Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 review (XBLA)
The original Duels of the Planeswalkers was perhaps the best bad game one could play on XBLA. It launched with numerous bugs, many of which remain unfixed today. A small number of cards didn’t work as described in their text, it was inordinately difficult to arrange blocking if there were too many attackers, and certain design decisions crippled the strategic calculus normally found in a Magic game. And in many ways the first Duels game played like a giant teaser advertisement for the rest of the Magic universe, rather than as a game whole and complete unto itself. It was still hugely fun to play, because Magic is a fun game with great art and clever mechanics, but the game lacked a certain richness, that attention to detail and the player experience that marks a great game.
Thank Wizards and Stainless, then, for making the bold decision to leave behind the old game, warts and all, and concentrate on creating the game that the first Duels could have been. The new Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 addresses many of the complaints about the first Duels, providing a smoother, faster game experience, a cleaner UI, vastly improved deck editing, a variety of online cooperative play formats, and a generally richer, better game experience.
XBLA’s Most Wanted: Snatcher
Hideo Kojima made a name for himself with the Metal Gear Solid series but before he wanted to bring back the Metal Gear name, he made a cyberpunk adventure game for the Sega CD. It had incredible Blade Runner-like style and story within an adventure game similar to old Lucasarts games.
It’s the year 2046 and you play as Gillian Seed, working for a task force specializing in hunting down bioroids known as Snatchers who are killing humans and taking their place in the world. Since the game didn’t sell all that well and being on the Sega CD which not a lot of people really played or even had, it has a potential to get to a real audience this time.
Breach Review (XBLA)
Breach is a first person shooter developed by Atomic Games. It’s available on the XBLA for 1200 Microsoft points. The publisher provided us with a copy of the game for reviewing purposes.
There’s a moment ever-so-often in any shooter experience when know your enemy is behind a wall, and you’re at that wall, and there’s just one entrance. Death lies in the doorway, but victory lies beyond it, so what do you do? Well, if you’re playing Breach, you just blow up the whole darn wall! Breach brings total brick-by-brick destruction, active cover and authentic tactics all being played in 16 player team modes to the Xbox LIVE Arcade in a powerful way. Read More
Super Meat Boy Review (XBLA)
Super Meat Boy was developed by Team Meat and published by Newgrounds. It will be released for XBLA on October 20, 2010. As a gift to its fans, Super Meat Boy will launch on sale for just 800 Microsoft Points, before increasing to its regular retail price of 1200 MSP.
Very rarely does a game come along that is so fun and so hard that you alternate laughing with hurling profanities… that you insist you’ll give it “just one more try” and yet play until your hands are a crippled, arthritic mess… that you realize as you’re playing it that you are experiencing one of the finest games of our generation… that you fall in love with a squishy blob. Such a game is Super Meat Boy.
You control the titular character: a red, squarish boy made of meat, whose sunshiney disposition has earned him the hatred of arch villain Dr. Fetus, a cruel, tuxedo-clad fetus in a jar that abducts Super Meat Boy’s adorable girlfriend, Bandage Girl. SMB is a 2D platformer like Mega Man on steroids: part of the game is figuring out how to avoid the plethora of pitfalls, while the rest is making your hands actually do what your brain figures out.
MetaReview: Tecmo Bowl Throwback (XBLA)
So Tecmo Bowl Throwback has been on Xbox Live Marketplace for a few days now. Our review is still pending, but in the meantime, we’ve broken down …
Read More