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It’s been a long time coming, but Minecraft‘s ninth update is almost here. TU9 has passed Microsoft certification and is going to drop Friday, April 5. While the update will contain a slew of new features, it is most notable for the long-awaited arrival of the The End, home of the Ender Dragon. The boss fight has been made more difficult for the Xbox 360 Edition of the game, but the adventure to The End still remains the same. If you’re not already familiar with the process, 4J has kindly created a trailer showing how to reach The End step-by-step.

Check out the full list of changes of changes after the jump.

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Farcry 3: Blood Dragon has been on XBLA Fans’ radar since Marketplace art leaked online last month, and now Ubisoft has made one of its worst-kept secrets a reality. A teaser trailer for Blood Dragon appeared alongside a Geocities-esque website today, which portrays the game as an ’80s sci-fi action movie. The teaser doesn’t reveal much outside of reinforcing the 80s-inspired aesthetic, though we captured a brief flash of what appears to be in-game footage. If anything can be gleaned from it, it looks as though Blood Dragon will keep with Far Cry’s FPS lineage.

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Terraria was originally developed by Re-Logic; 505 Games developed and published the Xbox 360 port. It was released March 27, 2013 for 1200 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.

At its heart, Terraria is a 2D side scrolling platform game which features a range of RPG, mining, crafting and world building mechanics. With such a unique mixture of gameplay styles and influences, one could be forgiven for thinking that Terraria should lack depth or substance. The reality is quite contrary however, and Terraria may actually be one of the deepest and most engaging titles within the Xbox Live Arcade catalog.

Terraria presents the player with such a huge range of activities to participate in, at such a variable pace, that it really is the ultimate sandbox game. Unlike Minecraft or Spelunky which respectively allow players to wander aimlessly in relative safety or punish them brutally along an increasingly difficult path, Terraria presents both options as slowly or as quickly as you can manage. 

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After their critical success with The Walking Dead, Telltale Games is a break from serious storytelling and traveling back to their comedic roots. Poker Night 2, sequel to 2010’s Poker Night at the Inventory, puts …
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Originally slated for a 2013 release on XBLA, PSN, and Steam, Blossom Minds’ physics based platformer Walter faces an uncertain future as the studio attempts to secure …
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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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Both the Xbox Games and SmartGlass apps have received aesthetic and functional updates aimed at improving usability, reveals Major Nelson.  The goal is to make playing and …
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Although CastleStorm is due to release next month, little has been made public about its multiplayer offerings. However, in a recent blog post, Zen Studios has lifted the lid on this unknown quantity, explaining CastleStorm‘s 1. vs. 1 split-screen mode, Survival Co-op and Last Stand Co-op modes.

According to Zen, multiplayer progression will be kept distinct from that of its single-player campaign, with players leveling up and earning experience separately in each. Each of the three new multiplayer modes can be played locally or online, and players can even import their own, custom-made castles into multiplayer matches.

The 1 vs. 1 split-screen mode sees players simply attempting to destroy an individual opponent’s castle — the first to do so emerges victorious. Survival Co-op requires two players to team up in order to repel waves of enemies, with one player manning the ballista while the other assumes control of the ground forces. Finally, in Last Stand Co-op Mode, both players assume control of a single hero unit and must stay alive as long as possible while battling increasingly difficult waves of enemies.

Zen has also released a new gameplay trailer that demonstrates CastleStorm‘s newly revealed multiplayer modes in action.

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Fresh screenshots have surfaced for bitComposer’s upcoming arcade-style attack-chopper game, Thunder Wolves. Developed by Hungarian studio Most Wanted Entertainment, Thunder Wolves was originally scheduled to release within the Q1 window, although it was recently bumped to Q2 as we reported earlier in the month.

No new details have been released along with these latest screens. However, so far it’s known that Thunder Wolves allows players to assume control of nine different helicopters with different weaponry and abilities. According to its official website, the game features 13 missions that take place in four different regions with destructible environments. Its missions will vary from “stealth and escort-based objectives to all-out seek and destroy.” No online-multiplayer functionality has been announced, although bitComposer has confirmed that Thunder Wolves will feature a local co-op mode at the very least.

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In a time when a lot of games are stretching themselves to incorporate co-op as a selling point, some game developers have slapped the feature onto their games in a way that feels forced, gimmicky and even annoying. Other games integrate co-op perfectly, yet they sometimes make players feel as though they’re playing simultaneously but not necessarily playing together. Former Ubisoft developers Simon Darveau, Malik Boukhira and Atul Mehra set out to crack the co-op code and deliver something that is cohesive, exciting and truly cooperative. Their creation is Tiny Brains, the first title from their startup independent studio Spearhead Games.

A mad scientist has imbued four lab rodents (that’s you) with superpowers and placed them into test tank puzzles. The catch: each rodent has a different power, and you will need every one to solve your way to freedom. The four rodents are named after the powers they wield: Force, Vortex, Teleport and Create. This forces you to communicate, brainstorm, experiment, coach and encourage each other. Every player is needed for success to be possible, so every player contributes. When you succeed, you succeed together.

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