Microsoft reveals huge list of new ID@Xbox partners
Microsoft has announced that over 200 developers are working on titles for the Xbox One via its ID@Xbox initiative and has released the names of 65 of these developers that are joining the 32 developers they already announced back in December.
Some of the highlights in the list include The Behemoth, developers of the extremely popular Castle Crashers and BattleBlock Theater; Playdead, the developers of eerie XBLA title LIMBO; Ska Studios, the team behind the beautifully violent games Charlie Murder and The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile; Warhorse Studios, the developers behind the highly successful Kickstarter Kingdom Come: Deliverance; and Zoë Mode, the developers of Powerstar Golf.
Final Exam Review (XBLA)
Final Exam was developed by Mighty Rocket Studio and published by Focus Home Interactive. It was originally released on November 8, 2013 for $9.99. A copy was provided for review purposes.
Final Examis a game that feels dated from the start. The zombie setting feels like an overused trope here, decided upon not because of any significant meaning to storyline or gameplay mechanics, but because zombies were popular at the time the game was being developed. Any game that casts a group of four people working as a team against zombies is going to owe something to Valve’s Left 4 Dead; Final Exam, owes a little too much — the first boss is called the Tank and looks like a ripoff of the monster from Valve’s popular first-person shooter. The game runs at 30 frames per second, which makes everything feel just a little slower than it should. There’s a neat idea or two to be found here, but nothing that adds up to a game worth any significant investment of time.
Letter from the Editor: Future of XBLA Fans looks bright
Now that the craziness from the launch of two exciting consoles in the course of two weeks has finally abated, I wanted to take the time to let our …
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Dear Xbox 360, I’ll miss you
Dear Xbox 360,
Where to begin? How do you start something like this? Is there any “right” way to do it? I don’t think there is. Maybe by saying that I’m sorry? Yeah, a sincere apology feels right. It’s not the type of sincerity you express at the end of a cover letter to someone you’ve never met in your life and couldn’t possibly have sincere feelings for, mind you; it’s the kind that means something, as you have meant much to me these past eight wonderful years. I know I’m rambling now, but this isn’t easy for me. What I’m trying to say is, I sincerely apologize, Xbox 360. I’m sorry, but it’s time to move on. It’s not you, but it’s not me, either — it’s that dark temptress known as the next generation.
Know that we now head down different paths not necessarily because of some sort of monumental “paradigm shift,” but rather because it is simply the way of things. This is how it has to be, and we both knew this day was coming the morning I brought you home from Best Buy after waiting in line overnight for somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 hours. It was cold, and it was raining. I had to take time off from the crummy Postal Service job I was working at the time to do it, but I did it for you, and, given the chance, I’d do it all over again.
Do you remember that morning? You were sitting cozily inside the heated store; you didn’t know me yet, but I was sitting on the pavement with four or five layers of clothing on when it happened. The man in the blue shirt and yellow name tag got to my point in the line, and he gave me ticket number 41 — out of 42. I was both relieved and horrified all at once. My efforts to brave the elements would not go to waste. I would take a shiny new Xbox 360 home with me that day. I would take you home, but, truth be told, you weren’t the one I wanted. Sorry again, but I had eyes for another.
Xbox 360’s best XBLA games of all time: #5 – 1
Xbox Live Arcade began its life on Microsoft’s Xbox 360 simply enough. When eager gamers bought up Xbox 360s on launch day (November 22, 2005), they found a free copy of Hexic HD pre-loaded on their hard drives. Of course, it was another launch title that secured the platform’s success. Bizarre’s Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved both gave birth to the twin-stick shooter craze and demanded gamers take Xbox Live Arcade, which started in disc form back on the original Xbox, seriously as a digital games platform. Bizarre’s side project paved the way for the enormous variety of retro revivals, HD remakes, original indie projects, major studio releases, free-to-play games and more that have come to call XBLA home in the years since.
Today, we’re approximately one month away from the launch of the Xbox One, which will signal the end of XBLA as we have come to know it these past eight years. While Microsoft’s Xbox line will continue to be home to myriad low-cost downloadable video games, the XBLA moniker will not make the transition to Xbox One. It’s going down with the figurative (and literal) Xbox 360 boat. So what better time than now to count down the best XBLA games to ever grace the Xbox 360?
It wasn’t easy, but our staff has sorted through all of the best XBLA releases over the years and picked the ones that we feel are the true standout stars of the platform. Check back with us throughout the week as we run down five of Xbox Live Arcade’s top games every night. And don’t forget to head to the comments to let us know how much you love (or hate) our picks.
(Editor’s Note: Voting was conducted in early September. No games released post-Summer of Arcade 2013 were considered eligible.)
5.) Minecraft
Nathan Bowring, Reporter — Minecraft’s impact on XBLA has been huge; it’s been beating sales records ever since its release, and it continues to top the Xbox Live activity charts. There’s just something magical about that simple, blocky world that’s hard to resist. Every new, randomly generated world is the start of a new adventure. In Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition, you’ll map out the landscape, explore deep caverns to collect precious diamonds, fight terrifying nocturnal monsters and build to your heart’s desire. The resources you collect may turn into your new house, or maybe you’ll turn them into weapons to fight the Ender Dragon. The only thing that limits the game is your imagination, with every new title update adding so many more possibilities.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows review
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows was developed by Red Fly Studio and published by Activision. It was released on August 28, 2013 for $14.99. A copy was provided for review purposes.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows is a third person beat ‘em up game utilizing Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3. After a brief introduction starring newscaster April O’Neal (in which she is playable, unlike the majority of the Turtles games), players take on the role of the four famous turtles, hacking, slashing and kicking their way towards a final confrontation with Shredder himself.
The game features more diverse terrain than in previous Ninja Turtle games, forcing the turtles to traverse rooftops, leap over buses, and wind through sewer tunnels while fighting the Foot clan and scientist Baxter Stockman’s endless supply of mouser robots. In between each stage, the group returns to their lair in the New York sewers to train, learn new moves, upgrade their weapons and play arcade games.
July XBLA sales roundup
The numbers are in for the month of July, and it seems as though Pacific Rim: The Video Game is one of the more popular new additions …
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XBLA Sales Analysis: June 2013
Gamasutra has published its sales analysis for the month of June. Last month’s biggest seller by far was the zombie hit State of Decay, selling extremely well despite its …
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What do developers want from the next-gen XBLA?
Tomorrow at 10 am PDT, Microsoft will likely tell us all some things we already know. The Xbox creator will also tell us plenty that we don’t already know. Some rumors will probably be proven true, others false. New games and features will be discussed and, in some cases, shown. Ultimately, the curtain is going to fall on Microsoft’s event before the public hears everything it wants to hear. Microsoft is only going to tease us, with a more complete showing of all its console plans for the years ahead not coming until the console holder’s traditional pre-E3 media briefing on June 10.
But tomorrow we will know something we don’t know today. We’ll know something about what direction Microsoft plans to steer the Xbox brand in over the course of the next generation. Sitting here right now, I can honestly say that I know nothing more than any other gamer who’s followed the supposed leaks over the past few years knows about what we’re going to see tomorrow. Rather than make educated guesses about what might be shown tomorrow and at E3, XBLAFans is following up last week’s look at how developers feel about XBLA as it currently stands by having them speak about where they want to see it go in the next generation.
During PAX East this past March, we cornered six game developers and asked them one question: If you could change any one thing or add any one feature to the next-generation version of Xbox Live Arcade, what would it be?
For indies, working with Microsoft is a horrifying mess…right?
Dead Space’s Isaac Clarke once had to drill into his own eyeball in order to survive a ship infested with mutated freaks. Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad of Assassin’s Creed fame was made to part with a portion of one of his fingers in order to join the Levantine Brotherhood of Assassins. Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft once had the misfortune of falling onto a piece of sharpened rebar that pierced her midsection — and all she was trying to do was go for a nice little exploratory boat ride. And that’s not even mentioning the myriad scores of locust soldiers that have found themselves on the wrong end of Marcus Fenix’s trusty chainsaw or colossal boots over the years.
You don’t hear any of them complaining about having to endure those, shall we way, slightly disagreeable circumstances, though, do you? That’s because those mere flesh wounds were nothing when compared to the great tragedy of our time: working with a certain platform holder to release your independent studio’s game on Xbox Live Arcade. I shudder at the very thought.
If you’ve followed Xbox Live Arcade over the past several years here and on other sites, then you already know of what I speak. There lives in Redmond, Washington a great beast, massive in size with glowing red-ringed eyes of fury. It is a devious creature hellbent on tricking those smaller than it into believing they’re partners, only to turn on them in their hour of need, stomping down on their hopes and dreams harder than Fenix has brought down his boots on so many locust heads. Such disdain does this gluttonous monstrosity have for the smaller creatures roaming the forest of the game industry, that it is more than happy to sacrifice its own interests if it means snuffing out the light of those cowering under its great shadow.
So evil is this…Wait. Isn’t this getting just a little out of hand? Is Microsoft really that terrible of a company? Does it truly care nothing for the needs of independent game developers? Is its thirst for video game console dominance so insatiable that it doesn’t mind torpedoing its, um, pursuit of video game console dominance so long as it means making life miserable for independent game studios that, by developing games for its platform, are actively working to help it succeed with its, uh, video game console dominance? It is if you’ve listened to the little guys with big megaphones.