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The following Toy Soldiers: Cold War Guide is a culmination of the efforts of Andrew Crews, John Laster, John Drawdy, Todd Schlickbernd, and Zac Lace. Special thanks goes to Signal Studios for their advice and guidance.

Toy Soldiers: Cold War was released on Xbox Live Arcade on August 17, 2011, featuring an intense mixture of tower defense and action gameplay elements. If you haven’t purchased the game yet, we highly recommend checking out our Toy Soldiers: Cold War review. Make sure to bookmark this page once you have downloaded the game for your go to source for all things related to Toy Soldiers: Cold War. Read More

It was only a matter of time before Half-Life hit our list. While there are mountains of great first person shooters (FPS) out there the list of FPS games that truly changed how we played the game is small. It includes games such as Doom, Quake, Halo, and Half-Life. It was the game that put Valve on the map, the one that paved the way for titles like Portal and Team Fortress 2. It spawned a plethora of amazing mods, some of which have since gone commercial, such as Counter Strike.

But what was it about silent protagonist Gordon Freeman’s adventure that’s so captivating? While the graphics were good for its day, it wasn’t the visual tech. While the multiplayer was fun, it wasn’t until the mod Firearms hit the web that competitive play really caught on. No, we submit that it was a compelling story and incredibly tight gameplay that made Half-Life what it was and still is today–an innovative classic that changed the way we play shooters. While players wait patiently for Half-Life 2: Episode 3 Xbox Live Arcade is a simple-yet-effective way for console gamers to get their classic fix .

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YH-bloody wolf 1.0 is deceiving. It’s listed as a beginner course but beginners will find themselves throwing controllers. It’s not incredibly difficult, but it’s definitely mislisted. Putting that aside …
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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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The Adventures of Shuggy is an overlooked diamond in the rough. There will always be those games that we love that have sales to match. Shuggy, however has had a bit of a sluggish start. But this isn’t one of those games to simply toss aside, it’s one that should hang out on your radar. Below you’ll find a Q & A session sent to us from Smudged Cat themselves detailing who they are and how Shuggy game to be.

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Long before Tim Schafer was the head of Trenched developer Double Fine he was a game designer at LucasArts. He started out as a tester in 1989 on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Action Game and worked his way up, taking the reigns of Designer on Full Throttle in 1995. Three years later Schafer designed one last game for LucasArts, Grim Fandango before moving on to found Double Fine.

Grim Fandango marked the beginning of the end of the adventure game era at LucasArts. While the game received critical acclaim sales were lower than expected. It follows Manny, and travel agent at the Department of the Dead who helps those passing into the afterlife find their way to the Ninth Underworld, a place of rest. Sounds morbid, but this title was imaginative, funny, and most importantly it had solid gameplay.

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Author’s note: This piece contains plot spoilers and specific details regarding the story and characters of Bastion. If you have not yet finished the game and don’t wish to have anything spoiled, please wait to read the entry below. Thank you and enjoy.

This is as much an open letter to Supergiant Games and my colleagues at XBLAFans that I’ve let down, as it is about simply musing about one of the best games I have ever played. If the title of this piece wasn’t any indication, Bastion was an extremely meaningful game to me during a time when it’s common for lives and futures to be shattered or irreparably set back.

Like I said, Bastion is already one of the best games of the year by far, and easily in the top 10 games I have ever played, which encompasses 20-some years of gaming memories. My situation at home bars no sway in this opinion because either way; Bastion is a work of art. Its art style is a wonder to look at and is unlike anything available right now. It’s like interacting with some of the most beautiful paintings you’ve ever seen. The game’s music alone is almost worth the 1200 MSP price tag, and is regularly rotating on my iPod alongside major artists everyone knows. The gameplay is also engrossing and addictive, and caters to a wide combination of tastes and play styles. I personally enjoyed the musket and Cael Hammer combo because I like being a devastating, close-range powerhouse. I got 200/200 Achievements within two days of purchasing and playing Bastion, and still want to continue playing.

But where Bastion differs from all other games is how I identified with its plot and characters, and how I used this to overcome my failed marriage.

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XBLIG Monthly Roundup is a feature of five of the best Indie games from the past month of releases on the marketplace. There’s a lot to sift through on the XBLIG marketplace, so let us tell you what we found during our daily rounds. These are some of the best games that XBLIG has to offer for the month of July, 2011: Read More

We’re always up for custom Trials HD tracks that make use of the game’s other modes. Tombstone makes use of the Down the Stairs game type, and it does …
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While Xbox Live Arcade hosts numerous classics both untouched and unaltered, it also hosts modern renditions of the same titles with contemporary additions. But XBLA is becoming known for games that take the mechanics of classic titles and makes them better. It’s a concept that draws a line in the sand, pitting friend against friend, brother against brother. But in the end there’s a reason why you often see the word enhanced in regards to XBLA titles: they’re simply better than the classics. I chose three classic games to go toe-to-toe with three modern XBLA games. Each defines their genre relative to when they were released.

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