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New weapon

Ice Amulet – Main attack shoots five blasts each dealing damage and freezing foes. Alternate attack does very little damage but freezes in a large area around the …
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What we are playing is a weekly column that appears each weekend. Various staff members let the world know what games had them hooked the past week and which ones …
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Tell us a little bit about yourself/company/team?
We are small team of four members located in Nis, Serbia. Our team was born during our college days (computer science college). After few student projects we realized we share the same passion for playing and making games. We are here to bring high quality games to the players by pushing our knowledge to the limits. Because we are small team, we all share jobs of programming, modeling, animation, music etc. Our goal is to become professionals in game development industry. We are currently “bedroom” studio with no funds and we are planning to change that in future.

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R-Type: Dimensions was developed by Southend Interactive and published by Tozai Games. It retails for 1200 MSP and was released February 4, 2009.

R-Type: Dimensions is an HD remake of R-Type released in 1987 and R-Type 2 released in 1989. They are both horizontal shooters which, along with the Gradius series, defined the genre. For those who don’t know the genre is defined by brutal difficulty, mandatory memorization, tactical gameplay, and blowing up aliens. In R-Type: Dimensions you control one ship against the entire Bydo alien race. The Sci-Fi space theme works well and lends itself to crazy bosses and enemies. R-Type’s historical importance is without question, but it is also one of the few games that old that still holds up to modern gameplay standards.

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New weapon

Decoy – Draws enemies in to take damage until it explodes, but it can only handle so many attackers before they’ll start ignoring it.

Enemies

Orc Warriors Crossbow …
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New weapon

Paladin Guardian – This guardian will fight small groups of orcs or even take on ogres for you, and can be upgraded to be given stunning attacks.

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Polytron’s Fez has a deceptive way of looking 2D. Anyone who hasn’t seen it in action would just assume that’s what it is, but this simple-yet-effective video shows the …
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Tell us a little bit about yourself/company/team?

Emoks: We’re a duo; Eric has done all the coding and particles effects for the game, and I worked on the art. We’ve both worked on traditional games for the mainstream market, but had always wanted to try making something on our own and out-of-the-norm.

What made you decide to use the XBLIG platform for your game?

Emoks: It’s accessibility to the console market is what’s drawn me to XNA and XBLIG. Throughout the development process having that Xbox controller in my hands has been a good feeling (D-pad aside), knowing that console readiness was already there.

Eric: If you have a small game with less risk, then XBLIG can make sense as a platform and is a great way to get a game on a console quickly. I had reservations with XNA, since it’s limited to Microsoft platforms. It’s proven a blessing and a curse.

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Three of our favorite games last year were Blur, Snoopy Flying Ace and Hydro Thunder Hurricane. While all three titles received critical praise and similar review scores, two were heavily marketed (Blur and HTH), two were licensed properties (Snoopy and HTH), two were budget XBLA titles (Snoopy and HTH), and unfortunately only two sold well (Snoopy and HTH). SkyDrift is poised to launch next week on Xbox Live Arcade and hopes to replicate the critical success of its progenitors.

At first blush, SkyDrift feels like the offspring of Blur and Hydro Thunder Hurricane. The game plays very similar to Blur, Mario Kart, Diddy Kong Racing et al. Player’s race against their opponents using various weapons to gain and maintain the lead. The game adds a few elements along the way to expand the formula, such as reverse maps and elimination races, but it’s largely stuff players have seen before. Which isn’t to say SkyDrift doesn’t execute this formula well, far from it, the game just isn’t all that original. We haven’t played the entirety of the game so we aren’t going to rule out a few potential surprises that change our tune.

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Tell us a little bit about yourself/company/team?
ApathyWorks is me, Alex “AlejandroDaJ” Jordan, a 27 year old who lives in Washington, DC and works for the U.S. Department of Labor. I started programming and doing level design in elementary school, graduated to modding, and eventually hit the ground running with indie game design with XNA in early 2009. Cute Things Dying Violently will be my second title for Xbox Live Indie Games.

While I certainly enjoy helping out workers and the unemployed at the Labor Department, my real passion lies with game design and writing, and some day I hope to do it for a living. Although it’s currently just a hobby of mine, the “apathy” in my studio title is a complete misnomer that hides my desire to create worlds and experiences and to share them with others.
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