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Super League Football table coming to Pinball FX 2 for XBLA
12 years ago

Super League Football table coming to Pinball FX 2 for XBLA

By  •  News

Pinball FX 2 is set to receive a new Super League Football-themed table, Zen Studios has announced. The upcoming table will let players choose sides and pick which football …
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Halo: Spartan Assault now available on Xbox 360
12 years ago

Halo: Spartan Assault now available on Xbox 360

By  •  News

343 Industries’ top-down shooter Halo: Spartan Assault is now available on the Xbox 360 for $14.99 US. After launching exclusively on Windows Phone and Windows 8 last summer, Microsoft announced …
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XBLA Fans is looking to add additional writers to our team
12 years ago

XBLA Fans is looking to add additional writers to our team

By  •  News, Community

We have been biding our time waiting for the indie side of the Xbox One to ramp up after launch. If you follow us closely, I’m sure you have …
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Microsoft investigating competitive pricing of digital content
12 years ago

Microsoft investigating competitive pricing of digital content

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Larry Hyrb, Xbox Live’s “Major Nelson,” commented on Reddit recently in regards to Microsoft’s plans to look into more competitive pricing for digital content on its Xbox platforms. He …
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Jeff Strain from Undead Labs talks games with Gamasutra
12 years ago

Jeff Strain from Undead Labs talks games with Gamasutra

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Undead Labs

Last week, Undead Labs Founder Jeff Strain sat down with Gamasutra to talk about State of Decay, where the industry is going and what Undead Labs will be doing along the way.

Strain, an industry veteran who has been involved with some monumental PC gaming endeavors, has a history of market disruption. He was instrumental in establishing Blizzard as a premiere gaming powerhouse from 1995 to 2000, during which time he turned BattleNet into a critically important multiplayer platform and the only place to play some of the highest-rated PC games ever.

Later, he founded ArenaNet with fellow Blizzard developers, releasing Guild Wars in 2005, which redefined much of what was expected in an MMO. In the subsequent years, Guild Wars saw two chapter additions, a few expansion packs and, eventually, a direct sequel in 2012. It grew to be a compelling alternative to the market leaders and, in many ways, surpassed them.

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Crimson Dragon gets major update and goes on sale
12 years ago

Crimson Dragon gets major update and goes on sale

By  •  News

Crimson Dragon got a major facelift this week, with a new update adding a new multiplayer mode for co-operative play over Xbox Live as well as a new difficulty …
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Tetris headed to Xbox One
12 years ago

Tetris headed to Xbox One

By  •  News

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the classic game Tetris, Ubisoft has teamed up with the The Tetris Company to release the title on the Xbox One. Tetris on …
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Xbox One to get Project Spark beta in February
12 years ago

Xbox One to get Project Spark beta in February

By  •  News

The Project Spark beta is currently only available for Windows 8 users lucky enough to receive a key, but it’s about to make the jump over to consoles next …
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1 vs. 100-style experience coming to Xbox One
12 years ago

1 vs. 100-style experience coming to Xbox One

By  •  News

Polygon‘s Brian Crecente writes that Microsoft is interested in bringing something similar 1 vs. 100 to the Xbox One. Dave McCarthy, general manager for Lifestyle Entertainment at Microsoft Studios, …
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Skulls of the Shogun originally had a more serious tone
12 years ago

Skulls of the Shogun originally had a more serious tone

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Skulls of the Shogun General Akamoto

When developer 17-Bit’s Skulls of the Shogun released in early 2013, it did so with a light, humorous script that mixed pop culture references with a near-constant string of jokes of the developer’s own creation. According to a recent interview of studio CEO Jake Kazdal by Pocket Gamer, however, the original plan was for the game to have a very different tone. The plan called for more austerity and less clowning.

That all changed when original scribe Ben Vance — who also served as the game’s programmer and designer — penned a joke-filled draft that clashed with 17-Bit’s more restrained vision of the game. Vance’s approach resonated with other members of the team, and everyone began slipping even more humor into his script during the game’s protracted development cycle.

“Since the game was in development for so long, everyone involved kept throwing in jokes and massaging the script,” Kazdal told Pocket Gamer. “And then we got a complete editing pass from localisation company, 8-4, where script doctors Mark MacDonald and Alan Averill just nailed it.

“We originally were going to have a much more stoic, serious script, but people responded so well to the goofy offbeat humor we had stubbed in we just decided to run with it. We wanted to entertain players, while reinforcing our stereotypes, and just rolled with it.”

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