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Upon booting up Trenched, it’s quickly clear that this is a Double Fine game, as behind the quirky, machismo humor lies a title with some serious character. Trenched scraps the traditional formula and instead recycles the leftovers to create something entirely different and completely reinvigorating. Gone are the days when leaving a tower defense match in the middle to make a sandwich was acceptable. There will be no time to reach for the jar of mayo, as players will find themselves constantly engaged by the battles surrounding them.

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Aegis Wing was developed by Carbonated Games and published by Microsoft Game Studios. It was released on May 16, 2007 free of charge.

Aegis Wing pits players against a huge alien invasion in an adventure on space and Earth. The game is simple, containing few levels and focusing on score and cooperative play. This twin stick shooter is as bad as it gets: it’s not glitchy, it’s just a dull version of a genre overdone on XBLA. While it can have its moments in multiplayer, Aegis Wing is a word-for-word definition of the genre.

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The Awesomenauts developer Ronimo Games has confirmed that the six characters featured in the trailer make up the final roster. From left to right, top to bottom it’s Yuri, …
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Several details on the upcoming Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition release have come forth from Capcom’s Seth Killian. In an interview with Destructoid, Seth talked on some of the training modes, nifty online features and other superficial (and yet awesome) details that will give SFIII‘s return to glory a little something EX-tra for the fans. The video can be found after the jump, but here’s a quick list of the features mentioned in the interview:

• As you play, challenges show up that can be achieved for currency used in the game’s vault unlock system. There are hundreds of them and they get more and more difficult as you progress.
• The menu features redrawn portraits of each of the characters. While which character is random, your most-played character has greater favor with the gods of randomness.
• Several settings to customize your fighting experience including standard or widescreen, filters that change the game’s look from new to old or more like the arcade and more.
• Different chip sets including the re-balanced version as well as the initial version complete with unblockables.
• Trials to learn the mechanics of the game or a specific character ranging from easy to hard; parry one fireball or parry all of Chun-li’s super as Diago did that famous Evo.
• GGPO online network coding, tournament modes, spectating, pre-game button remapping and Youtube match uploads give SFIII Online Edition a robust showing on the XBLA. Read More

The simple answer is that it is an acronym that stands for Xbox Live Arcade. But that answer in itself just brings the inevitable question of what is Xbox Live Arcade? I’ve always known that XBLA was a niche sector of the games market, and numerous friends and family members had never heard of it until we started this site just over a year ago. The constant prodding by our team to our friends asking them to like us on facebook, brought an abundance of questions and a hunger to learn more we couldn’t satiate fast enough. And it was for them I initially intended to write this post. However, believe it or not over the past week while at E3, numerous industry professionals have asked me these same two questions. They too are unaware of the hundreds of quality titles under the Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) platform.

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Robot Entertainment has finally given Orcs Must Die! a release window. The painful-death infused title is expected to arrive between late August and early September. For those …
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The new Star Wars trilogy — it’s been criticized by professionals and fanboys alike. The old argument “George Lucas ruined my childhood” is a common one when the new trilogy is brought up. But whether you love the new movies or not nobody can deny that at least one great thing came out of them: podracing.

In 1999 Star Wars: Episode I Racer was released alongside The Phantom Menace. It was a commercial success, and sprung up additional titles.  Racer Arcade was released in arcades the following year and featured two podracer throttle controls. It was visually stunning and brought a visceral experience to the series. Two years later Racer Revenge was released for the PlayStation 2. All three were amazing games that felt ahead of their time. Now it’s time for an adaptation of Episode I Racer to arrive on Xbox Live Arcade, and we suppose PlayStation Network too, as Star Wars Podracer Arcade.

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Geometry Wars was developed by Bizarre Creations and was released on October 3, 2005 for 800 Microsoft Points.  The price has since been permanently reduced to 400MS points.

Developer Bizarre Creations, which closed its doors in 2010, was always known for its Project Gotham Racing series until it ventured into downloadable territory during the Xbox 360’s inception with Geometry Wars. Although it’s a simple twin-stick shooter, it’s flashy visuals and addictive score-based gameplay were enough for some gamers to purchase its inevitable sequel and even its cousin on the Nintendo Wii. Now, more than five years since its release on XBLA, it deserves a chance to get recognized by those who may have overlooked it.

To the uninitiated, you control a blocky spaceship with the left analog stick and shoot projectiles (which are upgradable through the game) with the right analog stick. You are confined to a large grid set on the backdrop of space, with enemies that drastically get stronger as the game progresses as well as advance in numbers. Some enemies are easy to take down, while others dodge your fire like a rat avoiding pest control. If you become overwhelmed you can hit the right trigger to activate a bomb that wipes out everything on screen — that is until they return in full force. If you’re looking for a challenge, try earning the excruciatingly difficult achievement unlocked by earning 1 million points in the game.

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Various events far too boring to describe led to a very delayed podcast this week. But that shouldn’t stop you from listening because this hour and 30 minute long podcast is well worth it. Unsurpringly it’s all about E3 which just finished up in LA.

Andrew takes up the hosting chair again since John was at E3 itself checking out all the cool new stuff. He’s joined by Ross Adams, John Carson and Damon Fillman. While none of us in the podcast were at E3 we all watched the Microsoft conference and we go through it point by point.

Those who watched will note that there was absolutely no XBLA related stuff at that conference, but don’t worry we hit all the latest XBLA news first. That includes the announcement of the Summer of Arcade line-up so get listening!

[podcast]https://xblafans.com/xblafancast/XBLAFancastEp16.mp3[/podcast]

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The team at Halfbrick recently convened in an undisclosed location to cast judgment on how exactly to properly slice fruit as a ninja. In a plume of smoke the …
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