13 years ago
XBLAFans’ Most Anticipated Games of 2012
Judging by the amount of games we expect to release this year, we already know that 2012 is going to be the biggest year yet for Xbox Live Arcade. With that in mind, we decided to ask each of our staff members to choose one game that they’re really looking forward to playing this year, and tell us exactly what we have to look forward to and why. Without further ado, we present to you XBLAFans Most Anticipated Games of 2012.
13 years ago
XBLA’s Most Wanted: Crimson Skies
Crimson Skies is a very elaborate universe set during the 1930’s, or to be more accurate an alternate 1930’s. The United States is in ruins, having Balkanized into several small jurisdictions. Planes have become the most common form of transportation, leading to the birth of air pirates.
There have been two video game installments, Crimsons Skies and Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge. Both games revolve around Nathan Zachary, leader of an air pirate gang known as the Fortune Hunters. Crimson Skies always provided players with great flight controls, minor plane customization and a world that is deep, rich, and very intriguing.
13 years ago
Friday Top Five: XBLA Games as TV Shows or Movies
Over the years, we’ve seen many video games turn to Movies or TV shows. From Pac-Man to Sonic to Viewtiful Joe at one point, some of these characters are some we want to see on our small screen when we get home from work or school. So for today’s Friday Top Five, we’re taking some XBLA games and seeing how they would turn out as Movies or TV shows.
13 years ago
XBLA Fancast Special: Shank 2 Interview
We love ourselves a good 2D anything here at XBLA Fans, so this week we interviewed Jamie Cheng, Founder of Klei Entertainment. Klei is known for many things, but chiefly here on XBLA we know them for developing Shank, a 2D brawler filled to the brim with weapons, stabbing, shooting and most of all, shanking. We’ve interviewed Jamie before about the game, but this time we got in-depth and talk at length about all things Shank, Shank 2 and Klei in general.
Specifically speaking Jamie discusses a bit of his opinions on Shank and how he and his team wanted to improve on what they achieved with Shank. We discuss some of the flaws in Shank and how they’ve been addressed in Shank 2. On top of that, we discuss the reasoning behind choosing a survival mode as this game’s multiplayer mode instead of another co-op campaign. There’s also plenty of Klei-related talk for those interested in learning more about an indie developer.
Any fans of brawlers should check out Shank and Shank 2, the latter of which has had plenty of awesome coverage over the last couple months. There’s single player footage and footage of the new survival mode as well as all kinds of cool things for fans like this Shank 3D papercraft. There have been quite a few changes to the Shank experience for Shank 2 and Jamie and I spare no detail when discussing them, especially with survival mode.
Shank 2 is out on XBLA on February 8 for 800MSP.
[podcast]https://xblafans.com/xblafancast/XBLAFancast_Interview_Klei.mp3[/podcast]
13 years ago
XBLAFancast Episode 47 – The UNO Diaries
Andrew returns this week for a bumper episode, lots of games and news to talk about and we even debut another new segment!
We kick things off talking about last week’s releases of Quarrel and Puddle, unlike some other weeks we’ve actually played enough of these to have an informed discussion!
Perry of course brings all the big news stories, for the full posts of those check below for links.
For this week’s Todd Talk, Todd has some feelings on The Behemoth’s recent statement that they’re going back to the drawing board with Battleblock Theatre.
Finally, we debut Community Corner, in which Andrew grabs some twitter questions from you guys and also sets a challenge. This week he wants everyone to check out Switchball and send their thoughts to us on twitter, so get to it!
Please subscribe, comment, review the podcast on iTunes and tell your friends! We appreciate it! Check us out on twitter (@XBLAFans) where you can win codes for games, give us feedback or just ask a question.
Big thanks again to Chris Green for the awesome theme music, be sure to check out his site BlurredEdge and why not follow him on twitter too @BlurredEdge.
[podcast]https://xblafans.com/xblafancast/XBLAFancastEp47.mp3[/podcast]
13 years ago
XBLA Fans: XBLA in review 2011
A look at 2011, seeking trends and other information any XBLA Fan would be interested in…
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13 years ago
Digital Reality discusses Bang Bang Racing’s features and design choices
Racing games on XBLA are constantly struggling for uniqueness. These racers, many of which are top-down, have to find a way to stand out and really pull ahead of the pack. Some games go with zany weaponry, some go with a fun and light nature, and some are very competitive. Bang Bang Racing, the upcoming product of a collaboration between well-known XBLA developer and publisher Digital Reality and Playbox, is out to make a name for itself and we just have to find out how they plan to do it! Hit the jump for a Q & A with Bang Bang Racing‘s Digital Reality-side Lead Designer, András “Amper” Timár-Geng. Read More
13 years ago
Mini-Editorial: Ending the FIFA 12 hacks
The following is the opinion of one editor, and does not represent the opinions of XBLAFans as a whole.
“Gamertag was last signed in on another console.” That’s what my 360 said as I signed in just before Christmas. I immediately checked the family bank account. Sure enough, the hacker had nearly drained our money, meaning that for the next five or six days we’d be living off what was in the fridge. Now the fridge wasn’t empty, but we always do our shopping throughout the week, so things that we needed to make our normal meals we couldn’t get. The family survived with no major issues, but the annoyance and utter frustration others had felt suddenly became very real. They weren’t just stealing my Microsoft Points, it could affect the way we ran our family.
Every big entity gets hacked, though. I get that. I’ve seen Twitter and Facebook accounts hacked, bank accounts, all sorts of things in my time as an IT guy. Even though I was annoyed with Microsoft, they weren’t any less secure than anyone else, it’s just that the frequency of attacks increased since the release of FIFA 12. How much? Well let’s put it into perspective: we now have roughly 20 active members on our staff. Of those 20, four have been victims of the FIFA hack. That’s a 1-in-5 ratio. That’s what’s called rampancy, folks.
