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It was way back during April’s PAX East when 17-Bit studio boss Jake Kazdal told XBLA Fans that development was nearly complete on his team’s turn-based strategy game, Skulls of the Shogun. The game, which pits small armies of dead Japanese samurais against each other in the afterlife, appeared to be polished to a sheen and was every bit (no pun intended) as enjoyable to play as it was when yours truly first played it one year earlier.

Kazdal said at the time that the plan was to release the game on XBLA in October alongside the launch of Windows 8. That didn’t happen. September saw the game being delayed to November. Strategy fans would have to wait just a little bit longer. In case you didn’t notice, they’re still waiting. Skulls of the Shogun missed its new target window and 17-Bit has not announced a new, new window.

Kazdal did recently speak to Polygon about his missing-in-action game, though. He informed the outlet that trying to coordinate a multiplatform launch (Skulls is headed to PC, Windows Phone 8 and Microsoft Surface tablets in addition to XBLA) with only three developers on his team is an arduous undertaking.

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Two new titles land on Xbox Live Arcade today. Black Knight Sword marks a second dip into XBLA waters for co-developers Grasshopper Manufacture and Digital Reality since their release of Sine …
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Welcome to Day 1 of the 12 Days of XBLA! To start things off in the right direction, we are going to give away the game pictured above. The trick is that it has been put through a few Photoshop filters to make it a little bit challenging. Post your best guess in the comments section below for a chance to win. And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter for even more chances to win. Good luck!

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Publisher Deep Silver has released a short video detailing the second of three characters from its upcoming side-scrolling brawler Sacred Citadel. This video focuses on Khukuri Shaman, described as …
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Guardians of Middle Earth was developed by Monolith Productions and published by WB Games. It was released December 5, 2012  for 1200 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes. 

The Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, or MOBA for short, is not a genre typically associated with the Xbox 360. Sure there have been a few good attempts to bring this style of game to XBLA, titles such as Awesomenauts or Monday Night Combat, but no company has found a runaway success, a game so good, and so well loved by the fans, that it could sit up there with the big PC titles like League of Legends and DotA. The people over at Monolith have taken it upon themselves to finally break the mold, and bring a deep MOBA experience to console. Guardians of Middle Earth does exactly that, bringing one of the best MOBA experiences you can find to XBLA, showing that a console can be home to this genre just as well as any PC.

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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!

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• The Xbox Community Ambassadors program is expanding. Ambassadors are regular community members who provide community support in exchange for some cool gifts, the higher end of which includes XBLA games. Are you knowledgeable? Apply today.
• The Verge reports that the ESPN Xbox Live app will be getting SmartGlass support some time this month.
• PlayXBLA revealed one of the new gods in  Ascend: New Gods, the Titan. See a screenshot after the jump.
• SmartGlass is now available for your iPhone or iPad–that is if you’re trendy lucky enough to have one. Pick it up here.
• Xbox Live apps Rhapsody, Blip.TV, LOVEFiLM Deutschland, RTL XL, and TOU.TV recently launched in their respective regions, and the IGN app is now available in Canada. For full descriptions, hit the jump.
• The Blinding of Isaac is coming to consoles. Super Meat Boy‘s Edmund McMillen announced the information via his blog earlier this month. No word yet if that includes the Xbox 360 and XBLA.
• Happy Wars has been updated with additional weapons, including a mailbox and a winged staff. No word on whether these are free or microtransactional.

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The line between gaming console and media center continues to thin. In the past few years Xbox 360 owners have received new multimedia applications to extend the usability of their console. While most are specialized media players, others like Hulu and Netflix, have a much broader range of media to play. Some applications such as Internet Explorer provide more than just the standard ‘play your favorites’ functionality. And as that line continues to thin we’ll continue to see a plethora of new apps come to the dashboard. Yesterday Xbox Live’s Major Nelson announced 43 apps slated for Spring 2013. Availability of these apps range by region, but include names such as ChrunchyRoll, GameTrailers and MTV. No word yet on whether MTV will simply be a vehicle for more Jersey Shore or whether it’ll actually play music videos, but we’re not holding our breath. See the full list after the break.

Source: Major Nelson

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Microsoft and Double Fine Productions have announced that Kinect Party will launch for free on Xbox Live Arcade on December 18. You read that right. Double Fine’s successor to …
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