Ubisoft

From Dust was developed by Ubisoft Montpellier and will be released for XBLA on July 26, 2011 for 1200 Microsoft Points. The game is part of Microsoft’s Summer of Arcade promotion. A copy was provided for review purposes.

From Dust is the geo-centric strategy/god game brainchild of storied game designer Éric Chahi. It marks Chahi’s long-awaited return to the industry and—perhaps more importantly—helps fill the gaping void in quality strategy games for downloadable platforms. Read More

This year at E3 there were lots of games, developers, publishers and the likes, every where you went. Even through all this commotion, XBLA still managed to make waves …
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A few months back, a rumor surfaced that I Am Alive would be coming to Xbox Live Arcade. That was later debunked as a rumor. Recently a rating for …
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Sad news everyone, the Xbox Live Arcade favorite TMNT: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled is heading for the chopping block. The delist is due to a license expiration, a common …
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When I look at From Dust I see the vast, treacherous deserts plaguing an aboriginal society. I see people literally walled off by rocks formed from years of volcanic ash. I see a lifestyle of forced reliance on the temperamental flooding, life-giving waters. I see a microcosm of human history, and it’s all under my control.

Launching this summer, From Dust is a god game where players will have to keep their villagers alive without directly controlling anyone of them. Instead players will have to shape the landscape of the earth to make inhabitable for their people. A typical interaction requires players to create a pathway from one totem to another, before a timer runs out. Players can pick up and drop sand, water or lava and utilize these in any combination to accomplish their goal. Should they be unsuccessful a roaring flood will wash away their village and they will need to start over.

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Éric Chahi is well-known in the industry for his innovative work on Another World (called Out of This World in the U.S.) and Heart of Darkness—and for his nearly ten-year absence from the industry. XBLA Fans sat down at E3 2011 with the legendary game designer for a quiet chat about art, inspiration, and the craft of telling stories.

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Developer Housemarque’s Outland has been on XBLA for only a few weeks but has already claimed its place as one of the service’s best games.  We recently interviewed the game’s Lead Designer Aki Raula, so strap yourself in, choose between light and darkness and be sure to dodge those pesky bullet-hell, um, bullets.

XBLAFans: So, Outland has been released and has received glowing reviews. How does that feel?

Raula: It feels like our hard work has been noticed and people appreciate it. We are very happy of the spectacular reception for Outland – it is, and continues to be, beyond our expectations. As a small studio we also hope the review success translates to sales so that we can keep on making great games!

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Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes was developed by Capybara Games, published by Ubisoft and released on April 14, 2011 for 1200MSP.

Clash of Heroes stems from the Might & Magic franchise but takes it into a completely different direction with puzzle/strategy-based gameplay and a fairly self-contained storyline from the rest of the series’s continuity. With roots in the familiar match-three mechanics of games like Bejeweled, Clash of Heroes may appear to be quite generic at first glance. However, the game’s critical success in its 2009 Nintendo DS release suggests otherwise. Does Capybara’s latest XBLA release manage to carry over a winning formula that can capture the love of a different gaming audience? Read More

When the initial reports on Outland surfaced, many believed that developer Housemarque would continue to send their titles exclusively to Sony’s PlayStation Network. They have seen success with Super Stardust …
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The 90’s were an amazing time for arcade games.  So many 2.5D beat em’ ups were released during that time — Final Fight, X-Men, The Simpsons, and and two installments from our half-shelled heroes, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Games like these defined the genre and made way for modern beat em’ ups like Castle Crashers.  When word was first leaked that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles In Time was being remade in HD over at Ubisoft Singapore the teens of the 1990’s squealed like a teenage girl.  But so many games from yesteryear feel dated when dusted off and fired up.  Could Ubisoft’s HD remake, subtitled with Re-Shelled, stand the test of time?  Find out after the jump.

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