Feature List

On Day 2 of our 12 Days of XBLA, we’re giving away a couple copies of Fez. All you need to do to enter today’s contest is post the answer to the following question in the comments section below:

Question: Aside from a fez, what other cool accessory does Gomez eventually acquire when you complete the game at least once?

The winner of yesterday’s contest is:  Josh (@josh_heroin) – You have won a copy of Alan Wake’s American Nightmare. We will be in touch with you today on Twitter!

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Welcome to Day 1 of the 12 Days of XBLA! To start things off in the right direction, we are going to give away the game pictured above. The trick is that it has been put through a few Photoshop filters to make it a little bit challenging. Post your best guess in the comments section below for a chance to win. And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter for even more chances to win. Good luck!

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And the 12 Days of XBLA promotion is finally upon us. For the next 12 days, we will be giving out some of the finest XBLA games that were released in the past year. Each day will hold two chances for you to win one specific game. There will be a chance to win here on the XBLAFans.com website and a chance to win on our Twitter stream. So you better go follow @XBLAFans on Twitter right now if you haven’t done so already. The first day of contests will start in approximately 2 hours!

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Look after the pennies, and the pounds (or dollars, euros, pesos or whatever) will take care of themselves. Or at least, that’s what our parents used to tell us, right?

That may be sensible where traditional currency is concerned, but it’s not a strategy that converts well into MSP. Waiting for sales and bargains may be the cheapest way of buying XBLA games – but what if the game you want never goes on sale? What if everyone else has moved on and you lose out on the best bit of a fantastic co-op game like Lara Croft: GOL or a community-focused game like Section 8: Prejudice? What if you think you’re buying something you want, but actually you just bought it because it was cheap and you end up wasting MSP anyway?

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The transforming d-pad conversions are available exclusively at QuickdrawMods.com, and are available in three variants. Consumers can receive a full replacement shell with transforming d-pad for USD $26.99, get just the top and transforming d-pad for $19.99, or send in their controller for modification for $18.98. Conversions were provided for review purposes.

It’s no secret that amidst the great elements that together make the Xbox 360 controller there’s one gaping flaw. It’s a flaw that all the comfortable fit, intuitive layout and visual appeal can’t fix: the horrid d-pad. It’s utterly evil that such a thing of beauty can be brought down by such a completely flimsy design flaw. It’s rigid, it’s unresponsive, and it feels like there’s a gap the size of the grand canyon between the plastic and the circuit board.

Microsoft sought to clean that blemish on an otherwise perfect reputation during the holiday 2010 season with the transforming d-pad controller. It promised more precise controls by allowing players to have the standard 8-way “flat” design they were used to, or to raise the d-pad up into a 4-way “plus” position for tighter digital control. It worked. It’s not a perfect fix, but it addresses some of the precision issues players have with the controller. The problem is that there isn’t a lot of choice when it comes to these new controllers. It’s silver or a special edition Halo 4, Modern Warfare 3, Gears of War 3, or Fable 3 controller.

I bought one of the silver transforming d-pad shells on eBay. It was a pull from a working controller, but was apparently never actually in use. I quickly got to work installing it on one of my controllers, which aside from needing to purchase an inexpensive special screwdriver, was incredibly easy. I kept my original black Start and Back buttons, colored A, B, X, and Y buttons, and intalled black thumbsticks to finish it off. After just one night I was hooked. This new d-pad felt amazing. I wanted all my controllers to have it.

So I set to work hunting down YouTube do-it-yourself videos as I do when nearly anything in my house breaks or I want to customize something. I quickly realized that I’d much rather see if there was a professional alternative. I didn’t want to hack up my shell and have nothing to show for it but pieces in the end. I found only one company who provides a professional system for modifying the shells, QuickdrawMods. I contacted them and soon an agreement was made in which I would send my white, black, and red tops (above) in for modification.

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As a modern gamer it’s easy to look back on Nintendo’s SNES and create a list of RPGs that would probably include several of the genre’s best examples across all platforms. Back in 1993, though, many western gamers (both in Europe and the US alike) were frustrated by the lack of console RPGs that appealed to their popular culture, despite the undeniable quality of JRPGs like Ogre Battle, Secret of Mana and even Zelda: A Link to the Past. Systems like the Amiga featured all the best “adult” games and no matter what we think now, the SNES, with its army of cute, blue-haired RPG protagonists, was considered to be strictly for kids by most adults.

For many, Shadowrun’s release on the SNES changed everything. Based on a pen and paper RPG and featuring a detailed, complex story that incorporated grizzled mercenaries, violent gangs and an acidic populace of orks, trolls and cybernetically enhanced humans, all crammed into a dystopian future of magic and technology; Shadowrun basically delivered everything that European and American kids had grown up watching in movies and cartoons since the early 1980’s.

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Download the official Awesomenauts XBLA guide to your iOS or Android device.
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‘Tis the season to buy XBLA
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XBLAFans was able to sit in on a conference call last week with Guardians of Middle-earth Producer Bob Roberts and Senior Producer Ruth Pomandl. They shared intricate details about the game’s development process, what it was like to balance a MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) game for the console space and some details about how various systems will work in the game.

Players new to the MOBA genre should consider checking out Monolith’s own video tutorial series explaining it. The basic idea, though, is that players choose one of a number of heroes (five of them are unlocked initially, and the others are unlocked via in-game currency), and fight on a team of five champions against a team of five other champions. While each champion has unique talents and attributes, there are five basic character archetypes. These include:

• Enchanters –- low maximum health and low physical damage, but they output lots of ability damage and withstand ability damage better than other classes.

• Defenders –- high survivability but low damage.

• Warriors –- the most balanced class and the most versatile as a result. They take a fair amount of damage and deal a fair amount in return.

• Strikers –- the physical damage equivalent of Enchanters, meaning lots of damage but very low survivability.

• Tacticians –- slightly more survivability than average but focus on AOE disruption and controlling the flow of movement across a lane.

In most PC MOBA games, players shop at an item store for items to upgrade their characters as the game progresses. Guardians mixes things up by introducing a less UI-intensive series of systems that should help make the console experience go more smoothly. Players can set loadouts similar to League of Legends rune and mastery systems  before a game begins, except that the loadout options in Guardians are even more extensive. There are three loadout systems in place for players to manage and utilize throughout a game — Potions, Commands and Guardian Belts.

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OK, so we can relate to the N64 kid. The most obvious thing we at XBLA Fans have in common with him is this: we love video games. However, because our team ranges in location and age, we all have our own unique stories. Since it seems like everyone’s nostalgia bone loves to be tickled every now and then, we decided to take a look at some of our staff’s best gaming memories. Whether their first console was an Atari or an N64, it’s been chronicled here in this brief history of our gaming pasts. Join us as we relive some of our fondest childhood — and adulthood, in some cases! — memories.

Once you’ve read about us, hop into the comments and share some of your own favorite gaming memories!

My earliest memory, is me sitting with my teddy bear playing Super Mario Bros. The NES was my first console. You could nearly always find me glued to the TV playing games like Mike Tyson’s Punch Out (Mr. Dream just didn’t do it for me), Karate Kid, Double Dribble basketball, just to name a few. In fact, one of my best memories was watching my mom beat Super Mario Bros. 3. I soon beat it, because I couldn’t let my mom beat the game without me beating it too! On the other side, my dad and I would play NES Play Action Football  and WWF Wrestlemania constantly. Later in my lifetime I found out he was letting me win. Not cool, dad.

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