XBLA

A World of Keflings was developed by NinjaBee and published by Xbox Live Arcade.  It was released on XBLA on December 22nd.

With games like Cloning Clyde, Band of Bugs and Ancients of Ooga under their belt, NinjaBee has become one of the most beloved XBLA developers to date.  In 2008, the release of A Kingdom for Keflings solidified their spot as an XBLA powerhouse.   After the success of the first installment, A Kefling sequel was evident.  As one of the most anticipated XBLA games of 2010, A World of Keflings generated high expectations from both the fans and the developers.  With a ton of new additions and upgrades, the difference between A Kingdom for Keflings and A World of Keflings is clear.  The game has improved in nearly every area. Read More

Hydrophobia developer Dark Energy Digital has released details of a pretty substantial patch coming to the hugely ambitious but ultimately disappointing XBLA title. The patch, entitled “Pure”, aims to rectify the many problems that reviewers and gamers has with the game upon it’s release.

The update coincides with a 400 point discount for the game, meaning it can now be picked up for 800 points rather than the original 1200 release price.

Almost all of the games major game mechanics have been changed in some fashion, the cover has been improved, gunplay has been redesigned to be more intuitive and fun, the graphics have been bumped up slightly and the button layout has been changed to be more in line with similar titles.

Whether these changes actually improve the game remains to be seen but it’s certainly impressive that any developer would go back and change their game in such a fundamental manner in response to complaints.

Check out what Tyler had to say about the game upon release in our XBLAFans review. You can see a video detailing the changes below, along with a screenshot gallery.

Source: Eurogamer

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Major Nelson has released a lovely post outlining what will be coming out on Xbox live on December 21 and lasting until December 31.   I am not sure if this has anything to do with the deal days they are planning that counts down to the new year.    Click read more of course!

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Perspective is key in the long unreleased indie darling Fez. A new trailer released by developer Polytron Corporation has given us perspective as to where development has taken them …
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The game was designed originally by Konami and then brought to XBLA by Backbone Entertainment, a division of Foundation 9 Entertainment.  The player chooses one of six X-Men:  Cyclops,  Colossus,  Wolverine,  Storm,  Nightcrawler, or Dazzler. Their objective is to stop the villain Magneto from wreaking havoc on human civilization. They must fight through an army of hundreds of Sentinels and supervillains such as Pyro, Blob, Wendigo, Nimrod, The White Queen, Juggernaut, and Mystique.  Later, Magneto kidnaps Professor X and Kitty Pryde, prompting the heroes to go on a rescue mission. The heroes fight their way to Island M and ultimately to Magneto’s base on Asteroid M where the final battle with the Master of Magnetism takes place.

If you were lucky your arcade had the full on 6-player mode, and if you didn’t have the nice arcade, you had the cheesy 4-player cabinet.   The question is, how well did this classic age?   Is it worth spending the 800 MS Points ($10 US)?

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Section 8 was a flawed gem. A diamond in the rough relegated mostly to bargain bins, the original Section 8 pushed new ideas into the first person shooter genre. It overcame minor bugs, mixed reviews and the stigma of being a full priced multiplayer only game, developing a small cult following along the way. Section 8 is back and ready to do an orbital drop again, but this time TimeGate Studios is rewriting the rules.

With the freedom that self publishing gives them, TimeGate Studios is pushing the boundaries of what has been traditionally accepted as normal. Section 8 Prejudice is a fully fledged sequel to Section 8; however, it will be released on Xbox Live Arcade in early 2011 for 1200 Microsoft Points ($15), nearly a fraction of the cost of the original. The transition from a $60 retail product to an Xbox Live Arcade sequel is a new one in this industry. We had some trepidation that the production values would suffer or that the game might feel too much like a rehash of the first, but that was all alleviated when we went hands on with Prejudice this past week.

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You may, or rather should have heard of the Indie Games Winter Uprising by now. But if you haven’t here’s what you need to know. The developers behind the Indie Games on Xbox Live Marketplace decided they wanted an event in the vein of a “Summer of Arcade” and other such promotions. Resigned to the fact Microsoft wasn’t going to make one for them they took it upon themselves to do so. Thus the Winter Uprising was born, originally intended to take place during the first week of December it has now been extended to include the entire month.

We here at XBLAFans are passionate in our feeling that the Indie Games section deserves more recognition than it currently receives. As such we have created this hub for the games that will be included in the Uprising. Here you’ll find a brief description of the games, a link to the developers website, screenshots, trailers, pricing (if available), and for those games already released there will be download links and reviews.

The games are being released pretty irregularly, with several having already been delayed due to last minute bugs so be sure to check back often and see what’s new! Read More

The following article is based around an email interview conducted by our team with Naked Sky’s CTO Joshua Glazer. Naked Sky is also known for their previous XBLA title RoboBlitz, which was released back in November 2006z.

Microbot is a twin stick shooter that lets the player battle malicious viruses and diseases as a microscopic nanotech robot injected into someone’s bloodstream. As players travel travel through veins, bones, lungs and other organs, they can collected data fragments that allows them to customize their microbot with powerful weapons, defensive systems, movement parts, and special abilities. What got yours truly’s blood pumping about this title, is the planned cooperative drop-in/drop-out mode.
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It’s been a long time coming but finally the Xbox Live Arcade version of Quake 3 Arena, in the form of Quake Arena Arcade,  will be hitting the Marketplace this week Wednesday December 15th.

You of course can expect the standard Quake modes, Deathmatch, Capture the Flag and Harvester. You’ll be able to play across thirty classic maps and twelve Xbox-exclusive arenas. All of this with updated HD visuals and widescreen support to go with a new single player campaign.

You’ll be able to pick up Quake Arena Arcade for 1200 Microsoft points but while you wait you can check out the screenshots below.

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On December 21st, Microsoft will be kicking off 11 days of sales on the Xbox Marketplace.  Last year’s countdown to the new year sale was a huge success and this year’s sale promises to be even bigger.  It will cover less time but offer more items.  Last year, the sale was 1 deal per day for 20 days.  This year, there will be 3 deals per day for 11 days. Read More