About Steve Melton

The gang at Zen Studios know how to take care of their fans. They are constantly releasing new downloadable tables for Pinball FX2. We’ve seen our share of Marvel-themed tables recently, but Zen has something different up their sleeve this time around. On October 12 players can download the Sorcerer’s Lair table, one that used to be a PS3 Zen Pinball exclusive. We had previously reported that both Sorcerer’s Lair and Paranormal would be coming to Xbox 360 owners, but now we’ve got a firm date for one of them. Hit the jump for the full press release and additional screenshots.

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Yesterday Digital Reality released the Extreme Fighters Pack DLC for their racing combat flyer SkyDrift. The content retails for 160 MSP and features three unique planes: the Triwing Vintage, …
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Joystiq got their hands on the upcoming bullet hell shooter Sine Mora. In the above footage Digital Reality Creative Director Theodore Reiker guides them through the gameplay mechanics. The …
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Beat em’ ups are awesome. There’s nothing like delivering some blows to a virtual bad guy to calm a rough day. The list of great beat em’ ups is a mile long, but one stands out as a great candidate for re-release on Xbox Live Arcade: Def Jam Fight for New York. Of the four Def Jam fighting games it stands head and shoulders above its peers. Vendetta, the first game in the series, was great, but didn’t have the features New York first exhibited. The PSP version of New York, subtitled The Takeover, had a few new gameplay elements but removed all voiceovers. Finally Icon, the only current-gen title, was absolutely horrible, taking fighting far beyond over-the-top to a point where it’s comically awful.

No, there’s only one in the series that could truly make a comeback.

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According to a recent Australian Classification Database rating, Daytona USA may be making its way to multiple platforms in the near future. Its listing mentions merely that it’s multi-platform, …
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SkyDrift was developed by Digital Reality and published by Namco Bandai. It was released September 7, 2011 for 1200 MSP. A copy of the game was provided for review purposes.

Any fan of arcade racing games loves the Mario Kart series, and any fan of Mario Kart knows and loves Diddy Kong Racing as well. It introduces planes into the racing combat genre, something that more experienced players fell in love with. Others tried to take plane combat to new levels: in 1998 Inner Workings released Plane Crazy, a visually realistic take on the genre. Unfortunately nothing ever met with DKR‘s level of success–that is until now. SkyDrift is the perfect combination of Diddy Kong Racing‘s combat system, Plane Crazy‘s realistic art style and visuals on par with Hydro Thunder Hurricane. It’s beautiful, action packed, and frankly a complete blast.

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We know some of you are having issues with the site, specifically with older  posts. Basically when you click Older Posts you get taken back to July 14 of …
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A few days back Zen Studios sought to defend Microsoft from the consistent attacks by naysayers. In a press statement they not only detailed their own positive experience, but  …
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It seems like everyone likes to gang up on Microsoft, but I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s for attention, maybe it’s from bitterness, maybe they’re ignorant to the goings on behind the scenes, and maybe, just maybe, their beef with MS is justified. But honestly I’m tired of what I largely consider to be whining. I just want to break out the world’s smallest violin and play a sad song for them. I realize that sometimes the process developers must follow complying with Xbox Live is tough, but that’s why we don’t get several patches for a game, why we have the most secure network, and why we as consumers are happy with our service.

What’s coming next may seem a little sharp to some. Please remember that this is an editorial, so it’s my opinion, and mine only.

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Monday Night Combat developer Uber Entertainment recently announced Super Monday Night Combat. The game is essentially the next evolution in their gameplay, sporting new classes, adjusted gameplay and new locales. But so far it’s only been announced for PC. Uber has declined to comment on other platforms which could possibly mean that it would come to Xbox Live Arcade as well. But what about XBLA players of MNC and their promised additional DLC? Uber stated that with MNC being their freshman effort on consoles they didn’t fully understand the process. The continued updates and content proved to be a daunting process, and one that they could not sustain themselves on. Sorry, XBLA players, you’re not getting your promised DLC–not even the PC-exclusive map Uncle Tully’s Funland. Executive Producer Chandana “Ekanaut” Ekanayake had this apologetic statement for fans:

We fully expected a sh*tstorm from our console players and rightfully so. We’re sorry you feel like we’re kicking you while you’re down but for us to continue as a developer we need to push for changes and be able to sustain ourselves as a development studio. I wish I could say more about ongoing developments, but like you’ve seen with our posts, changes happen fast sometimes and somethings take a lot longer then we think.

This is somewhat of a departure from what we gathered back in June. Ekanaut stated that “Everything we’ve posted over the years on this forum has been the truth at that time. We gain absolutely nothing by leading or lying to our fans.”  He further cited Valve’s Managing Director Gabe Newell’s desire to bring Steam service to the Xbox 360, noting that until this happens frequent, live updates are much more difficult.

Fan reaction was about as varied as you could get.

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