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5th Cell’s third-person shooter Hybrid will have a bountiful list of unlockables, including helmets, weapons, and specializations, all of which can be earned through natural progression. Those who want to get these …
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There’s still news in this slow week!
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Minicore Studios’ Laika Believes will be released episodically in three chunks, the developer has revealed. Staring a space-traveling dog and set in a Soviet-dominated world, the game was always planned to be a Metroidvania-style platformer, and the team feels that releasing it over the course of three episodes will allow it to dedicate more time to crafting levels of an appropriate scope for such a game while also getting content to gamers earlier than originally planned. Minicore is currently targeting spring 2013 for the game’s debut episode, with the other two set to hit the market place “within the following year.”

The studio’s latest blog post states that the focus of development will rightly be placed on “massive, nonlinear levels, choice-rich skill trees, and game mechanics.” All are elements that the team supposedly was looking to work into Laika Believes from the start; however, there were concerns internally that the enormity of those undertakings would end up being too much for the small studio to successfully juggle under a more traditional release strategy.

Supposedly the game already contains “natural break points,” allowing the devs to easily transition into the episodic format. Improved pacing and the ability for players to discover new sections of Laika Believes at their own pace are also components of the experience that Minicore thinks it can more deftly integrate into its title without the pressure of having to deliver the full experience in one release.

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Since its creation in 1995, Worms has been leading the way in the artillery shooter genre. With its slapstick humor, turn based strategy and tried-and-true formula, Worms became a brand with a massive following and history. Team 17, the developers of Worms, has remained small throughout however. The studio’s other franchise Alien Breed and a few Worms spin-offs (like Worms Blast and Worms Golf) are Team 17’s only true ventures outside the turn-based artillery action gameplay featured in Worms. Due to this, they’ve been called risk averse, they’ve been criticized for clinging to the Worms franchise, so of course their upcoming Worms revamp, Worms: Revolution, may be met with cynicism by some. We talked to lead designer on the upcoming game and 14-year member of Team 17 Kevin Carthew about working with the rest of Team 17 to revamp the Worms franchise.

According to Carthew, most of the group at Team 17 felt like a Worms revamp was long overdue before Worms: Revolution had a single line of code. Roughly two years ago, before true development on Worms: Revolution had begun, a presentation was given by key members of Team 17; it was a studio-wide event. Words were said, pictures were shown, heads were nodded — Worms: Revolution would be the “blockbuster” Worms game. “We aren’t just making another Worms game, we’re making the Worms game.” said Carthew. “Of course we’re going to call it Worms something”, but “revolution” really is the point of this new game, and everybody at Team 17 feels it. Read More

It looks like everyone was wanting to kickflip into a Darkside grind in the first week of Summer of Arcade. We certainly liked Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD a …
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In the real world, Playdead’s Limbo first appeared on XBLA to near-universal acclaim in July of 2010, and released on other platforms a year later. Somewhere, however, in some alternate universe, it was PlayStation 3 owners who got the yearlong jump on everyone else.

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Avatar FameStar was launched this Wednesday alongside Kinect destruction game Wreckateer and to tell you all about it, a new trailer has also been helpfully published on Microsoft’s PlayXBLA blog. Full …
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This week on XBLA Wednesday we cover Wreckateer, the new Trials level, the Awesomenauts patch and this week’s sales & specials
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Wreckateer was developed by Iron Galaxy Studios and published by Microsoft Studios. It was released on July 25, 2012 for 800 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.

Wreckateer made a surprise showing during this year’s Microsoft’s E3 briefing, arguably stealing the show in the name of XBLA, and looks to be one of the more promising Kinect titles released this year. Essentially it’s a physics-based destruction game for Kinect that comes suited and booted with the new 400 gamerscore standard, along with three avatar awards and is the first game to utilize the new Avatar Famestar App on release. It’s also the second game released during this year’s Summer of Arcade promotion, and the inclusion of a Kinect game inevitably draws more than a few groans. Thankfully the game’s tight controls and surprisingly addictive scoring, means that Wreckateer deservedly warrants it’s slot in this year’s line-up.

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Valve has announced that Minecraft will be getting a pack of skins inspired by Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 next month. All eight human survivors from the …
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