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Land, sea and air.
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Don’t miss our reviews of the first two episodes.
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Tales from the Borderlands: Atlas Mugged developed by Telltale Games and published on Xbox 360 and Xbox One by 2k Games. It was released March 18, 2015 for $4.99. A copy was provided by Telltale for review purposes.

Atlas Mugged happens to be a big milestone for Telltale Games: this is their 100th episode across all series.

Atlas Mugged shows that Tales from the Borderlands is here to stay by continuing a precedent of uber-awesomeness. It delivers more great performances, more laugh-out-loud moments, more crazy action sequences and more Loaderbot. It’s more Tales from the Borderlands, and boy is that a wonderful thing.

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RageQuit Corporation have announced that their game, Strike Vector EX, will be coming to the Xbox One at some point this summer via the ID@Xbox program.  Strike Vector EX is a multiplayer-only game that centers around first-person fast paced aircraft fights. The game originally launched on Steam in 2014 but the console versions will be receiving refined controls to help with the transition.

The very first console exclusive screenshots as well as a teaser trailer can be seen below the break. With only limited information revealed as of now, there should be plenty more news as the summer isn’t that far away.

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Ziggurat was developed and published by Milkstone Studios on Xbox One. It will be released on March 20, 2015 for $14.99. A copy was provided by Milkstone Studios for review purposes.

Ziggurat is best described as a Heretic style rouge-like first person dungeon crawler. That is certainly a mouthful of genres all stacked together, but the experience is a unique mix. Like most Rogue-like games, you are going to die many times in a series of trial an error encounters, which is exactly as the game intends. In Ziggurat each time you die, you are generally given a few cards that will be able to be found in your following adventures. Ziggurat features a number of various unlockable characters and items, all of which are displayed on cards you gain as you play.

The game itself plays like a mix between Heretic, Doom, and Diablo. There are various rooms to traverse, and each room contains a chance to battle either monsters, overcome traps, or partake in jumping puzzles. The creatures drop mana, life, and experience, all which are needed to further progress your hero. Generally, loot is found at the end of a large encounter or set of traps, and often after boss fights. Each level has a similar formula of many rooms with encounters, a room with a key to the boss portal, and then of course a boss fight. The difficulty increases as you progress through each level, and eventually you can beat the game with one final boss fight.

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No need for spoiler warnings.
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Shiftlings was developed by Rock Pocket Games and published by Sierra. It was released on March 4, 2015 for $14.99. A copy was provided for review purposes.

The Xbox One is already home to an increasingly diverse range of game genres thanks to the ID@Xbox initiative, and it’s encouraging to see even crazier games like Shiftlings adding to the rich catalogue that already exists. Essentially, Shiftlings builds upon the existing range of puzzle-platformers by adding a unique twist on cooperative play along with stunning cartoon graphics and a slightly dark sense of humour.

Shiftlings is a game about two unfortunate aliens who happen to perform maintenance duties across a range of space installations whilst being watched by a reality TV audience. Why, you might ask, would anyone want to watch the Shiftlings at work? Well, apparently because the hazards involved in performing space installation maintenance are many, varied and often hilarious. The hilarity for the TV audience is presumably heightened by the fact that both Shiftlings are connected to each other via a pipe — a fact that plays a key role in the gameplay for us as players. The question is, can the beautiful visuals, strong humour and lure of cooperative play overcome the inherent challenges and frustrations that not arise in all puzzle-platformers, but also those that are specific to Shiftlings (such as the fact that both characters are literally connected throughout)?

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Jackbox Games, the developer most recently behind Jackbox Party Pack, has announced Quiplash. Quiplash is a brand new party game for up to eight players that forces one another to invent unique …
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Geometry Wars 3 is about to evolve, soon becoming a bigger, better game with a longer title. Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Evolved is an upcoming free title update that will nearly double the base game’s content. Adventure Mode will receive 40 new levels, including new bosses, 3D grids, and gameplay types. The level gate system will be revised, making it easier for players to progress through the game. Adventure mode will also utilize some new gameplay features, including the Sweeper drone and the Detonator super ability. A new Hardcore mode will feature 20 levels that must be completed without drones or supers, and will have its own leaderboards.

The Evolved update will become available to Geometry Wars 3 owners on March 31. Check out the announcement trailer after the jump.

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It looks and plays a lot like Geometry Wars. This is the inescapable reality of We Are Doomed, an upcoming twin-stick shooter from one-man studio Vertex Pop. The world is colored with softer, pastel hues, and the enemies are tangible things instead of angular shapes. But anyone who has played Geo Wars will immediately grok what they’re seeing and experiencing in We Are Doomed and will know exactly what to do. Creator Mobeen Fikree isn’t shying away from the comparison.

“I don’t mind,” he told XBLA Fans earlier this month at PAX East. “I think Geometry Wars is a great game, and following in that lineage of Robotron, Smash TV, Geometry Wars and then, you know, this. I’m happy to be a part of that lineage. When people go, ‘Oh, it’s like Geometry Wars!’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, it’s like Geometry Wars.'”

Until it’s not.

The moment you use the right stick to open fire on the waves of space baddies swarming the screen it becomes clear how We Are Doomed diverges from the formula. Instead of blasting enemies with a never-ending stream of long-range laser fire, players instead must rely on a medium-range “overpowered laserbeam,” as Vertex Pop’s website describes it. In actuality, it doesn’t come off like a laser at all. Instead, it looks and feels more like you’re wielding a flamethrower with an infinite fuel supply. Nudging the stick farther in any direction will elongate the beam/flame, but it will never cause it to reach clear across the screen.

If you want to defeat the baddies — and you’ll of course need to do so if you want to make any progress in the game — then you’ll need to get a bit closer than you may be used to getting in other twin-stick shooters. “You have to dive into the action,” explained Fikree. “You have to be close range if you want to zap baddies — you can’t sit in one corner of the map and shoot things all the way in the other corner.”

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