About Steve Melton

Xbox LIVE Arcade is a sort of safe haven for gamers who just want to enjoy their games. It’s a place where microtransactional games are minimal, and rarely pay-and-pay-to-play. It’s a place where pre-order bonuses do not exist, and one that doesn’t artificially lengthen a game with pointless quests. Here we can play a game that’s free of the adult content that feels so forced in retail titles. Here we can play without having political and religious agendas pushed on us. Here we can simply be gamers.

I love digital titles. I love that I don’t have to clutter my cabinet with discs. I love that I can have access to them at any time, and that the stereotypical moocher friend can’t borrow my digital games. I love how pick-up-and-play they are. I never feel forced to devote an hour or more to one play session. If I only have 10 minutes, I’ve got time for XBLA. It’s freeing. Here’s a list of problems that plague retail titles that remain (relatively) free from Xbox LIVE Arcade games.

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Mars: War Logs is quickly shaping up to be one of the most visually impressive Xbox LIVE Arcade games to date. It’s an interesting mix of action and RPG. Think of it as one part Red Faction, one part Batman: Arkham series, and one part Mass Effect series.

Players control Roy Temperance, your typical ‘I-have-a-murky-past’ character. War is being waged over Mars’ most precious resource, water, and Roy is stuck right in the middle of it. The setting feels very much like the Mars-in-fiction we’ve come to know over the years, and closely resembles Marauder territory in the Red Faction: Origins film released in 2011.

Combat is handled much like today’s “crowd fight” titles. As with the Batman: Arkham and Assassin’s Creed games, Roy will be equipped to handle multiple foes at once. Three available combat skill trees will help players specialize their character as a melee, ranged or “technomancer” combatant. Players can evade enemy attacks by rolling, and combine melee and ranged attack for maximum efficiency.

Much like the Mass Effect games, Roy will have traveling companions. They will assist him in combat and on his missions, which will be doled out by various NPCs found throughout the game. Roy can use his charm (or intimidation factor) to influence conversations with characters. The game also has a crafting system, powered by items found on corpses or looted from the gameplay world. These can be used to create or upgrade weapons and armor, the latter of which will also change Roy’s appearance. All of these experiences lead to XP that will level up Roy and, presumably, his companions.

Mars: War Logs is being developed by Spiders and published by Focus Home Interactive. It’s currently set for a Spring 2013 release, but no hard date or price point has been set. Given what we’ve seen so far we’re pretty confident this will fall into the 1200 MSP or above price range. It seems to be quite an in-depth title, and we’re looking forward to another visit to the Red Planet. Hit the jump for additional screenshots.

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Finally you get to see just how bad a player I am
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Oh, Carmageddon. We spent far too much time with it in the ’90s. At the time it was the best game for vehicle mayhem and destruction. So when Carmageddon: …
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Payday: The Heist is a cooperative first-person shooter involving a criminal gang completing objectives such as robbing banks. It’s a game exclusive to the PC and PlayStation 3. …
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The crafty members of NeoGAF‘s forums have discovered yet another possible unannounced XBLA game, Strider. Box art (found after the jump) was found on xbox.com some time in January, but was promptly removed from the site. The discovery went largely unnoticed until Polygon reported just days ago that a Steam achievement was also found for the game.

According to Eurogamer, a reboot of the series was in development at Bionic Commando Rearmed developer GRIN before the company went belly up in 2009. Capcom is expected to announce new games at PAX East this weekend. Could Strider be getting the remake treatment? Is it a new installment? Is it a re-release as part of the Capcom Arcade Cabinet? Possibly. The original release was in 1989, and thus far we’ve only received the 1985 and 1986 game packs. Either way, more of Strider Hiryu could never be a bad thing.

Sources: NeoGAF, Polygon, Eurogamer

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A great RedLynx pick, more marble games, and a new community challenge track. Plus I talk about the possibilities of seeing Trials HD as DLC in Trials Evolution on the 360.
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Monday Night Combat was a favorite amongst the XBLA Fans team. From the summer of 2010 up until some time in 2012 we’d often take a few nights a month to get our game on. But as time went on promises made by MNC developer Uber Entertainment weren’t being fulfilled. Fans didn’t know why. Uber brought the game to the PC, where it received several updates, including a new map, Uncle Tully’s Funland (seen below). Rumors even floated around about the possibility to let players create their own maps using the Unreal Development Kit (UDK).

So why the move? As we reported in June 2011, the Xbox 360 version had more players than the PC version, so why wouldn’t it make sense to continue supporting it? Things got even more confusing three months later when Uber announced that it was dropping support for the game all together in favor of its sequel, Super Monday Night Combat, which was to be a free-to-play PC exclusive. Fans were split on the matter, many supported the struggling developer, while others were outraged.

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Call of Juarez: Gunslinger was first revealed last September. Since then it’s been fairly quiet on the news front. Finally the silence has been broken by the release of …
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Week 2 of our Trials HD/Trials Evolution: Gold Edition tribute is now a go.
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