Blog

When Konami’s legendary game designer Hideo Kojima shows up to discuss what he’s been up to and then proceeds to show it to the world for the first time, it tends to expose the fact that the event he’s showing it at has become a bit of a big deal. There was no need for Kojima’s traditionally obligatory exclamation points to suddenly appear over the heads of the PAX Prime enforcers to make that much clear. The Big Stealth Game, Metal Ground Solid: Ground Zeroes, was revealed on the big stage to the delight of seemingly everyone watching.

Not all eyes were glued on Kojima, however; back on the show floor PAX’s little stealth game was leaving everyone who found their way to Klei Entertainment’s little corner in the not-so-little Indie Megabooth equally impressed. The XBLA Fans team had previously gotten our hands on Mark of the Ninja back at PAX East, but that didn’t make us any less eager to take it for another spin or to speak with its lead designer, Nels Anderson.

On Friday the game will release on XBLA. Long before getting to that point, however, the studio had to commit to setting out in a completely different direction than it did with its previous work on the Shank franchise. Doing so meant forging a mostly new path, since very few 2D stealth-oriented games had come along over the years to lay down the groundwork. I asked Anderson if that meant Klei had some unique challenges to overcome while developing the game. Laughing, he rhetorically replied, “Um, all of them?”

“All of them, in fact!” the designer exclaimed, now seemingly convinced that it was in fact all of the systems that presented challenges. “Because no one’s ever really done one, right? Like there were a couple very, very small ones, but certainly nothing to this scope or magnitude — at all. So then it’s like, we just sort of had to like really look at 3D stealth games and sort of reconstruct them design-wise. Like, ‘Why did they make the kinds of decisions they made?’ And then take that up a level and translate it back down to 2D.

“I mean, there aren’t templates or schemes to drop in in this context — at all. Which is good, it just means we had to try a whole lot of stuff that didn’t work before we got to stuff that actually did work.”

Read More

[springboard type=”youtube” id=”k3cSlToF0mU” player=”xbla001″ width=”640″ height=”400″ ]

Just when you thought you’ve crashed enough, Trials Evolution delivers a new DLC pack which brings the pain. The Origin of Pain DLC pack gives you a tour of Pain Island spanning 36 new single-player tracks. The new BMX dirtbike will help you traverse the island’s many landmarks, including a  temple, volcano, and haunted circus. Single player isn’t the only mode getting expanded; multiplayer will gain 10 new tracks, and the editor will receive new features including guns, switches, and vector math. The DLC will be available next month for 400 MSP.

Read More

The next big update for Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition, dubbed the “Adventure” update, adds NPCs, villages, strongholds and abandoned mineshafts…but not this week (or the next, most likely). There’s still a good deal to work on, it seems – and of course there’s testing to follow after that; it could be a bit of a wait.

Read More

Super Time Force was in full effect at this year’s PAX Prime and it had an explosive and hilarious new trailer to show for it. Not huge on gameplay …
Read More

As people are entering school, they might wonder what downloadable games they can get this week. Luckily for you, we got you covered this XBLA Wednesday. First up, we …
Read More

What better way to celebrate going back to school than spending money on books, supplies, or the most obvious purchase: video games! Microsoft has discounted over 30 games and DLC for this week’s Xbox Live Deal of the Week. These deals will run from September 4th-10th for both Xbox Live Gold and Silver members (noted below.)Study hard and enjoy these deals while they last! Read More

[springboard type=”youtube” id=”tYQB1YM0yKI” player=”xbla001″ width=”640″ height=”400″ ]

State of Decay (formerly known as Class3) is the upcoming open world zombie survival game from Undead Labs and Microsoft Studios. The game …
Read More

[springboard type=”youtube” id=”FHvIYCIazSA” player=”xbla001″ width=”640″ height=”400″ ]

Gaijin Games confirmed at PAX this weekend that Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien (also known simply as Runner2) is aiming for a …
Read More

With everyone out for PAX and such, this week I roped in our Video Co-ordinator Shawn and Facebook Guy Kyle. We talk at length about Rock Band Blitz and The Walking Dead (no spoilers though) before moving onto news and then a nice big dose of community talk.

Our previous RSS has run into some issues, so we’ll be switching to a new one as of this episode. Unfortunately that means the old iTunes feed is also going to change. But that will take a week or two, in the meantime you can just use the new RSS in iTunes and it will work just the same.

Check us out on twitter (@XBLAFans) where you can win codes for games, give us feedback or just ask a question. You can do the same on Facebook, and hey while we’re plugging stuff be sure to check us out on YouTube and Twitch.TV. 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/XBLAFancastEp77.mp3[/podcast]

RSS | MP3 | iTunes (New link coming soon) Read More

LocoCycle is probably the most aptly name ever created. It stars two sentient motorcycles: I.R.I.S., the game’s protagonist, and the evil S.P.I.K.E. Well, it also co-stars Pablo, I.R.I.S.’s mechanic. He’s the poor chum seen being dragged behind I.R.I.S. in the recent gameplay reveal. The game’s two-wheeled stars were brought to life by Austin-based Southern Metal Choppers, along with special effects wizards Legacy Effects. I.R.I.S. (above) weighs in at 600 points and, according to our own Nick Santalego and Perry Jackson, is stunning up-close. Below is S.P.I.K.E., the game’s villain. The motorcycles are voiced by gaming personality and journalist Lisa Foiles and the Terminator T-1000 himself, Robert Patrick, respectively.

LocoCycle’s beginnings sprang years ago from a simple gag gift. Josh Bear, Creative Director at Twisted Pixel Games, received a copy of the (terrible) movie Torque from the studio’s Art Director. For some reason Bear sat through the movie, bad motorcycle fights and all. He had a nightmare that night and awoke the next morning with the initial vision for LocoCycle. Production on the game began roughly nine months ago.

Read More