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About Scott Baker

The only thing that makes Scott happier than playing a brilliant game is sharing a brilliant game with other people. Fun fact: some psychologists call this "vicarious pride." He studies psychology and therefore knows more about you than you do. He's also too ashamed to admit that his wife is better than him at Super Mario World. You can try to understand him on Twitter.
Latest Posts | By Scott Baker

Newsbits: Outlast, Valiant Hearts, Contrast and more out now

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Looking for something new to play during the post-E3 doldrums? You’ve come to the right place. A wave of new downloadable titles just hit Xbox 360 and Xbox One, so have a look at the fresh merchandise. You can expect full reviews soon for almost all of these.

Outlast: Whistleblower (Xbox One)

Last year’s survival-horror cult hit Outlast made a splash in people’s chairs. Now you can embarrass yourself in front of your Kinect! The main game is available for $19.99, and the Whistleblower DLC is available for $8.99. Get ready to run for your life.
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Tetris Ultimate brings the classic to Xbox One

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tetris ultimate title

Every console is better with Tetris, so Ubisoft is bringing the timeless classic to Xbox One in the form of Tetris Ultimate. The next-gen version will let up to four local players stack bricks in six different modes. Standard modes like Marathon and Endless maintain the classic’s legacy, while additional modes like Sprint and Power-up Battle mix up the formula.

Tetris Ultimate is set to release this summer. With a next-gen sheen running in 1080p and 60 framers per second, multicolored blocks never looked so good. See the screenshots below for a taste.

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Xbox One Games with Gold now available

Xbox Live Gold subscribers can now download Halo: Spartan Assault and Max: The Curse of Brotherhood for free on Xbox One. This officially starts the Games with Gold program for Xbox …
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Terraria coming to Xbox One this year

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505 Games has announced that the side-scrolling build ’em up adventure Terraria will be coming to Xbox One “later 2014.” It will include all of the content and fixes added …
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Native Alaskan tribute Never Alone coming to Xbox One this fall

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Upper One Games is beginning a new frontier by combining Native Alaskan cultural storytelling with interactive gaming this fall with Never Alone. Never Alone follows a young girl who must find a …
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Say hola to Guacamelee: Super Turbo Championship Edition
10 years ago

Say hola to Guacamelee: Super Turbo Championship Edition

It’s a shame that Xbox owners missed out on last year’s smash hit Guacamelee, but DrinkBox Studios is about that by bringing bring Guacamelee to all platforms with an expanded version called Super Turbo Championship Edition (STCE). XBLA Fans caught up with DrinkBox Co-founder Graham Smith at PAX East and spoke to Lead Designer Greg Lesky via email to find out more about what this new version of Guacamelee is all about, how it has evolved and why you should be excited.

For those not acquainted with Guacamelee, Lesky describes it as “a metroid-vania platformer where you play a farmer named Juan whose girlfriend gets kidnapped by a guy named Carlos Calaca bent on ruling both the Land of the Living and the Dead. He then kills Juan, who finds a mystical Luchador Mask that gives Juan the powers of a Mexican wrestler and [Juan returns] to the Land of the Living to stop him.” With these powers, the player fights, jumps and dimension-swaps to defeat Calaca’s undead hordes and save his girlfriend…and the world. The Super Turbo Championship Edition features all-new levels, enemies, upgrades, fixes and a boss fight, making this the definitive version of DrinkBox’s biggest game yet.

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Tomorrow’s huge Terraria 1.2 update will bring you back

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On Thursday April 17, Terraria owners can download version 1.2, which brings the XBLA game just about on par with the PC version. This free update adds all-new content: bosses, enemies, materials, friendly NPCs and pets. It also brings a massive load of bug fixes and game adjustments. If you were finished with Terraria before, you might want to come back and see all the new stuff!

We loved Terraria so much that we made a complete guide for you. Last October, we heard that a sequel was being planned, but creator Andrew “Redigit” Spinks wanted to focus on this 1.2 update. Now that it’s finished, maybe we will get some more concrete details on the sequel soon.

As for what exactly will be new in the update, check out the (big) official list of changes inside.

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Wolf Among Us Episode 3 coming next week, season pass $14.99

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Wolf Among Us ep3

Telltale Games tweeted earlier today that The Wolf Among Us Episode 3: A Crooked Mile will come to Xbox Live Arcade worldwide on Wednesday, April 9. Episodes are available for $4.99 each, but the season pass for all five currently costs $14.99.

For those of you keeping up with the series, we have a trailer below for you to see what’s next. You can also read our full review of the first episode.

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How Super Time Force developers redefined metaphysics

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Super Time Force

One of the best things about video games is creating impossible realities, but common notions of reality became a nuisance when Capy was making Super Time Force. It’s a side-scrolling action shooter in which you can gang up on enemies on the fly by creating multiple timelines. However, we personally experience only one timeline, so temporal paradoxes don’t come to mind until someone makes them into an interactive system. We have talked a little bit about this before, but at GDC, Capy Technical Director Kenneth Yeung disclosed to Gamasutra a few more details about the challenges and solutions devised throughout the evolution of Super Time Force.

Joking, Yeung said, “I got 99 problems and time is 100 of them.”

“We wanted to make something simple, easy, a fun action game,” Yeung continued. “But in reality, when you’re dealing with time, you’re dealing with something that’s complex and paradox-filled.”

As a result, Capy needed to create a new system of metaphysics to avoid messy paradoxes and keep the game fair and fun. “You can have a solid engine and idea,” Yeung explained, “but without these solid systems in place, your game will for sure break down.” As it turns out, those systems push a little further than your high school physics class curriculum.

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Constant C preview: Head spin
10 years ago

Constant C preview: Head spin

Constant C poster_Robot_B

Constant C is mixes time, space and gravity gameplay mechanics into a physics-based puzzle-platformer. It’s headed to Xbox Live Arcade next week, but we’ve already played it extensively and spoken with one of its three creators.

So what exactly is “Constant C”? Light Wang of Taiwan-based developer International Games System Co. (IGS) tells XBLA Fans that the title comes from “the equation of mass–energy equivalence [which] is E = MC2. Constant C is the speed of light.”

In the game, scientists were trying to break the speed of light, but accidentally stopped the flow of time instead. As a result, all objects are frozen in time except for on-board artificial intelligences, such as the player character.

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