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Yar’s Revenge was developed by Killspace Entertainment, published by Atari and was released on April 13th, 2011 for 800MSP. A copy of the game was provided to us for review purposes.The original Yars’ Revenge was one of the best selling games on the Atari 2600, making it somewhat of a puzzle why it has taken so long to come back. There have been a couple of remakes and re-releases but this is the first original game based on the license since that first Atari release.

We now have Yar’s Revenge on XBLA, and that apostrophe wasn’t accidentally misplaced. While the original game referred to a race this games title refers to a single Yar, the character players control. Although to confuse matters further she is often referred to as Yar. The game is no longer a single screen shooter but has been transformed into an on-rails affair akin to Sin & Punishment or Rez.

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Warbirds at Work was developed and published by Kaape. It was released on Xbox Live December 23, 2010 for 80 MSP.

Warbirds at work is a classic style overhead arcade shooter. Trying to follow in the footsteps of it’s predecessors like Raiden or 1942, you are a small ship trying to protect the earth from invaders. In this case you happen to be the last line of defense against a group of aliens. Equipped with a temporary shield, upgradeable gun, rockets, impulse gun, and bombs it is your job to blast everything back to outer space.

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Just Add Water, the developer of Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath, ran into a brick wall last year when trying to get the game published onto Xbox Live Arcade. …
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Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes was developed by Capybara Games, published by Ubisoft and released on April 14, 2011 for 1200MSP.

Clash of Heroes stems from the Might & Magic franchise but takes it into a completely different direction with puzzle/strategy-based gameplay and a fairly self-contained storyline from the rest of the series’s continuity. With roots in the familiar match-three mechanics of games like Bejeweled, Clash of Heroes may appear to be quite generic at first glance. However, the game’s critical success in its 2009 Nintendo DS release suggests otherwise. Does Capybara’s latest XBLA release manage to carry over a winning formula that can capture the love of a different gaming audience? Read More

SEGA discounts all their XBLA titles.
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Video games used to be rated by the people working at the Entertainment Software Rating Board, deciding just how violent, profane, sexy, and all-around kid-unfriendly a video game is, …
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It’s been a great March for XBLA according to a sales analysis over the month. Beyond Good and Evil HD got over 76,000 players in the month with Torchlight …
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FortressCraft, an indie game developed by Projector Games and bearing an incredible likeness to Minecraft,  has been selling very well. In its first six days online, it sold 58,572 copies and …
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Planet Pinball was developed and published by Battenberg Software and was released on December 23, 2009 for 80MSP. A copy was provided by the developer for review purposes.

Planet Pinball is a simple concept: a few balls, a couple paddles and an outer space theme. It provides pinball fans with many things to shoot for such as orbits, meteors, rocket blasting and airlocks. At first glance it seems well rounded, low priced pinball game. But can it stand up to the bang-for-your-buck value of Pinball FX 2?

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The Weekend Gamer is brought to you each Sunday. We will post a compilation of all the XBLA News, Reviews and Features we have run giving you an easy resource to keep up with our favorite digital distribution platform: XBLA

New Game Announcements: The past week has been full of announcements for new games, including: Red Johnson’s Chronicles, Backbreaker: Vengeance, Space Channel 5 Part 2, Sega Bass Fishing, Deadliest Warrior Sequel [Title Pending], Ugliest American, Xotic, and Burnout Crash.

Upcoming Release Dates: Microsoft clarified some of the upcoming XBLA releases for April. The rest of the month will include: Section 8 Prejudice (April 20th), Pinball FX2: Mars Table (April 20), Fancy Pants Adventures (April 20th),  Outland (April 27th),Trouble Witches Neo (April 27th), Nin2-Jump (April 27th), and Bangai-O HD (May 4)

Reviews: We spent most our week reviewing Xbox Live Indie Games, but expect to see our Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes HD and Yars Revenge HD reviews sometime in the next week. We recommend you buy: Zombie Football Carnage (XBLIG) and Ikagura (XBLA) and try: Alpha Squad (XBLIG), Poker Night (XBLIG), On a Roll (XBLIG), Dirche Kart (XBLIG) and Mute Crimson (XBLIG)

Podcast: We spent the entire show this week talking Section 8 Prejudice with Mark Yetter. Steve is playing the game for review, but we can’t tell you what we think yet. Make sure to subscribe to us on iTunes!

Game Night: Just a reminder, but we will be playing Hydro Thunder Hurricance with the community on the 29th. You will not want to miss this. We have some cool giveaways planned leading up to the event.

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