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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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Weekly Roundup compiles all the biggest news stories, reviews and features from the week into one handy post on the weekends.

With the shadow of the holidays firmly behind for us another year, we can get back to focusing on the other thing that brings us all together, Xbox Live Arcade. A lot of work behind the scenes this week, as several existing XBLA games got some tinkering under the hood. We outline some strategies for guarding Middle-earth, talk DLC for our ‘Best HD Remake of 2012’ and dish on the many flavors of our favorite peripheral. Here’s to another great year of Xbox Live Arcade.

Here’s our week in review:

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The team at Shoryuken has noted that Capcom is gearing up for the upcoming release of Darkstalkers Resurrection, a high-definition port of both Night Warriors: Darkstalkers Revenge and Darkstalkers …
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Skulls of the Shogun may be the first XBLA game offering cross-platform play over Windows 8, Surface and WP8, but those hoping for a cross-platform purchase unlocking the game …
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The holidays are a busy time, especially around these parts. Sometimes goods news falls through the cracks, but now’s the time of year to reach deep for anything that might have gotten lost in the hustle and bustle of the season. Recently announced by publisher Atlus and developer Old School Games, a subsidiary of Saber Interactive (best known for Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary and most recently, Inversion), God Mode throws open the gates of Hell for some unabashed third-person cooperative action.

God Mode offers up a retro-romp through The Maze of Hades where you and as many as three friends, online or off, shoot, smash, and blast your way through wave upon wave of mythological mayhem. Moving from zone to zone with your recently deceased characters, you’ll have to finagle your way through the frenzy, fighting for health/armor/ammo pick-ups while filling your Rage Meter with each successive kill to unleash special abilities. Though the action seems fairly straightforward, collected gold and experience plays into Cadaver Customization, where you’ll be able to shop for new weapons, upgrades, abilities and an absurd array of appearance pieces.

Speaking to IGN, studio head Matthew Karch touched on the pick-up-and-play friendliness they’ve instilled, “It doesn’t take itself too seriously. It is lighthearted fun and focuses on arcade style action over a deep story. I think this makes sense for downloadable games, where players are looking for some quick, thoughtless action.” While not everyone agrees downloadable players don’t want narrative and depth, there’s certainly room for the mindless obliteration of the legions of the damned.

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At this point, it’s safe to call Minecraft a legitimate phenomenon – especially the Xbox 360 Edition, where it’s one of the best-selling games in XBLA history and spent …
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Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD is a bit of a mixed bag. For the casual player it provides nostalgia with enhanced visuals. The bugs seem minor. For the hardcore it leaves feelings of imprecision in control, and the in-game glitches become like a giant white headed pimple–no matter how much you try to look away it steals your focus. The community and media at large are torn on whether the game is amazing or abysmal. The Revert Pack DLC is more of the same. In the end it comes down to whether you enjoy the core game or hate it. That being said, let’s keep this short and not beat around the bush.

Here’s what we liked:

More to love – For fans of the game the Revert Pack is a must buy. The three greatest levels from Pro Skater 3 (Canada, L.A., and Airport) along with one new music track, Metallica’s “All Nightmare Long”. Also included are four new skaters: pros Steve Caballero and Geoff Rawley and Metallica members James Hetfield and Robert Trujillo. The four new skaters provide decent balance in the game’s starting selection, and the levels are faithfully recreated. The Metallica track is, well, Metallica. You’ll either love it or hate it.

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Oh man, we love us some 360 controllers. They fit any size hands, unlike the Sony controllers, and despite the less-than-stellar stock d-pad they’re a dream to use. But it’s not just about functionality, it’s about collectability. And with 33 official Microsoft controllers to hunt down there’s no shortage of game for the hunter.

But some controllers may only interest you from an aesthetic standpoint, and so in addition to a rarity rating for each controller we’ve also listed an availability level for replacement parts should you want to transform your existing controllers. So instead of buying an all new controller you can give that nasty, sticky-buttoned gamepad new life and a wicked shell. When searching for custom shell parts remember to stick with vendors that have high reputability or high eBay ratings. There are a lot of cheap knockoffs that look the same in a picture but fit poorly. As per our recent review, we recommend Quickdrawmods if you’re looking for shells that have a Low or above availability rating. Past that go for eBay sellers with high ratings (both in percentage and number of ratings). Also be sure to pick up a Torx T8 security bit screwdriver from whoever you buy your first shell from. It’s invaluable, and they’re usually dirt cheap.

So without further ado we present the 32 Microsoft produced 360 controllers: row by row, left to right.

UPDATE: Added a missing controller to bottom right of the above, along with a description below.

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New screenshots from developer Moon Spider Studio’s upcoming Harold have washed up, showcasing the sandy shores of the “Beach” courses. Players can expect to guide the hapless Harold across this and other vibrant environments in the platforming-puzzle-racer hybrid coming to “consoles” and PC later this spring.

The first effort from the Florida-based developer, Harold puts the player in the role of Gabe, the titular sprinter’s guardian angel who must protect his charge through the multiple paths of each course en route to the finish line. By manipulating obstacles, disarming pitfalls and “motivating” Harold with angelic abilities, players must purportedly act fast to not only achieve the best time, but save Harold from his biggest threat — himself. Touting humorous gameplay and a casual curve that’s difficult to master, Harold aims to deliver a dynamic experience for players of all types.

However Harold ends up finishing, he’ll certainly look good doing it. The downloadable title’s hand-drawn visual style has been crafted by Moon Spider Studio’s stable of artists and animators whose credentials include the world-renowned Dreamworks, Pixar and Studio Ghibli. If these new screenshots are any indication, Harold‘s shaping up to be a beautiful game. Check out the full gallery after the jump.

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XBLA Fans recently had the opportunity to chat with Pawel Lekki, COO at Exor Studios. Exor’s Zombie Driver HD released on XBLA this past October, and Lekki was more than willing to talk about the title as well as his background in game development.

Pawel, please tell us a few things about yourself outside of the world of gaming.

I think there isn’t much outside the world of gaming because I spend most of my day at work to be honest. But if I’m not working I enjoy travelling by car around Europe. Moving around in your own vehicle gives a lot of freedom, and I annually make road trips with a few friends. Our record braking trip so far was visiting 11 countries in 7 days with a total of 5000km on the road.

How did you get into game development?

The first gaming-related thing I did [actually involved] classic role playing games. I was a game master for 5 years, and together with our team we created our own version of one of the popular RPG systems. I guess you could say we started modding with pen and paper.

When it comes to traditional computer game development, I started by making levels for various games with my brother. The first game for which we made our own maps was Age of Empires, then StarCraft, and later we moved on to first person shooters like Unreal Tournament, Quake 3 and Half-Life. The first Make Something Unreal contest actually played an important role in our journey because it made us go public and share our works on the internet. After that we started working on mods for Half-Life and informally started Exor as a modding group. Our first public mod was ‘D.I.P.R.I.P.’ for Half-Life 2 and because of our work on it we were all hired by a Finnish mobile game development company called Gamelion. That was the beginning of my professional game development career which started 7 years ago.

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