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Risk: Factions was developed by Stainless Games and published by Electronic Arts. It was released June 23, 2010 and retails for 800 Microsoft Points. A download code for the game was provided by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

Classic card and board games like Carcassonne, Catan and Uno have fared well on Xbox Live Arcade. Using the 360’s awesome online infrastructure and large user base has given these games new life and a constant stream of people willing to play the game together. Risk: Factions is the latest board game to make the transition to XBLA, and the final product is very good.

For the uninitiated, Risk is a turn-based strategy game that features five warring factions: Humans, Cats, Zombies, Robots and Yetis. Players are given a fictional continent to fight over, with the purpose of expanding your own territory while taking over your enemy’s territory and capturing objectives. Dice rolls determine the outcome of a battle, so each one comes down to more chance than raw skill. The game manages to maintain the amount of strategy and risk (no pun intended) the classic game is known and loved for, and streamlines everything so that games don’t last for long periods of time while and adding a welcome touch of humor.

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Get ready for a time suck everyone. Infinite Interactive is set to release the long-awaited sequel to one of the greatest puzzle games in recent history, Puzzle …
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Puzzle Chronicles was developed by Infinite Interactive and published by Konami. It was released on April 21 , 2010 and retails for 800 Microsoft Points. A copy of the game was provided by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

Right off the bat, Puzzle Chronicles is going to be compared to Puzzle Quest by almost everyone. But it deserves a moment of our attention. After playing the game for more than 20 hours, Puzzle Chronicles appears to stand on its own as a quirky, simple and fun puzzle game. And after two weeks of trying it out for this review, we’re still playing.

Puzzle Chronicles openly admits to its simplicity from the start, only giving you one main character to play the single player game with. Mixing Conan the Barbarian’s cousin with a cookie cutter RPG story, Puzzle Chronicles quickly introduces the player to its distinct puzzle mechanic, which follows an approach similar to classic titles such as Columns and Lumines. Though this might sound like two reasons not to get the game, the developers have managed to give it their own witty twist and turn it into a fun combination with a somewhat cartoony look that might suit younger gamers a bit better.

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For today, and only today, Sonic the Hedgehog 1, 2 and 3, and Sonic and Knuckles are all 240 Microsoft Points on the Xbox 360 Marketplace in celebration of …
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In our interview with Hydrophobia’s developer Dark Energy Digital, fans got an idea of how the game originated, and how it was not originally intended as an XBLA title. …
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We’re sure there are a lot of you out there that have been filling out your Xbox Live Arcade collection with the games in the blowout sale …
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Microsoft is starting to push family gaming on the Xbox 360 this holiday season. Starting in November, the Xbox Live Gold Family plan will be available for …
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As what can best be described as Monkey Island meets Diablo, DeathSpank will be arriving on Xbox Live Arcade’s virtual shelves on July 14 for 1200 Microsoft …
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While Shank may still be referred to in some circles as an indie darling, the game packs a whole lot of production value. What may have started as a homemade knife, has been proven to be one gracefully elegant weapon. The title’s story is penned by Marianne Krawczyk, author of God of War. The game itself is presented in 9 layers of HD parallax taking art direction cues from Jeff Agala, creative director on the project and creator of Cartoon Network Original Series Atomic Betty. The game is being published by EA Partners, who is responsible for EA’s dealings with People Can Fly (Bulletstorm), Valve (Orange Box), Harmonix (Rock Band Franchise), and more. To call all of that indie, just doesn’t cut it.

That isn’t to say Shank has lost its indie roots. Klei CEO Jamie Cheng and Jeff Agala set out to make an adrenaline filled action fest that would also push the boundaries on how digitally distributed games are made. The game mixes and blends genres, as it feels part spaghetti western, part grind house film. Jamie Cheng described the plot to us as a “pulp fiction revenge story through and through.” The main character feels like a total badass combination of Stallone from Rambo and Brock Sampson from Venture Brothers. All in all, it’s a thrilling concoction of just epic ingredients you can only expect to see with the complete freedom of an indie studio.
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Konami has had a hard time catering to fans of the Castlevania series in the last few generations. It is a series deeply rooted in 2D gameplay, and adding a dimension some would say takes away the spirit of what made the earlier games great. Konami has decided to appease both 2D and 3D supporters by releasing two Castlevania games, one of which brings the style of Symphony of the Night and the recent DS games back to the home consoles. In reality, it looks like a widescreen SNES or Genesis game in the best way possible. Castlevania: Harmony of Despair not only retains the level structure and gameplay from those games, but also the characters.

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