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It’s official: Mojang is now a part of Microsoft. The news was tweeted by Xbox head Phil Spencer, who welcomed the developer as the newest member of Microsoft Studios. …
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Costume Quest 2 was developed by Double Fine Productions and published by Midnight City Games. It was released on October 31, 2014 for $14.99 on Xbox 360 and Xbox One. A copy was provided for review purposes.

Appropriately released just before Halloween, Costume Quest 2 has more tricks, treats and timed-button pushes. The sequel to Double Fine’s 2010 Costume Quest, this release picks up shortly after the first game. The two main protagonists, Reynold and Wren, return as playable characters with new companions to battle alongside with, and, not to be forgotten, the supporting cast from the first game, which play an important role in the time-traveling tale.

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AMD has developed a smaller version of the processor found in the Xbox One. The information was found on the LinkedIn bio of AMD’s senior manager of SOC (system …
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Microsoft has reported a great first quarter, thanks in part to a huge boost in console sales. According to Games Industry International, sales of Xbox consoles were up 102 …
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This week’s schedule is as follows:

Tuesday, November 4th @ 8:30 pm (CST) – Minecraft with Marshall.

Thursday, November 6th @ 8:30 pm (CST) – Killer Instinct with Jen.

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Telltale Games’ upcoming Game of Thrones adventure will follow the stories of five different playable characters, reports International Business Times after speaking with Senior VP of Publishing Steve Allison. The characters will …
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The Walking Dead: Season Two was developed and published by Telltale Games. It was released on Friday, October 31 2014 for $25. A copy was provided for review purposes.

In the end, nobody is safe from the shambling, moaning hordes of undead which populate The Walking Dead’s dystopian alternate reality. Not the characters, the fans or the general public. Robert Kirkman has created a rich and culturally pervasive lore. It was inevitable that Telltale Games extremely popular The Walking Dead series of episodic interactive stories would appear on Microsoft’s Xbox One console sooner or later.

TWD:S2 picks up directly where Season One ended. Players assume the role of Clementine as she continues her journey towards adolescence in an increasingly dangerous and challenging world. The Xbox One version of TWD:S2 has been released as a complete package, which is great news for anyone as impatient as me. Let’s jump in and see if this version is worth your hard earned cash.

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E-Line Media and Upper One Games’ Never Alone will not be releasing tomorrow on Xbox One as originally planned. Instead, the developers have announced that the puzzle-platformer will arrive …
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Earlier this year Microsoft acquired indie developer Mojang for $2.5 billion. It was a big move, and it left many fans wondering how it might effect Mojang’s hit game Minecraft. In a recent interview with IGN, Xbox head Phil Spencer talked about the desire to meet the needs of the game’s community. He said that Minecraft 2 may not make the most sense, and his words were followed by every fan of the game breathing a sigh of relief. Minecraft already does what it was created to do perfectly, why would it ever need a sequel?

Why it works so well

From the beginning, Minecraft was a game all about building. Not only was the gameplay about letting you create whatever you wanted, but the game itself was designed to be built up into something better. If you look at its original release and look at it now, it’s a very different game. Thanks to Mojang’s constant support with free updates, the game was able to constantly grow into something more grand. Content is constantly being added, and bugs are always being squashed. A sequel could never improve on the Minecraft formula, because its formula is all about improvement. A sequel would be a radical shift away from the pre-established normal of the game, changing it from a single evolving entity to a standard game series with annual static sequels.

Now that Microsoft owns the game, the company’s best course of action to keep customers happy would just be to keep the updates rolling. Minecraft is now on more platforms than ever, catering to millions of players. Everyone who has purchased the game bought it knowing it would receive updates, that the developers would be adding more fun content. It’s essentially an Everlasting Gobbstopper: for a one-time price you get something you can never finish and that will remain good for years to come. If a sequel comes along it will make the original go stale, forever stopping progress in your old worlds. It’d be like a new Skylanders game that wasn’t compatible with last year’s figures, or a new box of Legos that didn’t fit your old pieces. New content shouldn’t intend to be a rigid standalone package; it should be an addition to the big Minecraft toy box.

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In case you missed the recent news, the first Microsoft Garage title has been rather sneakily released into the wild as a free download on Xbox One. Voice Commander is a single-screen shooter in the style of the arcade classic Asteroids, with a few notable twists which between them make the most of the Kinect technology and add an additional layer of strategy. Players are invited to defend their home planet from wave after wave of alien attackers, whilst the titular voice commands are used to deploy defensive structures in specific quadrants or to deploy smart bombs and other secondary weapons.

Microsoft Garage games are made by various Microsoft Studio employees in their spare time, and Voice Commander has set the bar pretty high considering that it’s free to download. Currently, it can only be located via a Bing search on your Xbox One, and your console must also be set to the US region. Non-US players can still download and play Voice Commander, but will need to change their home region to US, download the game and then change back.

For more on Voice Commander, check out the gameplay video after the jump.

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