Action Packed Bundle pairs five XBLA games for 1600 MSP
Another day, another bundle of Xbox Live Arcade games designed to fill out your digital library for one low cost. This time around Microsoft’s packaged five action titles for …
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Charlie Murder launch trailer promises summer gore
Action-RPG brawler Charlie Murder got it’s official Xbox Marketplace listing this week and to celebrate, Ska Studios have released a brand new trailer. The game from the developers behind …
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XBLA is going away, and that might not be so bad
Xbox Live Arcade is a dead platform downloading. Microsoft’s designated home for small and inexpensive downloadable video games will not make the jump to the next generation. When the Xbox One releases later this year, all of its video games will live in the same space. The nearly nine-years-old Xbox Live Arcade might continue to exist on the Xbox 360 and slowly fade away during the transitional year(s), or Microsoft might quickly yank it like a Band-Aid through a dashboard update. In either case, XBLA has been read its last rights.
One day soon, gamers everywhere will turn on their Xboxes and find all available games under an aptly named Games section of the dashboard. It’s tempting to read this move as another case of Microsoft pushing independent developers farther away from the green glow of the Xbox spotlight. It’s tempting to assume that the new dashboard will shine that light even brighter on big-budget game releases and multimedia options, and that may well end up being the case. However, some indies, believe it or not, actually enjoy working with Microsoft. Additionally, Microsoft’s Phil Spencer told Eurogamer that he feels the new layout, which includes a recommendation system, will “solve fantastically some of the challenges that independent developers face, particularly around discovery and connecting their game to an audience, by some of the platform features we have in the machine itself.”
We’ll have to check back in a few years into the Xbox One’s life to verify whether or not Spencer spoke truly — but no one wants to wait that long. So here and now, what does the elimination of Xbox Live Arcade mean? Will it continue the Flight of the Indies? Or will it better a system that obviously has more than a few kinks and bring back the downtrodden and departed?
“Working with Microsoft is great” says XBLA developer Ska Studios
Following on from some of the negative XBLA press that has recently hit the headlines, Ska Studios’ James Silva has decided to set the record straight on his experiences …
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XBLAFans’ most anticipated 2013 XBLA games: Part II
Here we are once again at the start of what’s sure to be another fantastic year of XBLA releases. Each day this week XBLAFans will be rolling out a list of eight of our most anticipated Xbox Live Arcade releases of 2013. While we can’t possibly cover every single XBLA game planned for this year, we’ll be giving you a varied list of 40 of the most promising titles we expect to release on XBLA in 2013. Once it’s all done, be sure to check back in next Monday when each staff member makes his/her picks for the game he/she is most looking forward to.
The Cave
Developer: Double Fine
An upcoming platform-adventure game, The Cave is the brainchild of Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion creator Ron Gilbert. Channeling Gilbert’s earlier work, The Cave employs classic adventure-style gameplay within an action-platform framework. While we expect The Cave to release this month, an official release date has not yet been announced.
Contest: The 12 Days of XBLA (Day 12)
On the last day of The 12 Days of XBLA, we are giving away the most successful XBLA game ever. That’s right, it’s Minecraft day. And as an added bonus, we have a few extra games to give away to the daily winner of this post. The winner will also receive a copy of Black Knight Sword, Pool Nation and The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile! That makes this particular contest worth $55!
All you need to do to enter today’s contest is share your favorite Minecraft creation below. Anything is acceptable. You could link to a photo you have uploaded of your world, describe an awesome moment you had like your first creeper encounter or even link to/describe somebody else’s creation you saw online that took you aback with its excellence. Anything goes here. It’s the last day. Let’s just share Minecraft stories, shall we? We hope you enjoyed the past 12 days. We sure did :)
The winner of yesterday’s contest is: Marco Cremona (@XdarKillerX94) – You have won a copy of Fable Heroes. We will be in touch with you today on Twitter!
And the winner of this (Day 12) contest is: xMALOx (@xGATOxMALOx) – You have won a copy of Minecraft, Black Knight Sword, Pool Nation & The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile. We will be in contact with you today on Twitter!
The 12 Days of XBLA begins!
And the 12 Days of XBLA promotion is finally upon us. For the next 12 days, we will be giving out some of the finest XBLA games that were released in the past year. Each day will hold two chances for you to win one specific game. There will be a chance to win here on the XBLAFans.com website and a chance to win on our Twitter stream. So you better go follow @XBLAFans on Twitter right now if you haven’t done so already. The first day of contests will start in approximately 2 hours!
XBLA Wednesday plus this week’s sales – October 31
This Wednesday we have two XBLA games to enjoy, though perhaps not the most obvious choices for a Halloween release date. First up we have the long awaited platformer …
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Dust: An Elysian Tail – Hidden Characters (Bakers Dozen) Guide
The Bakers Dozen Achievement is all about rescuing your favourite characters that have been hidden throughout the world of Dust: An Elysian Tail. Don’t forget that when you get to any one of the cages that these guys are imprisoned in, you will need four keys and some quick hands to beat the locks!
XBLAFancast Episode 64 – Pre3
It’s an early regular show this week as we’re planning to have a few E3 specials ep throughout the rest of the coming week. Our EIC John Laster joins myself and Todd for this quick fire show, we talk this weeks and last weeks releases plus a little what we’ve been playing. After that it’s a crazy amount of pre-E3 news, then we round things out with a couple of twitter questions.
In an effort to get this episode up speedily and early the audio quality and consistency has taken a slight dip. Apologies for that, the rest of the podcasts this week will be the usual quality you’d expect.
Look for a special episode on Monday or Tuesday focusing on Microsoft’s press conference, we expect to hear about the Summer of Arcade titles at some point in or around the conference. We should also have some audio from the folks we have at E3 so look out for those too.
Please subscribe, rate and review the podcast on iTunes. We appreciate it! Check us out on twitter (@XBLAFans) where you can win codes for games, give us feedback or just ask a question. We are also now on Stitcher, so you can stream the show on your smartphone, give it a go!
Big thanks to Chris Green for the awesome theme music, be sure to check out his site BlurredEdge and why not follow him on twitter too @BlurredEdge.
[podcast]https://xblafans.com/xblafancast/XBLAFancastEp64.mp3[/podcast]