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Signal Studios (Toy Soldiers) enjoyed the special honor of having its next project, Ascend: New Gods, unveiled on gaming’s biggest stage last week. The action title was debuted during Microsoft’s pre-E3 press conference, live in front of millions of gamers watching around the globe. Speaking with Games Industry International, Signal Creative Director D.R. Albright III said that the opportunity came about as a result of the strong bonds the studio established with the publisher while working on Toy Soldiers. Although working with a gargantuan corporation like Microsoft has on occasion tried Albright’s patience, he admitted that “certainly [Signal] wouldn’t be as successful” without its support.

“Ultimately, we do get a shot at doing things a lot of developers don’t get to do,” Albright stated candidly. “For example, Ascend had the only working Smart Glass demo at E3, at least for games. On the surface, this might not seem like a big deal – or maybe we are the only suckers who said yes. Either way, that ends up getting Signal a mention in publications like US Today which is a big deal. We probably only have small developer/XBLA level privileged access. I might know more about what’s happening than some guy commenting on a Neogaf forum, but I am pretty sure that the CoD and Assassin’s Creed folks are privy to a lot more information than me. That’s ok. It makes sense from a business standpoint that they would.”

So if the bond between the XBLA developer and Microsoft is so strong, is there any real possibility of Signal one day being taken into the Microsoft fold proper? The creative director was non-committal on the issue, but asserted that the ball was in the console holder’s court. However, he added that all of that funding and preferential treatment that flows from the software giant to its internal studios is certainly attractive, though working in a structured environment of such a massive size isn’t the most exciting proposition in the world to Albright.

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Babel Rising launched on XBLA yesterday and while we weren’t too impressed, the game’s publisher, Ubisoft, have teamed up with Redlynx to create a new Trials Evolution track based …
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Update: The patch will be downloadable Today, June 15th, 2012.

At 2 million units sold, Minecraft is a hit amongst gamers and it’s still continuing to improve over time. With the promise of patches and updates, we’ve got first word of a list of fixes and features coming soon from Play XBLA. To name a few including autosaves, gamertag display in split-screen, and enabling/disabling settings with hints and tooltips. Read the jump to catch the rest of the list and we’ll let you know when this will be available to you crafters alike.
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Babel Rising was developed by Mando Productions and published by Ubisoft. It was released June 13, 2012 for 800 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.

We’ve all been there. You move into a nice area with a great view and some jumped up Babylonian builds a ruddy big tower…well maybe not. Babel Rising is the latest Kinect centric game released on XBLA. The game aims to give players the “hands of god” to smite tiny Babylonians who persist in building a large tower. Players utilize the elements of fire, water, earth and air to create bolts of lightning and gigantic floods that reign down punishment. The game plays out much like your standard Tower Defense affair, except here we’re trying to halt the creation of a tower rather than the destruction of one. The motion controls are designed to give players a unique sense of power, but does flapping your arms around in your front room yelling “ultimate power” really provide a god-like experience?

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Some of you may have signed on to Xbox Live recently and received a prompt for an update. This is a behind-the-scenes update, containing improvements on existing features and foundations …
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Gamers are used to titles launching on a different date than originally announced – it’s just part of the game (so to speak).
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There are a myriad of reasons — some massive, others minuscule — for wars throughout history. Wars ranging from the disagreement you had with your mother to World War II to the intergalactic alien space combat we’re likely to experience in the near future. No wars have been particularly fun until video games came along, removing the consequences and the guilt of war. Yet still wars are brutal, sad, scary sort of affairs, no matter what your role is in them — and then there’s Happy Wars.

Happy Wars’ pseudo cell-shaded art style (mixed with a bit of watercolor, perhaps) hearkens back to the days of Cel Damage and Jet Set Radio. The zany visuals and overall lighthearted presentation prove war isn’t always depressing and vile. White is pit against black in this 15 vs. 15 multiplayer action game in an effort to capture towers and destroy the enemy team’s castle. Players can pick from a warrior, mage or cleric class and acquire new skills as they level up and attempt to out-maneuver the enemy team.

Our demo was cut into thirds, with a tutorial and gameplay rundown to start, an explanation of the deeper features of the game following that, and lastly a match played to completion on the game’s desert themed level. Read More

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Do you feel like playing as a god to not let people build towers? We have that exact (and only) game for you on this week’s XBLA Wednesday. Babel …
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They’re crowding the front of the room on the 54th floor of a Los Angeles hotel, cameras flashing in rapid succession. A small group of men are before them, footage of their last work playing on a large screen. It’s difficult to get a good view of the promo vid that is running while all of the members of the Korean gaming press are nearly tripping over each other to secure the best possible angle from which to grab the perfect shot for their readers back home. The level of excitement among this crowd is palpable, if not completely understandable.

After all, what’s being shown at this point is nothing new, the footage is of 2010’s Dungeon Fighter Online (released in 2005 in Nexon’s home country of Korea). The speakers have thus far provided a nice little history lesson for the uninitiated, but those in attendance have hardly been treated to breaking news or exclusive footage at this point. With more exciting photo ops and demos of this fall’s hottest games vying for attention during E3 week than any one journalist can possibly tackle, why is the foreign press causing such a hullabaloo over a PC game that released seven years ago in their country?

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