XBLA price drops, sales and releases include Rotastic, Walking Dead, and Terraria
Major Nelson has announced on his blog some new titles and valuable sales coming up in the next few weeks, some of which start now! The Walking Dead is among the deals, …
Read More
Monaco has passed certification
Andy Schatz from Pocketwatch Games has confirmed on Twitter that Monaco, one of our anticipated games of 2013, has passed certification. You know what that means: we should get …
Read More
Battleblock Theater opens April 3
We’ve been waiting a long time for Battleblock Theater, but that wait is nearly over. In a video recapping our anxiety and anticipation over the years, those tricksters at …
Read More
SuperGiant Games reveals Transistor coming 2014
SuperGiant games, the creators of Bastion, just announced on Twitter a reveal trailer for their upcoming game Transistor. You can see it above! As for whether or not this will come …
Read More
11 years ago
Minecraft on Xbox 360 releasing on retail disc April 30
If you aren’t among the millions who have already downloaded Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition, you will soon find yourself presented with another option when the game becomes available on a disc. According to PlayXBLA, the disc will contain everything from the original downloadable game, including the most recent title updates and content. It will also work in conjunction with other players and receive updates just like the downloadable game. In other words, it is the exact same game, just not loaded on your hard drive.
After its US release on April 30 it will come to Australia, Hong Kong, India, New Zealand, Singapore and Taiwan in early June. You can see the box it’ll come packed in right after the jump.
11 years ago
Scott Pilgrim DLC and more coming to Xbox Live Arcade
Major Nelson has released the list of content hitting the Xbox Marketplace today. Among the releases is the fickle Scott Pilgrim DLC that introduces online multiplayer and an additional playable …
Read More
Jon Blow and Team Meat done with Xbox
In recent interviews with Edge and Eurogamer, the makers of Braid and Super Meat Boy expressed their frustration with developing for Xbox Live Arcade. As independent developers, taking on the heated business of console development on top of development costs is more stress than its worth, say the developers.
“The overhead cost of just developing for those consoles is insane,” explained Tommy Refenes from Team Meat. “It costs zero dollars to develop on Steam if you already have a computer. 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.'”
On top of development costs, there are lawyers, fees and ambiguity to sort through that cause an equally overwhelming headache. Ed McMillen from Team Meat said that to bring his studio’s games to consoles, his team would need “some magical middleman who would just appear and do all of our business for us… We went in and found out what it was like to develop for a console and the reality is there’s no loyalty on either side and it’s a business. And when you step in to that business arena it goes from us making art and it turns into business.”
Alien Spidy creeps to XBLA March 20
Kalypso Media has officially confirmed the highly anticipated Alien Spidy will come to Xbox Live Arcade on Wednesday, March 20. This glowing side-scroller casts you as an extraterrestrial arachnid capable of web-slinging like a commando with bionic alterations. The press release promises “a single-player action-platformer packed with dozens of challenging levels, boss fights, and a colorful array of insectoid, mammalian, and amphibious enemies that are as cute as they are deadly.”
As one of our anticipated games of 2013, we’ve had a few chances to play it. We also interviewed the developers about its evolution. Inside you can find some newly released screenshots, and you can check out the recent trailer to see the game in action!
Double Fine seeks to reclaim distribution rights from THQ
Two months after the tragic collapse of long-time publisher THQ, we’re still watching the dust settle. In the mix is Double Fine, whose priority is not letting its hard …
Read More
11 years ago
Serious Sam’s Nathan Fouts loves ‘crazy-ass guns’
We’ve just seen the release of Serious Sam Double D XXL, a game we recommended for its classic shooting action rebuilt into two dimensions. Behind all its artistic style, crazy weapons and even more crazy enemies is one man: Nathan Fouts, owner of indie development studio Mommy’s Best Games. We caught up with him to ask about how he put together Serious Sam Double D XXL, starting from its inception on PC to its massive expansion on Xbox Live Arcade. When we asked how it feels to have the game out and finished, he joked, “I think I’m still ready to go back to sleep!”
Serious Sam’s jump to 2D
Serious Sam is a beloved franchise known for its old-school Doom-esque shooting that relies heavily on strafing and jumping while making players fight off swarms of aliens, monsters and headless kamikaze bombers. Leveraging his PC popularity, Serious Sam has gone on to make numerous cameos on Xbox Live Arcade in both new and classic games. However, they have all been 3-dimensional first-person shooters. How did Fouts score a gig that involved smashing it into two dimensions? As it turns out, “Devolver came to us and said that they were interested in this prospect and that it involved Croteam [the creators] and the Serious Sam franchise,” he explained. “I just about flipped my lid. I couldn’t believe it. [They told me] they liked our stuff and they’d like us to do this indie version.”