Featured Reviews

Joy Ride Turbo was developed by BigPark and published by Microsoft Studios. It was released on May 23, 2012 for 800 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.

Mario Kart. Since its introduction in 1992 many other games have tried to dethrone it. None have truly succeeded. Nintendo has held their karting trophy high for 20 years now while characters like Sonic, Crash, and Lightning McQueen stand lower on the podium. Joy Ride Turbo seeks to put a boot in the overall-wearing plumber’s … err … pants by throwing aside the licensed franchise and offering great gameplay at a lower price. Joy Ride tosses aside the Kinect controller of its predecessor in hopes that a gamepad will help the game become the best value in karting games out there.

You know what? It succeeds.

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Mad Riders was developed by Techland and published by Ubisoft. It released May 30, 2012 for 800 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.

If you’re a racing fan then you’re already somewhat spoiled for choice on XBLA, with games like Hydro Thunder Hurricane, TNT Racers and Skydrift, and many more are on the horizon. However for all the diversity of those games, XBLA has yet to see an ATV racer. Techland and Ubisoft are changing that with the release of Mad Riders, a mostly fun racer that doesn’t quite have as much personality as its name would imply. Read More

Dragon’s Lair was developed by Digital Leisure and published by Microsoft Studios. It released May 18, 2012 for 800 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.

Odds are, you’ve played Dragon’s Lair – or, at least, know the basic style and premise well enough. Since its release in the early 1980s, Don Bluth’s magnum opus has been released and rereleased literally dozens of times on as many platforms. The game puts the player in the shoes of Dirk the Daring, a knight who ventures into the lair of the evil wizard Mordroc to rescue Princess Daphne from the nefarious dragon Singe. Rather than controlling Dirk directly, the player controls his reflexes at periodic intervals as he traverses through the castle – think quick time events – and slow reaction time or choosing the wrong action at the wrong time spells certain doom for the hero.

Until last week, the Xbox 360 was one of the few systems the game hadn’t been ported to. How does Digital Leisure – no stranger to repurposing the game for new platforms – do with the transition? About as well as can be expected…but that may not be a good thing.

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Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode II was developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega. It was released May 16, 2012 for 1200 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.

Sonic has had a bit of a hit and miss record lately. Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode I wasn’t quite as beloved as Sega hoped, yet Sonic Generations brought back that classic Sonic feeling. Episode II promises fixed physics, the addition of Tails and more Metal Sonic, all promising the potential for a return-to-form. Now it’s finally upon us, Episode II fixes some of the problems of its predecessor but not without introducing some new slogging problems along the way.
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Minecraft: Xbox 360 Version was developed by Mojang and 4J Studios and published by Microsoft Studios. It is released May 9, 2012 for 1600 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.

If you’re any kind of gamer, odds are you’re at least tangentially familiar with Minecraft. If you’re unfamiliar, a brief synopsis: You’re dropped in the middle of a seemingly endless world, left to fend for yourself. Just about everything in the game world can be deconstructed, reconstructed and combined to rebuild the world around you as you see fit (think of it as a world made entirely of LEGO blocks). When the sun goes down, though, the monsters come out to play – and when that happens, you’d better have some weapons or shelter to fight back (you remembered to build a sword, didn’t you?).

In a way, Minecraft is the quintessential open world game: The player is left to his or her own devices without that pesky story campaign getting in the way of the fun. When the game first released on PC in 2009, it became a sensation for its simple-yet-deep gameplay – and the fact that you could build anything from a scale replica of The Legend of Zelda‘s game world to virtual representations of human anatomy didn’t hurt either. Now, the game makes its long-awaited debut on XBLA: Does it retain the simple charm PC gamers have enjoyed for years, or is it lost in translation?

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Awesomenauts was developed by Ronimo Games and published by DTP Entertainment. It was released May 2, 2012 for 800 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.

In the year 2012, the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena genre began to proliferate, and gamers the world over wondered how it would evolve. From the pitch black void of space came Awesomenauts, a game which dared to bring MOBA to the 2D realm. Six mercenary heroes, ranging from an ex-rapper frog to a jetpack-laden monkey, are hired to work for red or blue (sometimes appearing on both teams at once, somehow) and destroy the enemy team’s solar drill. Solar is the form of currency in the future, so having a device which literally mines money is kind of a big deal.

Awesomenauts is a 2D MOBA and it makes no effort to hide that fact. Each player in this three versus three game picks one of the six heroes, each complete with unique abilities and play styles. Both teams have droids that run at the enemy base and attack each other in an effort to destroy the towers and solar drill. Kill them for cash, use your money to buy character upgrades and side-grades, push the enemy base and secure victory for your team.

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Napalm and Evil Empire addons for Toy Soldiers: Cold War were developed by Signal Studios and published by Microsoft Studios. They were released on March 25, 2012 for 400 MSP each. A copy of both addons were provided for review purposes.

Toy Soldiers: Cold War is a great game. We loved it when it first released and since its August 2011 release, the possibility of DLC has been a roller coaster ride to say the least. Now the Napalm and Evil Empire additions have finally released and unfortunately it might not have been worth the wait. A few fun additions were made but a severe lack of content makes these addons a bit of a let down. Read More

Fable Heroes was developed by Lionhead Studios and published by Microsoft Studios. It was released May 2, 2012 for 800 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.

Action-RPG series Fable first landed on the original Xbox back in 2004. It’s had two sequels released since then for the Xbox 360 with another two on the way including the Kinect exclusive, Fable: The Journey. Lionhead have already proved to be fans of the spin-off genre with Fable Pub Games released for XBLA in conjunction with Fable II and the Kingmaker mobile phone game for Fable III. However while those have proved to have been little more than amusing ways to earn money for the main retail game, Fable Heroes looks a little more promising.

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The Walking Dead was developed and published by Telltale Games. It was released April 27, 2012 for 400 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.

Zombie games: They’re nothing new; some may even argue they’re overdone. We even have our fair share on XBLA already. The vast majority of games featuring zombies use the shambling undead as cannon fodder, the thing players need to mow down with a machine gun to progress.

With The Walking Dead, Telltale Games looks to do something a little different. Much like the comic series it’s based on, this isn’t about killing all zombies in your way, it’s a story about people. What do we do when society collapses and the dead come back to life? It’s a question that’s been the crux of some of the best zombie movies, but one that often falls by the wayside when it comes to games.

So if you’re expecting a game where you must survive the zombie apocalypse by aiming down the sights of your pistol and getting some headshots, you’ll have to look elsewhere. The Walking Dead is a fairly traditional point and click adventure game; while you do have direct control over the main character most of your interaction with the world will be through an onscreen cursor or making dialogue choices. Read More

Bloodforge was developed by Climax Group and published by Microsoft Studios. It was released April 25, 2012 for 1200 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.

Crom isn’t very happy right now, and it shows. While out hunting, he returns to find his village in flames and his family murdered. He learns that the gods who want him dead did this and now, he must seek revenge. Bloodforge is the story of one warrior’s quest for vengeance.

Bloodforge is a hack-and-slash where action is ultimately key. You’ll go through different environments and kill more and more enemies to build up rage. It’s fun for the first couple of hours but quickly becomes formulaic and filled with nonsensical shouting by the end.
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