Feature List

Many years ago a man and his two handy blades, jagged though they were, turned an entire crime organization on its head. Sometimes, when there was another ethereal controller being beside him, he was joined by his fellow anti-gang affiliate. This man, named Shank, armed only with twin shanks (and meat cleavers, and a katana, and a chainsaw, shotgun, SMG and dual pistols) brought frenetic brawler action complete with weapon fast-switching and combos along with crisp art and high-tier animation quality, and it appears that Klei Entertainment aims to give him shank-tion to do it again. We here at XBLAFans were lucky enough to score an interview with Klei Entertainment’s CEO, Jamie Cheng. Take a look at what he had to say after the jump. Read More

The real-time strategy genre is a category that has always eluded consoles. Every once in a while a developer will try to make an RTS game work with a controller. From time to time, it does work. Halo Wars for the Xbox 360 and Pikmin for the GameCube come to mind. But for some reason, real-time strategy games just haven’t been refined enough on consoles and the genre hasn’t taken off. Barriers such as the transition from mouse and keyboard to controller are often cited as the reason why.

Blizzard Entertainment is one of the few developers in the world, who never misses a beat. Every single thing they release is pure gold. They take care of their franchises, and they take their time to make sure that they release the best games possible. That is why I’m calling on Blizzard to be the ones to finally break open the real-time strategy market for consoles, by releasing the original StarCraft on Xbox Live Arcade.

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It’s a weird show this week. There’s not a whole lot to talk about XBLA related as a result this show is full of a few more tangents than the average one. We do talk some more about Dungeon Defenders though and there’s a few news stories to cover too. But we also hit a few retail related things, such as a certain Bat person’s newest game and some demos we tried out.

At the end of the show we try a little something new and bring the site’s Most Wanted feature to the audio realm as myself, Perry and Todd pick a game we’d like to see come to XBLA and explain why.

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/XBLAFancastEp35.mp3[/podcast]

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We recently had the opportunity to ask Chet Faliszek of Valve questions about the upcoming Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. When Global Offensive releases in the spring of next year, it will mark the first time that the true Counter-Strike experience will grace consoles. Read on to find out why Valve boldly believes that Global Offensive is the best iteration of Counter-Strike to date.

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It’s no secret that Nintendo isn’t in the best shape right now. After finding great success with the Nintendo DS, the Wii launched and got the masses talking about Nintendo once again. Then something happened. The Wii’s sales plummeted, the Nintendo 3DS launched poorly, and investors are questioning Nintendo’s direction with their next console, the Wii-U. Nintendo is desperately trying to gain back momentum. What happened to Nintendo’s mojo? Well, Microsoft, the Xbox 360 and Xbox Live Arcade all have something to do with it.

To truly understand what’s at play here, we have to first consider why Nintendo has historically been a successful company. Nintendo has always excelled at making games that appeal to the masses. Nintendo makes games that anyone can pick up and play. Mario has been a part of our living room since 1983 because Mario games have always been easily approachable for anyone who wants to sit down and play. Whether it’s you, your little sister, your best buddy or your dead beat uncle, Nintendo makes products for everyone. When Nintendo is succeeding, it has always been the case. So why are the tables turning?

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While playing Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team this past week something occurred to me; Xbox Live Arcade is the perfect venue for developers and publishers to introduce players to a gaming universe. Kill Team is a perfect example. Here you have a straight forward old school arcade style co-op shooter set in the Warhammer universe. I bought it because I had always read a lot about the Warhammer universe online and because I’m a fan of shooters. I invited a buddy down, we had our fun with the game and I quickly picked off the last few achievements in Kill Team by myself in the following days to officially “complete” everything the game had to offer.

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Some folks out there are currently pulling off insane combos and special moves against opponents in the recently released Marvel Vs. Capcom 3. One character in the game hasn’t been his own adventure in over five years; Viewtiful Joe.  His adventures combine the simplicity of a beat-em up with the powers of a superhero that could manipulate time. The story is very Last Action Hero — Joe’s girlfriend has been kidnapped and it’s up to Joe to learn to be a hero and rescue her.  It’s the perfect setting for an Xbox Live Arcade game.  To bring Viewtiful Joe back in HD  would bring in a whole new audience with to enjoy the great gameplay and beautiful, cel-shaded graphics.

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Last September, Sega taunted Dreamcast fans by saying that enough interest in Chu Chu Rocket! would be enough to bring the beloved puzzle game to Xbox Live Arcade. Given lukewarm critical and fan response to Sega’s latest XBLA offering, we think the company should do just about anything to make its fans happy right now. Read More