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Rogue Legacy was developed and published by Cellar Door Games on Xbox One. It will release on May 27, 2015 for $14.99. A copy was provided by Cellar Door Games for review purposes.

Have you thought to yourself that games have been too easy recently? If you answer yes, Rogue Legacy may be for you. Here is another throwback to the old school era featuring tough enemies with fair tells and many mean and sometimes unforgiving deaths. Levels are randomly generated with death undoing progress made by the player. Heralded as a “rogue-lite,” developer Cellar Door’s game undoes some of the frustrations of rogue-like games by letting players unlock skills and upgrade stats permanently. Many surprises are in-store for players, and you’ll never know what is around the next corner. Through trial and error, you’ll gradually grow stronger and wiser and eventually achieve success. Or not. Welcome to Rogue Legacy.

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Get ready for a week full of new release streams, early looks, game giveaways and much more on the XBLA Fans Twitch Channel!

In addition to our scheduled streams …
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So far Telltale’s Game of Thrones series has had more than its fair share of adventure, intrigue and death – and it’s only at the halfway point. Episode 4: Sons of Winter will be out next week to continue the tragic saga of House Forrester. Whether it be Gared’s journey beyond The Wall, or Asher’s infiltration of Meereen, or Mira’s political workings in a very turbulent King’s Landing, every member is playing their part to prevent their House’s demise. The episode will be out May 27 on Xbox consoles for $4.99, and as always it comes as part of the season pass. Check out the launch trailer after the jump.

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UK developer Playtonic, which is primarily comprised of former Rare developers, is currently sitting on more than $2.5 million of Kickstarter investments to spend developing Yooka-Laylee, a spiritual successor …
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For one month at least, Microsoft got a break from being Sony’s punching bag in the console sales race. GamesBeat reports that NPD’s April sales numbers show the Xbox One outselling the PlayStation 4 last month for the first time since January.

“As the best-selling console in the U.S. in April, fans set record April sales and engagement for Xbox One last month,” Xbox marketing boss Mike Nichols told GamesBeat in response to the April figures. “Xbox One console sales in the U.S. increased 63 percent in April 2015 compared to April 2014, and Xbox Live comparisons showed the number of active global users [Xbox One and Xbox 360] grew 24 percent. We are grateful to our fans for their passion and support and are looking forward to sharing more on the best game lineup in Xbox history at E3.”

Last month’s sales results mean that Microsoft’s next-gen console has outsold Sony’s in the United States for half of the first four months of 2015. No doubt as a result of a temporary price cut, the Xbox One also dominated the hardware sales charts during the crucial retail months of November and December in 2014.

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Not long ago the Xbox One got its May system update and some fairly large improvements were introduced. One of the largest new features is the ability to finally …
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The tablet game Badland is making its way to consoles using a redesigned control scheme for console play. Badland: Game of the Year Edition is a side-scrolling action adventure with physics based gameplay that totes stunning graphics and audio. The player controls a flying creature named Clony who is trying to survive dangerous traps, puzzles and obstacles. The clones are out there waiting for Clony to save them.

Badland: Game of the Year Edition features 100 single player levels, 100 co-op levels and 27 multiplayer deathmatch stages with up to four player local cooperative play. Launch will feature a discount price of just under $10 before eventually going back to its normal price of $11.99.

Continue below to check out a trailer of the game.

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Schrödinger’s Cat and the Raiders of the Lost Quark was developed by Italic Pig and published by Team 17 on Xbox One. It was released on May 12, 2015 for $9.99. A copy was provided for review purposes.

On May 17, 2015, I had a chance meeting with developer Italic Pig over at the XBLA Fans Twitch channel while streaming Schrödinger’s Cat and the Raiders of the Lost Quark. For the sake of brevity, let’s just say I happened to learn quite a bit of the making process of Schrödinger’s Cat. The message I took away from the impromptu discussion with Italic Pig is that the developer had a vision and set out to create a game around a passion for physics. In Italic Pig’s eyes, each portion of the game was designed with a specific purpose to test players in different ways. Most things in the game have a reason for being there, but not every reference or purpose is obvious. Still, the developer believes there is something for everyone here. Do I fully agree with all of the design implementations? No, but I respect the decisions made during the process. Schrödinger’s Cat and the Raiders of the Lost Quark took two years to make with an estimated 60-70 percent of the effort coming from Italic Pig alone. Meanwhile, I spent about eight hours across three different days to play through in its entirety. Let’s see how it stacks up.

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In addition to our scheduled streams below we also sometimes do impromptu streams. The best way to stay informed of those is to follow XBLA Fans on Twitter and follow us on Twitch.

If there is a game you want to see streamed, please contact us.

All times are listed in EST.

Tuesday 5/19

• 7p – 9p K4rn4ge – Mega Coin Squad (Early look!)
• 9p – 1a Cain141 – Smite

Wednesday 5/20

• 12p – 3p Zero Jehuty – Lifeless Planet or Wolfenstein: The Old Blood
• 4p – 7p K4rn4ge – Day of Knights (Rogue Legacy and Shovel Knight)
• 7p – 10p Cain141 – Mega Coin Squad (New game!)
• 10p – 1a PamdemoniumXOXO – Game TBA

Thursday 5/21

• 7a – 9a RazorPriest – Neverwinter and/or Happy Wars
• 5p – 7p K4rn4ge – Throwback Thursday (XBLA Xbox 360 games)
• 7p – 11p Cain141 – New release or extended XBLA Throwback Thursday Block
• 11p – 1a The Snapple Cap – Game TBA

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Welcome to part one of a multi-part series in which I plan to document my time with Smite to show how I grow as a player in the beta, which should help show new players what to expect. I went into Smite with hundreds of hours of League of Legends logged and even more time spent watching professional matches, plusan occasional dabble in Dota 2. One might think that my modest amount of time spent in the genre might translate over into Smite, but I can say without a doubt, it didn’t give me a leg up over the competition, as evidenced by how poorly my first handful of games went.

Day 1

The game starts with a simple enough tutorial, but, like most MOBAs, it barely even scratches the surface before it sends players on their merry way. The only mode available to players when they first start is called Arena, and that’s where I spent the entirety of my first day.

Arena is shaped like the Colosseum, with jungle camps along the side that provide buffs to players. It’s an excellent place to start, because it avoids the deeper intricacies of a standard match and allows players to focus on finding a god or immortal that fits their play style and novoices to feel good about themselves. Everything seemed to be working well when I first got into a match: the store was easy to navigate; I could decipher what was going on with little problems; and I felt adequately prepared to get started.

Of course I was dead wrong, I finished my first game with a 1/11/11 (kills/deaths/assists) score line as Ares and felt lost. It felt as though I was missing everything, and even though I had these great combos in my head I just couldn’t seem to pull them off. All my skillshots always “just” missed, and I couldn’t seem to land a single auto attack, regardless of if it was melee or ranged. After two more games where I did as bad if not worse than the first, I decided it was time to turn to everyone’s greatest resource: the internet.

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