Resident Evil 0 review: Another great mansion
The Resident Evil series has seen many iterations over the past twenty years. Some of the earlier titles were released on consoles that are obsolete that many of us don’t have …
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Spartacus Legends review (XBLA)
Spartacus Legends was developed by Kung Fu Factory and published by Ubisoft. It was released June 26, 2013 for free.
Despite being made as a tie-in to a television series on Starz, Spartacus Legends is a free-to-play fighting game that doesn’t require any previous knowledge of the show. The game puts you in the role of battle-hardened slaves rising up the ranks to become legendary gladiators. Buckets upon buckets of blood will be shed as you fight your way through Roman arenas. There was a lot of potential here for this to be a fun, mature fighting game. In the end, the game’s bright ideas were murdered by a slew of technical problems.
The Beautiful Puzzle Pack bundles four great XBLA games at a discount
Today the Beautiful Puzzle Pack silently stepped into the new release section of the marketplace and this is not something you want to overlook. If puzzle games are your …
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Serious Sam’s Nathan Fouts loves ‘crazy-ass guns’
We’ve just seen the release of Serious Sam Double D XXL, a game we recommended for its classic shooting action rebuilt into two dimensions. Behind all its artistic style, crazy weapons and even more crazy enemies is one man: Nathan Fouts, owner of indie development studio Mommy’s Best Games. We caught up with him to ask about how he put together Serious Sam Double D XXL, starting from its inception on PC to its massive expansion on Xbox Live Arcade. When we asked how it feels to have the game out and finished, he joked, “I think I’m still ready to go back to sleep!”
Serious Sam’s jump to 2D
Serious Sam is a beloved franchise known for its old-school Doom-esque shooting that relies heavily on strafing and jumping while making players fight off swarms of aliens, monsters and headless kamikaze bombers. Leveraging his PC popularity, Serious Sam has gone on to make numerous cameos on Xbox Live Arcade in both new and classic games. However, they have all been 3-dimensional first-person shooters. How did Fouts score a gig that involved smashing it into two dimensions? As it turns out, “Devolver came to us and said that they were interested in this prospect and that it involved Croteam [the creators] and the Serious Sam franchise,” he explained. “I just about flipped my lid. I couldn’t believe it. [They told me] they liked our stuff and they’d like us to do this indie version.”
What we are playing: February 3
What we are playing is a weekly column published on Sunday. Select members of the team talk about the games they’ve been playing over the past week and which they’re …
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Huge “Countdown to 2013” marketplace sale begins December 18
In a blog post he’s since deleted, Xbox Live Director of Programming, Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb, announced the “Countdown to 2013” sale for the marketplace. The sale, which begins on December 18 and runs through December 31, will see discounts for a raft of content from certain franchises and publishers on both XBLA and the wider marketplace.
Although the official page has been pulled, the folks over at NeoGAF managed to compile a reasonably comprehensive list of the titles to go on sale and the date their discounts will take effect. Unfortunately, Major Nelson never revealed the discounted prices at any stage. But if you hope to catch any of the games or DLC in the list below for cheap, it may pay to stock up on MSP!
However, the fact that the official page has been pulled (even though most of the details are out in the wild) has us at least a little concerned, so maybe try not to pin all your hopes and dreams on the “Countdown to 2013” sale.
The full list of currently known discounted XBLA items follows:
Deal of the Week and more: October 9 – October 15
Another busy week of XBLA sales sees Toy Soldiers and Toy Soldiers: Cold War along with their various add-ons being discounted in this week’s Deal of the Week. Those …
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Xbox Live Back to School Sale
What better way to celebrate going back to school than spending money on books, supplies, or the most obvious purchase: video games! Microsoft has discounted over 30 games and DLC for this week’s Xbox Live Deal of the Week. These deals will run from September 4th-10th for both Xbox Live Gold and Silver members (noted below.)Study hard and enjoy these deals while they last! Read More
Toy Soldiers: Cold War and others half price this week
Do you like saving money? Of course you like saving money! Join us, then, as we embark on an adventure across the fields of frugality. Next stop: The Microsoft Studios Sale. This midsummer week boasts no less than five games all slashed, sliced and diced in price. Wallets at the ready, thrifty friends.
XBLA sales figures for the month of April
Before we go marching on into the land of statistics… Yes the following figures are based on leaderboard data. No it’s not entirely accurate. It is, however, the best barometer we have. Onward!
It’s been a fine two months. We’ve seen the likes of Trials Evolution and Minecraft shatter records, Fez and The Walking Dead revitalise dusty genres and titles like Skullgirls and The Pinball Arcade bolstering genres with an already strong showing on XBLA. Not to mention Fable: Heroes, The Splatters and Anomaly Warzone Earth rounding out a special 8 weeks.
Rewind a little to April and actual sales data isn’t quite as cheery, at least not across the board. As usual, Gamasutra has the full rundown.