Rewind Reviews

‘Splosion Man was developed by Twisted Pixel Games and retails for 800 MSP. It was released July 22, 2009.

‘Splosion Man is a platform jumping game in which our hero must escape the lab where he was created. He is armed with only one weapon: the ability to repeatedly explode himself, or “splode”.  When he does, he is launched into the air. This is, in effect, his jump and attack rolled into one. He can splode three times in succession and splode off of walls to get where he needs to go.

This simple mechanic is quick to pick up and carries our hero through the many difficulties that follow. And there are many traps waiting: acid, attack robots, lasers, and giant vices to name a few. But there is always a unique answer to each problem. Simply put, this game gets platforming right.

Read More

Ikaruga is a vertical shooter developed by Treasure and released on Xbox Live Arcade April 9, 2008. The game is a port of the arcade original that was released 2001. It also received a Japan-only port to the Dreamcast and a much later port to the GameCube in the US. With so many versions, why should we be concerned about yet another one? The answer is simple – this is the definitive version of the game.

Read More

Small Arms was developed by Gastronaut Studios and released  by Microsoft Game Studios on November 22, 2006. It’s available on the XBLA Marketplace for 400MSP.

When the XBLA service was first introduced to me I felt like there wasn’t enough substance to keep me interested. Geometry Wars was there day one which was fantastic, but other than that most of the games really didn’t look too original or polished. Then I heard about Small Arms. It was released exactly a year after the release of the Xbox 360 and I was very excited to get my hands on it. Despite drawing from experiences like Super Smash Brothers on the various Nintendo consoles, the Small Arms formula feels unique and interesting which, when accompanied by the odd looking cyborg critters you get to play as, gave the game a strong sense of originality which the platform needed at the time. Read More

The 90’s were an amazing time for arcade games.  So many 2.5D beat em’ ups were released during that time — Final Fight, X-Men, The Simpsons, and and two installments from our half-shelled heroes, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Games like these defined the genre and made way for modern beat em’ ups like Castle Crashers.  When word was first leaked that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles In Time was being remade in HD over at Ubisoft Singapore the teens of the 1990’s squealed like a teenage girl.  But so many games from yesteryear feel dated when dusted off and fired up.  Could Ubisoft’s HD remake, subtitled with Re-Shelled, stand the test of time?  Find out after the jump.

Read More

Castle Crashers was developed by The Behemoth and published by Microsoft Game Studios. It was released on August 27th 2008 for 1200MS points.

The Behemoth have quickly become a developer to watch. After starting life with the flash game Alien Hominid on Newgrounds they expanded the game to consoles and eventually to XBLA with Alien Hominid HD. The game had a unique and striking art style created by artist Dan Paladin, and breathed new life into the almost forgotten side-scrolling shooter (complete with punishing difficulty).

After Alien Hominid The Behemoth moved onto a completely new game in Castle Crashers. This time they decided to have a go at another classic genre, the side-scrolling brawler. Dan Paladin’s unique art style remains, but Castle Crashers is a much bigger and more ambitious game than Alien Hominid. The Behemoth took the basic 2D brawler gameplay and added a few things on top, with an RPG-like (or lite?) leveling system and a little more depth to the brawling itself.

Read More

South Park Let’s Go Tower Defense Play was developed by Double Six and published by Microsoft Game Studios. It was released on October 7^th, 2009 for 800MS points.

South Park LGTDP is a tower defense game with twist. The twist is that you can control one of fifteen available characters from the South Park world as you build your defenses. This adds a very welcomed action element to the game making it much more than a strategic experience. South Park fans have waited a long time for a quality console game based off the show; there was quite a large amount of expectations with this title. Thankfully, South Park LGTDP delivers a great amount of fun, content, innuendos and laughs for a minimal fee. Read More

Perfect Dark was ported to the Xbox 360 by 4J Studios.  It was originally developed by Rare and published by Microsoft Game Studios.  It was released March 17, 2010 for 800MSP.

When Perfect Dark was released over a decade ago on the Nintendo 64 it was the definitive shooter for its day.  It started with everything that was great from GoldenEye 007 and took it beyond the limits a movie adaptation is forced to have.  Rare offered everything from co and counter operative gameplay to multiplayer challenges with bots.  The game received rave reviews from critics at the time.

Players first learned about the Xbox Live Arcade port in April 2009 via a single leaked screenshot of a developer’s dashboard which showed the icon of Joanna Dark behind the developer’s avatar.  The leak was confirmed in June of that same year by none other than Xbox Live’s Major Nelson.  But like so many games from yesteryear consumers had doubts as to whether the game truly lived up to their memories.

Read More

Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter was developed by Croteam and published by Majesco Entertainment. It was released for XBLA on September 22nd, 2010 and retails for 1200MSP. A copy of the game was provided by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

Sam is back!  Continuing directly where Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter left off, Sam having defeated a head general of an alien army.  He has boarded a spacecraft, seeking to take the fight back to the alien homeworld.  Shortly after takeoff the ship crash lands in Central America.  Sam soon discovers that a second ship was left on Earth and determines to fight through the alien army to get to it.

Read More

OutRun Online Arcade was developed by Sumo Digital in conjunction with Sega and published by Sega.  It was released April 15, 2009 for 800MSP.  It is available for a limited time, and will be removed from Xbox Live at the end of 2011.

Sega’s OutRun series has been a staple in racing games for years.  So many games spun out of the influence of the original, motion chair enabled, arcade game; Ridge Racer, Daytona USA, even several sequels to OutRun itself.  In 2003 Sega released OutRun 2 in arcades around the world.  A fully 3D reimagination of the original game, it featured the original split-stage gameplay combined with new challenges and vehicles.  The success of OutRun 2 prompted a special edition arcade game, OutRun 2 SP, which featured all new courses and music, as well as a port to the original Xbox.  These were all later combined in to the console-exclusive OutRun 2006: Coast to Coast, which featured all the cars, courses and music from both OutRun 2 and its SP counterpart.

In December 2008 Sega announced a new spinoff to the OutRun 2 sub-series, OutRun Online Arcade.  Boasting high-definition (1080p) graphics, Dolby 5.1 surround sound, and online play it was truly an OutRun for today’s consoles.  Unfortunately due to an upcoming expiration of contract with Ferrari the game will be pulled fro XBLA in December of this year.  Are shiny graphics and typical next-gen features do enough to merit the 800MSP price?  Find out in today’s Rewind Review.

Read More

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix is developed by Backbone Entertainment and published by Capcom and was released November 28th, 2008. It retails for 1200 MSP.

This past Wednesday was the 20th birthday of Street Fighter II: World Warrior, the original sequel incarnation that spawned countless variations of the same game. When the Xbox 360 first launched, Street Fighter 2: Hyper Fighting was released on XBLA in 2006 which was met with favorable reception but had a pretty bad online code from the reviews. But during 2008, while the hype train for Street Fighter IV was in effect before its release, they put out one of the most gorgeous fighting games on XBLA with Super Street Fighter II HD Remix.

SSFIITHR is an updated remake of Super Street Fighter II Turbo which originally came out in 1994 on the 3DO, It added in Super Combos, Air Combos, and the dastardly Akuma. With this new remake, Backbone decided to grab UDON Entertainment to do the art and character sprites with beautiful hand-drawn sprites. It also includes new music by the OverClocked ReMix as well as rebalanced gameplay in the fighting engine. Is it as “Down Right Fierce” as you expect Hadouken lovers?

Read More