems affected by the red lights would be fixed at no charge.

Chances are you have your own story about the Three Red Lights of Death. Perhaps your console was under warranty and returned after a few weeks. Maybe you bought a new one to skip the wait. You may have even cracked it open and somehow fixed the problem yourself. For me, my first system was killed by Overlord, one month before the launch of Halo 3. Four years later, my second system croaked after the first level of Gears of War 3, at which point in time the warranty had expired.

The Wizard of X

A replacement Xbox 360 Slim would have set me back at least $300, so I was somewhat relieved when my local GameStop referred me to David Peyregne, owner of Computers for Less. Peyregne is an experienced technician who has run his own business fixing computers and video game systems for over a decade. A former journalism student who turned to computer science, Peyregne sometimes lets his southern drawl come through his hollow voice that was scarred from polyps at a young age. With a husky explanation, he handed my system back to me, good as new, for $100, a sum much less daunting than the cost of a new console. Recently, I sat down with Peyregne to get the whole story on the Red Ring of Death: what causes it and how does Peyregne fix it? As it turns out, it took him a long time to figure it all out.

“I went through all of the different types of repair scenarios. There’s so much misinformation on the web,” Peyregne reflected. But when these problems began, rumor and hearsay was all there was. So Peyregne combined most of the popular repair techniques he came across into something he calls the “hybrid fix.”

“A lot of times, if it’s just overheating, it’s the thermal paste because they don’t use a good quality thermal paste between the CPU, GPU and the heat sinks, and it dries up and gets crusty and then it blocks the heat transfer,” he explained. “A lot of times you could just replace that [thermal paste], and it would work again! But, that wasn’t really the root of the problem.”

Peyregne would also replace the X-clamps that were supposedly getting loose and breaking the flow of heat from the GPU to the heat sink, causing the Xbox to overheat. “Now I know that this is not the case,” Peyregne reflected. Continuing, the Xbox repairman said that the “X-clamp is not a problem. Now whenever I do a repair, I put the original factory X-clamps back on. That’s not the problem.”

Eventually, these fixes culminated in what technicians call a re-flow. “We all knew that it was the chip breaking because of the lead-free solder,” said Peyregne. “The re-flow is when we take your motherboard, and we heat up the entire motherboard specifically around the GPU chip, which 95% of the time is the problem. We heat up that GPU chip to almost 217 degrees. You don’t want it to get liquid and melt; you want it to get soft, and you want that lead-free solder to re-flow back together with this point on the motherboard, and then you turn off the machine, let it cool off and you have a new connection.”

The re-flow is what many local repair shops can do to repair your dead Xbox. However, a hybrid fix and a re-flow typically last only six months to a year before the Three Red Lights strike again.

Lead-free = deadly

So Peyregne changed tactics. “I don’t do the hybrid fix anymore. Now, we go to the root of the problem, which is removing the chip from the motherboard and replacing the lead-free solder with lead solder that we can still use in this country,” he said of his new approach. “It’s not 100% lead. It’s a 60/40 mix that’s still legal in this country. If you’re the government, you can still request 100 percent lead products, but for consumers, it has to be [a] 60/40 mix, which is still a hundred times better than lead-free solder!”

With this lead solder, Peyregne does what is called a “re-ball”, where he removes the lead-free solder, cleans off the chip, and replaces it with the soft, long-lasting lead solder using a professional machine. After a re-ball repair, Peyregne can usually give you a lifetime guarantee because lead solder Does. Not. Break.

“The problem with lead-free solder is not only does it get brittle, but it actually degrades over time,” he explained. “It gets worse. That’s why when people come in and they don’t want to pay for the re-ball, they just want to pay for the re-flow, it’s half the cost because it’s half the work, and I give my customers that option. But I tell them, it’s not gonna last! You might get lucky, it might last you a year. You might get lucky and, it might last you two years. But eventually, this solder is going to get brittle and break again. It actually degrades over time. You can look at it under a microscope and it gets weaker and weaker and weaker.”

So why do all of our Xboxes have lead-free solder? Why did Microsoft sell machines that are destined to eventually break? Short answer: Europe. “In 2002, the European Union started a consortium, and what it says basically is that any electronic device that is sold or even marketed towards children is considered a toy and must be 100 percent lead-free,” Peyregne said of the issue. ”People say, ‘Kids can’t really get in to the video game systems. It’s not like they’re gonna take them apart and chew on them!’ I think it’s because they don’t know what to do with it when it’s disposed of. It’s a smaller geographic region. They don’t have the landfills that we have in this country. They don’t know what to do with it.” As we all know, lead is very poisonous, and any improper disposal could cause serious problems.

This new consortium affected not just Microsoft, but also Sony and Nintendo. Game machines are naturally marketed towards kids, so each company has had to make do with lead-free solder. As a result, Peyregne’s business is not just fixing Xbox 360s, but also PS3s and Wiis because they have the same fatal problems killing their systems. Even the new Xbox 360 Slims are at risk. “We need lead in our electronics,” Peyregne said. “Lead-free solder doesn’t last. It’s 95 percent tin, about two percent zinc and about three percent nickel, and it’s brittle. It’s not a pure metal; it’s a hybrid. It’s something that scientists came up with to use that’s lead-free, and it doesn’t work. It doesn’t last. Our grandfathers and our great-grandfathers knew that lead was great! It’s a soft metal; it doesn’t get brittle; and it doesn’t break. It’s a pure metal. It’s not mixed with anything else.”

So, if the European Union is so concerned about lead in Europe’s electronics, why do the rest of us have to suffer from the Three Red Lights? “You have to understand the game manufacturers’ point of view,” Peyregne reasoned. “Seventeen countries in the European Union — that’s a huge market! So here’s what they had to decide. They could’ve done it. They could’ve said, ‘OK, if they want to have an inferior product, then we’re gonna dedicate this many factories for European sales, and we’re gonna make good ones for the people that can have lead solder in the United States.’ But that’s my guess, I don’t have any sort of verified proof on this. And it just makes sense that it would have cost way too much money to do that.” It didn’t happen, it would seem, because the draw of unified manufacturing allowing Microsoft to keep the cost of the Xbox 360 lower was too strong.

Still, with rampant misinformation all over the web, some people still dispute Peyregne’s findings. Many different methods involved tinkering with the cooling system, including Peyregne’s original hybrid fix. Even manufacturers like Nyko sell fitted fans to pump more air through the system (which, incidentally, only blow the hot air back in). But if it were the cooling, why did these problems not happen with previous systems? ”The PS3 has a beautiful cooling system. The fan must be six inches around!” Peyregne said in praise of Sony’s machine. “And the entire bottom portion of the PS3 is a huge heat sink that the fan sits right in the middle of. It’s got great cooling! The cooling in the original Xbox was less than what’s in the Xbox 360, and it doesn’t get the Red Ring of Death!

Continuing, he recounted how no system made prior to 2002 had to deal with the lead issue. “This change came about in 2002. It’s not rocket science. It’s not hard to figure out. Everything before 2002 didn’t have this problem. The PS2, the PS1, the original Xbox, Nintendo 64…you can brush the dust off that old Atari 1600 you got in your attics, blow out the cartridge and put it in, and I betcha’ it works. OK? Because it’s got lead solder in it. It’s very obvious to me, and it should be to everyone.”

The Frankenfixes

Unfortunately, most of us don’t have the engineering background of David Peyregne. So, the community of gamers went to the source they always turn to for answers: the internet. “These games are so well-loved that people just want to do whatever they can to get it working again without paying a lot of money to do it, and the information wasn’t readily available.”

Naturally, this led to some confusion. Even GameStop tried its hand at fixing the Xbox 360, only it fell for the X-clamp fix. ”It’s amazing the way that these ideas take off on the web and become gospel, and then everyone else does it.”

What are some of these repair ideas that propagated over the web? One of the most popular ones is the towel trick. By wrapping the Xbox 360 in several towels, the system heats up after just 20 minutes of running. “A poor man’s re-flow,” Peyregne calls it. “Think about what they’re trying to do. They’re trying to heat up that motherboard so that the solder reconnects. They’re doing this, attempting in a repair to fix a problem without actually knowing what the problem is, only that some people have had success with it. It’s not gonna last. In fact, it’s not even going to last as long as a good re-flow does [when] done by a service technician [...] because it’s not getting hot enough.”

But the problems don’t stop there. “You’re not just heating up the GPU chip. You’re heating up everything inside of there,” said Peyregne. “All that plastic, all of those capacitors, all of those resistors, they could blow or even just get weak. I have seen Xboxes come in over the years that were so damaged on the inside that I was under the impression that maybe they had put it in their mother’s oven. They were that damaged. And if you look on the Internet, guess what? There are kids doing that: putting them in their mother’s oven to try to attempt a re-flow.”

The penny trick is another trick that was popularized thanks to the internet. For fear the memory modules were overheating, pennies would be placed on top of each memory module as a makeshift heat sink. “If they did it right, then it wouldn’t hurt anything,” Peyregne admitted. “It might not have really helped, but it wouldn’t necessarily hurt anything [...] Problem number one is that pennies after the 1970s aren’t even made out of copper anymore. They’re made of zinc. Zinc is not a good heat conductor. Then, they’re wrapping the pennies in electrical tape and gluing it to the bottom of the memory module. Now what you’re doing is, not only are you not transferring heat with a heat sink, but now what little heat was dissipating if you had nothing on it at all is now being blocked by all the goop and electrical tape and zinc pennies that you’ve taped to the bottom of it. It’s making it hotter!”

The more Peyregne described these crimes against machinery, the more atrocities he remembered with a cringe. “Another thing that kids talk about on the internet is using a hairdryer or a heat gun… Um, heat guns are for removing paint. Off of houses. That’s what they’re good for. That’s what they’re made for. NOT heating up a motherboard, OK? Again, sometimes these kids have results with this, but most of the time they end up doing more damage than not.”

But wait, there’s more

Lead-free solder isn’t the only problem with the Xbox 360. “On a motherboard on a regular computer, you have what’s known as standoffs that lift the motherboard off the chassis so it doesn’t ground off these little brass standoffs that you glue onto the case.” After measuring the standoffs in an Xbox 360, Peyregne discovered something odd. “Two of the standoffs are about .7mm higher than all the rest of the standoffs, which was actually putting a bow in the motherboard, causing it to have a flex in it right from the factory. Right from the factory, the motherboard is under stress. By that motherboard being under stress, it was helping to weaken that BGA (ball grid array) connection of that chip on that motherboard so that it wouldn’t last as long with the lead-free solder.” For those not familiar with the finer points of soldering, BGA is a style of soldering commonly used in mass production that makes wider connection points in precisely measured spots. While it takes less space and generates less heat, any stress in those close connections can tear them apart. So, Peyregne would grind down the raised standoffs to even out the motherboard and take away the stress as part of his original hybrid fix.

However, this straining flex has remained with every iteration of the Xbox 360, even the Slim. “Why would they do that?” Peyregne asked rhetorically. “Why would they make two of the standoffs on the chassis higher than all the rest? And there’s all sorts of speculation. Some people say that they did that to raise for greater airflow in a specific area. Well, if they want a greater airflow, then why not raise all of the standoffs an equal amount to keep the motherboard flat and increase that airflow? It’s just…we don’t know why they did what they did. But the new 360 Slim has it too, so there must be a reason!”

Furthermore, while the Xbox 360 has been marketed from the get-go to operate vertically, many characteristics of its internals suggest that was not originally the plan. “The engineers that designed the Xbox 360, I know — I know — there’s no way they could have designed [...] for the Xbox 360 to be stood upright. It just doesn’t make sense! I think that the marketing team got involved and said, ‘Is there any reason why we can’t put little rubber feet on the bottom of this, maybe make the bottom wider, change the look of it a little bit, so that it will stand up and look cool like the PS3 and the Wii?’”

So, what are the problems? “The heat sinks in the original 360 are heavy. When you have a BGA connection, especially that’s soldered on with lead-free solder, with the weight of the heat sink over time pulling on that chip, gravity pulling down…” said Peyregne before trailing off. That heavy heat sink pulls on the GPU and the motherboard, adding to the stress. “In a short term, big deal. It wouldn’t make a difference. But if you’re talking about a machine that you expect to last for years and years and the weight of those heat sinks pulling [is] on those chips, it’s gonna make a difference.”

The tray-loading drive is another giveaway. Remember how some people found their games getting viciously scratched? “When you have a DVD tray drive, gravity helps hold that disc down in the bottom of the drive,” said Peyregne. “When you stand it upright and it’s rotating in there, there’s about a quarter inch of space where gravity would normally take that space by holding it into the bottom of the drive, but now that’s no longer there, and that disc will wobble.” Microsoft claimed games only got scratched when the system was knocked over, but Peyregne’s customers say otherwise. Perhaps you do as well.

These disc problems don’t happen with the other systems. “The PS3 is designed so that it’s all held together when it’s standing up,” Peyregne said. “There’s no pressure on the heat sinks. The Wii? The same way. In the PS3 and the Wii, they put DVD slot drives that hold the disc in place, sucks it in, kind of like the drive that’s in your car, and holds it in place. Those are okay to stand upright.”

And then there is the cooling design. While horizontal, the Xbox 360 takes in cool air from the sides and blows the hot air out the back. Peyregne reasoned, “When you stand the Xbox upright, you’re blocking that intake where it’s sitting on the surface. [Then] when you put the hard drive on the top, that’s blocking more airflow so that now you only have a little bit of airflow from one corner going into the system and a whole lot of hot air blowing out the back, and it’s not getting enough cool air.”

So, for the sake of your motherboard, games and GPU, keep your system flat and in a place it can breathe.

Three steps forward, two steps back

Microsoft addressed quite a few of these design flaws in the Xbox 360 Slim. The internal hard drive opens up the side for more air intake, the heat sink is lighter and the fan sits right on top of a combined CPU/GPU chip to keep it cool. However, the new DVD drive brought with it new problems.

“The lasers are failing,” Peyregne complained. “It’s a different laser. It doesn’t last as long. I see it every day.” And even if it does last, units can still fall victim to an open-tray error. “The trays get jammed all the time. I have one out there right now where the tray is jammed… A DVD drive should always work freely. On a computer, you can see the little pinhole where you can manually — with your computer off — you can push in that tab and you can pull the tray in and out. These [Xboxes] that come in that are jammed can’t be budged without breaking them. They have to be taken apart, the tray actually removed, and then put back in the proper spot with the gears realigned and cleaned and then it works again. They’re not broken when they do that — they’re just jammed.” This is all, of course, in addition to the original problem of tilting a tray-loading drive on its side.

Do you want to be a billionaire?

The problem remains: we’re stuck with these systems using poorly made lead-free solder and that will eventually break. This lead-free policy isn’t likely to go anywhere, so we could be stuck even into the next generation. I asked Peyregne if there is any way to make a lead-free solder that can last. He confirmed that there is — if you’re an alchemist. “I tell all the kids that come in, you want to be a billionaire, like in the song?” he replied. “Think of a way to make a solder that has the characteristics of lead solder that doesn’t get brittle and break, that works as well as lead solder, and if it’s affordable [...] market that. You’ll be a billionaire, because there are other soft metals they could use.”

You might be surprised to hear what those other soft metals are. “Gold and silver would work great…but it’s too expensive,” Peyregne explained. “My lead solder balls that I use for re-balling these chips are not made with gold in that format. The reason why I checked into it — and you’re kinda smiling — and actually, it wouldn’t increase the cost that much! We’re talking 24-carat gold. Jewelers use it in spools. You ever seen the spools of lead solder that maybe you saw your dad or your grandpa breaking off a piece? Jewelers have that in gold and silver. They make it that way. So I checked. I said, ‘Does anybody make gold or silver solder in this format, in little tiny .06mm, solder balls?’ Nobody did. Nobody makes it. And one company actually got back to me and said the reason why is because security would be too hard with their employees.” Still, that can’t stop us from one day fantasizing that we could have our Xbox 720 or whatever re-balled in gold.

The future

At this point, we’re only a short time away from learning exactly what Microsoft has been cooking up for the next generation. We’re all dying to know what the next Xbox will be called, what games it will have, how it will look and whether or not Illumiroom is part of it. But, will Microsoft continue to use lead-free solder? Unfortunately, Peyregne thinks so. “I think they will keep it the way it is because they’re having success. Why fix it if it isn’t broken? They can sell them in Europe, and they can sell them here. And people that get aggravated here will probably pay to get them fixed or buy another one. And so I really don’t expect them to make a change.”

But what if they could offer us a better model? Peyregne believes that Microsoft needs to consider whether it wants to continue making money off of customers buying replacement systems because the things are basically disposable, or whether it wants to build a machine that will last for a decade, a machine like the original Xbox and sell it at a higher price. “I would pay more money for that, and I think most people would too,” he said.

Perhaps Microsoft could look into whether or not it could legally market a “professional” Xbox SKU specifically for adults that contains lead. Or maybe it could use solder with gold or silver. Peyregne suspects the amount of precious metals required for solder is quite small and would only increase the price by about 50 bucks, maybe less. The question is, would you be willing to pay that?

When it breaks…

Computers for Less still operates in Grandville, Michigan where it started, but Peyregne personally works in Orem, Utah. If you don’t live around there, he knows plenty of other technicians who do the same re-ball repair. Some of them will even let you mail in your system so they can fix it up and ship it back. When you have a problem with your Xbox 360, or any other system, you can get in touch with these people at a community forum. There, you can get answers to your questions from Peyregne and other professional technicians who have been doing this for years.

In the meantime, be nice to your Xbox 360 and hope that Microsoft builds the next one with some healthier guts.

Red Ring of Death: Xbox pathologist explains the plague

TimeGate Studios, developer of Section 8: Prejudice has ceased operation, Kotaku reports. The news comes as a result of two crippling blows the the company. The first was the loss of a legal battle between the studio and SouthPeak Interactive, who published the original Section 8, a retail game. As a result TimeGate was ordered to pay over $7 million in damages and lost the license to the Section 8 franchise. The second came as the developer was hung out to dry for their work in assisting Gearbox Software with development on Aliens: Colonial Marines, a game that was panned by critics. Aliens had a troubled development cycle, and currently is the subject of a class action lawsuit that claims the game was misrepresented by its trailers, and that the final product did not meet expectations given in trailers.

The fate of the Section 8 franchise, and subsequently the standing of Section 8: Prejudice on Xbox LIVE Arcade, is unclear. Presumably a passing of the torch will see the publishing rights fall back to SouthPeak rather than the game being delisted. It’s currently 94th in sales out 575 titles, so it’s quite possible the game is still profitable.

Source: Kotaku

TimeGate, developer of Section 8: Prejudice, closes its doors

Leading up to the May 21 reveal of the next Xbox—recently rumored to be called Xbox Infinity—, the most talked about feature has been the system’s ‘always on’ internet connection. Adam Orth, former Microsoft executive, further fueled the flames when he told critics to “deal with it” and “get with the times and get the internet.” However, according to Gameindustry.biz, a recent internal memo at Microsoft tells a different story.

The memo states, “Durango is designed to deliver the future of entertainment while engineered to be tolerant of today’s Internet.” It continues, “There are a number of scenarios that our users expect to work without an Internet connection, and those should ‘just work’ regardless of their current connection status. Those include, but are not limited to: playing a Blu-ray disc, watching live TV, and yes playing a single player game.”

With all of the criticism from gamers and Sony announcing the PlayStation 4 will not require internet to play games, Microsoft seems to be under a lot of pressure to ditch ‘always on.’ The memo also supports the rumors of a Blu-Ray drive and the system interacting with users’ cable boxes, allowing for live TV through the Xbox. As mentioned previously, all of these rumors should be put to rest when the new system is revealed May 21.

Sources: Gameindustry.biz

Rumor: Next Xbox doesn’t require ‘always on’ internet connection

4J Studios has recently rolled out the 11th title update for Minecraft. TU11 is another bug fix update, including fixes such as increasing the amount of item frames, villages, and snow golems you can have in your world, adding more helpful pop-up messages, and finally making those Ghasts use their indoor voice. The full list of fixes is below:

• Fix for explosion lag issue on clients in an online game.
• Fix to remove any Fireballs hanging in the air in a save game.
• Fix to only show the spawn limit message to the player attempting to spawn something.
• Fixed the terrain mipmaps to have the updated version of the gravel texture in them.
• Fix for the spawn limit overrun when shearing or breeding Mooshrooms
• Increased the limit for Paintings/Item Frames, Villagers, and Snow Golems in a world.
• Display a message when the maximum Paintings/Item Frames are reached.
• Display a message when the user tries to put an animal in Love Mode when the spawn limits have been reached.
• Display a message when the user tries to spawn an enemy from a Spawn Egg in Peaceful mode.
• Reduced Ghast sound volume

Before returning to your newly-updated Minecraft adventures, you may want to update your look with new skin packs. The Battle and Beasts skin pack features a slew of original skins, ranging from wild animals to ancient warriors, plus a few well-dressed monsters for 160MSP. Also available is the 1st Birthday skin pack, available for free to commemorate Minecraft‘s amazing first year on XBLA. The pack features all your favorite Minecraft characters, all ready to party. Both packs are available now.

Sources: PlayXBLA, Minecraft Forums via Polygon

Minecraft bug update and new skins out now

Kevin Plumtree - I’ve been fairly busy this week, but I did have time to finish Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 on Veteran difficulty.  It was the easiest one in the series to date.  I also played my weekly game of Gears of War: Judgment to progress toward the Syrabite medal.

Nick Santangelo - Dove into some Mass Effect 3 DLC this week. I don’t bother picking up any DLC for most games, but I’m a huge Mass Effect fan, so I made an exception. With the Omega DLC in my  rearview, I’m now working my way through the Citadel DLC and loving it.

Shawn Ryan - I was close to the end in a bunch of different games, so decided to beat them in hopes I could start to clear my backlog. I finally finished Alan Wake, Crysis 3, and Halo 4. They all have their moments, but none of them stood out as must-own games. Playing them all right after beating BioShock the week before was probably a bad idea!

Chris Leggett - Like Nick, I revisited the Mass Effect universe and played through some of part three’s DLC. I finished Omega and Citadel, and I’ve just made a start on Leviathan. I’ve really enjoyed the return trip, and it’s reminded me that it easily has to be my favorite franchise of this gen.

Ryan Thompson - I played some Geometry Wars 2 as I took breaks from writing term papers — it’s good stuff!  I especially like the modes that restrict your firing capabilities, as the emphasis on dodging and positioning is a great deal of fun.

Christine Mitchell - I finally picked up Final Fantasy 13 and have been making my way through that this week. Enjoying the battle system but not so much the abundance of cut scenes.

Matthew Smail - Bah, it’s been an awful week of gaming for me! I just haven’t had time, what with personal and work issues keeping me busy. That said, I did have chance to spend maybe 10 minutes on the wonderful Ni No Kuni, and had a couple of nice easy games on Magic 2013, in preparation for the new game coming up in the next few months!

Your turn.

What we are playing: May 12

A new supposedly ‘leaked’ image suggests that the next Xbox will be named the Xbox Infinity. The image appeared on Reddit with The International Business Times claiming the console name is confirmed

“sources have now revealed the console will be named Infinity and that development kits are already in the hands of studios.”

It wasn’t long ago that the rumor mill was reporting that the new console would be named Xbox Fusion and Fusible, who specialize in reporting on domain acquisitions, discovered a number of domains registered by Microsoft suggesting Fusion may be more likely:

• Xbox720.com (WHOIS) – Microsoft does not own the domain.
• XboxInfinity.com (WHOIS) – Microsoft does not own the domain.
• Xbox8.com (WHOIS) – Microsoft does not own the domain.
• XboxDurango.com (WHOIS) – Microsoft does not own the domain.
• XboxInfinite.com (WHOIS) – Microsoft does not own the domain.
• XboxFusion.com (WHOIS) – Microsoft owns the domain.
• XboxNext.com (WHOIS) – Microsoft owns the domain.
• XboxGold.com (WHOIS) – Microsoft owns the domain.

However with just over a week until the official console reveal, it won’t be long till we know for sure.

Sources: IBT, Fusible via IGN

Rumor: Next Xbox may be named Xbox Infinity

UPDATE: After checking with Andy Schatz, the game’s creator, the trial should be on its way soon.

Original post below:

After being delayed last-minute to fix a bug, Monaco finally released today on Xbox Live Arcade for 1200 MSP. However, if you go to its page on the dashboard and even on xbox.com, there is no option to try the game out for free. Huh?

Luckily, we do have a review for you, but we wanted to play it with its completed, updated version before passing all judgment for you. You can look for that very soon. As for the trial version, some games have launched with no trial before, so it may be available later for those of you still on the fence.

UPDATED: Monaco is out today, but not with a trial

If domain registrations are any indication, the follow-up to the Xbox 360 will be called Xbox Fusion.  A list, discovered and compiled by Fusible, shows not only XboxFusion.com belonging to Microsoft and redirecting to Xbox.com, but also numerous variants like XboxFusion.biz and XboxFusion.info, indicating that something major will use that name.  Microsoft has had trouble in the past with domain squatters, who previously beat them to Halo4.com and Kinect.com, so registering the main site and all its flavors could be a way of avoiding that kind of embarrassment.

The other rumored names of the next-generation of Xbox, such as Infinity, 720, and Durango, have not been scooped up by Microsoft, making these titles unlikely to be used.  However, just because XboxFusion.com has been registered, does not necessarily mean that it is the name of the next console; it could be a service on the console, a new game or IP, or turn out to be nothing at all.  Naturally, only time will tell what the true name of the successor to the Xbox is, but the wait should not be that long.  Microsoft’s pre-E3 press event, scheduled for May 21st, is expected to contain the reveal of the next Xbox and the answers we are all anxiously awaiting.

Source: Fusible via Joystiq

Is Fusion the name of the next Xbox?

In January at CES 2013, Eric Rudder, Microsoft’s chief technology strategy officer, unveiled the IllumiRoom—a new Kinect driven device for use with next generation gaming consoles. This proof-of-concept project being developed by Microsoft Research “augments the area surrounding a television screen with projected visualizations to enhance the traditional living room entertainment experience.”

Pairing a Kinect for Windows with a projector allows for enhanced gameplay experiences by extending the screen beyond the TV. Unlike previous technology, such as Focus+Context screens, the IllumiRoom can be used in any type of living room setup.

While sitting on a coffee table, the self-calibrating Kinect will map out the user’s living room by detecting the placement of the TV, stationary objects, and colors in the environment. This allows the projector to “change the appearance of the room, induce apparent motion, extend the field of view, and enable entirely new game experiences.” Microsoft Research released the video below to demonstrate what the IllumiRoom can do.

A recent research paper released by Microsoft offers an in depth look at the IllumiRoom. If it has access to a game’s rendering process, several Focus+Context illusions can be created, such as extending the entire game or selected objects beyond the TV. Without access to the renderer, peripheral flow gives the user the sensation of movement.

The device can also displace textures in the room. The radial wobble can be used to simulate a ripple illusion throughout the room. Ideally, Microsoft Research would expand this to explosions and other more grand effects with a more sophisticated projector.

The IllumiRoom is also capable of color augmentation. For example, if a game or movie uses black and white video, the projector will display the appropriate colors to make the area around the TV appear black and white. Perhaps, a more saturated, cartoonish look is being displayed. The device will project the color of objects in the room back onto themselves to further saturate the area surrounding the TV.

All of these effects work because the human eye has two distinct ways of taking in it’s surroundings. The fovea is central to the retina and responsible for sharp, focused viewing. Outside of the focused area is peripheral vision. While very attuned to movement, peripheral vision has trouble fully discerning what’s being seen. In IllumiRoom’s case, users are focusing on the TV, so the effects can take place in the peripheral area, making them much more believable.

Microsoft Research’s Brett Jones told Polygon IllumiRoom is only a “research project;” it’s reasonable to assume the technology could come to the next generation Xbox at some point. In fact, the previously mentioned research paper offers that possibility: “The concept could be developed into a next generation game console with game content designed from the ground up, or it could be an ‘addon’ for existing consoles . . .” One of the team’s current obstacles is the Kinect’s limited area of view. However, the Kinect 2 is rumored to have an increased field of view, so the IllumiRoom could have a bright future in households.

Source: Microsoft Research, via The Verge

IllumiRoom may be part of Microsoft’s next gen strategy

Max is your typical late-80s/early-90s video game or cartoon hero. He’s an adventurous young boy, colorfully drawn to life with a an oversized golden mane and a t-shirt that bearing a prominent reminder of the letter his first name begins with. He lives in a picturesque home in a neighborhood that is presumably full of residents who don’t know the meaning of the words “overcast” and “precipitation.” At the start of his adventure, a monster arm that’s more adorable than scary reaches out of his closet and nabs the little brother whom Max had just been fighting with. This event signals the beginning of an adventure that will see Max running through bright and varied environments and jumping over obstacles in his path.

But this isn’t the late ’80s. Nor is it the early ’90s. This is 2013. And in 2013, game and cartoon characters have guns. Usually big guns. Take, for example, one of XBLA’s most recent releases, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. Ubisoft’s ’80s love letter sealed with the blood of the titular dragons went so far as to give the player a minigun. Max: The Curse of the Brotherhood, however, does nothing of the sort.

“One of the things that is very appealing about this game is that Max isn’t armed with a minigun or a samurai sword, but he has this ability to control different kinds of materials that are in themselves not very dangerous,” says Mikkel Thorsted, studio director of Press Play, the developer behind Curse of the Brotherhood. “Basically he is armed with his imagination and wit, so basically when you encounter danger you have to outsmart the villainous henchmen. You have to outsmart them and lure them away, and stuff like that.”

Is the marker mightier than the minigun?
In the game, Max channels that youthful imagination and wit through a marker. A marker would seem a poor substitute for a minigun or a samurai sword, especially one that isn’t magic. Luckily, when Max comes across an old, dying witch early in the game, she uses her witchcraft to imbue the marker with magical powers. They’re not the sort of powers that let Max shoot, say, bolts of lightning or anything of that sort, though; they’re the sort of powers that let him imagine up changes to the world and then make them happen.

The playable level in the demo XBLAFans ran through at PAX East showcased the marker’s ability to draw vines to help him move through the forest environment we found ourselves in. It’s not long after picking up the controller that we encounter platforming challenges that appear impossible at first glance. The marker makes them possible. Max can draw vines at certain predetermined points in the environment that he can use to climb on and swing from to travel distances that he otherwise could not. The drawing mechanic is a breeze to get the hang of, which is great considering that the game often requires several vines to be drawn in quick succession in order to prevent Max from falling to his death.

We don’t get to experience it, but we’re told the marker will later be able to draw much more than just vines with the marker. It will eventually gain the ability to manipulate earth, water and fire to help him along his way. World traversal and enemy avoidance are the key abilities granted by all of the marker’s powers. There are enemies in the world that will try to harm Max, but he can’t fight them directly. He must avoid them entirely or re-imagine the world in such a way that it does his fighting for him. In later sections of the game, it’ll take more than just vines to make that happen.

“So the way we have created the game is that we’ve tried to ease the player into how the mechanics work,” says Lead Designer Mikkel Martin Pedersen. Continuing, he explains that “you get each power, and you [learn] how each power works. And when you get more powers it becomes much more challenging, because you have to combine them and discover how you actually combine the powers and how they work together.”

Even wielding a marker that makes imagination reality, it wouldn’t be possible to draw Max to safety without another helpful mechanic. It’s a feature that would be called bullet time were there bullets in the game. Time slows to a crawl whilen while Max is mid-jump and another vine must be drawn quickly before time speeds back up again. Max isn’t necessarily safe once a new vine is illustrated into existence, though. Sometimes, the level immediately plunges back into slow motion when a new vine is drawn, and another vine needs to be drawn in a hurry.

“Variety is very important to us in the game,” says Pedersen. “In the sense of having to both draw and do platforming, it means we can sort of like shift the pacing by doing more platforming and then slowdowns and puzzles. I think some of the magic is the combination of how we can combine everything.” The puzzles in the forest level are easy enough to figure out, but actually solving them requires a quick drawing hand.

What type of game is this?
According to Thorsted, the aforementioned puzzles will play a big part in the platforming throughout the game. He explains that Press Play came up with a “sort of term you could use” to describe the game. It’s not particularly inventive, but it certainly is apt, judging by what was shown at PAX East. “It’s called a cinematic puzzle-platformer,” he explains. “And the cinematic means it’s a story-driven game surrounding Max and his quest for saving his little brother. And it’s also cinematic in the sense that we use the camera where we don’t have this fixed camera where it’s a 90-degree angle. We actually move the camera around a lot, creating a cinematic feel to the whole experience.”

XBLAFans didn’t notice the camera move around all that much during our playthrough, but perhaps that’s a testament to how smoothly it transitions from one viewpoint to another. Certainly it does a good job of showing the player the next portion of a puzzle that needs solving, which is precisely what Thorsted tells us it was designed to do. It helps that the vines Max can draw are brought to the player’s attention by shiny indicators. These indicators come off as a bit artificial in an otherwise natural environment, but they serve their purpose well enough.

As for the world itself, it’s another dimension known as Another Land. There’s some magic in it, but we’re told by Thorsted that this magic is realistic. Actually, I’m not so certain that drawing vines into reality with a marker is any more realistic than shooting something like a bolt of lightning. Regardless, Thorsted says that “it’s a very traditional fantasy world. The settings we have are settings that will be familiar to people who like fairy tales and stuff like that.” Specifically, he cites Scandinavian fairy tales a source of inspiration.

Those not so familiar with such lore might have a better time looking for bits of Press Play’s other inspiration peaking through: 1980s adventure movies. Specifically, Pedersen mentions The Goonies and Indiana Jones movies. “The impossible hero — he shouldn’t be able to do what he can, but he can. And he’s trying to redeem what he’s done,” explains Pedersen.

He says the game is targeting the “XBLA crowd.” Continuing, he explains that he means despite having a happy-go-lucky boy as its protagonist, Max: Curse of the Brotherhood is meant for older gamers. “It’s not a children’s game. You might be a small boy, but it’s really trying to appeal to guys like us.”

We’ll find out if Press Play’s “cinematic puzzle-platformer” can pull that off when it releases later this spring. My biggest concern at this time is whether or not Press Play can deliver on the variety it’s promising by giving the player enough options with the marker to keep things interesting, but if the PAX demo is indicative of the rest of the game, XBLA gamers have a fun new platformer to look forward to.

Max: Curse of the Brotherhood preview: Imagining a world without miniguns

Grab your tree stand and your camoflage vest, cuz’ we’re goin’ hunting. That’s right gang, with the first XBLA hunting game our favorite downloadable platform has now covered nearly every genre out there. Developed by Klytonn Entertainment and published by Big Ben Interactive, Hunter’s Trophy 2: America drops players into the wild, with just their rifle and hunting dog to take down their prey. Several areas serve up different hunting game, with locations ranging from Alaska to Kentucky. The game features tree stand hunting, general hunting for game, a shooting range and the ability to hunt with your good ole’ hound dog at your side. You can hunt ducks, but there’s no word yet on whether the dog can come along, nor whether he’ll laugh at you should you miss your prey.

The game releases May 17 for 800 MSP, which is a little over half of the PC release price of USD $18.99. Whether it’s worth a purchase remains to be seen, but at least we’ll have something other than other people to shoot at. In the meantime you can hit up the game’s official website for additional info, and hit the jump for more screenshots.

XBLA finally gets a hunting game on May 17

Fans of popular trading card game Magic: The Gathering will already be salivating at the recent news that Sliver creatures will return in the upcoming Magic 2014 core set; but the news for Xbox owners is even more exciting, as this years edition of Magic 2014 – Duels of the Planeswalkers will feature a Sealed Play format for the first time!

Slivers first appeared in 2008 as part of the Tempest set of cards and have since proven immensely popular because of their unique ability sharing mechanic. Each Sliver creature on the table introduces a new (or cumulative) effect which benefits all other Slivers, meaning that an army of initially weak and usually cheap creatures can quickly grow into a juggernaut of direct damage, often buffed by combat effects like First Strike or Flying.

Perhaps more than coincidentally, the addition of the Sealed Play format in this years MTG should work really well with the Sliver mechanic. Sealed Play introduces a controlled way for Xbox gamers to choose their own deck to play with - a feature which the console version has been missing since its original release. In this mode, each player will ‘open’ 6 sealed, randomly selected booster packs of 14 cards, from which they must then build a winning deck to challenge either AI or human opponents.

Magic 2014 – Duels of the Planeswalkers is scheduled for release this summer.

Magic 2014 – Duels of the Planeswalkers to feature Sealed Play and Slivers

The shutdown of LucasArts by Disney early last month left many wondering about the fate of the Star Wars games. Disney had previously stated that their focus would be directed toward social games, and the with the demise of LucasArts fans wondered if all hope was lost. Who would save us from a sea of Star Wars Facebook and mobile games? Then an unlikely hero emerged. EA stepped in.

The announcement came yesterday to mixed reception. Some were optimistic, others were quick to point out EA’s reputation as the Consumerist’s Worst Company In America. On Twitter the #starwarsnextgen hash tag began to trend with ideas for new Star Wars titles, the majority coupling Star Wars Battlefront III with the Battlefield series engine, EA DICE at the helm. Others clamored for a new, non-MMO installment to the Knights of the Old Republic series.

Regardless of how you feel, it’s a very exciting time to be a Star Wars fan and a gamer. With LucasArts’ relatively poor showing the last 5-8 years there’s really only one direction Star Wars games can go. Up. So let’s take a few minutes to assess just why EA is a great choice for the franchise, and take a few more to note some potential caveats as well.

A love of Star Wars

Some could argue that EA as an overall entity is in it for the money. That’s okay. They’re a business, and they should be in it for the money. But think of the work force. The Joe Nobody’s with a wife and three kids, a mortgage and two car payments. To each of those developers working in the trenches this is a dream come true. It’s Star Wars, and who doesn’t dream of being able to contribute to the franchise? Heck, even the big wigs in companies like this are smart enough to know that these games demand love. They can’t be treated like your typical contract job. Fans demand greatness, especially after some lackluster years at LucasArts. The developers are surely excited to bring it. The businessmen (and women) understand the financial and media ramifications if they don’t, and frankly that’s good enough for us.

Strong tech and developers

Take a look at EA’s pedigree. Mass Effect, Battlefield, Madden, Need for Speed, Dead Space, Burnout. All EA-owned franchises, all amazing. Then there’s the partnership with Crytek, developers of the Crysis series. And with that partnership comes Crytek UK (formerly known as Free Radical), who were originally working on Star Wars Battlefront III before its cancellation by LucasArts. So there’s at least a potential there for a continuation of the original project. Then you start looking at the tech behind these games: EA DICE commands the Frostbite engine, which powers the Battlefield games. EA Redwood Shores maintains the “Godfather” engine, which was used in The Godfather: Part II and the Dead Space games. Criterion has their amazing racing engine, as does what remains of EA Black Box, both of which have contributed to the Need for Speed franchise.

Then there’s Bioware, who are already steeped in Star Wars lore. They’re responsible for the entire world of the Old Republic, and though the recent MMO installment of the sub-franchise is somewhat troubled, no one can argue that these games pay tribute to the very best of Star Wars. And with that comes lots of experience with Unreal Engine 3, which was used to power the Mass Effect games. Star Wars 1313 runs on UE3, which may mean the troubled flagship title could survive this transition.

But everyone is looking for Star Wars Battlefront III, or at least some semblance of it. Here’s and interesting tidbit: Pandemic Studios, developer for the first two Battlefront games built the engine that powered them. Prior to their closure in 2009 they had been owned by EA. Translation: EA owns the Pandemic engine (known as Zero). This means that there’s at least the potential for EA to use Zero to re-release the older Battlefront games on XBLA/PSN/Wii U eShop, and that a port to portable/tablet devices (which would be better suited to this older tech) isn’t unheard of.

Money. They want to make it

Yeah, we have to address it. But instead of treating it like an evil thing, let’s take the opposite stance. Let’s realize that EA wants to make money on these games. That means they at least need to make decent games, and given EA’s releases we’re unlikely to see any shovelware. While games like Dragon Age II have been met with criticism, instances of issue are generally based more on creative direction and less on build quality. Regardless they have a reputation for high review scores, and while that’s only part of what makes a great game, it’s a strong measure.

Asset catalog

If there’s one thing many folks aren’t aware if it’s that assets get reused. A lot. That building texture in Battlefield 3? Yeah, it’s probably been a dozen games. But that’s a major bonus when it comes to Star Wars. In addition to the already large library of prefabs and characters EA will be able to pool into from the remnants of LucasArts they’ll be able to mix their own library of stock textures with any new assets. These get created for the first time, then used again and again. That means one Millenium Falcon for multiple games. One Luke Skywalker. One Death Star. And with all that it shortens development time, which means no more waiting three or four years for Star Wars games, or at least that more of that time and money can be spent on other aspects of a given title.

Facing frustration

As mentioned above, EA “won” the Worst Company In America from The Consumerist. Two years in a row. So even with all the good, we’re going to get a barrage of bad as well. Perhaps the most infamous of EA’s practices is that of microtransactions. Who knows when and where that will hit. Will Battlefront III have exclusive helmets or logos only available via purchase? If so can we handle that? Many folks worry about the “unfinished game” DLC as well–that notion that some content is purposely left out of the final game to be included in DLC. Now typically speaking DLC is nothing but a forethought until the game is nearly ready to be released, but we’re not so blind to realize this sometimes happens. Regardless not all DLC is developed that early, and if it means heaps of new locations for a future Podracer or Battlefront game, we’ll take the good with the bad.

But there’s another potential issue: the movies. Disney will no doubt want to tie video games into the new Star Wars films, and with that comes forcibly rushed titles. Just take a look at rival company Sega’s Iron Man 2 or the recent CBS Studios Star Trek game if you want to see what rushing a title can do. They both have visible potential, particularly Star Trek, but both suffer from the feeling that someone was over the developer’s shoulder forcing them to cut corners. (For the record, co-op Star Trek is actually pretty decent)

A new hope…

Fears aside, we see this as great move for Star Wars gamers. Finally the franchise is put in the hands of a company that has the manpower to produce the greatness these games deserve. The studios are there, as is the technology to push these games forward. While EA has its own weaknesses to overcome, the future for Star Wars itself looks strong. And given the fact that deals are often sealed before the public press release it’s likely some EA teams are already hard at work on our favorite franchise. Who knows, maybe they’ll even save Star Wars First Assault and 1313. Maybe we’ll see XBLA versions of games like Jedi Academy and Racer Revenge, too. One can hope.

EA acquires rights to develop Star Wars games; why that’s a good thing

He may have left Microsoft-owned Lionhead Studios to form a new independent studio 22Cans, but Peter Molyneux still has a keen interest in the next Xbox. Speaking to IGN, the developer known for Fable, Populous, and a penchant for overly ambitious game concepts opened up about his hopes and desires for Microsoft’s upcoming hardware.

It seems even Molyneux fears that Microsoft may continue to focus on non-gaming features with the new platform. “I think, for me, it’s very simple with the Xbox; I just want the ultimate gaming console,” he begins. “Okay, there’s a lot of things they could shove in that box which are kind of about the living room: Netflix, Facebook, Twitter and stuff like that. Well, I don’t want any of that. I just want the ultimate gamer’s device.”

Molyneux recently told Edge that he was privy to Microsoft’s plans for the new console up until he left the company’s Lionhead Studios in March 2012, although he admits it’s quite possible plans for the next Xbox may have changed considerably since his departure. “I’m going to be absolutely fascinated to see what they finally come out with, because I kind of knew a lot when I was at Microsoft about what their plans were, and plans change and aspirations change,” he said. “I’m going to be fascinated to see what the hardware is and how it will fit into this new world that we’re in now – this new world of hyper-connectivity or super-portability. Or whether they’ll double down and say, ‘You know what? We are the games console, and that’s what we define ourselves as,’ and say [they] don’t really care about hyper-connectivity or hyper-portability.”

According to Molyneux, the so-called battle for the living room between Sony and Microsoft tends to relegate actual gaming to the backseat. “If they focus on [games], I’ll be a happy bunny,” said Molyneux to IGN. “If they get distracted, and overly distracted, by trying to play catch-up with some of the Glass and touch technology that’s out there, not because it makes sense for games but because that’s something they feel they have to do, then I’m going to be miffed.”

Source: IGN and Edge, via Gameindustry.biz

Molyneux on next Xbox: “I just want the ultimate gamer’s device”

For those still spending a good chunk of their time with Minecraft, you’ll be happy to know that the Battle and Beasts skin pack is coming to the Xbox Live Marketplace for 160 MSP. In it you’ll find skins for soldiers, sharply dressed blocks, and a bunch of different animals. This adds to the already huge collection of skins that you can find for Minecraft, and you should be able to grab these very soon.

Source: PlayXBLA

New Minecraft skin pack coming soon

With the unfortunate delay of Monaco for Xbox Live Arcade, we’ve all been waiting for whatever update we can find on when we’ll be able to play it. That day seems to be coming sooner rather than later, as Pocketwatch Games updated their Facebook today saying they’ve submitted a new build of the game to Microsoft.  They couldn’t give a firm release date, but this can only mean good things.

The founder of Pocketwatch Games, Andy Schatz, spoke to Edge Online about the reaction to the delay, and how lucky they are to have the fans they do. “We might have just gotten lucky with Monaco, but I think that our fans have really had our backs, and are dealing with things in a very mature, individual way, rather than any sort of mob mentality,” Schatz said. “I really like that. I don’t know how we got so lucky to have such good fans. I want to cultivate a community of people that act like adults.”

Source: Edge Online via Polygon

Pocketwatch Games submits new build of Monaco to Microsoft

The unofficial holiday celebrating everything that happened a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away is nearly upon us. In honor of Star Wars Day, May 4th, Zen Studios is offering Star Wars Pinball at half-price, running you 400 MSP after the discount. The sale is good for one week, through May 7, at which point we assume a great disturbance will be felt — as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror — for missing this deal.

The downloadable content includes tables themed around Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, the late, great bounty hunter Boba Fett, and the animated Clone Wars series. With thoughtful considerations in the gameplay and plenty of fan service, we thought Star Wars Pinball was a great addition to the already robust downloadable catalog for Pinball FX2. You can check out our full impressions in our official review.

May the fourth bring you savings on Star Wars Pinball

After being delayed to include the most recent title updates, European fans of Minecraft will get their retail edition on June 28, about three weeks after the North American release on June 4. Purchasers will also be treated to a 48-hour trial to an Xbox Live Gold account to test out the co-op.

We already know that the downloadable version is ridiculously popular, but maybe this will open the game up to people without Xbox Live in their neighborhood. Or maybe some of you just want a disc copy. Either way, it will be interesting to see the sales of this edition.

Source: VG 24/7

Minecraft retail disc releasing June 28 in Europe

The recently independent studio Southend Interactive is no stranger to XBLA. Previous games include the cute puzzler ilomilo—a favorite among many players—along with new takes on old classics like R-Type Dimensions and Tecmo Bowl Throwback. Southend’s newest game, Sacred Citadel, puts a twist on the RPG franchise Sacred, trading in the point-and-click action for side-scrolling brawling reminiscent of Golden Axe and the great Dungeons & Dragons: Shadows Over Mystara. While it may not have the lasting impact of those titles, it’s more than capable of hanging with that crowd.

In Sacred Citadel, the world of Ancaria is threatened by Lord Zane’s quest to destroy the peaceful Seraphim. Players will stand against Zane’s evil Grimmoc army by taking control of one of four heroes: the Seraphim Mage, Safiri Warrior, Ancarian Ranger or the Khukuri Shaman. Throughout four acts (five with the Jungle Hunt DLC), the heroes will gain experience, level up and find new weapons and armor to further their quest towards victory. Players can experience all of this through a single player or three player co-op campaign. Get your button-mashing thumb ready because Sacred Citadel is going to put it to the test.

Here’s what we liked:

Come for the action, stay for the view - The first thing you’ll notice—besides the dubstep inspired main menu music—is the wonderful art direction in Sacred Citadel. The cel shaded-esque art style lends the game a fun, almost cartoonish look, making each of the four characters visually unique and impressive. The art also goes a long way towards creating the engaging and diverse world of Ancaria, ranging from dark mines, vibrant outdoor areas and snowy mountain tops. Combining the great visuals with smooth animation makes the game a real joy to behold.

Loot, loot and more loot - Southend maintains the spirit of previous Sacred games through random loot drops in the form of weapons, armor, crystals and potions. Weapons offer different levels and types of damage, such as fire, ice and electricity. Armor modifies the overall amount of protection plus bonuses towards defending against magic and physical attacks. Crystals can be equipped to offer temporary attribute bonuses. Potions replenish character health, increase damage or fill the power attack meter. New gear can be equipped with the simple press of a button. Standing over the new equipment displays a comparison screen letting players quickly decide if it’s better than their current gear and get back to the action in no time. Loot collected throughout the game can be accessed between levels at the town’s blacksmith, so there is no need to worry about losing a weapon or armor when trying out new ones.

The townsfolk - Within each of the four main acts, players can visit a town to prepare before heading into the next battle. In town, merchants sell crystals, potions and new weapons and armor, or talk to the blacksmith to access any gear found in previous levels. Of course, don’t forget to put the hero’s skills to the test by placing a bet with the bookkeeper to activate one of three special challenges available in every level: time attack, score attack, or make it through a level without dying. Beat the challenge and earn a little extra spending gold. This is perfect for players looking to add a little extra difficulty to the game.

Here’s what we didn’t like:

Day one DLC - When a new game offers downloadable content the day it’s released, pause is given. Unfortunately, Sacred Citadel’s day one Jungle Hunt DLC feels a little shady. For 400 MSP, a fifth act set in a new area is added to the game along with three bonus levels accessed through previous acts. In any other circumstance, the content on offer is a great addition to an already fun game, but the problem lies in this fifth act feeling as if it was left out of the game on purpose. It’s more value withholding than value adding. Perhaps it was left out because they needed to hit a 1200 MSP price or it simply wasn’t ready in time to be submitted with the rest of the game for certification. Whatever the reason, it’s a shame people lacking the DLC will miss out on one of the most visually interesting environments of Sacred Citadel and, it could be argued, the real ending to the game.

Different in name alone - Sacred Citadel offers four playable characters, each with unique abilities. This is technically true. However, once you’ve played through the game as one character, there is very little incentive to play through as another because they don’t feel all that different. Every character has the same unlockable combos and ability to duel wield every type of weapon. The only real differences are the power attacks available to each hero and their secondary weapons, but those alone don’t warrant enough excitement to level up every character. With that said, whatever hero you choose will be a blast to play, although we found the Ranger to offer the most fun.

Have we met before? - Even though the art style is one of the defining characteristics of the game, it’s disappointing to realize enemy models are frequently reused throughout the five acts. Each enemy is reskinned depending on the area it’s in but attacks and tactics remain the same. The recycling of enemy assists even extends into the boss battles where several are just scaled up versions of regular enemies. Combat becomes very tedious once the same model has been seen for the third or fourth time. This is in no way a deal breaker, and only stands out because the game invites so much attention to be paid towards its heroes, environments, and enemies.

Clueless mobs - Besides textures, enemies share another unfortunate characteristic. They’re dumb as a rock. Multiple times, enemy mobs had trouble navigating around objects in the environment, so they would walk in place until hit or otherwise forced to change course. Other times, the enemy would stand there waiting to get hit. This led to several unsatisfying combat encounters—the lifeblood of any side-scrolling arcade brawler.

Sacred Citadel is a visually-inspired, side-scrolling arcade brawler with some RPG elements and loot gathering thrown in for good measure. While combat generally remains satisfying thanks to combo attacks unlocked through leveling up, it can become repetitive due to the overuse of the same enemy types. Enemies becoming stuck on the environment or looking on helplessly as they are slaughtered also adds to the games overall combat issues. With that said, Sacred Citadel is still a ton of fun, especially with a friend or two. However, it will appeal much more to fans of the beat-em-up genre than those of RPGs. It’s very much a “If you like this type of game, then you’ll love this” type of game. The Jungle Hunt DLC is worthwhile, but not required if you’re looking to just spend several hours tearing through hordes of monsters and not follow the overarching story of the game

 Score: Try it

Sacred Citadel review (XBLA)

It may have come out last week, but that doesn’t mean Telltale Game’s Poker Night 2 doesn’t deserve a little more spotlight before Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon releases tomorrow. Poker Night 2 does things a little differently than other poker games, in the sense that it focuses as much on the banter between players at the table as it does on the actual playing. Enjoy funny conversations with some of your favorite gaming icons, and unlock loot in Borderlands 2 while you’re at it. You can give the demo a download here.

Poker Night 2 deals launch trailer

There’s always something fresh in Track Central. This week you’ll get a chance to outrun a Tsunami, and while the track isn’t overly difficult there’s a great tension that makes it fun. Once you’ve washed up on the shore take a ride through the docks, then compete in what could only be described as a ninja difficulty spoof on American Gladiators. If you’re looking for a unique challenge we’ve also got a gravity-shifting track that will make you wonder which way is up.

To download these tracks enter Track Central, select Get Tracks, then press X to search. Enter the gamertag in the video to find the track. Be aware that the search is case-sensitive. Our videos also assume that you own Trials Evolution (obviously) and the Origin of Pain and Riders of Doom expansion packs. If you haven’t picked them up be sure to head over to xbox.com to grab them. You won’t be disappointed.

Trials Tuesday – Episode 12

The titular deal of the week, this week, offers a splash of something for just about everyone out there. Whether you’re into platformers, action and adventure, sports, racers, arcade throwbacks, beat-em-ups or dungeon crawlers — you’ll find something to blow a few bucks on and have some fun in the process. The deep discounts are exclusive to Xbox Live Gold Members, who can reap the savings starting today, through Monday, May 6. Hit the images below to check out each individual sale.

Zombie Driver HD gets things started this week, cleaving its price tag in half at 400 MSP. The classic co-op beat-em-up The Simpsons Arcade Game also enters the list at a paltry 400 MSP. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD follows the half-price trend, grinding costs down to 600 MSP, from 1200 MSP. Rounding out the top-row is the action-movie action game, Joe Danger 2: The Movie. It’s the most expensive of the bunch this time around, but can still be snagged for the discounted price of 800 MSP, down from the original 1200 MSP.

Continuing right along we’ve got Dungeons & Dragons Daggerdale and Scott Pilgrim The Game each available for 320 MSP, down from 800 MSP. Complimenting the latter offering, Scott Pilgrim The Game downloadable content, Knives Chau Add-On Pack, can be snatched for the pocket change price of 80 MSP. Checking off the “throwback” box, both PAC-MAN Championship Edition DX and X-Men are yours to keep at 400 MSP, half off their original 800 MSP tags.

Another retro platforming classic, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is up for grabs at a meager 320 MSP. Finally, closing shop on this week’s deals are sports-arcade favorites NFL Blitz and NBA Jam: On Fire Edition, priced to move at 600 MSP, originally 1200 MSP.

Deal of the Week: Everything but the kitchen sink

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is an interesting game. Far Cry 3 was a huge success for Ubisoft so it only seemed natural for some sort of DLC to come our way. Instead what we have is a standalone game that is radically different in design and tone, a game that can stand on its own two feet even if a player had no prior knowledge of anything Far Cry. That is the true beauty of this game. Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon shares no story or setting from the original game. Veteran players will be able to jump in and play through this crazy world with familiar controls and elements from previous Far Cry games, while newcomers can pick it up and not be worried about having no prior knowledge of events from other games.

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon takes place in an alternate future where the land has been ravaged by war. With that in mind, you may think this game is a serious, post apocalyptic adventure. That is far from the truth. Blood Dragon is a parody of all those great action movies from the 70′s and 80′s. You play as a cybernetic commando who engages in outrageous combat, makes crude jokes as he takes down his enemies and fires gigantic guns with reckless abandon. Cutscenes are done with an extremely retro 8-bit vibe, voice actors sound so macho and tough that it is hard to take anything seriously and the music sounds like something from 30 years ago that went out of style long before this game was conceived. All these things come together however to form one of the craziest, most enjoyable experiences we have seen on the XBLA platform.

Here’s what we liked:

Characters – All the main characters in this game will make you laugh and chuckle the entire way through. The protagonist is a running joke of every adrenaline fueled hero from action movies of old. Jokes fly rampantly between characters and there are dozens of references that movie buffs will love. The villains are equally likable, shouting out threats while constantly seeing their armies die before you and accidentally revealing plans because they are so certain you will not live to see another day. To top it all off, the various A.I that you encounter in the game are always ruining your enemies plans and spouting lines dripping with sarcasm that will leave the player laughing.

The music and sounds – The music they chose for Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon fits the game so perfectly, we can not imagine anything else ever being in it. As battles heat up and things start getting intense, this great 80′s style soundtrack kicks up and really gets things going, making the whole experience better. The sound effects are right up there, fitting perfectly in with the vibe of the game. Characters have an synthetic sound to them, while weapons have that futuristic sci-fi feel as imagined by people 30 years ago.

Everything is a joke! – What truly makes this game fun, is the humor. It never stops and players will always find a reason to chuckle or laugh as they play. Even the tutorial is a joke, making fun of older, clunky tutorials from games made years ago. Load screens are filled with “helpful” messages that end up being less about help and more about making you laugh. It is clear the people making this game had a great time doing so, as it reflects in their work. Players will be hard pressed to find something in this game that isn’t designed to get a chuckle out of you.

Here’s what we didn’t like:

Things can get repetitive – Although everything surrounding the combat is hilarious, the core experience of shooting enemies and clearing out rooms can get tiresome. New weapons and abilities will pop up over time, but things rarely get past the enter a room and kill everything phase. Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is not a terribly long game, so this repetition is not a detrimental to the overall experience, however it can wear on players, especially returning Far Cry 3 veterans who have been through it before.

Things are dark, all the time – Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is a dark game, plain and simple. Although this was probably done to set the mood and help accent the glowing “Tron” like lighting that covers many objects in the game, it can wear on you over time. There will be moments when players simply want daylight so they can actually see clearly what is going on around them. The issue of darkness is even more annoying in the early stages when a red hue is filtered over everything. Thankfully that redness will vanish as players liberate outposts, but it is a nuisance all the same.

All things said, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is a fun game to play. It is a great example of how to use an existing game and spin it off into something fresh and fun while still retaining the core of the original. Whether young or old, there are jokes a plenty in this game to keep players having a good time while exploring this insane world. Although it is not a perfect experience, the story, music and characters will compel you to finish, just so you can see the ridiculous outcome of this parody of a game. New to the franchise or not, everyone should check this one out, you simply can’t go wrong for 1200 MSP.

Score: Buy It

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon review (XBLA)

• We’ve all had the wish that ordering pizza would be as easy as using an app on Xbox Live, and now you can do just that. Too lazy to pick up your phone? Log right into the Pizza Hut app and order away. It’ll even save you 15% off your order until May 6th.
• The CW has also received its own app. You’ll be able to watch next-day episodes of your (not) favorite shows for free, and even use Xbox SmartGlass to interact with them. You can find more details on Major Nelson’s blog.
• Microsoft reported that sales revenue is up 55% year-over-year for the third quarter of 2013. Unfortunately, revenue is still down for the full fiscal year. The numbers were reported on the investor relations part of the Microsoft website, but you can find a more friendly rundown of the numbers over at Polygon.
• Press Play, the studio behind Max and the Curse of Brotherhood, says that Microsoft hasn’t forgotten about Indie devs, and they have a hard time relating to stories saying the opposite. Lead designer Mikkel Thorsted had some highly encouraging words, which you can read over at OXM.
• On The Official Microsoft Blog they revealed a big upgrade to Microsoft accounts by adding a two-step verification process. Major Nelson later posted on how it would directly affect your Xbox Live account, with a step-by-step process on how to use it. With how non-secure services involving your credit card can be, it may not be a bad idea to take a look and use it yourself.

Newsbits: Security, The CW, and Pizza

Sure, the slow-motion, dramatic action movie trailer can be a touch cliche. The back-to-back quick cut explosions set to adrenaline-pumping choir chant and thunderous shotgun percussion. We’ve all seen our fair share by now. Stuff goes boom, you get it. Sometimes it’s total camp. Sometimes it’s perfect.

Developed by Hungarian studio Most Wanted Entertainment, Thunder Wolves is the forthcoming arcade-style action-flight … blowing-stuff-up-with-a-helicopter game that’s basically all about that. Explosions in the air, on the ground, with missiles and bullets and bombs and whatever else might help level a sand-swept urban metropolis. Check out the trailer above for a better idea of what to expect when Thunder Wolves targets Xbox Live Arcade later this year.

Thunder Wolves trailer explodes things in dramatic fashion

The fifth title update to bolster Happy Wars‘ cartoonish combatants has come ashore, bringing with it an invading force of familiar faces. Developer Toylogic Inc. in collaboration with The Behemoth, has introduced Castle Crashers gear which can be attained as rewards for competing in the all new “Extreme Style Match” game mode. Players who jump into the match will notice it’s business-as-usual with the exception of the game balance, which has been tweaked so that everyone’s on equal footing. Teamwork and strategy are key here since those super-powered items can’t help you.

While the Blue Knight gear can be attained through the Extreme Style playlist, act fast because the first round of rewards are only available until May 1, when presumably the next batch of equipment is rotated into the reward coffers. Those of you with an achievement unlocked in Castle Crashers will automatically be gifted the Barbarian’s helmet. Unfortunately all of these goods can only be used with the Warrior class, leaving the Cleric and Mage out of the party, for now.

This isn’t likely to be the last collaboration we’ll see between the free-to-play brawler and other prominent Xbox Live Arcade titles. ”I hope to deliver more collaborations like this one with other Xbox game developers too,” states Happy Wars Game Director Yoichi Take. ”And make the game even more enjoyable for our more than 2 million Happy Wars fans all over the world.”

Happy Wars is an online team-based arena battler. It’s easy to pick up, surprisingly deep and completely free. You can check out our official review for more convincing.

Happy Wars update enlists Castle Crashers

Nick Santangelo - I finally got around to playing The Behemoth’s BattleBlock Theater this week, and I’m questioning why I didn’t force myself to find time for it sooner. The levels through three chapters are short on length but high on fun factor. I’m not the type who ever feels the need to attempt to hunt down as many collectibles as possible, and yet I find myself going to extra mile to get my hands on as many gems (only three are needed to complete each level, but each level has extras) and balls of yarn as possible in BattleBlock Theater. I’m not sure why I need to have them, but I know that I do. Sometimes the game’s humor falls flat due to the vignettes between chapters dragging on for far too long, but the writing hits more than it misses. And I haven’t seen it get a lot of mention, but the score is fantastic.

Shawn Ryan - After holding out for a month, I played Bioshock Infinite with the free time I had this week. Awesome game. It is a little more shooter heavy than I was expecting, but it may just seem that way because I decided to start on 1999 mode. I beat it last night, and the ending… woah. Easily became a Game of the Year candidate, right next to Tomb Raider.

Scott Baker - In a dramatic irony fit for a Greek tragedy, my Xbox red-ringed the night before my last final of the semester. I was saving Bioshock Infinte, too. Luckily, I got it repaired and plan to dive into it this coming week. Instead, I spent some quality time with Journey and reflected on the hidden story of its serene world. That game reminds me of those perfect movies you can watch over and over again. Each time I play it, I feel something new.

Ryan Thompson - Played a bunch of Geometry Wars 2 this weekend, but not much else — it’s finals week, as I’m sure many of you are aware, and I’m busy writing term papers for the next week.

Christine Mitchell – Didn’t get much time for gaming this week but I picked up Far Cry 3 yesterday and I’m liking what I’ve seen. Looking forward to Blood Dragon now.

Chris Leggett - I’ve got a bunch of games competing for my limited time at the moment, but the one that tends to win out is Peace Walker from the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection. I found it difficult to get into at first; it really felt like a watered-down handheld game at first, particularly playing it immediately after Metal Gear Solid 3. But the further I got into it, the deeper and more interesting I realized it was. I’ve also had a lot of fun with Injustice: Gods Among Us lately, and I might try my hand at the online competitive component later today if I get a chance.

Your turn.

What we are playing: April 28

Trusted sources of Polygon have advised the site of some interesting features that may be in store for Microsoft’s next-generation Xbox console. According to these sources, the console will feature some form of anti-piracy protection, media-sharing capabilities, and a new approach to the Xbox 360′s social aspects.

Polygon’s sources claim that the next Xbox will indeed include some form of an always-on requirement. While many of the key features of the next Xbox are understood to require internet connectivity for use, it’s believed that piracy protection is almost certainly driving the requirement. However, it’s not necessarily mandatory; the sources claim that, under Microsoft’s existing guidelines, the decision to implement this Digital Rights Management (DRM) is ultimately down to the individual publisher.

As with Sony’s PlayStation 4, it’s believed that the ability to share captured gameplay videos and screenshots is an important feature of the next-generation Xbox. While Sony has implemented a “Share” button on its revised DualShock controller that enables footage capture once it’s pressed, Microsoft has reportedly opted for a different approach. According to Polygon’s sources, the new Xbox will capture footage automatically during play in a similar fashion to a television DVR, allowing players to revisit the footage at their leisure. The sources also claim that users can upload clips to social-media sites like YouTube.

Polygon’s sources also contend that publishers have more control over achievements with the next-generation Xbox, including the ability to add new achievements without needing to update the title with DLC. It’s believed that this rumored design element is intended to tweak player behavior over the course of a game’s lifetime, such as encouraging the visitation of new areas or unpopular maps. Other rumored changes to the achievement system include seasonal achievements for, say, a weekend event, or contributing to a communal goal such as a combined total of kills over a weekend. It’s also understood that there may be achievements tied to paired accomplishments in unrelated games from the same publisher. Polygon understands that some of these new types of achievements may even be required in all next-gen Xbox games.

Finally, it’s believed that Microsoft has looked to other social networks like Twitter and Facebook in re-approaching Xbox Live’s social functions. Polygon’s sources advise that the next-gen Xbox Live won’t place a limit on the number of friends a user can have, and that a fundamental change is in store regarding the way a user adds friends: it’s now rumored to be a two-way relationship (similar to Twitter) in which users can follow one another, but where there’s no obligation to follow back.

Microsoft has announced it will officially unveil the next Xbox to the world at an event at the company’s Redmond campus on May 21. Keep an eye on XBLAFans for further details as soon as they’re available.

Source: Polygon

Sources detail rumored features for next-generation Xbox

The XBLA version of eagerly anticipated heist game Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine failed to launch on its intended release day due to a bug that caused online disconnections. But according to the game’s official Facebook page, a fix provided by Pocketwatch corrected only half the problem.

“I’m working on another fix now that I’m hoping to submit this week,” reads the post written by designer Andy Schatz. “I’m working on another fix now that I’m hoping to submit this week. Once it’s confirmed fixed, it shouldn’t take long to push it through and get the game out.”

The statement continues that Pocketwatch “can’t promise any particular dates” for the XBLA release of Monaco since the power lies with Microsoft once the studio submits the fix. However, Pocketwatch intends to keep fans posted via the Facebook page.

Source: Official Monaco Facebook page

Monaco still held up with bug issue

The sports-action-mayhem hybrid Ghetto Golf is headed to “Next-Gen” gaming platforms, according to Illfonic President and Co-Founder Chuck Brungardt. First spotted by eagle-eyed friend of XBLAFans, @lifelower, the news comes from Brungardt’s personal LinkedIn profile, stating:

We strive hard to bring new experiences to the gaming world, combining it with talented artists, programmers, producers, and musicians. We are currently working hard on Ghetto Golf for “Next-Gen” gaming platforms.

Little information has been released thus far regarding Illfonic’s marriage between a 9 iron and a TEC-9, though the developer’s website had previously listed Ghetto Golf targeting Xbox Live Arcade in 2012. When XBLAFans spoke with Illfonic Creative Director and Co-Founder Kedhrin Gonzalez last year we learned that the developer had placed the title on hold in order to focus on another XBLA project, arena-shooter Nexuiz. “We actually first started with another project, Ghetto Golf, but had to put it on the backburner,” Gonzalez stated. “Instead, we decided to take a trip down nostalgia lane with an Arena FPS game.”

Though there’s no word on which “‘Next-Gen’ gaming platforms” Ghetto Golf will land on, judging by Illfonic’s original intentions to bring the title to Xbox Live Arcade, it could be one of the first XBLA games to tee up on Microsoft’s new hardware.

Source: LinkedIn via @lifelower

Ghetto Golf headed to “Next-Gen” gaming platforms

Twitch.TV working? Yep. Here’s a great State of Decay livestream from PlayXBLA.

PSA: System maintenance

The notable Windows IT Pro blogger that stated last month the new Xbox reveal would be delayed has released more speculations about the new Xbox. Now Paul Thurrott of WinInfo blog says that Microsoft is planning on an early November 2013 release, reports OXM. Thurrott originally revealed that the next Xbox reveal would be pushed from April 24 to May 21. He believes that the reveal date was moved back in order to better compete against the Playstation 4 announcement in February. The next console will be “based on the “Core” version of Windows 8″, Thurrott suggests, using the apps platform that the Windows Operating System boasts. It will also include a Blu-Ray drive.

Thurrott also states that two different models of the new console will be available at release. The first, priced at $499, will be a full version of the console. The second version of the console will be sold at $299, but will require the buyer to make a two-year Xbox Live Gold commitment. The price per month for XBox Live will be around $10 per month.

Of course, we remind our readers that this is all speculation, but as we get closer to the reveal date of May 21, we expect details to continue to trickle until the reveal event. Three weeks later, XBLAFans will be at E3 to cover Xbox Live Arcade games as well as the new Microsoft console.

Source: WinInfo blog via OXM

Rumor: New Xbox to be released by end of year at two pricepoints

How long does it take to conjure a cybernetic combat whale complete with side-mounted weaponry and a nose cannon? If you’re Minicore Studios’ talented concept artist Devin Lawson — about five minutes. That’s the run time of a newly released video, first spotted by Joystiq, showcasing the speed-drawing conceptualization of the battle-ready giant for the upcoming Laika Believes. You can check out the video after the jump, which is set to a plucky chiptune arrangement pulled straight from the game’s soundtrack.

The action platformer takes place in an alternate history where the Soviet superpower has enveloped the known world in it’s robotic iron grip. Unlike the depressing fate of the real Laikia (the first animal launched into orbit), Laika Believes sees the titular canine return, cybernetic, super-intelligent and ready to save the day. We know very little about the forthcoming title, other than it’s certainly headed for steam while an Xbox Live Arcade offering is still being investigated as separate episodes.

Source: Minicore Studios via Joystiq

Constructing a cybernetic combat whale in Laika Believes

The first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows trailer spotlighting each of the titular foursome has made its way to the surface. Michelangelo’s finally in the spotlight and showing off what he does best: cracking wise and cracking heads with a free-flowing style that’s part breakdancing, part Capoeira, all fun-loving party animal.

Developed by Red Fly Studio, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows is set to come crashing down this summer on Xbox Live Arcade. The cooperative action brawler pits you and up to three friends against the mean streets of New York with high-flying teamwork and unlockable moves. Check out the trailer above for the fast and furious action.

TMNT: Out of the Shadows – Michelangelo trailer

Last month, Lab Zero Games had conducted an extremely successful fundraising campaign to back the DLC for their popular 2D Fighter, Skullgirls. Over the course of a few weeks, the team raised over $829,000 for 4 DLC characters, as well as stories and maps for most of them. Much to the surprise of CEO Peter Bartholow, PayPal, which is the money transferring company used by the fundraising website Indiegogo, froze the funds in Lab Zero’s account. “Whee! Paypal’s freeze on our account is making it so that I can’t pay people today,” Bartholow angrily posted on the NeoGaf message board. “I think it’s sketchy, but their logic sort of makes sense.”

The tie-up that Bartholow was speaking of was the potential for a large amount of chargebacks. The fear was that PayPal would could not honor their commitments to deliver the new DLC for Skullgirls, thus PayPal being responsible for the money. Bartholow wrote, “They also asked if we’re good for the $700,000 if something goes wrong. I said ‘No,’ because, well… we’re not? The whole point of crowdfunding is to give us the money to develop stuff, not take out a loan.” After contacting PayPal and sending the proper documentation, Lab Zero’s funds were eventually unfrozen, with the exception of $35,000 being held as collateral.

With threats of chargebacks still looming, Lab Zero has continued to pay their staff. Delays in the production of Skullgirls DLC are not expected.

Source: Venturebeat, Eventhubs

Lab Zero Games encouters brief scare with Skullgirls DLC funding

TimeGate Studios lost its court appeal to SouthPeak Interactive earlier this month. The appeal leads all the way back to 2009, when TimeGate sued SouthPeak over alleged withheld royalties and failure to localize the original Section 8, a retail title. SouthPeak filed a countersuit which claimed that TimeGate did not invest enough of its own capital into the game’s development along with additional complaints. The case went to an arbitration committee, who ruled in favor of SouthPeak.

TimeGate is now ordered to pay $7.35 million in damages, which does not bode well for the developer’s future. The company experienced layoffs earlier this year, possibly due to court costs and the forthcoming ruling. If we were you, we’d pick up Section 8: Prejudice now while we’re sure it’s still available.

Source: Fifth Court of Appeals via Polygon

Section 8: Prejudice developer loses court appeal, ordered to pay damages

The Techland-created blood-n-guts XBLA shooter Call of Juarez: Gunslinger finally has a release date. Players can saddle up on May 22, 2013 for 1200 MSP. The game follows Silas Greaves as he takes down famous outlaws such as Billy the Kid and Jesse James. Check out the newest trailer above for a look at the game’s Wild West action.

Call of Juarez: Gunslinger launches May 22 for 1200 MSP

The event will take place on the Xbox campus in Redmond, WA, and everyone’s invited! According to Nelson and emails sent to Xbox Live users, the reveal will be broadcast live at 10:00 a.m. PDT (1:00 p.m. ET, 17:00 GMT) on Xbox Live, Xbox.com and, for those in the US and Canada, Spike TV.

Nelson also confirms additional information and their “full lineup of blockbuster games” will be showcased 19-days later at their pre-E3 press conference.

Source: Major Nelson

Microsoft officially reveals next Xbox to be announced May 21

Man, can we get a break with these technical difficulties? Oh well, it finally worked today, and we’re ever faithful in bringing great tracks to you. Be sure to check this week out for a great new platformer and some gorgeous tracks.

To download these tracks enter Track Central, select Get Tracks, then press X to search. Enter the gamertag in the video to find the track. Be aware that the search is case-sensitive. Our videos also assume that you own Trials Evolution (obviously) and the Origin of Pain and Riders of Doom expansion packs. If you haven’t picked them up be sure to head over to xbox.com to grab them. You won’t be disappointed.

Trials Tuesday – Episode 11

The 2013 PAX East show floor was rife with crazy crowds clamoring for a chance to play the big games, but one odd figure stood out from the crowds. Imagine if Barney the Dinosaur had a little brother who forewent the path of children’s education and instead pursued hip beats, melodies and orchestrations of the newest, coolest music. That was Beatbuddy, the instantly lovable yet perplexing character rocking the show floor.

Nobody knows exactly who or what Beatbuddy is, but we do know that he lives inside a world where everything is musical. However, the Prince of Music, monarch of the music world, is so caught up in his fame and glory that he neglects a treacherous infestation of parasites corrupting the natural music ecosystem. Now, it’s up to Beatbuddy to step in and restore harmony (literally) to the land.

Coming from an independent company that endearingly refers to itself as Threaks (“three freaks”), Beatbuddy is a project that has been in development for more than three years. Over the course of its growth it has managed to scrape up plenty of recognition, including a finalist nomination for the German Computer Game award in 2011 and an Honorable Mention at the Independent Games Festival for Excellence in Audio in 2012. At PAX East, we got to play the game and see what those three years of work have amounted to.

“It just went from iteration to iteration,” vented a Threaks co-founder Wolf Lang. “Sometimes we had too much music and too little game, sometimes we had too much game and too little music. It was really hard to find the balance, it took us a lot of time. But in the meantime, we got an honorable mention at the IGF for best art and best sound, so we knew we were on the right track. It took us the last 15 months to come up with this final build that we are playing here. The feedback yesterday was so awesome, we were so happy that all the 14,000 kilometers we traveled here was worthwhile.”

In the tutorial of Beatbuddy, we swam through a lush blue cavern full of sea creatures bopping to the level’s beat. Everything in the game is hand-drawn and has a charm similar to Rayman Origins. Drum-like anemones bounce Beatbuddy through the crevices with a cymbal crash, propelling him through the caves. Color-changing bubbles block you unless you swim through them on the beat. Hermit crabs clickity-clack on the rocks while snails groove with spikes poking from their shells. Hit the crab, and the snails retract their spikes to open the way across. You have to swim quickly, though, because a drum roll means they’re about to pop out again. In Beatbuddy, the soundtrack doesn’t just provide the music; it directs environmental hazards and enemies, ultimately controlling the way forward.

“We developed a sound technology that entered patent pending two weeks ago,” Lang proudly told us. “What’s happening is that all the sounds that you’re hearing at the same time, and all the animation with it, is generated in real time. So, we have a very low performance playing 10 to 12 tracks at the same time. That hasn’t been done before because in other games you basically have the MP3 and just filter out the piece — that’s all you can do. But we worked together so closely with the musicians, so we have all the different parts and we can trigger them one by one.”

Further into the level, we came across a round, wooden contraption: the Beatmobile. It moves, as you might imagine, to the beat, inching along with each pulse. Lang explained: “This is how the game started three years ago, with the idea of, ‘How would it be if you could only move to the bass drum beat, and everything else moved to different beat patterns? What would it be like?’ But then after we iterated, we realized that might be a bit too boring to move only one beat forever, so we thought, ‘How can we do it differently?’”

The solution was to mix up level traversal. After working through the first verse of the level, we popped into the Beatmobile to zip around while the chorus kicked the music up a notch. Often, this would involve swimming through narrower places to open doors before proceeding with the Beatmobile.

Beatbuddy is designed to work with many different styles of music. The tutorial section features artist Parov Stelar, an Austrian musician who specializes in a genre called electro-swing, which mixes synthesized sounds with classic ’30s swing music. The final game will also feature chiptune tracks from artists like Saberpulse, whose classic rock music similar to that of Prince, and even the Grammy-nominated Journey score composer Austin Wintory. On top of that, Threaks also has plans to add DLC and hopes to make a sequel with more artists and mechanics.

Lang spoke about how the musical selection impacts each level. “It’s such a different experience if you were playing that level with a different song,” he explained. “The behavior of all the mechanics would be generated in a different way because the song is different. So you can more or less play a level with a different difficulty mode in a very different setting.”

The levels progressively grew more difficult with faster beats that left shorter windows to get through beat bubbles and timed high-hat snails. As Beatbuddy gets injured, the music grows more obscured and the colors fade away. “We want to give the player feedback with the music,” explained Lang. “So when you’re dying, because Beatbuddy is so much into the music, the music is dying within him.” Thankfully, health regenerates over time and the music comes back.

Eventually, we finally stumbled upon the Prince of Music. We found his highness bathing in the adoration of a cheering crowd and flashing cameras. As he began putting on a bombastic show, the stealthy parasites knocked out the power and sent the fans into a panic. “He [the Prince] is actually doing great music,” Lang clarified, “so there will be his song that’s a bit Prince-inspired. He’s actually a great guy, a great leader, but he’s a bit too much in love with himself. He’s maybe a bit like Napoleon. The way he’s behaving, he’s breaking something inside the ecosystem.”

We chuckled at the wild animations showing the Prince’s horror at his ruined show. Lang humbly submitted: “We try — even though we’re German — we try to keep the story humorous… It’s really stupid to say, but we really want to be American, we really want to be funny, so we’ve all been a bit ‘freaky.’ This is also why we call our company Threaks, because it’s the short form of ‘three freaks.’ That’s how the company started, because people think we are a bit weird. So the humor came naturally because we realize that we need — like, since the game is already that crazy, it’s a bit like an LSD flash of Spongebob. So we thought, we gotta come up with something that fits the whole situation, the craziness of the character. We don’t even know if he’s swimming or if he’s a penguin of whatever he is. We weren’t really thinking about that because this was natural. He’s in this crazy world of music! Why would there be any rules?”

Over this generation, music games have come into their own as a notable genre, though it’s perhaps one still in its infancy. We asked how Beatbuddy expanded the genre, how it was different from other popular music games like Sound Shapes or the Bit.trip series. Lang lit up at the question.

“There are two things,” he began. “First of all, we love those games, I’m a big fan of Bit Trip Runner 2 especially because it’s amazing what they did with the graphics. With Bit.trip, it’s easy to see the difference. Every level in Bit Trip Runner will be four minutes long if the [music] track is four minutes long, but in our game, it’s a non-linear experience since we can trigger all those parts. You will actually hear a four-minute composition for 30 minutes, 40 minutes, 50 minutes depending on the way you play, but you’re not getting pissed at the song because all the elements that you’re dealing with, all the game design, level design, is the song. It’s a very interesting way of consuming music.

“The difference from Sound Shapes is that we are moving with our screen and always centered on the figure, so we have a constant transition from sound to sound. So we have a very free experience of music. But, we are big fans of Sound Shapes. It’s so cool that its this kind of new genre that we’ve been working on for three years and finally getting some attention.”

Beatbuddy is on track to be released in June of this year, sometime after E3. Threaks is planning a simultaneous worldwide release in every language, initially on Steam (PC, Mac and Linux) and then XBLA and other console platforms shortly thereafter.

Busting a groove with Beatbuddy

As we continue the agonizing wait for Undead Labs’ State of Decay and its June release, any glimpse of the gritty open-world zombie apocalypse simulator is like a cool drink on a sweltering day. Well it’s hot outside, too hot, and Undead Labs has delivered the refreshments with nearly an hour of unadulterated, blood-soaked, zombie-slaying goodness courtesy of Microsoft Studios and their exclusive sneak peek.

Join Brant and Gronk, Undead Labs’ representatives on your guided tour of State of Decay, as they show off some of the more daring and explosive elements the game has to offer. Though they steered away from story missions, their insight into the many ways to bludgeon, burn and buckshot the walking dead will certainly come in handy later this summer.

Source: Microsoft Studios

54 minutes of zombie-blasting, car-exploding State of Decay footage

Fans of the world-building game Minecraft have a lot of goodies coming this year—a licensed series of books in the UK and toys from Jazwares. Minecraft continues its expansion beyond the digital world with Seven Stories Press’ English edition of Minecraft: The Unlikely Tale of Markus “Notch” Persson and the Game that Changed Everything by Daniel Goldberg and Linus Larsson. Jennifer Hawkins provides the English language translation. The novel releases November 5, and production of the film adaptation starts this year.

Freelance Swedish journalists Goldberg and Larsson tell the story of Notch’s rise to the cultural and gaming icon he is today through extensive research into Mojang and interviews with Notch. Seven Stories Press describes the book: “It is the story of unlikely success, fast money, and the power of digital technology to rattle an empire. And it is about creation, exclusion, and the feeling of not fitting in.” The authors plan to attend this year’s MineCon, the fourth annual convention dedicated to Minecraft.

Seven Stories is working directly with Mojang and the Minecraft community to include a full color photo section containing behind the scenes photos and top builder creations. For more information and suggestions on what to include, head over to the official Minecraft Facebook page.

The continued interest in Minecraft and its creators is not surprising considering Markus Persson and Jens Bergensten were recently named two of Time magazine’s 2013 list of the top 100 most influential people. Legendary developer Will Wright provides an excellent introduction to the pair, praising the game’s ability to foster creativity and learning among its community of players.

Seven Stories is taking pre-orders for the new novel at their website. As an added bonus, the first 300 people to pre-order will receive a signed edition of the book.

Sources: Seven Stories Press via Polygon; Time via Polygon

Minecraft and Notch are subjects of a new book out Nov 5; film already in the works

Are you the type of person who enjoys turning on your Xbox every Wednesday to see what the new XBLA game is for the week? Well, we’re here to ruin that for you! Poker Night 2 will be releasing tomorrow for Xbox Live Arcade for 800 MSP. Coming to you from Telltale Games, you’ll be playing poker with some of gaming’s most recognizable icons: Claptrap, GLaDOS, Sam from Sam & Max and more. Completing certain in-game goals will also unlock bonus content in Borderlands 2, as well as on the Avatar Marketplace.

Source: @telltalegames via Joystiq

Poker Night 2 shows hand, releases tomorrow

The highly anticipated cooperative heist game Monaco has been delayed on Xbox Live Arcade. Initially set to release tomorrow, April 24, Pocket Watch Games has stated that “an issue” discovered at the 11th hour will prevent the title from going live on schedule.

“We just discovered that there is an issue which requires that we push back our Xbox Live arcade game release date a little,” reads a statement on the official Monaco Facebook page. “We’ve already submitted an update to Microsoft to fix the problem, and as soon as we know that the issue is fixed we’ll have a new release date. I know our fans have been waiting a long time for the game, and hopefully they’ll have the patience to wait just a little while longer.  What’s mine will be yours very, very soon!”

When pressed for details on the issue and a tentative release window, Pocket Watch Games responded in the comments stating, “No additional details to report at the moment, but we will DEFINITELY keep all y’all up to date as we know more.”

Speaking on Twitter, Pocket Watch Games’ founder Andy Schatz expressed his disappointment over the delay.

@bendotc @monacoismine A punch in the gut while I’m trying to stay very still because I just accidentally swallowed a swarm of bees

— Andy Schatz (@andyschatz) April 23, 2013

He was quick to clarify that although it’s a tough pill to swallow, the game will be fine. Unfortunately this means we’ll have to wait a little longer before we get the gang together.

Monaco delayed on XBLA

Southend Interactive, the development studio behind XBLA darling ilomilo and newly released Sacred Citadel has split with it’s former parent company, Tactel Holding AB, a Swedish IT consulting firm. As reported by gamesindustry, Southend’s declaration of independence went into effect in late February of this year, securing the studio indie credentials and the freedom to pursue their own goals.

“Southend is for the first time able to independently invest in its own products,” said CEO Fredrik Brönjemark in a posted statement. “It’s a great opportunity for us to bloom and continue the success we have enjoyed with products such as ilomilo and Deathrow, where we have been the creators of the IP.”

Founded in 1998, Southend Interactive is no stranger to Xbox Live Arcade, having first cut its teeth on the platform with Commanders: Attack of the Genos way back in 2008. The studio has since rebooted the arcade classic Lode Runner, developed side-scrolling shoot-em-up R-Type Dimensions and Tecmo Bowl Throwback before garnering praise for the too-cute ilomilo. Southend’s most recent offering, Sacred Citadel, released just last week.

“We are in awe of our fans,” Brönjemark states, “and hope that this new chapter in Southend history will let us make great new games for them.”

Source: Southend Interactive via GamesIndustry.biz

Sacred Citadel, ilomilo developer now ’100 percent indie’

The long-delayed Skullgirls patch that originally arrived on the PlayStation Network way back on November 20 of last year should finally be available on Xbox Live Arcade within the next two weeks, Lab Zero Games has informed XBLAFans. Lab Zero has been working on getting the “Slightly Different” patch onto XBLA for months, but its enormous original size (590 MB) thwarted the developer’s previous efforts to release it.

“So, if all goes well, the Skullgirls Xbox 360 patch should finally be out soon,” Lab Zero CEO Peter Bartholow said via email. “We won’t know exactly when it goes out – [Microsoft says] it’ll take two weeks, but [Microsoft] actually estimated that it would likely only take one.”

The patch is currently going through Microsoft’s certification process and cannot release unless it successfully passes. “But we don’t expect it to fail,” said Bartholow in response to a follow-up email from XBLA Fans. XBLA gamers’ prolonged wait for the patch should be over once it is finally certified. “As soon as it passes certification it will be pushed out,” Bartholow asserted.

Lab Zero had to trim the patch down to size in order to get Microsoft’s approval to release it, but any fears that doing so would mean that some of the original patch’s content would end up on the cutting-room floor are unfounded. Slightly Different’s XBLA release will be identical to the PSN version. Bartholow explained that the XBLA adaptation is “the exact same patch that the PS3 version got last November – nothing was cut. The Title Update + Compatibility Pack method of patching we ended up employing doesn’t have any size limits.”

It’s been an interesting year for Lab Zero Games. The studio was formed last summer by the core Skullgirls team that was laid off post-release by Reverge Labs (the game’s original developer). Although funding has been extremely tight for the studio, it successfully raised $830,000 as part of an Indiegogo campaign to add new levels, characters and story modes to Skullgirls just last month.

Bartholow said some members of the team originally thought it would be impossible to raise just the $150,000 Lab Zero said it needed to create just a single extra character. Those funding goal, however, was reached in less than 24 hours.

The full list of changes that the Slightly Different patch will bring to the XBLA version of Skullgirls can be found here.

Skullgirls ‘Slightly Different’ patch likely hitting XBLA within two weeks

Telltale Games’ downloadable poker extravaganza Poker Night 2 is well on its way to an April release. In the meantime, the folks behind the scenes have release a brand new trailer showcasing the many unlockables, collectibles and other attainable schwag stuffed with licensed goodness. The cross-promotional voodoo will allow you to customize your character in Borderlands 2 with a variety of aesthetic touches pulled from the other members seated at your virtual table.

Poker Night 2 features Brock, the berserk bodyguard formerly in the employ of Dr. Venture of Adult Swim’s The Venture Bros. Filling the remaining seats are Claptrap of Borderlands fame, Ash from Army of Darkness and the six-foot anthropomorphic canine with a nose for crime, Sam, of Sam & Max. Dealing the cards and high-stakes action is none other than GLaDOs, the murderous artificial intelligence.

In addition, Poker Night 2 offers platform-exclusive rewards for in-game play. Players who clean out the house on Xbox Live Arcade will be treated to a variety of avatar gear to deck out your digital self. Still not enough freebies? Well, Poker Night 2 features in-game unlockables to boot, allowing you customize nearly every aspect of the game as you play against the odds in Texas Hold ‘Em and Omaha poker. To take a peek at everything that’s on the table, check out the trailer after the jump.

Poker Night 2 is chock-full of unlockables

Dave Tach at Polygon summarized a press release by toy manufacturer Jazwares that they will be producing a variety of Minecraft toys, including “action figures, plush, and paper craft items” to be made available this coming holiday season.  Laura Zebersky, the Executive Vice President of Global Sales for Jazwares,  asserts that “Minecraft is one of the hottest brands on the planet right now,” an assertion backed by a variety of data on Minecraft’s performance across various platforms, including its spectacular showing on XBLA.  Zebersky continues by saying that “the marketplace is primed for a line of toys…that reflect the fun and creativity of the game.”

Jazwares is responsible for creating a number of toys based on video game brands, including Sonic the Hedgehog, Plants vs. Zombies, Star Wars, and others.  It’s worth noting that this is not the first jaunt into physical Minecraft-themed products for Mojang, as Minecraft-themed Legos have been available for some time. Minecraft continues to garner success beyond the virtual world, however, and this announcement of new Minecraft-themed toys demonstrates the continued success of the brand.

Source: Jazwares via Polygon

Minecraft toys coming this holiday season

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing touts everything you’ve come to know and expect from an action-RPG. It’s loaded with skills and spells, collectible weapons and armor, quests and discoveries. Sure, it’s reminiscent of those that have come before but, Van Helsing is its own beast, steeped in rich lore with enough innovation to strike out on its own. But what’s so incredible about the adventures of Van Helsing?

“The atmosphere, I think it’s very special,” says Linda Bozoradi, one half of the public relations conduit for Neocore Games. The other is Orsolya Toth, and both have been leading us through the brooding introduction to Van Helsing.

“A steampunk universe in an action-RPG is not a common thing,” Toth states. She’s not wrong. The world of Van Helsing is a strange one. Stuck somewhere between the mystical ways of the old world and the mechanical wonders of modernization.

The cinematic prologue sets the stage as a winding red line curves across a parchment map of Europe. It snakes through Paris, Venice, around the southern tip of Greece and through Istanbul. Each location accompanied by brief descriptions and hand-drawn renditions of an encounter in the region: Gaston the Butcher, The Shadow Casino, the Crimean War Dragon and The Krakken. As the latest in the long line of monster-hunting Van Helsings, our protagonist narrates these adventures, revealing his current assignment in the form of a mysterious letter asking for his family’s famed assistance in the land of Borgovia.

The atmosphere in Borgovia is dense. This land feels old. There’s genuine character in its still forests and jagged cliffs, the gothic villages and their superstitious inhabitants. But they’ve a right to be superstitious. The myths and legends that every child learns before bed or when huddled around a campfire are reality in this place. In Borgovia, the stories are true.

Borgovia is the only place where the Ink – the mystical essence that powers all things ethereal – leaks through the cracks in the world. “The Ink is a very natural and normal thing in Borgovia,” says Toth. “They don’t really talk about it much because it’s just natural.”  As a land saturated with the substance, Borgovia plays home to all manner of monsters. From traditional beasts of legend (werewolves, vampires and phantoms) to regional creatures borrowed from oral tradition and the dusty pages of classic literature.

“We pulled a lot from Slavic mythology and from Hungarian Folklore,” Bozoradi reveals. “Our game is loosely based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Hungary is very close to Transylvania – the origin of Dracula.” As a studio based in Budapest, Hungary, Neocore Games has a special connection to this world its created, and Bozoradi exudes a sense of pride for the myths of her region. “A lot of people don’t know that Bram Stoker first heard the Dracula story from a Hungarian professor.” But inspiration drawn from Dracula serves as a jumping-off point for the much more involved tale Neocore’s attempting to weave.

Judging from our time spent stemming the countless hordes of beasts swarming the countryside, werewolves and vampires may be the least of your concerns. The shadow of technology looms on the horizon. Unchecked scientists crafting their experiments in secret cellars and hidden laboratories of Borgova – the steampunk capital of Borgovia – could pose a greater danger. As Toth summates, “You might wonder who the real monsters are.”

Combating mythical beasts and the horrors of science is the bread and butter of The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing. Like so many action-RPGs before it, Van Helsing employs a robust skill tree system that offers you specialization in melee and ranged combat, along with the powers of the occult. It’s fluid and doesn’t constrain you into just one path to be effective, allowing for a mixture of abilities from each branch along with independent tricks and auras that further enhance your prowess. Though Neocore has twisted the tried-and-true skill tree structure with its Rage system, providing the tools to customize each and every skill on the fly in a number of devastating ways.

As Van Helsing slays, his blood boils and he builds Rage. That Rage can then be spent on modifying his selected skills in active ways. You can attach a slowing modification to his ranged shot, have the bullet explode upon impact or cause the projectile to deliver 50 percent more damage. You can choose any combination up to three selections, allowing you to vary the effects or load up on a single power. Want to fire an explosive shot that slows enemies? Stack the explosive effect twice and the slowing modifier once. These choices are fluid, can be done with a click of a button and are different for every skill, meaning there are literally dozens of combinations at your disposal for whatever the situation requires. You can even hot-key your favorite combinations for single-button activation.

Despite the rage-seething effectiveness of Van Helsing’s arsenal, the character, like every monster hunter, still needs a little help from time to time. Manifesting as another innovative twist on classic ARPG design, Neocore provided a companion for your adventures with the titular slayer. Lady Katarina, a highborn woman of Borgovian nobility — who happens to be dead — accompanies Van Helsing throughout the journey. “The old Van Helsing – Van Helsing’s father, Abraham – saved her soul here in Borgovia,” Bozoradi reveals. Though the exact details of Katarina’s demise are cloudy, it’s clear that even in death she hasn’t lost her spirit. (No pun intended.)

“She’s bound to the Van Helsing family,” elaborates Toth on the unconventional relationship that exists between our protagonist and Katarina. Their sarcastic banter, witty dialogue and wisecracking at one another’s expense is regularly a point of humor, which is refreshing against the eerie stillness of the Borgovian wilds. Still, there’s a sense of trust under the surface and the two have come to rely on one another as a team since she transitioned her assistance to the younger member of the family. “Abraham Van Helsing doesn’t hunt vampires or monsters anymore and she likes adventures.”

She’s remarkably handy for a number of reasons. She’s a native of the region, serving as your de facto guide and lending some clout with the locals who, oddly enough, don’t take kindly to monster hunters. Katarina can be outfitted with her own equipment and customized in any number of ways. Through her own leveling system she can learn skills and spells that both benefit Van Helsing and come in handy during a fight. And she’s a gifted slayer herself.

Being a ghost has certain advantages when it comes to a brawl. Katarina can maintain her ghost form, providing passive bonuses to Van Helsing without taking damage or engaging the enemy. But she also touts melee and ranged forms, morphing into uniquely monstrous creatures that dish out damage alongside your hero. You can then customize Katarina’s behavior based on a number of different options. She’ll target the weakest or the strongest foe, the most vulnerable to her attacks or the most dangerous to Van Helsing. This deep customization along with her extensive leveling and skill system allows you to craft the perfect companion to supplement your style of play.

Outside of the fray, Katarina excels in other ways. She’s got her own inventory, which can be utilized by programming her to automatically collect fallen items. You’ll never have to pick up gold again by simply asking Katarina to do it for you, along with potions, crafting materials, and equipment, which you can further differentiate based on the item’s rarity. Like a battlefield janitor, Katarina will clean up the mess left on the field. She’ll collect everything you’d like, and with a press of a button she’ll blink back to town to sell the items and buy potions, returning the profits and goods to you.

It’s not the first ARPG to implement a companion system, but The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing absolutely gets it right. Remove repetition, enhance convenience and allow for deep customization. Katarina is a multifaceted tool throughout the adventure and quickly becomes indispensable once you get a hang of her potential. Her engaging personality and notable voice work prevent you from ever seeing her as a simple tool, though, and because she’s such a fleshed-out part of the experience, you’ll appreciate everything she does that much more.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing has a lot of innovation to offer the genre and will hopefully be a welcome addition to the scant state of the ARPG on Xbox Live Arcade. Though Neocore is still in the process of devising a user-interface that will translate the dense control scheme from PC to an Xbox controller, the studio is confident in the end result it’s working towards. “In late May we plan to release on PC and then later this year on XBLA,” Toth reassures. I’m told the intention from the beginning was to bring Van Helsing and his adventures to Xbox Live Arcade — and Neocore is committed to making good on that intention.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Of monsters and men

Nick Santangelo - I didn’t get too much gaming in this week, but I continued chipping away at Saint’s Row 3 and had a pretty good time doing so. I bought BattleBlock Theater early in the week, but I wasn’t able to get around to actually playing it.

Brandin Tyrrel - There hasn’t been much time for games lately, but I was able to tear through a preview for The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing. Outside of that I got in a few games of Smite with Shawn and bugged John to ditch LoL and play a real MOBA. Still waiting…

Chris Leggett - I’m trying to catch up on my backlog from the recent Games on Demand sale, and I’ve just started playing Dead Island with a friend of mine over Xbox Live. I’m surprised at how much I’m enjoying it. It has its issues, but the foundations are in place for a solid zombie game. Later tonight, some friends and I are getting together for an eight-player, double-elimination, random-character-draw Injustice: Gods Among Us tournament, which should be a lot of fun. We’re all going in blind so that the playing field is somewhat level.

Matthew Smail - Well, things have been a little hectic at home lately with Jen off work and fairly ill. That said, I have been able to play a little bit of Tomb Raider, a little BioShock Infinite and even some 3DS games like Luigi’s Mansion 2 and Fire Emblem. Both are great and it could even be time for me to ditch the Vita permanently – it just doesn’t seem as fun! Hopefully next week I’ll have more to say, but for now it’s safe to say my gaming pile is stacking up and up!!

Ryan Thompson - Turns out the challenge rooms on Bionic Commando: Rearmed are difficult!  There are a few of them I’m beyond five stars on, for beating the developer times.  Aside from that, I’ve gotten good mileage out of my Rock Band 3 keyboard, using the onboard MIDI connection to input musical notes into Finale on my computer.  The Pro guitar has the functionality also, if you’re one of the people that has the fancy instruments…

Scott Baker - I’ve been jumping around a bit, but I keep coming back to Resident Evil 4 HD. Aside from just wanting to unlock all the achievements, I have forgotten how much fun it is. Practically speaking, the game is a mechanical monster. The stiff controls and robotic motions should make the game awful, yet the combined design of AI, target-focused shooting, gun balancing, and looting puts it together perfectly. Add the ridiculous dialogue, and you’ve got Resident Evil.

Kevin Plumtree - I finished up the remaining Zombies achievements in Call of Duty: Black Ops, and started the campaign of Call of Duty: Black Ops II. I also played a tiny bit of Gears of War: Judgment, and began Wall-E (don’t judge!).

Christine Mitchell - I’ve been spending most of my gaming time in Terraria. I’ve don’t seem to be able find any good loot yet so I’m getting a bit annoyed with it now but it’s still very addictive.

Shawn Ryan - Being from the Boston area, I obviously didn’t play a lot this week. When events like this happen so close to home, it gives you a completely different perspective and outlook on life, so it was kind of hard to enjoy daily activities as freely as normal. The most comforting aspect of the entire thing is how together the community was. It sucks that it takes something like this to show such patriotism and comradery, but it’s also nice to be able to take that positive away from it. With that being said, I did game a little. I mostly played LEGO Pirates all week, but also squeezed in some Midway Arcade Origins. Also managed to hit a pretty big achievement mark.

Your turn.

What we are playing: April 21

Official word on Microsoft’s next-generation Xbox — believed to be codenamed Durango — is expected to come out during the May 21 Xbox event with more details to follow at the company’s pre-E3 press conference in June. Last month, Pete Isensee, principle program manager at Microsoft Xbox, told UBM Tech that, “In many ways, the next generation is already here in the form of natural user interfaces powered by Kinect.” Naturally, Microsoft wants to keep the focus on the Xbox 360, the Kinect sensor and titles shipping on the system; however, plenty of rumors have been popping up as the reveal grows ever closer.

One of the most controversial rumors is the Durango’s supposed “always on” requirement. Meaning an internet connection is required to boot any application or game. Allegedly trustworthy sources tell Kotaku the “always on” requirement was still planned as recently as March. They also said a network troubleshooter will display if the system loses connection for more than three minutes during a session.

The good news is nothing is official. It could be that “always on” doesn’t affect games at all. With the poor consumer reaction and Sony officially stating the PS4 needs no internet connection in order to be used, it’ll be interesting to see what Microsoft does.

Another, possibly more important question on gamers’ minds is: what’s under the hood of Microsoft’s next console? Bloomberg reports the Durango will ditch the current IBM Power PC tech for a x86 AMD chip with “Jaguar” processors, an on-board graphics chip, 8 GB of RAM and a Blu-ray disc drive. Essentially, if this rumor is true, the PS4 and Durango would use similar chips.

This change of format means a couple things for Microsoft and gamers. First, Xbox 360 games wouldn’t play on the new system because the technology in the box wouldn’t be compatible. Second, by using a similar chip to Sony’s, publishers would have an easier time porting games between systems without making sacrifices.

In an interview with Eurogamer, Ubisoft Montreal’s Chief Executive Officer Yannis Mallat stated that the Durango will be “aligned with what Sony announced.” This strengthens the idea that Microsoft’s and Sony’s new systems will be similar. Mallat went on to clarify his statement. “It’s going to be connected. It’s going to be social. It’s going to be immersive. It’s going to be interactive.”

A majority of the connecting, immersing and interacting will supposedly be done through a new, improved version of the Kinect sensor included with every new system. The next-gen Kinect is rumored to have a significantly increased field of view, the ability to track multiple people in a room and an infrared stream (presumably increasing its functionality in low light).

Microsoft may aim to win the battle for the living room by integrating the Durango into gamers’ TV-viewing experiences. The Verge reports that users’ set-top boxes will filter through the new system by way of HDMI. Doing so would allow the Durango to add features and overlay a UI on whatever people are watching, similar to Google TV.

The upgraded Kinect would play a significant role in making that happen. The Verge discusses its rumored ability to detect eye movement of people in the room. Microsoft would use this to implement features like pausing a user’s video when he or she is not looking at the TV.

Some gamers may be concerned over Microsoft’s continued focus on the Kinect going into the next generation. While it seems to play a significant role, Microsoft will almost certainly still offer the traditional controller experience. Kotaku‘s sources report the existence of a new controller that is very similar to the Xbox 360’s.

The controller has two analog sticks, a d-pad, four face buttons, start and back buttons, triggers and bumpers. However, it will not match the PS4 or the Wii U’s touch capabilities or the second-screen experiences of Nintendo’s controller. The only real difference is the form factor being slightly smaller than the current controller.

Microsoft is still not commenting on any rumors regarding the Durango. However, we should have a much clearer picture of what the Durango is very soon. Let us know what you’re hoping to get out of the new console in the comment section.

Sources: Bloomberg via Polygon; Eurogamer via OXM UK; Kotaku: (1),(2); UBM Tech via OXM UK; The Verge 

Next-generation Xbox rumor roundup

God Mode released onto XBLA yesterday for 800 MSP. The game which is being described as a third-person shooter with RPG elements, is said to combine non-linear gameplay, fast and frantic shooting, hordes of on-screen enemies, customizable characters, and online multiplayer and co-op modes for up to four players. God Mode was developed by Old School Games and published by Atlus.

PSA: God Mode now available on XBLA

Sega of America has released new screenshots and an extended version of a trailer teased earlier this month for Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse.  The game, described as a “complete re-imagining” of the original released in 1990 on the Sega Genesis, will join the already announced Ducktales Remastered for a summer 2013 launch on digital platforms, including XBLA.  With any luck, this trend of Sega and Disney teaming up will continue and bring even more classics out of the vault.

Source: Sega of America

Castle of Illusion receives new screenshots and trailer

Xbox LIVE Gold has been unlocked today in the U.S., Latin America, Japan and Canda. All Xbox owners in these regions will now have access to online multiplayer gaming, Video Kinect, and the entire catalog of entertainment apps available, right through until 1pm ET/10am PT Monday, April 22. To celebrate, Call of Duty Black Ops II, Far Cry 3 and Assassin’s Creed 3 will be giving out double XP all weekend and Borderlands 2 players can unlock a special Golden Key Code: KTW3T-ZXXS5-JBSJF-5FJT3-6TB9X. There will also be a number of EA Sports tournaments to take part in, in association with Virgin Gaming. For more information, head over to Xbox.com.

Source: Major Nelson

Free Xbox LIVE Gold this weekend

The jig is almost up, Monaco: What’s Yours is Mine is set to steal its way on to XBLA next Wednesday and to set us up for launch date, a new trailer has been published. The co-operative heist game from Pocketwatch Games, has been doing the rounds at conventions for a while now and even won the IGF Grand Prize in 2010. Now XBLA fans will be able to assemble their own crack team of thieves and attempt to execute the perfect crime in single player or with up to four friends in local or online co-op when the game releases April 24 for 1200 MSP.

Monaco: What’s Yours is Mine sets up the perfect crime in official trailer

In the interest of full disclosure, we were unable to complete Alien Spidy for this review. Finishing a game before it’s reviewed is the ideal, but as you read you’ll understand the issues encountered that led to these circumstances.

Enigma Software Productions may not be a familiar name to most gamers, especially on the Xbox Marketplace. Their previous titles include History Channel: Legends of War – Patton, War Leaders: Clash of Nations and several other RTS and action games. Coming from a lineage of titles like that, it’s surprising to see a game like Alien Spidy come from the same studio. With its cute animation style and what looks to be fun, laid-back platformer gameplay, the game is a real step into uncertain territory — which is something we’d normally encourage. However, looks can be deceiving, and even though it’s nice to see a developer step out of their comfort zone, there’s something to be said for sticking to your strengths. In this case, Alien Spidy is a game that would have been better left unspun.

Alien Spidy puts players in the role of an alien spider named, you guessed it, Spidy. As the game opens, Spidy’s friend Virgi sets out on an exploratory mission to the planet Earth; however, Spidy quickly becomes concerned when he loses contact with her. Being the adventurous sort, Spidy decides to set out for Earth to save his friend. As he approaches the planet, his ship runs in to some technical difficulties. Crash landing on Earth, pieces of the ship are scattered across 70 levels in three unique areas. It is here players set out to find the missing parts of Spidy’s ship and save Virigi.

Here’s what we liked:

Easy on the eyes - The art style of a game goes a long way when attracting players, and Alien Spidy has plenty of it. Reminiscent of Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, the art and animation in this game manages to create a threatening but visually engaging world for players to navigate while avoiding toxic mushrooms, thorns and insects that often seem more alien than our little alien hero. Speaking of Spidy, it can be challenging to make players feel invested in a spider—seeing as most people do all they can to keep them away—, but he is brought to life through fluid running, jumping, and swinging animations. Mix that with his easy-to-read facial expressions that relate his joy over getting a high score or his sadness over failing to improve, (which, if you have an experience similar to mine, will often be the case) and you have one lovable spider.

Here’s what we didn’t like:

Tough controls - This game that requires split-second maneuvering to achieve the highest score possible, so it’s a shame that Alien Spidy offers such floaty, unresponsive controls mixed with strange character physics and a web-shooting mechanic that’s hard to direct. Don’t be surprised to find yourself repeating sections of a level multiple times because you died while attempting to simply jump. Often times, jumps are cancelled out because Spidy hits an odd bump in the terrain, almost always sending him to his death. Other times, jumping or one of the varied super abilities collected inside a level seem to be delayed or simply don’t trigger. The almost weightless nature of Spidy makes it exceedingly difficult to direct him on a course to collect points orbs or avoid certain doom. Even after you play through the same level for the thirtieth time (a modest amount for this game), you’ll likely still be battling the controls and suffering because of it.

Web slingin’- A defining characteristic of a spider is its web; Spidy is no different. At any point, players can use the right stick to direct a line of webbing that will attach to certain surfaces and let him swing back and forth. Unfortunately, there is no indication on screen showing the estimated trajectory of your webbing, so more often than not, you’ll find yourself missing the intended target, which naturally hurts your final score.

Punishing - The game is actively antagonistic towards players with its punitive scoring system. For every second that ticks by while playing a level, 100 points are subtracted from the score. This means you’re losing from the moment you start playing. To build a high score players can chain together five or ten points orbs while avoiding other orbs that deduct points. But this must be done with quickly. If you can’t, you might as well start over because time deduction alone is enough to negate progress. To make matters worse you loose 2,500 points every time you die, which is often.

Difficult to advance - The best part of a really difficult game is the feeling of accomplishment when overcoming a challenge. This feeling drives players into facing the next challenge head on, except in the case of Alien Spidy. Usually upon passing a stage frustration trumps any sense of accomplishment. Unfortunately you’ll have to keep replaying the same levels if you hope to progress. Each of the 70 levels has five stars to offer with a default challenge of reaching a two star rank, and the three areas require a minimum number of stars to proceed to the boss fight. This is where the game becomes more work than fun. For example, the first area’s boss requires 40 stars from the 16 levels. However, even if you get two stars in each level, you’ll be eight stars short of facing the boss and moving on. Unfortunately, the unforgiving scoring and reliance on exceeding a level’s default challenge means most players will never see all of the game.

While Alien Spidy has all the visual trappings of a cute, accessible platformer, it’s anything but. The inaccurate—occasionally unresponsive—controls do a great disservice to the game, especially because these types of platformers live and die by their responsiveness. Add a scoring system that seems to actively want the player to fail, and the game quickly becomes ‘how fast can you turn off the Xbox’ rather than ‘how much can you improve this playthrough.’ Alien Spidy seems to strive towards being equals with great XBLA titles like Super Meat Boy and BIT.TRIP RUNNER 2, but manages to fail at eight-legged every step.

Score: Skip It

Alien Spidy review (XBLA)

“So, you guys wanna…play my game?” Mark of the Ninja Lead Designer Nels Anderson asks in a playful voice, his brow raising inquisitively and his hips swinging side to side in rhythm with the last three words of his question. It makes for a silly little dance that the XBLAFans crew gathered around him can’t help but laugh at. We’re about to play a stealth game tucked inside the walls of the Indie Megabooth here at PAX East, but Anderson, with his improv dance move, doesn’t exactly come off as sly.

No, Anderson can’t or won’t bring himself to be sneaky about Mark of the Ninja: Special Edition. His excitement over having us play his latest creation is such that he’s not going to follow in the silent footsteps of the game’s titular ninja. So he doesn’t lurk back in Klei’s personal Indie Megabooth crevice; he’s energetic, and it’s not long before he puts a controller in my hands. Now our attention turns to the screen where all of the requisite sneaking will be performed.

Whereas its contemporaries have tended to make the ninja into an action hero who’s so far over the top that he’d likely make the cast of The Expendables blush, Mark of the Ninja has always emphasized the ninja as a virtually unseen agent of death and/or stealthy sabotage. Whether approaching levels as a killer who isn’t detected until its too late or an infiltrator who isn’t detected at all, players had to stick to the shadows and remain as invisible as possible in order to achieve any kind of measure of success. It was a great system, but one that meant enemies presented but two choices: players could kill them or avoid them. Mark of the Ninja: Special Edition adds another option to the mix.

The mark of the ninja is black and blue

Slinking unseen out of the shadows behind the first enemy in the demo, I hit the attack button and get ready to enjoy the satisfying throat-slitting animation familiar to anyone who’s played the game before. The animation doesn’t start. Instead, the bad guy drops to the ground. He’s down and out, but he’s alive. There is no killing in what essentially amounts to a director’s cut of Klei Entertainment’s stealth-action title.

“One of the things we added to the Special Edition is a new playstyle based on the tattoo art,” Anderson explains. “So this is a new level, and the heart of it is…it’s framed like a flashback. His main ability is non-lethal takedowns.

“This character doesn’t have [the assassination ability]. He’s only non-lethal takedowns. So, like, if you remember the main game there was one of the styles that was totally non-lethal. He didn’t have the sword — it was like the ultimate stealth mode — and then, obviously, all of the other ones did. And so the point of this one was to kind of split the difference to give you a little bit of offensive ability, but you can still do the non-lethal run where you get the no-enemies-killed bonus, and all that good stuff.”

Anderson goes on to say only “a few people” requested a non-lethal takedown. He doesn’t have any regrets about not including it in the original release, and the reportedly low number of gamers who asked for it would seem to validate his belief that leaving it out was the right decision. Its omission meant more players ended up approaching Mark of the Ninja‘s levels with complete covertness than otherwise would have. If they wanted to avoid killing, they had to buy into a wholesale abstinence from violence. There was no other choice, no knocking enemies out cold in last-second move of desperation to avoid detection. So why the change of heart for the Special Edition? Why not leave well enough alone?

Anderson says it’s a matter of timing. “It actually is a very different way to play the game when you don’t have any offensive abilities — at all.” He slowly draws out those last two words as his eyes widen. Anderson isn’t subtle. He’s made a great ninja game, but he hardly the plays the role of ninja himself. That role is reserved for Mark of the Ninja players, and soon will be the time in which they get another ninja option. “The way you have to approach the game [without offensive abilities] is completely different, and I think that’s kind of good, but now that the game is out, having a mode that’s kind of more middle-of-the-road, I think [now] is a good time to do it.”

Knocking enemies out is effective when there are only one or two nearby and the lights are out, but it’s not always the ideal way to approach more challenging enemy encounters. Players will have more than just the ninja’s brawn to rely on when they find themselves in stickier situations. Two new items will be available in the DLC. We don’t get to try out either of them in the demo, but Anderson tells us how one of them will allow players to obscure the ninja’s greatest foe: light. “There’s this big cloud of dust and bugs and ****, and the lights go out,” he says of the item, “but it doesn’t make any noise. So, again, kind of catering towards the non-lethal, stealthy playstyle there.”

How to lose a ninja in 10 comments

It’s common for special editions of video games to get new weapons, new levels and new characters, but Klei isn’t sticking strictly to game staples with its upcoming DLC; it’s also looking to a popular DVD trope. Anderson, carrying no shortage of disgust in his voice, rants briefly about how not all special edition DVD releases need a particular feature, but he thinks more games do need it. “I don’t think Marley and Me or, whatever, some god damn Matthew McConaughey romantic comedy, really needs director’s commentary — but it’s there!” he exclaims. “So I thought, ‘Why don’t we do that?’”

Anderson and the Mark of the Ninja team have gone through the entire game and added in between “like eight and 15″ developer comments to each of the game’s levels in the form of text bubbles. We don’t see it during our hands-on session, but Anderson is excited to tell us about how the team “went back to the main game and added a bunch, a bunch — and I mean a bunch! — of developer commentary. It’s not a thing that a lot of studios do, but whenever they do it’s awesome, and I wish there was more of it.”

It sounds like an interesting feature, but I can’t help but think about how much more interesting it would be if the commentary was spoken, not written. Anderson explains that it would have been an immense amount of work to do so “because it would have taken our audio guy like six months total to do it, so we didn’t do voice. It’s just text. Valve is the only studio that has done full voice recordings, that I know of, because they have an infinite well of money and time. And we have neither of those things!”

Valve has enough money and good faith from its legions of fans to do pretty much whatever it wants on its own timetable. Klei is a small studio that’s said to employ around 30 individuals. It hardly has the resources to record full audio commentary. Still, Valve isn’t the only developer to put out a special edition with voice-acted developer commentary. Just shy of three years before it stopped making games, LucasArts did so in Mystery Science Theater 3000-inspired fashion. Remedy Entertainment also recorded developer commentary for one of its games: Alan Wake. Nevertheless, it’s difficult to remember too many games that have included the feature.

The commentary in Mark of the Ninja: Special Edition comes “mostly from everybody on the team,” says Anderson. Among other things, it’ll teach curious players about the game’s art style and how the levels were made.

Nineteen little steps

The demo takes place in a new level with a subterranean setting. It’s full of traps, bad guys, pesky artificial lights and convenient crevices in which ninjas can hide from said lights, traps and bad guys. Those elements are exactly what gamers would expect to find in a Mark of the Ninja level. In one way it does stand out, though: it’s huge. Mark of the Ninja‘s levels were never really what could be accurately referred to as small, but this new level is especially large, according to Anderson. I don’t get to experience it in its entirety, but control is taken away from me at the end of the section being demoed, and the camera pans ahead showing that the level stretches well beyond what’s being shown today.

“I didn’t really mean for it to be [so big],” Anderson reveals, “but I kind of got indulgent where I’m just like, ‘Well, we can put this there, put that there, and put that there, and…oh god, this level’s gigantic now!’” His voice raises to a sort of comically high pitch as he speaks of the level suddenly contracting elephantiasis. Anderson’s voice and facial expression tell the story of a man overwhelmed by the sheer volume of options he found to be available in his own creation.

Anderson continues emphasizing the level’s enormity and says that making it, and all levels for that matter, is “extremely time-consuming.” Klei plans to release the Special Edition this summer, which is a feat it would never be able to pull off were it to add more new levels. It’s not the first time an XBLA developer has pointed out how much of a time-suck creating new DLC levels is. Ronimo Games made similar comments last year around the time Awesomenauts was released, citing that as the reason why it was unlikely to release more maps through DLC, though the Dutch developer did release a new map on Steam earlier this month.

Those interested in learning more about why they can’t get more levels in a reasonable timeframe will be able to read all about it this summer. “Actually, so, the commentary for [the new] level is the 19 step-by-step process that is required to make a level,” says Anderson. “And like one of the ‘steps’ is like, ‘Build all of the encounters!’ and it itself takes months, because everything is so sensitive to — it has to be really exact and specific, right? One dude over here and over here? It means this encounter is impossible and you die every time. But if you move him over here? Oh, now it’s challenging and interesting!”

Anderson sounds both sarcastic and proud. He’s roasting his new level and the rigid process he followed to create it while simultaneously boasting of its accomplishments. His system is necessary for making scenarios that players will enjoy, but he’s also acutely aware that its effectiveness is equaled by its ridiculousness.

Ninjas can wait forever — gamers can’t

His comment reminds me of a chat the two of us had in Seattle during last year’s PAX Prime. Anderson told me then that designing a 2D stealth system for Mark of the Ninja required a similarly imposing amount of time that was also brought on by the need for trial and error. I bring up the conversation. He’s not sure how Klei made the system and the game’s original levels come together. Rhetorically, he asks: “How the hell did we ever do this to begin with?”

He remembers that the process, like that of creating the upcoming DLC, took time. “Yeah, it’s forever.”

Klei, unlike Valve, doesn’t have forever. In a few months Mark of the Ninja: Special Edition will release, and it’ll do so with one new level.

Photography by Zac “Scratch” Pratt

Mark of the Ninja Special Edition preview: A (mostly) harmless punch in the dark

It’s been exactly one year since RedLynx’s smash it Trials Evolution hit the digital store shelves. The game was released to universal acclaim. Our own review gushed over it and it currently holds a Metacritic score of 90 (with no mixed or negative reviews).  Its downloadable content, Origin of Pain and Riders of Doom hold Metacritic scores of 85 and 81, respectively (with only one mixed review between the pair). Today we celebrate with the team as we run down a few stats and interesting points on the game.

• Current Trials leaderboard totals:  1,311,918
• Current Skill Game leaderboard totals: 1,042,965
• Current Supercross leaderboard totals: 296,294
• Total RedLynx-developed DLC packs released: 2 – Origin of Pain and Riders of Doom (both 400 MSP)
• Origin of Pain leaderboard totals: 213,911 (as of April 3, 2013)
• Riders of Doom leaderboard totals: 97,727 (as of April 3, 2013)
• Total number of community-created Trials/Supercross tracks and Skill Games: over 300,000
• Top player: Connz Yo with a total score of 23,227,158 and a total play time of 39 days, 23 hours and 32 minutes. That’s an average of a little over 2.5 hours a day.
• Total Trials Tuesday episodes released since series reboot: 10 (shameless plug)
• Trials HD leaderboards: 2,277,157 (core game), 489,446 (Big Pack), 305,464 (Big Thrills Pack)

Sources: RedLynx (1, 2), Gamasutra, Metacritic (1, 2, 3)

Trials Evolution one year later: 1.3 million on the leaderboards, other stats

Note: Spoilers for the first episode of The Walking Dead follow — read on at your own risk if you haven’t played through the game’s demo episode (available for free on XBLA).

Phil Kollar at Polygon wrote a summary of a GDC panel in which Telltale writers Sean Vanaman and Jake Rodkin discussed The Walking Dead. Upon completion of each episode, the percentage of players who made each one of the episode’s tough choices is revealed to players. Vanaman and Rodkin reveal that Telltale was surprised to find that an overwhelming majority of players chose to save Carley over Doug — 75% of players rescue Carley when it come time to make that crucial decision.

This is a more complicated issue than a mere difference between gender — Telltale thought it was too easy a solution to merely ascribe this difference to a preference of a gun-wielding girl (Carley) to a techie nerd (Doug). Carley is introduced as an active character that already has a connection to Lee — she is compelling from the start, and players want to know how the connection between the two characters (Carley knows that Lee is a convicted murderer) will play out. Conversely, Doug is presented as a relatively passive character without a personal connection to Lee — there are relatively few opportunities for the player (as Lee) to interact with Doug before the choice between Doug and Carley must be made.

It will be interesting to see how Telltale learns from these types of issues in The Walking Dead as we await the continuation of the story.  The Walking Dead was one of last year’s best games, and a long-awaited revival of the classic adventure genre.  This type of reflection and reaction to the player experience should make the sequel even better.

Source:  Polygon

Telltale explores why players preferred Carley to Doug

• Microsoft recently sold its Mediaroom and the IPTV service to Ericsson. According the the press release the sale “allows Microsoft to commit 100 percent of its focus on consumer TV strategy with Xbox.” Sounds like the Xbox will be even more of a multimedia platform in the future.
• Flixster and Virgin Gaming apps have launched for Xbox LIVE Gold users. The former allows for rental of movies while the latter serves as an opportunity for players to not only view live professional tournaments, but also register and compete in smaller scale tourneys.
• The first annual Xbox LIVE Video Awards are underway. Voting takes place via the Xbox LIVE dashboard and Facebook. See Major Nelson’s blog post for more details.
• A retail version of The Walking Dead will be released May 10 in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. It is currently available for purchase in North America.
• More XBLA games have been delisted in the past few months: Nexuiz (for real this time), MLB Bobblehead Pros and its DLC, Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball and 3D Ultra Minigolf Adventures 2 (incidentally, 3D Ultra Minigolf is still available)
• IGN recorded a full nine full minutes of Super T.I.M.E. Force during PAX East. You can view a mirror of the footage over at PlayXBLA right now.
• A remixed version of the Fez soundtrack will be available April 20. You can preorder a copy  here.

Newsbits: Apps, Music and The Walking Dead

You know what was awesome? The 80′s. But not in the way you might think — no, they were awesome in a ‘cheese factor’ sort of way. Everything about the 80′s had an air of hokey-ness to it.Blood Dragon: The Cyber War, the new Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon promotional short by Corridor Digital, is no different. In fact, it takes all the greatest 80′s action tropes and smashes them in to one great little short. Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon releases May 1. We don’t have an in-stone price, but from what we know it looks to be released at the 1200 MSP range.

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon live action short

Fans of Twisted Pixel games can now purchase their first four releases as a bundle. The Maw, Splosion Man, Ms. Splosion Man, and Comic Jumper are all included for a mere 800 MSP. That alone would normally only cover the price of one game (except Comic Jumper, which is 1200 MSP). At the asking price you’ll be spending around 22% of the original cost, so even if you own up to two of the above titles you’ll still be saving some good money.

The Twisted Pixel Games Bundle: four great games for 800 MSP

Excitebike 64. Motocross Madness 2. MX Unleashed. These were the games that defined what a great 3D dirtbike should be. Each gave you the feeling that you could compete with the likes of Jeremy McGrath and Ricky Carmichael. They immersed players with their perfect blend of arcade-meets-simulation gameplay. With their tight control scheme and interesting courses they brought a semi-niche genre to the forefront and gave players the opportunity to soar like eagles while performing a Cordova.

With Motocross Madness Bongfish Games and Microsoft Studios seek to provide those same thrills and a fluffy, avatar-filled world. The result is an interesting take on an established formula. The game feels social, with a large portion dedicated to local and online play. Exploration of the open worlds is encouraged, and collectables entice players to return for more. And the draw of earning new avatar awards and playing using your existing avatar is always enticing. That being said, this avatar racer isn’t without flaws.

Here’s what we liked:

Open world – Motocross Madness has multiple open worlds to choose from, (Egypt, Iceland and Australia) each with their own theme. In each of those works players can collect coins and skulls; these unlock bike parts and also serve as currency in the game. Each world is divided into sections, which then keep track of your skulls and coins collected for that section. Smart. When you get down to those last few coins and skulls, you’ll know which section of the game world you need to look in for those well-hidden goodies.

Avatar Famestar support – Free avatar gear. Doesn’t everyone like that? The concept, at least in theory, is simple: Complete weekly challenges in this (or any other) Avatar Famestar-enabled game to earn Fame. That Fame then unlocks avatar rewards for the player. But unlock regular avatar awards, Famestar rewards you with much more gear for the virtual you.

Master Chief on a bike – One of the greatest draws to any avatar-based game is the ability to play as a representation of yourself in a virtual world. Second to that is the ability to play as famous characters. It’s great fun to dig into your avatar closet to win a few races as Master Chief, Ezio Auditore, Sub-Zero, Starkiller, Batman, or John Marston. One missed opportunity is the inability to save character outfits as separate NPC players, but that may be more of an overarching avatar customization issue and less of a game-specific one. (Note to Microsoft: If we could save ‘favorites’ in the avatar editor and then allow games to utilize those for our quick access in-game, that would be amazing)

Hefty multiplayer – The ultimate bonus to Motocross Madness is just how much love was put into the multiplayer. Two player splitscreen is supported for all modes, and players can also play over Xbox LIVE. Cool. But the bonus comes in the fact that this is one of only a handful of XBLA games that support both at once. Up to eight players total can play over live, with any combination of up to two splitscreen players per machine. Online, non-race experiences are especially fun as they have a very social feel to them. You’ll find yourself lining up with friends to try and complete your own challenges. You can also form a Bike Club with your friends, which essentially works as a pocket leaderboard.

Here’s what we didn’t like:

Ignoring of player control instincts – Any time you crash you’ll be greeted with a small cutscene of your avatar standing up and looking dismayed at their situation. They’re pointlessly long, and only serve to remove the player from the game. They can be skipped, but rather than use any instinctual button press such a face button or trigger, the player must press the back button. Such a thing may seem small, but when you’re trying to keep players vested in a fast-paced game even a slide off the thumbstick can ruin the moment. Inversely summary screens at the end of an event are too easily skipped. Players will miss out on parts unlocked, XP gained, etc because most screens don’t have any sort of required time to remain on the screen. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, but there is no screen for a quick summary of progress. To look at what you’ve completed and unlocked you’ll have to head out to the main menu.

Clumsy camera – A strong camera is crucial to any racing game. Knowing how far to distance it from the character, the angle at which it should be, and how much swing it should have in a turn are fundamental. Motocross Madness fails horribly here. The camera swings wildly, making any sort of accurate control impossible. There seems to be an air of ‘action movie’ camera in its design, but more often than not you’ll find that such a loose camera will just frustrate you as you try to line up precision jumps and get a good bead on the path ahead.

Once you get past the game’s extremely awkward camera you’ll find yourself likely willing to forgive all other shortcomings. At its core Motocross Madness truly lives up to the namesake of the 1998 original. It gives players a lot of content for a mere 800 MSP, and any issues listed above could easily be addressed via a title update. Here’s hoping Bongfish and Microsoft are listening, because with a few tweaks this could be one of those rare gems that you recommend to everyone you know. As it stands now it’s a solid game, but those unsure may still want to take the demo for a good long spin before inevitably pulling the trigger.

Score: Buy It

Motocross Madness review (XBLA)

If Mars: War Logs could be summarized with one word, that word would be ‘ambitious’. With each new bit of news we learn that this game is looking to take on the big AAA titles. And the more we see, the more we get a good idea of what to compare this game to. This time around we’re going with Batman: Arkham City meets Mass Effect (the original). Hand-to-hand combat seems to flow similarly to the Dark Knight’s, and the dialogue trees, crafting, and other RPG elements remind us of Commander Shepard’s first adventure.  Mars: War Logs will be released in May for the PC, but all signs point to a Q3 2013 release for XBLA.

Mars: War Logs overview trailer

Polytron Corporation updated their blog over the weekend, detailing the adventure that the critically acclaimed Fez took over its first year on XBLA. While it had its fair share of ups and downs, the positives prevailed and Fez sold over 200,000 copies. Phil Fish, the creator of Fez, hasn’t exactly made himself the most likable of figures in the game industry, but it is hard to deny the effort and energy he put into the project. A viewing of Indie Game: The Movie showcases that fact, and highlights how great of an accomplishment this really is.

Source: Polytron via IGN

Fez sells 200,000 in its first year on XBLA

Starting today Xbox Live Gold members can capitalize on an exclusive price cut for the twisted platforming adventure Black Knight Sword. The sale runs for one week on Xbox Live Arcade, through Tuesday April 23, and sees the already modest price tag cleaved in two: available for 400 MSP. Black Knight Sword is the second offering from the co-development team of Grasshopper Manufacturer and Digital Reality, whose previous partnership on Xbox Live Arcade brought us Sine Mora.

Grasshopper is helmed by the inimitable Goichi “Suda 51″ Suda, who’s become synonymous with bizarre, stylish, sometimes polarizing projects including Lollipop Chainsaw and Shadows of the Damned. That penchant for the weird and wonderful is alive and well in Black Knight Sword, conjuring up a nightmarish old-school platformer wrapped in a dark fairy tale setting. If you haven’t had the chance to see what Black Knight Sword is all about, you can check out our review.

Black Knight Sword price slashed for one week only

Xbox LIVE was down during my recording session. Great. That means three of the four features are me, looking painfully terrible and rusty. Still, we’ve got some classic tracks and the last Lord of the Rings-themed supercross track, so take a look and have a laugh at my (lack of) skills.

To download these tracks enter Track Central, select Get Tracks, then press X to search. Enter the gamertag in the video to find the track. Be aware that the search is case-sensitive. Our videos also assume that you own Trials Evolution (obviously) and the Origin of Pain and Riders of Doom expansion packs. If you haven’t picked them up be sure to head over to xbox.com to grab them. You won’t be disappointed.

Trials Tuesday – Episode 10

Mojang’s mega-hit Minecraft is like an epidemic (in a positive way). People flocked to the PC game in droves. So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition is incredibly popular as well. It’s sold over 6 million copies on XBLA, and now PlayXBLA reports the players have logged over 1 billion hours in the game. A billion! That’s 41,666,666 days, 5,952,380 weeks, or 114,079 years! Crazy.

And that number will compound, but not without a bit of a delay. The retail version of Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition has been delayed until June 4. According to Xbox LIVE’s Major Nelson, the delay is to “include the very latest content”. Title Update 9 was released on April 5, and included The End, a new area in which players can take down the Ender Dragon and effectively end the game’s “story” (we put that lightly) mode. The update caused problems for Xbox LIVE Silver subscribers, who were told to disconnect from LIVE in order to avoid the save-breaking bug. A tenth title update is working through certification now, and addresses issues found by players. Presumably this is the only thing holding up the game’s retail release, and the June 4 date is simply to give plenty of time for the update to be released and discs pressed and sent to retailers.

Sources: PlayXBLA, Major Nelson via Joystiq

Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition – One billion hours played, retail version delayed

It’s been 20 years since the Amiga/Sega Genesis/Mega Drive (and other platforms) hit Flashback, a cinematic platformer in which protagonist Conrad Hart must protect humanity from a shape shifting group of aliens. Woken and suffering from amnesia, he finds a recording from himself detailing the plot against humanity.

The story takes place in a futuristic setting and gameplay can be compared to Shadow Complex. Like that game, Flashback is powered by Unreal Engine 3. The original game was a best-selling, critically acclaimed game, and the remake looks to follow in its footsteps. Much of the original core team returns for the 2.5D remake, which as of yet has no release date or pricing. The original game’s sequel, Fade to Black, was equally compelling. Here’s hoping it gets the remake treatment as well. Hit the jump for concept art and the full press release .

Flashback remake coming to XBLA

Sacred Citadel, the intense arcade brawler from Deep Silver and Southend Interactive, drops this Wednesday. For 1200 MSP, players will be able to team up with friends as a team of three and choose from four different character classes: the Seraphim Mage (featured above), Ancarian Ranger, Khukuri Shaman, and Safiri Warrior. Players will be able to switch weapons, ride animal mounts, and take some time off in town environments. Think Castle Crashers, but grittier.

Sacred Citadel lands April 17, new character revealed

Twisted Pixel, the Texas-based studio behind the likes of Splosion Man, Ms. Splosion Man and The Maw, has lost one of its veteran designers in Dan Teasdale, who announced his departure via Twitter on Friday. Elaborating further on his personal Tumblr account, Teasdale reasons that “something incredibly unique and amazing a few months ago, and turned into reality soon after that.”

Of course, Teasdale stopped short of actually letting us know where he’s headed, although he contends that it’s “a shift in what I’ve been doing for the past 15 years. It’s exciting and scary, which is exactly the kind of thing I love burying myself in.” Sounds very much like he may have left the game-development field altogether, but we’ll have to stay tuned to know for sure.

Teasdale did mention, however, that he intends to devote a fair amount of his energies into an existing personal project, Super Drake Track 2000 EX: a mobile-phone-based flight-tracking system.

Source: Dan Teasdale via Joystiq

Dan Teasdale leaves Twisted Pixel

Gamasutra has published its XBLA sales analysis for the month of March, which notes some interesting movement that has shaken up recent trends. Storming onto the charts with a considerable performance late in the month is Re-Logic’s action/adventure game Terraria, which launched on March 27 and posted 127, 944 new players in its first week. According to Gamasutra, it’s one of the first games to unseat the mighty Minecraft from its number one weekly-sales position in quite some time.

Other new games to release in March didn’t perform so well, according to Gamasutra’s report. Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams took second place, although it only achieved a fraction of Terraria’s player base with 2,475 new players in March. Dollar Dash managed only 2,040 new players for the month despite launching on March 6th, and WRC Powerslide fared only slightly better with 2,215 new players.

Many of XBLA’s seemingly evergreen staples continued to post impressive performances in March: Minecraft managed another 286,153 new players for the month, while free-to-play Happy Wars gained 199,055 new players. Long-time XBLA favorite Castle Crashers is still trucking along nicely, picking up 46,079 new players.

Source: Gamasutra

XBLA Sales Analysis: March 2013

Shawn Ryan - I found myself playing a lot of Rock Band this week. I went through a lot of the stuff I had packed away, saw the guitar, and decided to jump back into it. After such a long time away from it, it was nice to have fun playing it again. I also picked up Shadows of the Damned. While weird, it was enjoyable and I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a competent shooter!

Scott Baker - I’ve been sneaking in bits of Transformers: War for Cybertron after Microsoft snuck it to a temporary $9.99 without a word of advertisement. It reminds me of the old sleeper hit Metal Arms: Glitch in the System for its third-person shooting. I’m loving the transforming mechanic, it’s so much fun to shift and zip away. The dialogue is classic Transformers, too. The only problem is my incompetent matchmade co-op buddies who can’t fight Hard mode. You’ve failed me yet again, Starscream!

Ryan Thompson - This is a big work week for my graduate school projects, so no Xbox gaming, unfortunately.  I will be playing a lot of Bionic Commando: Rearmed and Geometry Wars 2 when they go on sale early next week though, and am looking forward to it!

Kevin Plumtree - With the release of the Castle Map Pack, I jumped back into Halo 4‘s multiplayer for some matches and achievement hunting.  The new spaces have better flow and match dynamics than the previous map packs.  I also split some time between Gears of War 3 and Gears of War: Judgment, working on various ribbons and medals.  Finally, in a largely fruitless effort, I attempted to earn gold stars in some of Rock Band Blitz‘s harder songs.  As much as I enjoy that game and the series as a whole, I fully accept I am not very good at it!

Nick Santangelo - Mostly just continued playing Saint’s Row: The Third this week. It’s a fun game, though so far I prefer GTA IV. Later today I should be able to finally set up internet to my Xbox after a week without it at my new place. I’ve got 1200 MSP sitting around that’s reserved for BattleBlock Theater.

Your turn.

What we are playing: April 14

In a brief statement made by Undead Labs’ Sanya Weathers, it was revealed that State of Decay will release this June on Xbox Live. For those unfamiliar with the game, it combines zombie-slaying action with RPG and resource management elements. Set in an ever changing and adapting sandbox world, players will fortify safe locations, rescue survivors, and kick zombie butt in all kinds of ways. In fact, check out the action for yourself in the new trailer:

Source: Undead Labs

State of Decay releases this June but gets a new trailer now

Xbox SmartGlass has now been updated for Android.  The 1.5 release includes support for Android-based tablets 7” and larger.  This update also brings with it the same continuous awake mode that other platforms received, meaning that as long as SmartGlass is connected to the console, it will not turn off, even during intermissions of active use.  Numerous design and usability improvements are included, as well as bug patches.

Source: Google Play via Polygon

SmartGlass for Android update includes support for 7-inch and larger tablets

After the ninth title update for Minecraft caused problems for some players, 4J Studios has readied its tenth update to fix a lot of the newly caused bugs. They took to Twitter to verify what fixes are incoming, including saves not loading for Xbox Live Silver members, lighting and slow down issues, collision problems, and more. You can find a full list of fixes coming for Minecraft on the official forums.

Source: Polygon via OXM

Minecraft title update 10 on its way, awaiting certification

New assets have surfaced that all but confirm the upcoming XBLA release of classic platformer Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse. As unearthed by tipster @lifelower, Sega of America has posted a teaser trailer to its official YouTube channel, and what appears to be the game’s box art has today been hastily removed from Xbox.com.

An XBLA release of the Castle of Illusion, which first appeared on Sega Genesis and the Sega Master System in 1990, has been rumored since March, when the title received ratings from Australian and Brazilian classification authorities. Today’s teaser trailer suggests that Castle of Illusion is likely to release this US summer, although Sega is yet to make an official announcement.

Source: Lifelower

Castle of Illusion box art, teaser trailer out in the wild

Following on from some of the negative XBLA press that has recently hit the headlines, Ska Studios’ James Silva has decided to set the record straight on his experiences with Microsoft. In a recent blog post Silva revealed “Working with Microsoft is great. I have heard a few stories that contradict my experience, and I know quite a few people who are happier on platforms other than XBLA, and that’s fine for them. XBLA is a closed, carefully curated platform with its own set of fairly rigid standards and protocols. For me, it was just a matter of “do the work, release the game,” and that’s exactly what we did.”

The Lead Developer of XBLA hits The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai and its sequel Vampire Smile, and the upcoming Charlie Murder, also expressed his dismay at the negative publicity XBLA has been receiving, “Reinforcing the ‘Microsoft is bad for indies’ narrative doesn’t hurt Microsoft, it hurts indies…As a consumer, would you think twice about buying a game from a ‘failed platform?’ Would you hesitate at buying an indie game from a company that “screws indies?” But that’s the current narrative, and while it sucks for Microsoft, it sucks a lot more for indie developers who are publishing on XBLA.”

The news makes a welcome change to fans of the platform after hearing a number of high profile indie developers, including Braid’s Jonathan Blow and Brian Provinciano, the developer of Retro City Rampage, stating that were considering moving away from XBLA or consoles altogether. To read the full blog post, head over to Ska-Studios.com

Source: Ska Studios

“Working with Microsoft is great” says XBLA developer Ska Studios

It’s hard to believe it’s been almost five years since the release of Castle Crashers, the side-scrolling brawler brainchild of The Behemoth that grew up to be an XBLA darling that still sits atop sales charts today. Needless to say, the next game made by The Behemoth would have big shoes to fill. Instead of playing it safe, The Behemoth dared to be unique with BattleBlock Theater. Not only did they dare to take on a whole new side-scrolling genre, they also dared to create one of the craziest premise in the history of gaming.

BattleBlock Theater puts you in the shoes of one of the hundreds of prisoners who, after a terrible boat crash, washed up on a mysterious island and were taken captive by giant cats. These cats love their theater, so they force their prisoners into deadly plays. The story mode revolves around platforming and puzzle solving, navigating death traps and fighting crazy animals. When you’re tired of exploring the theater, you can dive into a host of multiplayer modes. BattleBlock Theater is a wonderful platformer not meant to be taken seriously, and made even better when you play with friends.

Here’s what we liked:

Co-optional - The game has a great story mode, which can be played solo or with another player. The game is essentially the same either way, but the co-op levels are adjusted with the teamwork in mind. In either mode, the goal is to puzzle-platform your way to the end of every level, gathering gems to open the exit. The level design is near perfect, matched with great platforming controls and a combat system that relies more on tricking enemies into deathtraps more than dealing damage directly. Single player is enjoyable, but co-op is where the party’s at. Players have to rely on each other to cross gaps, climb cliffs, and solve puzzles. Players can also turn around and kill each other at any time. This is almost encouraged, as friends will respawn near their companion, not breaking the flow of the level. There’s no penalty for goofing around, and that’s what makes it fun (unless you have an extremely annoying partner).

Fight! Fight! Fight! – Story mode is only half the package, as BattleBlock Theater comes with a fierce 4-player competitive multiplayer selection. There’s 8 game modes, each with 15 unique maps, all playable online or off. Winning a game will get you a cozy amount of gems, but everyone gets at least one for participation. There’s the traditional game modes, like King of the Hill and a deathmatch mode called Muckle, which are fun but not nearly as good as their more creative modes. The game modes where you have to color the environment your color, or play a 2D mix of soccer and basketball, are more rewarding as they have a greater focus on platforming abilities and feel like a more original experience. All the modes are fast-paced, well made, and a blast to play, the kind of game that has you yelling with joy and rage as you play.

The world’s a stage - While not the first XBLA game to feature a level editor, BattleBlock Theater handles it like a pro. The editor’s interface is extremely clean and organized, and creating levels is incredibly quick and simple. The tools are easy to use, especially those that aid in building symmetrical multiplayer maps. Once you create levels, you can combine them into a playlist and share them with the world in the Community Theater. The theater’s search feature makes it easy to find, download, and play other player’s playlists online. Rounding out the community section is Furbottom’s Features, which highlights the very best user-made playlists and unlocks the ability to earn gems. A large community will be necessary to keep this alive, but BattleBlock Theater contains all the tools so everyone can get involved in creating and sharing levels.

Cartoony wonder - It comes to no one’s surprise that BattleBlock Theater is a looks fantastic. Dan Paladin’s signature art style shines, from the wonderful design of the theater to the hundreds of humorous unlockable faces. The game has a certain sense of goofy wonder; exploring the theater is cool, unlocking a new face with gems is always a funny surprise, and experimenting with a new weapon brings about all new gameplay opportunities. Nothing in the game is more enjoyable than the cutscenes, most of which are presented as an animated puppet show. There’s even a narrator, who makes everything funnier by delivering well-written lines with an up-beat, goofy voice. The game is so bright, colorful, and upbeat it will almost instantly put a smile on your face.

Here’s what we didn’t like:

Multiplayer lobbies – Getting into an online game isn’t a problem, but dealing with the lobbies can be. Lobbies take the form of in-game theater lobbies, where going through a door counts as a vote. It’s a nice setup, but it has its downsides. It feels like it was build with the idea that you’d stick around in the game type you’ve chosen, because exiting and returning to the main menu can be a hassle if you want to play a variety of game types. You’re also going to become too familiar with the first set of levels in any multiplayer lobby, as most people gravitate towards the closest door.

This and that - While a generally polished experience, there’s some small nagging issues that may bother some players. There’s a pause between death and respawn, which gives other players the opportunity to use your dead body as a platform. While a cool addition, in single player the slight wait slows down the pace. In order to score a perfect A++ on a level, you need to collect all the collectables and finish in an allotted time. The problem is, you don’t know how many gems you need until you get them all, and there’s no on-screen clock to show your progress. While the controls are simple for the most part, the wall jump mechanic can take a some practice to get used to.

BattleBlock Theater is the one of the best multiplayer games to hit XBLA. The game is small but mighty; while not boasting an excessive amount of content, there’s a deep level of polish most games strive to achieve. It’s by no means a perfect game, and some omissions may make a completionist cringe. What sets this game apart is how it balances an ever-so satisfying feel of teamwork with an even more satisfying rush of pushing your friends into a pit of spikes and laughing as you jump on their corpse. This unforgettable oddball experience is one only The Behemoth could give us. BattleBlock Theater may have been in development for a long time, but it was definitely worth the wait.

Score: Buy it!

BattleBlock Theater review (XBLA)

It seems that the development of action-RPG The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing is coming along nicely and indie studios Neocore Games have recently published a new gameplay trailer demonstrating their Rage and PowerUp system. The new gameplay mechanic is said to grant players the ability to boost and tailor their skills for a short duration of time right in the heat of the battle.  Players gain Rage by defeating enemies which they can then channel into either one of their three active PowerUps or into a combination of all three. The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing is set to release on XBLA later this year.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing prepares to rage into battle

New camo controller exclusive to Wal-Mart

Last week entertainment powerhouse Disney closed the doors to LucasArts, and its in-development projects along with it. LucasArts’ parent company, LucasFilm, was purchased by Disney just six short months ago. According to Kotaku, Disney held a meeting in which Lucas employees inquired about the fate of LucasArts. According to Kotaku’s source, Disney CEO Bob Iger stated that it would be “business as usual”. Apparently that means putting everyone out on the street.

Still, on the brighter side, LucasArts had been plagued by mediocre games, cancellations, and just a general lack of releases in the past few years. The role of President of the company changed five times in 10 years, and during that time very few quality games were released. Things dropped off the deep end following the last of the great LucasArts-published games, LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga. While both Force Unleashed games were quite good for a playthrough, they did not in the end live up to the hype train surrounding them.

Since then it’s been a string of disappointments for fans. A few years ago when G4TV hyped a “new LucasArts game reveal” we all watched, sure that it would be the announcement for Star Wars: Battlefront III. It wasn’t. It was instead a poor XBLA game known as Lucidity. Battlefront III had, in fact, been canned. It was in development at Free Radical entertainment, who were cut loose due to several dramatic factors and could not afford to remain open any longer. And now the fates of Star Wars: 1313 and Star Wars: First Assault look grim. Rumors persist that Disney is willing to shop these games around for completion, but most every sign points to the death of these two games.

But perhaps there is hope. Given that Disney will be seeking outside development for future ex-Lucas IPs, perhaps we’ll see some great studios step up and develop new, better Star Wars titles. Maybe Raven Software will finally get the chance to get away from making Call of Duty map packs and return to make new titles as amazing as Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy. Maybe a studio will step up to start on Grim Fandango HD. Who knows. All we can say at this point is that the dust will need to settle before we see new, great games that game from the properties of our dearly departed LucasArts.

Source: Kotaku

Disney shutters LucasArts

More details on the illusive Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon have been revealed. The release date of May 1 was originally outed by an Xbox.com listing, since removed. Several media outlets have since confirmed this date. IGN also posted the first 15 minutes of the game via their website. Not wanting to poach a great video, you can view it in its entirety at IGN.

The game itself is an homage to every cheesy 80′s action film and video game. Cutscenes are two dimensional and hand-drawn, the cyborg protagonist, Sargent Rex “Power” Colt, is the embodiment of all the bad video game box art from the decade, and there are more monotone robotic voices than you can count. No price has been confirmed, but we’re guessing this will be in the 1200 MSP range, and we can confirm that it does not require the retail version of Far Cry 3 to play. This is totally stand-alone, totally XBLA, and totally awesome. Hit the jump for additional screenshots.

Source: IGN

Far Cry: Blood Dragon coming May 1

The ring bearer finally has his chance to join the fray and defend Middle-earth. The game is set before the days of the Fellowship, but Frodo rounds out the downloadable content characters with his non-canon appearance. For a mere 160 MSP this heroic hobbit will use the one ring and his trusty sword to combat evil in Middle-earth. Whiny hobbit companions not included.

Frodo joins the Guardians of Middle-earth cast

It beckons, and you respond. What else would you do? It’s not as if an abundance of other options manifest themselves, really. Your surroundings tell you it will be dangerous to go alone without it, and “it” even goes so far as to articulate its desire to become your traveling companion.

You seem to have just missed some sort of a skirmish, and at least one person ended up dead during the fighting. Someone, presumably the killer, has conveniently left the enormous techno-sword that felled the recently deceased implanted firmly in the poor fellow’s torso. The transistor speaks; it beckons, and you respond. What else would you do?

You relieve its most recent victim of the burden of bearing it any longer, and Supergiant Games’ Transistor begins proper. Red — the beautiful, slender former songstress who was introduced a moment ago in a cut-scene colored as much by her fiery hair as by her heavenly singing — seems a strange choice to wield something so powerful, so…cumbersome. If appearances are to be trusted, Red’s but a delicate thing, not suited to wield such a large weapon. But wield it she does. She hefts the blade with two hands, letting its considerable girth drag behind her as if she were auditioning for the role of leading man in a JRPG from a bygone era.

Swinging the thing reveals that its weight matches its size. Red arcs the chatty transistor over her head and brings it crashing down in front of her with considerable effort. You feel its weight as she does so. It slows Red, restricting her to trotting at only a moderate pace around this futuristic world that is somehow simultaneously flooded with artificial light and dark and foreboding. Her attacks feel deliberate and powerful as they smash the robotic aggressors that spawn before her to bits.

The robots are part of something known as “the Process,” and they want it back. They want the transistor that was so negligently left behind earlier. The transistor has much to say, but its (his?) words are cryptic, leaving you with many questions. What is the Process? What is the transistor? Who is Red, for that matter? Do she and the transistor know each other?

If the young beauty knows the answers to any of these questions, she isn’t saying — she can’t. Red is mute now, raising yet another question: how did she come to be separated from that angelic voice of hers?

In search of answers

Perhaps Supergiant can shed some light onto Transistor’s dark corners. “So, we’re not saying too much about the story and the characters in it. But in the playable [demo] there is a voice that comes from the transistor that is lodged in somebody right at the start of the game,” Amir Rao, Supergiant Games Studio Director and co-founder says during an impromptu interview taking place amidst the hungry mob of PAX East attendees as interested in consuming the Transistor demo as you are.

It’s not much to go on, and details about Red are similarly scarce. Rao is only willing to say that “her voice was taken from her.” No details as to the how and why will today be provided. Back in the demo, you dawdle for a bit by a poster, despite the transistor’s palpable desire to push forward. It’s a poster of Red. She was famous, and perhaps that’s how the transistor knows her. Delay long enough and the blade will provide some enigmatic clues as to your past and your loss of the gift of voice. The time to sing is behind Red. The time to fight lies before her.

You want to know more. Why should Red fight? How should she fight? What is this transistor thing that she’s using to fight?

Rao relents, letting you inside just a bit. “So the transistor is a device that you find at the beginning of the game. It doesn’t belong to Red,” he explains. “It belongs to a group of people who tried to kill her with it, and now they want it back.”

He goes on to say that “the transistor is the source of all the powers you’re able to use in the playable [demo]. It allows [Red] to jaunt a short distance, sort of like a short-range blink or fire a huge, powerful line-damage breach. And I guess the most important thing about it is that you’re able to stop time whenever you need to and take a full turn where you can plan out your actions, and then you can undo them or needle out your plan for the next feud and see how it’s all going to turn out.”

Turn and run

A turn-based battle system isn’t what you’d expect from the developers of Bastion, with its real-time action — and it’s not exactly what you get when entering into combat during Transistor’s PAX East demo. Red can freely roam across the battlefield and carry out actions on the fly, hacking and slashing at pursuing machines while manually attempting to navigate away from their own attacks. She can do that. You might do that for the majority of the demo, and you might enjoy it, too. But you’re also shown another option while playing the demo. As Rao will later remind you, you can stop time. The machines cannot.

When you pause time, Red takes her turn. The machines don’t. Red lines up her targets and chains attacks together. It almost seems to you unfair. You have an incredibly powerful weapon that allows you to dole out meticulously planned attacks. After you attack and the transistor’s ability to stop time enters into a cooldown, you run away to safety, maintaining a strategic distance until you can again take the upper hand. At least, that’s what you try to do.

The Process’ forces, you discover, aren’t so easily outrun. Rao tells you that “the really cool thing about the game with this sort of turn-based mode is it allows us to make the enemies really hard and really fast and sort of really, really scary.”

Red may have an all-powerful weapon, but Red herself is not all powerful. You choose to take your turn when the moment feels right. That means you can take it at any time and react to what Red’s pursuers are doing. “It also means that while you’re recharging the enemies sort of gain on you and come after you really, really quickly,” says Rao, “so for me it’s opened up a lot of design possibilities that we’re really, really excited about. And so the enemies go to cool places, and it’s been really fun.”

You wonder: what sort of design philosophies? “Even in the demo you see [at Supergiant’s booth] you start with that enemy we call the creep that moves really, really fast and moves significantly faster than you,” Rao begins to elucidate. “Very few enemies in Bastion did move faster than you. You could nimbly roll away from them and stuff like that. Here, everything sort of gains on you, so there’s a sense of oppression whenever you’re in this real-time mode that — guys are closing in. They’re coming in fast.”

Red’s main attack is slow. Her turn-based one, slower still. “They also hit really hard,” says Rao, “so it’s cool when you land them, but there is a little bit of time in there for enemies to gain on you. That doesn’t mean there won’t be fast attacks. We have fast stuff. Even the jaunt you can pump that out pretty fast — the little short-range blink move. So there will be a variety of feels to it, and you’ll be able to try and fight in real-time if you want.

“On the [Supergiant] team, there’s a mix of both. Some people use the turn mode all the time, others use the real-time mode and only use the turn mode when they get in trouble, so it just sort of depends on your own tastes, and there’ll be some expressiveness in there that you can take advantage of.”

Red’s mostly sluggish pace combined with the speedy enemies builds tension. She is being hunted and must outfox those repo robots that seek to reclaim the transistor from her. This mix of turn-based empowerment and real-time scrambling builds tension. Rao confirms that the game was deliberately designed to be playable in both real-time mode and in Supergiant’s own brand of turn-based combat. “Yeah, it was always designed that — part of putting it into a more immediate, real-time context was allowing players to play the way they wanted, and on top of that we already have that diversity. So I think depending on what your tastes are you’re probably represented by somebody who’s working on the game.”

Haven’t you done this somewhere before?

Once you’re done putting that assertion to the test and have left nothing but shattered metal and circuitry behind where once stood the Process’ robots, you emerge from the indoor area that is the setting for the majority of the demo. Even were the transistor not to strongly suggest Red hop on one of the motorcycles in the parking lot she finds herself in, it would be obvious what you’re meant to do, just as in the beginning of the game. Still, you’re a gamer; you’ve been trained to always explore the areas you’re not supposed to go to before heading to the clear path forward. The transistor makes a few sarcastic comments aimed at getting Red on one of the bikes.

Red finally relents and does her best to impersonate yet another ’90s Final Fantasy character: Cloud Strife. A knowing smile creeps across your face as you watch her zoom away on her motorcycle, the oversized blade along for the ride with her. In the background is the sprawling metropolis of Cloudbank in which all is clearly not well. This is the end of the demo. Questions about Red, the transistor and the Process remain, but they won’t all be answered until Transistor‘s much-too-far-off 2014 release.

What about those apparent Final Fantasy nods, though? Specifically, is the end of the demo Supergiant’s homage to Square’s Final Fantasy VII? “I think for us there’s not any one inspiration, and we’ve heard that before,” says Rao of the Cloud connection. “It’s cool that people are reading that in there. Certainly there are fans of many Final Fantasy games on the team. So, I don’t think it was a — we’re not consciously trying to recall that, but you’ll see those influences sneak in all over the place.”

Unplanned evolution

The entire team behind Bastion, as well as some newcomers, began working on the “first version” of Transistor immediately after Bastion hit XBLA in July of 2011. Rao lists Final Fantasy Tactics, Fallout 1 and 2 and Valkyria Chronicles as the games that most inspired the group. Taking those inspirations, the team created its own unique take on turn-based gameplay. Then it iterated. A lot. Supergiant knew where it was starting, but it didn’t know where it would end up — perhaps it still doesn’t — because “there isn’t a giant design document for the game somewhere,” admits Rao. “We just kind of built it slowly over time, and this is where it evolved.”

You can’t help but admire the current place Transistor occupies on the evolutionary chart while wondering what it will ultimately develop into. Red can’t say. Rao won’t say. You can’t see. The motorcycle ride is over, and so is the demo.

Photographs: Zac “Scratch” Pratt

It’s Red’s turn in Supergiant’s Transistor

In addition to a list of hot sales, a recent Major Nelson blog entry also included the release date of God Mode, a mythological cooperative third-person shooter from Old School Games. You and your friends can purge the Maze of Hades next Friday night on April 19th for only 800 Microsoft Points.

God Mode is a lighthearted arcade shooter made by a branch studio of Saber Interactive. As a former god stripped of your power and left for dead, you embark on an epic quest for vengeance and restoration. To add to the spectacle, a grizzly narrator will commentate on the arcade action. To see more, check our last preview and this behind-the-scenes video.

Source: Major Nelson

God Mode descends to XBLA April 19

There are lots of discounts on XBLA games both this week and next week worth some attention. If you are yet to play Dungeon Defenders, it’s one of the standout titles for XBLA.  Remakes feature heavily this week also, with Prince of Persia Classic and the Marvel vs. Capcom franchise all discounted.  Next week, Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 is on sale for only 200 Microsoft Points, making it the best deal of the entire two week period, though many other games are also well worth a glance – Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light and Gotham City Impostors are excellent choices for multiplayer, and Bionic Commando Rearmed remains one of the best high-definition remakes of the entire generation.

The majority of these titles have had some success on XBLA, and playing through the demo for any of them is a worthwhile investment of time. See the entire list below, and feel free to recommend specific titles in the comments!

This week:

Prince of Persia Classic 400 (50% off)
Counterstrike GO 600 (50% off)
Real Steel 320 (60% off)
Battlefield 1943 600 (50% off)
Dungeon Defenders 480 (60% off)
Realms of Ancient War 480 (60% off
Marvel vs. Capcom 2 600 (50% off)
Marvel vs. Capcom Origins 600 (50% off)
Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection 400 (50% off)
Kinect Central: Babel Rising 320 (60% off)

Next week:

I Am Alive 480 (60% off)
Gotham City Impostors 600 (50% off)
Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 200 (75% off)
Warhammer® 40,000®: Kill Team™ 320 (60% off)
Lara Croft The Guardian of Light 600 (50% off)
HELL YEAH! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit 480 (60% off)
Bionic Commando Rearmed 320 (60% off)
Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 480 (60% off)
Black Knight Sword 400 (50% off)
Fruit Ninja Kinect 320 (60% off)

XBLA Deal of the Week