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You could make a case that the retro-style indie game is turning into an overused cliché, but  The Adventures of Pip goes beyond appearances and crafts a clever story out of its style. The game’s opening looks like a pixelated storybook, telling the tale of a tiny kingdom where the hierarchy is determined by pixel count. The kingdom’s royals are all 32-bit sprites, while the peasantry can only afford to be lower resolutions. One day a princess was born with the power to create pixels out of nothing, but on her 16th birthday she was kidnapped by the Skeleton Queen.

The demo, which was playable at PAX South, took me through the opening level of the game. Hero Pip begins as nothing more than a 1-bit red pixel, escaping his town as it’s attacked by the aforementioned evil queen. It looked like an extreme version of Thomas was Alone, as Pip jumped his way through a crumbling landscape as the world burned in the background. It’s a fun introduction, but nothing more than standard side-scrolling platformer gameplay. Boy, did that change quickly.

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The details for the March Xbox One system update were recently released and should add some interesting functionality to the console. The video below details everything in the update. …
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Take your world of Minecraft to a galaxy far, far away with the Star Wars Rebel Skin Pack available now for both Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition and Minecraft: Xbox One Edition.

Packed full of 23 new character skins including, Ezra Bridger, Hera Syndulla, Kanan Jarrus and Chopper, this skin pack can be yours for $2.99.

Star Wars Rebels is an animated television series that airs on Disney XD. The show is set five years before Star Wars Episode IV, and it follows the story of the Rebellion’s beginnings as well as tells some of the origin stories of the groups that will later form the Rebel Alliance.

Click below for the full list of characters.

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One of Microsoft’s earliest-announced Xbox One features might finally be added to the console later this year. Citing nebulous “sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans,” The Verge reports that Microsoft will …
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Coming to Pinball FX2 on both Xbox 360 and Xbox One next week is the Iron & Steel Pack. This pack will include two new tables: CastleStorm, based on another popular Zen Studios game, and Wild West Rampage, a completely original table with a (obviously) western theme. Also, in preparation for the release on Xbox 360, Zen Studios has released a massive title update that just might convince current Xbox One players to dust off their 360s for a revisit to a classic game.

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World of Tanks has been waging war on Xbox 360 for about a year now, and the war will only grow bigger as the battle moves to Xbox One. Wargaming announced that their free-to-play MMO will be making the generational leap sometime this year. The battle server will be shared between both the 360 and the One, allowing for cross-platform play. Xbox 360 players who move to the Xbox One will be able to carry over all of their accounts and progress. If you want to see what World of Tanks looks like with some current-gen polish, check out the announcement trailer after the jump.

Source: IGN

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Blue Estate was developed and published on Xbox One by HESAW. It will be released on February 18, 2015 for $12.99. A copy was provided for review purposes.

Four letters can easily sum up my thoughts about Blue Estate: “YMMV.” It’s an acronym used in many internet forums to shorthand the phrase, “Your Mileage May Vary.” Little other explanation is needed for anyone who understands that phrase. Truly, it’s been a long time since I’ve played a game that I had such a hard time commenting on and has also left me both indifferent and satisfied at the same time. Blue Estate is a dark humor rail shooter based on the Eisner Award-nominated Blue Estate comic books from Viktor Kalvachev. While I don’t know the storyline or details within the comic, I can kind of imagine them after playing through this game.

There is one easy way to tell if you’ll like this game or not, and that’s watching a gameplay trailer. After about two or three minutes, you’ll have a good idea whether or not you’ll like the gameplay and can tolerate the humor. If you like rail shooters, chances are you’ll enjoy this game. If you don’t like rail shooters, Blue Estate won’t win you over. Blue Estate never strays far from its core concept throughout the entire game. The game objectifies women, goes through many racial stereotypes and essentially makes fun of everyone and everything. It also doesn’t take itself very seriously, so why should you? As a game that presents itself as humorous, it is very hit or miss.

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Hand of Fate was developed and published on Xbox One by Defiant Development. It will be released on February 17, 2015 for $19.99. A copy was provided by Defiant Development for review purposes.

Hand of Fate is a unique game containing rogue-like elements in its gameplay and storytelling by way of playing cards. Because some of you are likely wondering, this game is completely unrelated to the 1966 movie Manos: The Hands of Fate. One of the first things that came to mind while playing was that this game is probably the closest thing we’ll get to a Munchkin video game for a long time. To me, this game came out of nowhere and is a fresh breath of air from most of the games that have released recently.

I have to admit, I had to play this game for about a week before I could come to a consensus on my thoughts. On some days, Hand of Fate is amazingly addicting, spawning thoughts like “let me push to defeat one more boss” or “please let me complete more subquests and make progress in unlocking everything.” On other days, this game was a very unpleasant game in which I would curse its existence due to unfair random luck, unfair scenario cards or a random assortment of strange frame rate issues (which luckily have all but disappeared in the last few days). Hand of Fate is a gambler’s paradise.

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Developer Re-Logic is teaming up with Engine Software to build an all-new Terraria game. While not the long-awaited Terraria 2, Terraria: Otherworld is promising to bring a fresh take on the popular sandbox game. It will take the series in a new direction, introducing a new world and new gameplay elements.

Otherworld takes place in an alternate dimension, where a once-pristine world has been taken over by an unseen evil force who corrupted nature itself. You play as a member of a band of survivors fighting to restore the world to its former glory. Throughout the struggle you’ll harness the powers of weapons, magic, defenses and the environment itself. The game will play differently from the original Terraria, combining the open sandbox with role-playing and strategy elements. A short teaser of pre-alpha gameplay has been released, which you can check out after the jump.

As of now, the game is only in development for PC and Mac. An Xbox One version is being considered, but no final decision has been made. The original Terraria released on Xbox 360 in 2013, becoming one of the more popular games on XBLA. The game was brought to Xbox One last November.

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Have you ever wondered what it’s like to play as a never-ending revolving car? Well, you’ll be able to find out starting Friday when No Goblin’s Roundabout releases on Xbox One for $14.99.

Roundabout is a throwback to ’70s B movies telling the rise-to-fame story of Georgio Manos, the world’s most famous revolving chauffeur. The player is tasked with driving passengers around while taking on dangerous missions and finding secret collectibles along the way. It all takes place in an open-world puzzle environment with dozens of twisty streets. To top it off, the game will feature a dedicated e-sport speed run mode endorsed by a talking skeleton.

Check out the launch trailer for Roundabout after the jump.

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