Features

Fable has never been the most serious or mature of RPG franchises. Players were as likely to save the kingdom and behave regally as they were to let one rip. After gong hands-on with the 4-player hack ‘n slash Fable Heroes at PAX East, though, it’s clear that Lionhead Studios has moved the series into more family-friendly territory than it has in the past. Up to four players take control of cutesy characters that look like marionettes and slash and spell cast their way through swaths of hobbes and other native baddies of Albion. You move in a linear path and mow down the monsters that flood the screen en route to a boss fight — a giant beetle that shoots projectiles and slams into the ground in the case of the PAX demo that several of us from XBLA Fans played in Boston this past weekend.

Oversized gold coins drop when enemies are overcome, which creates a near-constant scramble to get your hands on more than the other members of your party. The coins are used to buy upgrades in the time between stages, and they can also be transferred into Fable: The Journey. In addition, any of the 12 puppets that gamers can take control of in Heroes will pop up in their inventories in the forthcoming Kinect game.

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There’s nothing more enticing than that tease, that pinch, that itch you get from a fantastic trailer. With retail games, so many of them get these bloated budgets and the trailers get absolutely insane, but XBLA has to rely on their creativity! Their imagination! Their sense of wonder!… And yes, money also. However, not every trailer is amazing, but the best ones combine with some great games and catchy trailer ideas to really entice you. This week’s Friday Top Five will be about these beautiful, and often evil, displays of awesome, wallet-attacking footage. We were looking for that marriage of gameplay, story, presentation and shameless plugging, and we’ve found the best examples of it.

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For a long time, fans of XBLA knew little about Grounding Inc’s so-called Project Draco – it was being developed by the same guy who made the classic Panzer Dragoon games, it would be an on-rails shooter, and the Unreal Engine made it look unbelievably gorgeous – but that’s about it. Fast forward to about a month and a half ago, the title was officially announced to be Crimson Dragon and a little more information trickled out. It was still hard to get a grip on how exactly this title would turn out, so we took some time at PAX to stop by the booth and play through the demo so we could fill you in on why exactly Microsoft is so stoked about this game.

If you’ve played Child of Eden, you already have a basic idea of how the gameplay will work. Before we go any further though, I want to assure each and every one of you: this game plays a heck of a lot better than Child of Eden. Don’t get me wrong, I loved both Rez HD and its spiritual successor, but at the time it came out the Kinect controls just felt a little… off. Crimson Dragon takes all the best parts of the control scheme and pushes them to a whole ‘nother level – and it works beautifully.

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This summer will mark four years since The Behemoth-developed beat ’em up Castle Crashers made its debut on Xbox Live Arcade and quickly became the go-to cooperative game for seemingly every XBLA gamer with three people on their friends list. The tiny studio behind the game hasn’t rested on its laurels since achieving well-deserved success by capturing gamers’ hearts with Crashers — its followup to Alien Hominid — though. The team, which now boasts a whopping two full-time artists, has been slaving away at Battleblock Theater for more than three years now.

This past weekend the team dragged its stellar co-op platformer out to PAX East for the second year in a row, but you won’t hear anyone complaining, especially not yours truly, about once again playing the game at the annual Boston convention. Unless of course, they’re begroaning the fact that the title is still only playable in custom-made arcade cabinets at cons and not in the homes of Xbox owners everwhere. The impatience is understandable to some degree; Battleblock looks and plays wonderfully, so gamers want it for themselves. Now. Despite appearing to be quite far along in development, however, the game is still sporting a non-specific TBA 2012 release date.

Although the wait might be getting unbearable for some fans, it looks like all of us will be rewarded for holding on when this one finally comes out. Jumping and punching through the stages of the world’s first reality theater performance was even more fun the second time around. And accidentally intentionally tossing your co-op partner to his death? Yeah, that hasn’t gotten any less enjoyable.

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Haunted Temple Studios’ Skulls of the Shogun took me by surprise at last year’s PAX East. It was my first look at the game, and its attractive cartoon art style immediately drew me to it. Within a few minutes of playing, it was obvious that the developer had backed the visuals up with incredibly fun turn-based combat.

At this year’s show Haunted Temple CEO and Creative Director Jake Kazdal stated that many members of the crowds that had continually gathered around his studio’s booth throughout the weekend had followed a similar path of attraction to the inspired strategy game. “I think it’s a different dynamic for this kind of game, and people really seem to be digging it,” Kazdal said. “The art style sort of draws [convention attendees] in, and then they start thinking like ‘Wow, this is different than any other strategy game I’ve played.'” Although inspired by the Advance Wars and Fire Emblem games, Skulls of the Shogun definitely has a unique and wonderful vibe all its own.

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Believe it or not my favorite part about video games isn’t the games themselves but the way they bring people together. Arguably no show demonstrates this bond better than PAX. Thousands of likeminded individuals flooded Boston this past Easter weekend. It didn’t matter where you worked or what you did or what you had to do when you hit the ground again on Monday; for one glorious weekend everyone was an equal: a gamer. It didn’t matter if your weapon was a die, a mouse, a controller or one’s own body. Everyone at this show had a passion for games.

A few of us from XBLA Fans made the trip and had the honor of mingling and checking out some of the upcoming XBLA titles for 2012 and beyond. We were able to hear developers in their element talking to fans about their projects. It was an amazing experience. Our own Andrew Crews has already elaborated on this issue, but in the end you remember the little things. That being said, there were some amazing games. Check out our full breakdown below!

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I almost missed it. I almost wearily shambled right out of the Boston Convention Center this past Easter Sunday without playing what just might have been the most gorgeous XBLA title on the show floor. Luckily, Kinect Fans Managing Editor Nick DePetris issued a last minute reminder that readers had been flooding the site with requests for coverage of developer Humble Hearts’ Dust: An Elysian Tail. So off the two of us went to Microsoft’s blessedly carpeted booth one final time before departing PAX East 2012.

Sandwiched between the 360s running four-player previews of Minecraft and Tequila’s Deadlight demo was the side-scrolling action title from the inspired mind of one Dean Dodrill. That a sole man could craft something so wonderfully creative is extraordinary. It’s almost impossible to believe that Dodrill is the only member of Humble Hearts given how excellent his work-in-progress is at this stage of development. He’s been working on it for several years (see its victory at Microsoft’s 2009 Dream.Build.Play Challenge for evidence of its lengthy development cycle), but there are still some months to go before its vague 2012 release date arrives.

The titular main character is an adorable-but-deadly anthropomorphic hero questing through the alluring world of Falana with a charming fairy sidekick in tow. Falana features dark and dreary caves with medieval castles looming in the background. Players will venture into at least one cavern that is darker still, but they’ll also emerge from the “it was a dark and stormy night” motif and find themselves in a gleaming, tranquil forest with cute woodland animals prancing about at some point in the adventure. I’m hardly the first to compare the aesthetics to the masterfully animated Disney films of old, and I am unlikely to be the last.

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With PAX East now behind us, a lot of attendees are probably reflecting on what a great experience this past weekend was. You’ve heard our thoughts and initial impressions on our three daily podcasts we recorded while in Boston and you have likely read a write up or two on a game that we covered while we were there. But let me tell you about some of the finer points on the PAX East experience that might not be covered on many media sites. These are the unexpected heroes of a PAX experience that truly make it an unforgettable weekend. Read More

Super Mario Trials
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John is once again joined by Andrew Crews, Nick DePetris and Nick Santangelo to round out our trio of PAX podcasts. In this episode the guys cover pretty much every game they saw at the show, inlcluding Dust: An Elysian Tail, Awesomenauts, Mark of the Ninja and far too many more to list. Needless to say if you want to know about the XBLA games shown at PAX this is the podcast for you. If you have any additional questions hit us up on twitter or you can contact the guys on their personal accounts (linked below).

If you missed our other PAX specials check them out, from Day 1 and Day 2 of the show.

Please subscribe, rate and review the podcast on iTunes. We appreciate it! Check us out on Twitter (@XBLAFans) where you can win codes for games, give us feedback or just ask a question. We are also now on Stitcher, so you can stream the show on your smartphone, give it a go!

Big thanks to Chris Green for the awesome theme music, be sure to check out his site, BlurredEdge, and why not follow him on Twitter (@BlurredEdge) too?

[podcast]https://xblafans.com/xblafancast/XBLAFancastPAXWrapup.mp3[/podcast]

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