Features

Culture is everywhere, it’s in the government propaganda, in the abrasive security details, in the greyness and ubiquity of society… oh, wait, no it’s not. That is, until DJ Professor K and Jet Set Radio bring back the funk in a rude way. Strap on your roller blades and attack Japan, strike back at the oppressive government, fight the monotony, tag over the propaganda and bring back freedom and love to society in Jet Set Radio Future.

That is, if you have the original Xbox. In fact, if you do, you probably have this game or did at one point (maybe you got it combined with Sega GT 2002) as it was one of its very early releases and to this day one of the most unique. Players take on the streets of Japan with their crew of oppression-fighting freestyle rollerbladers, defeating area security, tagging the town, and dissolving violent gangs from the dark corners of Japan in an effort to bring back the freedom of expression. With plenty of different levels, challenges, hidden collectibles and a decent multiplayer Jet Set Radio Future (JSRF) was a robust title considering its rather niche gameplay style.

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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

Some of us have been playing our PS3. Is that a sin?
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Halo: Arkham City
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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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In the past few years we’ve often had people ask us what Xbox Live Arcade games are worth the money, but unlike us they usually don’t shell out a lot on XBLA games each year. It makes sense, after all 1200 MSP every month or so adds up in the end. Every site has those “you should buy it” lists where games like Limbo, Braid, Castle Crashers, Bastion, and Trials HD sit, but sometimes with other games you’re still not convinced. That being said here’s list of games you shouldn’t pass up on a sale. After all, we’re all on a budget. So if you’re one of those that won’t buy it at retail price no matter how good the reviews are, take a look at this list for the best titles you can find on sale.

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Download the Paranormal table for FREE and compete to win 7 more tables!
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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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What we are playing is a weekly column that appears each weekend. Various staff members let the world know what games had them hooked the past week and which ones …
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