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Welcome to the end of the game! If you’re here, you’ve gone through the 32 cube door, much like a boss. Since this is all story related, we’re not going …
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We love community content. Mods are what make good games great and great games love affairs. Mods can make a game last long after developers and publishers have lost interest in it. But mods are a bit of a taboo thing on consoles. How do you do it without sacrificing security of the system? It’s kept great expansions from console gamers, but RedLynx is one of the few that actually embraces mods with an in-game editor.

We’ve seen the amazing things that can be done in Trials HD, but Trials Evolution looks to throw away everything you know about ‘weak’ console mods. Its pro editor unlocks all of the power of the engine, and we’ve already seen RedLynx create a number of crazy scenarios — from Angry Birds to ‘Splosion Man. Here’s what we expect to see from the talent Trials community. We’re not saying these are guaranteed, just merely suggestions:

Trials 2 and Trials HD remakes – Obvious? Maybe, but we’re still throwing it out there.  Director of Marketing Jason Bates already stated that RedLynx fully expects remakes, and we’re hoping they’re right. And you know what? We’ll fill our hard drive with as many tracks and minigames as folks make.

Well, maybe not all the Extreme ones . . .

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In the late 90’s and early-mid 2000’s LucasArts was king. Games like Grim Fandango, Star Wars Battlefront, Star Wars Jedi Knight, Mercenaries and Secret Weapons over Normandy sucked gamers into their respective universes with their compelling stories and addictive gameplay. But while we love each of these games, one stands paramount above the rest: Star Wars: Jedi Academy.

The fourth game in the Dark Forces series, this title saw series protagonist Kyle Katarn take a back seat to Jedi Padawan Jaden Korr, a blank slate character. Players could customize Korr, changing clothes, lightsaber hilt and color, fighting style, force powers, even the species and gender. It was the first time in the history of Star Wars gaming that the playable character was whatever the player wanted them to be. The campaign allowed players to pick and choose missions as they saw fit, and the multiplayer had a number of strong game types and maps to choose from.

We miss it. We want it back.

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Fable has never been the most serious or mature of RPG franchises. Players were as likely to save the kingdom and behave regally as they were to let one rip. After gong hands-on with the 4-player hack ‘n slash Fable Heroes at PAX East, though, it’s clear that Lionhead Studios has moved the series into more family-friendly territory than it has in the past. Up to four players take control of cutesy characters that look like marionettes and slash and spell cast their way through swaths of hobbes and other native baddies of Albion. You move in a linear path and mow down the monsters that flood the screen en route to a boss fight — a giant beetle that shoots projectiles and slams into the ground in the case of the PAX demo that several of us from XBLA Fans played in Boston this past weekend.

Oversized gold coins drop when enemies are overcome, which creates a near-constant scramble to get your hands on more than the other members of your party. The coins are used to buy upgrades in the time between stages, and they can also be transferred into Fable: The Journey. In addition, any of the 12 puppets that gamers can take control of in Heroes will pop up in their inventories in the forthcoming Kinect game.

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Monolith Productions, masters behind Gotham City Impostors, will be making an amazing announcement April 18. Beyond the fact that the announcement will involve the amazing multiplayer shooter, it’s hard …
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If you ask any Dreamcast fan what game they’d love to see re-released on XBLA, Jet Set Radio is almost guaranteed to be mentioned. Luckily, Sega listened to the demands of its fan base and we got the opportunity to play the game at PAX East.

To the uninitiated, Jet Set Radio is a cell-shaded graffiti simulator where the goal of the game is to “tag” certain areas of a level with various graffiti art while simultaneously battling a police force that hunts you down. And hunt you down they will—their arsenal includes a pack of baton-wielding officers that bark “hut hut hut” when nearby, tanks, helicopters and even a police chief that ferociously discharges a firearm at you.

The demo we played featured the first level of the game: Shibuya-co. It’s a bright and colorful urban environment with plenty of areas to grind, tag and cause general mischief in. Fans of the original game will immediately notice that the visuals pop out even more in HD, which only adds to the unique aesthetic flair already present. The placement of the bus terminal, ramps and hovering cans of spray paint remain identical to the level in the original Dreamcast version, so it’s safe to assume that levels will be similar in layout.

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Full disclosure: I didn’t play much of the Dishwasher games prior to visiting Ska Studios at PAX East but me and the team were looking forward to Charlie Murder. A four player brawler with RPG elements is the next game for James Silva and it looks mental. Conceived originally as a super short game for XBLIG, Microsoft really wanted it on their XBLA platform, James said he could make it bigger than a short 20 MB.
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There’s nothing more enticing than that tease, that pinch, that itch you get from a fantastic trailer. With retail games, so many of them get these bloated budgets and the trailers get absolutely insane, but XBLA has to rely on their creativity! Their imagination! Their sense of wonder!… And yes, money also. However, not every trailer is amazing, but the best ones combine with some great games and catchy trailer ideas to really entice you. This week’s Friday Top Five will be about these beautiful, and often evil, displays of awesome, wallet-attacking footage. We were looking for that marriage of gameplay, story, presentation and shameless plugging, and we’ve found the best examples of it.

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You may have already heard, multi-award winning puzzle/platformer FEZ launched on Xbox Live Arcade earlier today. To celebrate the release – and the culmination of a troubled five year …
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For a long time, fans of XBLA knew little about Grounding Inc’s so-called Project Draco – it was being developed by the same guy who made the classic Panzer Dragoon games, it would be an on-rails shooter, and the Unreal Engine made it look unbelievably gorgeous – but that’s about it. Fast forward to about a month and a half ago, the title was officially announced to be Crimson Dragon and a little more information trickled out. It was still hard to get a grip on how exactly this title would turn out, so we took some time at PAX to stop by the booth and play through the demo so we could fill you in on why exactly Microsoft is so stoked about this game.

If you’ve played Child of Eden, you already have a basic idea of how the gameplay will work. Before we go any further though, I want to assure each and every one of you: this game plays a heck of a lot better than Child of Eden. Don’t get me wrong, I loved both Rez HD and its spiritual successor, but at the time it came out the Kinect controls just felt a little… off. Crimson Dragon takes all the best parts of the control scheme and pushes them to a whole ‘nother level – and it works beautifully.

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