Parties are one of the oldest institutions of humankind, from the time fire was discovered to the latest significant party somebody everyone cares about attended. Perhaps something involving Tony Stark. Whether pre-historic or in fantasy land, parties always need something fun going on. Gaming, as it so happens, is pretty darn fun. However, recently the retail video game industry has decided partying with people within smelling distance means no gaming, and we here at XBLA Fans think that’s mighty stinky of them. In light of that, we’ve made this week’s Friday Top Five about XBLA games that dominate parties in one way or another.

5. Fruit Ninja Kinect 

Not every party has a Kinect, and not every party needs one, but those parties which have one should definitely be slicing fruit with as little regard for fruit-kind or remorse for the millenniums of fruitocide which they have suffered through as possible. FNK is the absolute funkay (get it?) fun time when it comes to arm flailing, personal space invading, or reputation undermining (sometimes all at once)! While this game isn’t four player inclusive like the other games on this list, it’s very fun to play and is a great ice breaker. Since Fruit Ninja Kinect takes advantage of abilities most people acquired and mastered at age three or four (the waving of the arms) there’s really nobody that can’t play this game.

There’s not a lot of depth to Fruit Ninja Kinect unfortunately, and when the party gets over the gameplay, there’s not much chance they’ll get back to it. However, one person can play or two people can play competitively and there will be enough for players to rotate and get their dose of being silly and enthusiastic before everyone’s guilt for the countless fruit deaths starts to take its toll.

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Back to a three man show this week, myself, Perry and Todd haven’t been playing too much this week. There has however been a whole lot of news so we talk about that, there sure are a lot of games coming out in February.

We also debut a brand new segment! It’s called Todd Talk and it involves Todd talking, it’s ingenius naming I’m sure you’ll agree. For his first Todd Talk our guide co-ordinator extrordinaire shares some thoughts on DLC in relation to XBLA games.

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.

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Maybe we’re a little biased here, but we think Xbox LIVE is a great service. Sure, other services on other consoles and PC are offered for free, but so much is offered to LIVE members that it seems a small thing to pony up the equivalent of $5 USD each month for it. We get exclusive games, we often get earlier access to digital titles, and we have a plethora of other media outlets like Netflix, Hulu, UFC and YouTube. There’s always room for improvement, however, and there are a few things that for reasons that remain a mystery have not been touched on. We submit these as an official fan letter to Microsoft.

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We’re all back in XBLA land.
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The Nintendo has always had a fond place in many gamers hearts and one of the forgotten games from that era is Fester’s Quest. It was a top-down view action game based off of none other then Uncle Fester from the Addams Family. The story line was completely off the wall, Aliens appear and start taking over the town, so you (Fester) grab your gun and go forth to become the savior. Encountering many of the Addams family members along the way who help you and make for some rather funny run-ins. Fester’s Quest was was a fun adventure taking you all over town, creating chaos with all sorts of aliens and bosses.

Fester’s Quest relied heavily on the actual fun of the gameplay, which is all games really had back then, requiring you to stay in-tune with what was going on if you wanted to continue on to the next section. The over-head view  gives a very Zelda-like feel, but was not the only one you encountered during this journey. As you find out the developers ventured into 3D with mazes that you had to journey through in certain sections. Filled with tons of weapons, characters, enemies and collectible items, Fester’s Quest provided an abundance of entertainment for its era.
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Voltron: Defender of the Universe proved that we could get our nostalgia back in downloadable titles. But while it’s a great cartoon universe, think of the possibilities for other classic cartoons to come back as XBLA games. We were raised on some of the best cartoons back then and some of them didn’t have games or had poorly licensed games that made no sense. So for the Friday Top Five today, we present you five cartoons that could use a comeback on XBLA for a new audience of fulfilling your need of nostalgia:

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Sorry for the late show this week folks, lots of technical difficulties this week. As such the podcast may sound a bit odd in places, little jumps in audio and such. Not ideal but it shouldn’t effect your enjoyment of the show too much.

In this weeks episode we talk about the upcoming House Party promotion and then take the opportunity to discuss our most anticipated games of 2012.

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.

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Huge thanks to the entire team of writers who worked on this article: Christine Mitchell, Nathan Bowring, Perry Jackson, Ryan Reynolds and Todd Schlickbernd.

We’ve spent the past week searching the internet and hounding our industry contacts in an effort to compile the ultimate 2012 XBLA Game Release List. We anticipated one heck of a year for Xbox Live Arcade. So epic we couldn’t even fit everything on one page. So without further ado, check out the list:

For detailed descriptions of each of the games and videos check the links below.

XBLAFans Anticipated 2012 Releases A-B
Alan Wake’s American Nightmare
Alien Spidy
AMY
Anomaly Warzone Earth
Awesomenauts
Babel Rising
Bang Bang Racing
Battleblock Theater
Black Knight Sword
Blade Kitten: Episode 2
Bloodforge

XBLAFans Anticipated 2012 Releases C-F
Capsized
Charlie Murder
Choplifter HD
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Deep Black Episode 1 & 2
Defenders of Ardania
Diabolical Pitch
Dust: An Elysian Tail
Dungeon Fighter Live (unannounced title)
Fez

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Didn’t think we’d keep this going? Too much work? Too much copy paste? No such thing! The XBLA Fans Monthly Roundup is back again this time displaying a clear love for features! December was a month of features as we all tackled new ideas, new plans and executed them (hopefully flawlessly). Witness the beginning of the Friday Top Five, a top five list of things pertaining to one awesome thing (because why not?), and the XBLA Primer, a nifty batch of background history on a developer’s XBLA history as well as a list of their games. Hopefully these features will be well liked as we have plans to permeate the rest of the new year with them as well as our other veteran features.

Lastly, don’t forget to check out our Game of the Year awards listed in the Features section!

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