Search Results for ‘fez’
And the 12 Days of XBLA promotion is finally upon us. For the next 12 days, we will be giving out some of the finest XBLA games that were released in the past year. Each day will hold two chances for you to win one specific game. There will be a chance to win here on the XBLAFans.com website and a chance to win on our Twitter stream. So you better go follow @XBLAFans on Twitter right now if you haven’t done so already. The first day of contests will start in approximately 2 hours!
Weekly Roundup compiles all the biggest news stories, reviews and features from the week into one handy post on the weekends.
A bit of a slow week due to the holidays, but it’s hard to complain with a week of great XBLA sales. XBLA Fans wants to know if you picked up anything good during the holiday deals.
It’s that time of year again — SPIKE TV’s annual Video Game Awards. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the tribute show, showcasing the big names of the industry and offering a glimpse of what we can expect in the upcoming calendar.
Among the usual suspects, the Best Independent Game category is chock-full of fantastic Xbox Live Arcade titles that made a big splash this year. Mark of the Ninja, Dust: An Elysian Tale, and of course, Fez, occupy the majority of the ballot while the PlayStation exclusive Journey rounds out the list. Though this category is voted on by a panel of judges, you’re encouraged to visit the site and let the advisory board know which title you think deserves the award.
Head on over to the Best Independent Game category to cast your vote, or check out the panel of judges. SPIKE TV’s “Video Game Awards” will air live on both Spike TV and Spike.com, Friday, December 7 at 9:00pm ET/6:00pm PT.
Which title do you feel should take home the trophy?
Sources: Joystiq (1), (2), Major Nelson (1), (2), Polygon, IGN (1), (2), Gamasutra, @RetroCR
Fez was a huge success in our eyes. It has some of the most interesting and mind bending game mechanics we have ever seen. Recently programmer Renaud Bédard of Polytron described some of the things that didn’t quite make it into the game. It turns out there were a lot of other game mechanics in the works at different points in development. Some were early versions of the mechanics we saw and others were abandoned because they just didn’t work for the game as Phil Fish had envisioned. Apparently laser puzzles involving strict box placement were completely functional but they simply had no place for them in the game. “Heavy groups” involved large groups of blocks that would fall after supporting blocks were destroyed. This feature worked hand in hand with TNT crates but again, both features were dropped because they simply didn’t have a place in the final game. Motor blocks were a neat idea but they were too difficult to get working properly in the hybrid 2D/3D environment. We really liked the way the 3D bridge sections looked but they gave too much of how the environment was actually constructed away. It is always interesting to see what was left out of a game as much as what made it in. With Fez it feels like the possibilities are almost endless.
Source: Renaud Bédard of Polytron
The Bakers Dozen Achievement is all about rescuing your favourite characters that have been hidden throughout the world of Dust: An Elysian Tail. Don’t forget that when you get to any one of the cages that these guys are imprisoned in, you will need four keys and some quick hands to beat the locks!
Gamasutra have published their monthly Xbox Live Arcade sales analysis for July. With the start of this year’s Summer of Arcade we would expect to see big sales and it was no surprise that the runaway success story for July was Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD with almost 133K in its first two weeks of release. The game split the community with mixed reviews, but certainly the Tony Hawk brand was enough to draw in the fans. The only other Summer of Arcade game to be released in July was Wreckateer. Despite good reviews all round, the Kinect only title did not fare so well with just over 6K new players in its first week.
Outside of the promotion, Spelunky did best with around 33K downloads, though these are still fairly average numbers given the hype surrounding the game. Perhaps the difficulty put players off or the fact that it is free for PC. Gamasutra were unable to track the leaderboards for Bellator: MMA Onslaught, however the rest of this month’s releases, Quantum Conundrum, Dungeon Fighter Live and Zuma’s Revenge! each pulled in around 20K downloads, except poor old Frogger: Hyper Arcade Edition which only managed a pitiful 2K. Perhaps we were all still too busy with Minecraft this month?
Source: Gamasutra
Romino Games recently launched Awesomenauts on PC via Steam, and with it a new character was released. Currently exclusive to the Windows, the monstrosity known as Gnaw has an uncertain fate on other platforms. Shortly after the character’s announcement Joystiq contacted Romino on the possibility of he/she/it coming to consoles. “We’re all for it and ready to do it,” Ronimo’s Jasper Koning told them, “but it’s up to the publisher of the console version, DTP.”
Part of the reason, presumably, that Gnaw’s XBLA future is uncertain is the costly nature of patching console games. With Steam developers can patch games at any time they wish. The integrity/security of the player’s computer is up to the individual as Steam is largely just a distribution service. Console games, patches and DLC must go through a certification process to ensure that the content in no way compromises the console’s security, that nothing ruins savegames, and all of those sorts of nasty issues. It’s a problem that’s double sided. It keeps consoles ‘locked down’ and safe from the above, but in doing so it has to be tested more thoroughly, meaning more money.
When was the last amazing Friday release? Fez? The Simpsons Arcade? Add one more to the list with Shank developer Klei Entertainment’s new, original title Mark of the Ninja. Klei Entertainment announced on its Twitter account that we’d be seeing the game on September 7. No price was announced currently but it looks like a 1200 MSP game but who’s to say with Shank 2 being 800 MSP coming out in February. You play as a stealthy assassin in this 2D side-scrolling action game, which is a far cry from the blood lust they’ve done with the Shank titles. Players will have to move stealthily through places and make precise kills in the shadows. Catch Damon’s PAX East preview and watch the shadows when this hits in September.
