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Thunder Wolves was developed by Most Wanted Entertainment and published by bitComposer Entertainment. It was released June 12, 2013 for 800 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.

Thunder Wolves is about one thing, and one thing only: blowing stuff up. There’s not so much a plot, as a collection of directives loosely stringing one over-the-top level to another, always boiling down to the same principle. Everything painted with red gets blasted to smithereens. There are softer moments, though whether Thunder Wolves is legitimately reaching for depth or just parodying cheeseball melodrama doesn’t really matter. At the end of the day, you’ll likely foster stronger emotional bonds with your arsenal of helicopters than the sensational stereotypes piloting them.

Across the game’s thirteen levels you’ll pilot as many choppers, ranging from attack to recon, all loaded for bear with a variety of ordinance. In rare cases, you’ll swap out of the pilot seat to perform an on-rail shooting segment, lob bombs from a circling gunship or drive a dump truck. These instances mix up the gameplay but are never more engaging than the core experience, annihilating enemy bases and stemming the flow of oncoming waves. That’s really what Thunder Wolves has to offer – a simple, straightforward exercise in lighting things up from your volitant chariot.

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“So the basic idea being, what would happen if you could become your shadow, and I’ll start walking on shadow lines in the world. That really, at its core is where the game concept first evolved. In the same way as Portal, I wanted to create a mechanic that really fit well and [you could] learn well. So something that had enough depth that as long as there is a light source in the game you can become a shadow and use this mechanic in several ways.”

This is how Compulsion Games Studio Head Guillaume Provost presents his game to XBLAFans and a smattering of other members of the games media. He does it behind closed doors at Contrast‘s Electronic Entertainment Expo booth. It’s a little backwards. Having played the demo half an hour ago, I’ve already walked on the shadow lines to which Provost refers. I’ve already manipulated the power of light to illuminate a cabaret stage and subsequently born witness to a less-than-harmonious meeting of lovers after the close of the show for which I played at stagehand. I’ve already become a shadow to platform across the dark contours of merry-go-round horses at an eerily deserted circus in an old town.

Now, after they’ve already been experienced, these things are explained for the first time, and that leads into some questions. Chief among our curiosities are finding out who these characters are and what it means when they become shadows. Provost and Complusion’s public relations and community man, Sam Abbott, are mostly forthcoming with the answers. Mostly.

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Mars: War Logs, the atmospheric cyberpunk action RPG, is finally coming to Xbox Live Arcade. Announced late last year, War Logs had always targeted XBLA, but took a detour for an early PC release. Fortunately, Roy Temperance and his murky past will finally arrive on the red planet this Friday, July 26 for 1200 MSP.

We’ve logged quite a bit of information ourselves about Spiders’ upcoming offering. From their cleverly named Silk engine that weaves War Logs‘ impressive visuals to the fluid combat system, lifting more than a little inspiration from Batman: Arkham Asylum.

To get a sense of what’s in store for those looking to take the plunge into the martian world, hit the jump to hear Spiders’ motivations behind the ambitious downloadable title.

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The next bundle to land on Xbox Live Arcade launches today. Dubbed the Space Shooter Bundle, the package sends four titles into a modest orbit around 1600 MSP, saving you …
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Update 2: In a second statement released to Kotaku today, Xbox Chief Product Officer Marc Whitten confirmed an earlier report by Game Informer that while all Xbox Ones will …
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The Pinball Arcade on XBLA has received the yo-yo treatment as of late after it was delisted from the Xbox LIVE Marketplace last week. While the game probably won’t …
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If you’re one of many who found the recent releases of the Soul Calibur franchise to be lacking, then you now have a reason to be excited. Soul Calibur …
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Microsoft Studios, the digital publishing arm of the Washington-based mother ship, recently cleared some time on their Twitch channel to host the folks from Signal Studios and their upcoming free-to-play RPG, Ascend: Hand of Kul. For over an hour, Ascend‘s developers fielded general questions about the game, the ongoing closed beta and an eventual release.

While an exact date hasn’t been locked down, Lead Designer Ian Scott commented on the ballpark release window. “We don’t know specifically but I would guess over the course of the next couple of months,” Scott said. “More and more people will have access [to the beta] and then the game’s going to kind of gradually launch into open release.”

“We’re going through the process of doing another update which will open up more stuff to get to the end of the game,” explained President of Signal Studios, D.R. Albright III. “When we do that, which should hopefully be within a few weeks, we’re going to release the rest of the beta codes. Then we’re going to update again [based on] that information, and that’s when it’s going to go live.”

The Ascend beta has been running strong since the beginning of the month, welcoming players who originally signed up to get a taste of what’s to come. While we can’t get into specifics about the beta content, it’s a small sample of the early game and from what we’ve played, you should be excited to get your hands on it. But it’s not all fun and games.

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Publisher NinjaBee games released a bundle of games that won’t sting your wallet. 1600 Microsoft points will get you a bundle of games released by the Utah-based indie studio on …
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Telltale games revealed that Clementine will return in the second season of The Walking Dead. A panel at Comic-Con this year gave the first details confirming that Clementine will …
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