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Milestone S.r.l., the Italian developer behind the last three WRC: FIA World Rally Championship games, is bringing the series to Xbox LIVE Arcade. …
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Special Forces: Team X was developed by Zombie Studios and published by Atari, Inc. It was released February 6, 2013 for 1200 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.

It’s been nearly three years since Zombie Studios’ last crack at an XBLA shooter, Blacklight: Tango Down, and in that time, they’ve cultivated a hard-core PC following with its free-to-play successor Blacklight: Retribution. Now heralding the return of Zombie’s shooter-centric capability to Xbox Live Arcade, Special Forces: Team X delivers a mostly satisfying multiplayer fix with enough style to overlook the one-note experience. STX isn’t targeted at the ultra-competitive; it’s designed around ease of use, accessibility, and plucking enough chords to resonate with everyone in some way, even if it never particularly excels at any one of them.

It’s impossible not to see the reflection of other titles in the glossy presentation of Special Forces: Team X. The lean character bodies and cel-shaded visuals immediately drum up thoughts of Borderlands, while the handling, cover-system and gun mechanics are unabashedly lifted from the Gears of War series. This isn’t a slight on the title, to the contrary, there’s an admirable confidence in the way Zombie Studios has surveyed the landscape, imitating proven success, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel. The amalgamation of gaming’s giants makes for a beautiful creature both accessible and familiar, but there’s something missing behind the eyes, and it’s little more than the sum of its parts.

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As far as pinball games go, the force is very strong with this one. Pinball FX 2 will be getting its first pack of tables from the …
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Four tracks, a new weekly challenge, and a callout for fan-created Trials HD remakes.
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Serious Sam Double D XXL was developed by Mommy’s Best Games and published by Mastertronic Group Ltd. It was released on February 20, 2013 for 800 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.

After his success on PC, Serious Sam has been a frequent star in the Xbox Live Arcade. Each iteration is known for its signature crazy-mob-running-at-you chaos, with heavy emphasis on strafing and dodging. Now, in the surprisingly novel twist that is Serious Sam Double D XXL, this frantic formula is reimagined into a 2-dimensional side-scrolling twin-stick shooter, and manages to retain that signature panic of the previous games. With it, it introduces the surprisingly deep gun stacking mechanic that sets it apart as its own worthy entry in the series.

Originally released on PC in August 2011, this version on XBLA is an updated “XXL” version that adds challenge levels, two-player co-op, gun upgrades, and additional polish and tweaking to vastly improve the original game.

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In a blog post, Undead Labs has detailed the way in which character and skill systems operate in its upcoming open-world survival horror title, State of Decay.

According to the studio, the characters that you encounter and choose to welcome into your group will affect the dynamic of your entire experience. Their differing skill sets and personalities will present unique challenges in the way they interact with each other.

“A good story isn’t about characters as unchanging archetypes,” begins the blog post. “It does explore innate potential and expectations, but it’s also about choices and change (or refusal to change). A good survival story in particular puts its characters to the test, but not just as individuals.”

In State of Decay, all survivors share the same basic skill sets – Cardio, Wits, Fighting and Shooting – but they are weighted differently depending on the character. Each survivor has a number of stars next to each category that represents their proficiency in that particular skill. Additional stars are earned by successfully making use of these skills in-game.

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In a video interview posted over at the Sega blog, lead designer of The Cave, J.P. LeBreton, explains that devising the game’s puzzles presented a unique kind of challenge.

Double Fine’s LeBreton, who also worked on BioShock, explained that the trick is to find the good kind of “being stuck.” Providing just the right amount of information is paramount when designing any game’s puzzles. But he learned that a straight-up adventure game like The Cave presents additional hurdles at the user-testing stage.

“You don’t have clear metrics like you do with a game that’s based around combat, where you can say, ‘OK, they died this many times and they took this much damage, and we’d rather it be this way, so let’s put more health packs or whatever in the level,” he begins.

“With [The Cave], it was more just like, ‘Well, they were stuck in this area for a long time. A, are we OK with that? And B, what do we want to do about it? Do we want to give them a hint in this direction? No, that’s too much of a gimme; let’s figure out something else. Or let’s just leave it, because it’s actually good because it’s late in the game, or it’s the right kind of difficult puzzle for this kind of situation.'”

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Yesterday XBLAFans reported that developer Humble Hearts has some “exciting news” related to its debut effort, Dust: An Elysian Tail, in the pipeline. Humble Hearts hasn’t announced what …
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Update: At some point after this story was published, Illfonic’s Nexuiz was re-listed on the Xbox Live Marketplace. Thanks to reader SteVic82 for bringing this to our attention. Original …
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Kalypso Media have announced that Dollar Dash will finally steal its way onto XBLA on March 6 for 800 MSP. The top-down …
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