Blog

Tomorrow, April 17, Goat Simulator will launch via the ID@Xbox program on both Xbox 360 and Xbox One for the price of $9.99. The game has been updated from the …
Read More

The next month of the Xbox 360 preview program will be adding support for external hard drives, up to two TB in size. This feature was actually implemented due …
Read More

Kalimba, the fun yet potentially brain-injuring puzzle platformer from Press Play, will be receiving both free and paid content next week. A free update will add two brand new multiplayer modes. …
Read More

The original Xbox cost $299.99 when it went on sale in the United States in 2001. However, GamesIndustry.biz reports that if some at Microsoft had had their way, the console would have been significantly cheaper — as in $299.99 cheaper.

Oddworld Inhabitants’ Lorne Lanning recently told GamesIndustry.biz that during the early days of the Xbox’s development, some Microsoft employees suggested that the company give its inaugural games console away for free. “At the time, [Microsoft] thought that the core market was going to be casual,” he said. “They were going to be the casual gamers’ machine. Now, that’s why they approached us because they said, ‘We think you’ve got something that competes in that Mario space, and we think Mario’s the thing to kill… We see that space. We want that audience. We love Oddworld, so why don’t you get on this bandwagon? And we might give the box away.'”

His story was corroborated by Seamus Blackley, the console’s co-creator. “In the early days of Xbox, especially before we had figured out how to get greenlit for the project as a pure game console, everybody and their brother who saw the new project starting tried to come in and say it should be free, say it should be forced to run Windows after some period of time,” said Blackley.

Read More

We would like to welcome Razor Priest to the XBLAFans Stream Team today. We are looking forward to seeing some awesome content from him soon. Also big thanks to everyone who joined us Saturday and made that such a success. I hope to see you guys around more this week. Big shoutout to all our new subs!

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 4/14

• 5p – 7p K4rn4ge – Project Root (Early Look)
• 7P-10P The Snapple Cap -Volgarr the Viking
• 12A-3A Cain141 – Smite + Friends

Read More

The Xbox One now costs £299.99 in the UK and it seems that this price cut is here to stay. Last September when the console had a price drop it …
Read More

Moon Studios CEO Thomas Mahler took to NeoGaf this week to talk about the current state of Ori and the Blind Forest. He revealed that the critical darling has …
Read More

We posted about this briefly in our Twitch schedule; however, I wanted to update everyone on tomorrow’s stream. We will be hunting down as many Achievements as possible from likely near a dozen different games. Nothing is pre-prepared, so we aren’t going for any kind of world record here. It should be a fun stream highlighting a lot of awesome titles, many of which have very easy Gamerscore.

We also had a bunch of awesome developers send us a ton of giveaway codes for the stream, which we will be giving away throughout the full 12-hour marathon. Just to highlight some of those games which you will for sure see during the stream as well as in giveaways: Roundabout, LA Cops, The Escapists, Dive Kick, and Magic 2015: Duels of the Planeswalkers. We also have another half a dozen games we will be running through.

Read More

Last month, XBLA Fans was streaming Resident Evil Revelations 2 on our Twitch channel when something unexpected happened: the feed abruptly cut to the pause screen pictured above. XBLA Fans’ Michael Cheng hadn’t stopped playing and was still attempting to actively broadcast gameplay, so we knew something external was affecting the stream.

That something was Capcom. The game’s developer-slash-publisher, in an effort to minimize gamers’ exposure to certain scenes that are critical to determining what ending players receive, blocks segments of Revelations 2 from being streamed via the Xbox Twitch app. Capcom kicks all Xbox Twitch streams to the pause screen during the final boss fight, cutscenes, credits and after-credits cutscene. Speaking with XBLA Fans, a representative for the company explained that it wants to “give players a pure and un-spoiled experience,” so it “chose to disable the native capture so that video sharing during those segments was limited.”

This got us thinking: how do other ID@Xbox game developers view Twitch streaming? Are they worried about potential gameplay or story segments being ruined for viewers? We asked a few developers if they had official Twitch policies and whether or not they felt streamers were helping their games to find larger audiences. Official stances on Twitch were a bit mixed, but everyone we talked to agreed that streaming could benefit them. One in particular, however, cautioned against giving streaming codes to anyone and everyone and noted that not all games companies need help from streamers.

Of streams and spoilers

There is perhaps no ID@Xbox developer more well-known for story-driven experiences than Telltale Games. Unfortunately, the studio that popularized episodic game releases declined to comment directly on the issue. Telltale, however, did partner with The Nerdist to stream the entirety of the first Tales from the Borderlands episode a week ahead of its release last November. It also got together with voice actors Troy Baker and Laura Bailey to stream the second episode a few days after its release late last month. It remains to be seen whether or not Telltale will be so eager to stream the season’s surely spoiler-filled final episode in full, but its past actions paint a picture of a studio that does not shy away from streaming spoilers.

Read More

Tower of Guns was developed by Grip Games and Terrible Posture Games and published by Grip Games on Xbox One. It was released on April 9, 2015 for $14.99. A copy was provided by Grip Games for review purposes.

Tower of Guns is another in a series of recent roguelike games to reach the Xbox One via the ID@Xbox program. At first glance, it’s is a throwback to old school first-person shooters in both design and gameplay. While unexciting to start with, Tower of Guns grows on the player with the strange charm of its story mode and the straightforwardness of its objective. After that, it will make you rage. Roguelike games tend to spawn enemy and room patterns that will eventually kill the player in brutal manners. In some games, defeat can be deflating and cause the player to not want to play again. Meanwhile, Tower of Guns is a fantastic game for players who refuse to lose and find motivation in trying until they win. Even if you lose, progress is made toward unlocking new guns and new perks to use for future attempts to finally beat the tower. It’s a win/win for all (not a guarantee). So what do I like about the title? Take a look below.

Read More