What we are playing: March 31
What we are playing is a weekly column published on Sunday. Select members of the team talk about the games they’ve been playing over the past week and which they’re …
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Ascend New Gods beta sign-up begins
If you were looking to start your journey to Ascension early, you’re in luck. A beta for Ascend: New Gods has been announced, and sign-ups begin today. The beta …
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Sticks and stones couldn’t break Skullgirls’ bones
The story of Skullgirls‘ development, release and post-release support just may have more twists to it than its top-heavy characters have curves on their pixelated bodies. It started with two men, each with a skill, a passion and an idea. In 2009, longtime fighting game fan and tournament player Mike “Mike Z” Zaimont began programming a fighting game of his own. Elsewhere, unbeknownst to Zaimont at the time, artist Alex “o_8” Ahad was drawing a new fighting game universe of his own into existence, complete with characters to populate it. Eventually the two were introduced and merged their pet projects together at Reverge Labs into the game that released on XBLA and PSN in April of last year as Skullgirls.
Critics generally gave the game a favorable reception, with its combined XBLA and PSN score averaging 80% on Metacritic. Gamers gave it a fairly warm reception, too. The developer was excited when Skullgirls sold 50,000 copies in its first 10 days on the market. Although the development team informed XBLAFans on Thursday that Skullgirls has failed to turn a profit to date, we were also informed that the game has performed well enough that publisher Autumn Games is interested in green-lighting a sequel if it can successfully dodge the sticks and stones City National Bank has thrown its way.
With a PC version, DLC characters and multiple sequels in the plans, things were looking up for Zaimont, Ahad and the rest of the crew at Reverge. Then everything went quiet. Months went by without a single update on the port, downloadable content or the sequel. It was eventually revealed that the Skullgirls team had been let go by Reverge Labs in June of 2012 after developer and publisher allowed their contract to expire without agreeing upon a new one. More sticks. More stones.
Whether it was the entire team that was let go or some fraction of it has been a matter that was up for some debate. Reverge blogged that it was some of the team, while the displaced developers once said it was “the entire” team. When questioned repeatedly by XBLAFans over the past couple of months, neither of those factions nor Autumn has been willing to go on record to clear the air. The one thing that has been abundantly clear, though, is that the contract expiration effectively brought about a game over screen for future Skullgirls content and its would-be creators.
Or did it?
XBLA’s Most Wanted: Shadowrun (SNES)
As a modern gamer it’s easy to look back on Nintendo’s SNES and create a list of RPGs that would probably include several of the genre’s best examples across all platforms. Back in 1993, though, many western gamers (both in Europe and the US alike) were frustrated by the lack of console RPGs that appealed to their popular culture, despite the undeniable quality of JRPGs like Ogre Battle, Secret of Mana and even Zelda: A Link to the Past. Systems like the Amiga featured all the best “adult” games and no matter what we think now, the SNES, with its army of cute, blue-haired RPG protagonists, was considered to be strictly for kids by most adults.
For many, Shadowrun’s release on the SNES changed everything. Based on a pen and paper RPG and featuring a detailed, complex story that incorporated grizzled mercenaries, violent gangs and an acidic populace of orks, trolls and cybernetically enhanced humans, all crammed into a dystopian future of magic and technology; Shadowrun basically delivered everything that European and American kids had grown up watching in movies and cartoons since the early 1980’s.
The Walking Dead: Episode 3 – Long Road Ahead review (XBLA DLC)
The Walking Dead was developed and published by Telltale Games. It was released August 29, 2012 for 400 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.
Episode 3 of The Walking Dead is not fun, you will not enjoy the experience. You’ll walk away from it with a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach, and possibly tears in your eyes. It is a harrowing, depressing and almost hopeless tale, even more so than the two episodes preceding it.
The worst part of all that? It is an experience you absolute must take part in, this is a game that will make you feel and think things you’d never have considered a game could. In three short episodes Telltale Games have become masters of the zombie apocalypse, telling horribly believable, shocking stories through an interactive medium. Read More
Hybrid review (XBLA)
Ever since the dawn of time man has dreamed of flight.
Okay well that might be a bit hyperbolic, but certainly the popularity of science fiction and the curious mind of one Leonardo Da Vinci are why we are so in love with jetpacks. Strapping a super-powered engine to your back and floating around the sky, all the while hoping your butt doesn’t get singed, this must indeed be the pinnacle of mankind’s achievements, should we ever arrive there. In the mean time, Hybrid‘s got all the jetpackin-est action we could hope for and more, and it’s one of the best implementations of a jetpack in gaming history. No, that’s not hyperbolic.
Hybrid is a simple game, when you strip away some of the superficiality. It’s a third person shooter that’s one part cover-camper and one part on-rails bullet hell. Sound strange? It should. This three versus three competitive multiplayer (only) game mixes the strategy of locking to cover with the skill and reflex-reliance of strafing and shooting while flying through the air.
The whole game centers around this mechanic, wherein you select a location to travel to, rather than manually moving there and directing your character. Once in the air, you can speed up, strafe in all directions with your jetpack, return to your previous cover or select a new location. When in cover, you can move along the walls or hop over them, but that’s it. The game is loadout-based with a dense armory system which grants you an unlock for any weapons or abilities you’d like from a specific category every time you level up (like Gotham City Impostors).
On top of the actual gameplay during matches, there is also this massive global war meta game to account for. Five continents divided into 20 districts each must be fought over to gain dark matter for your faction. The Variant and Paladin factions contest these zones, completing matches in a zone they select to progress its capture; the better the team does, the more progress they make. The first faction to 100 dark matter wins the season and is awarded with a special helmet and achievement. Read More
Friday Top Five: Top 5 Cartoon Network shows that need XBLA games
Anyone who has grown up in the last decade or so most likely has an affection for Cartoon Network. We’ve seen some rad old shows show up on their programming line-up from Batman to Bugs Bunny, but they’ve also had a great share of original programming. Things like Ben 10 or Johnny Bravo proved that modern animation could still be as good as the olden days. Here at XBLA Fans we thought some of that original programming could use an XBLA game or two. So here’s our top five shows that need XBLA games:
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E3 Hands-on: The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing off to a solid action-RPG start
The traditional action-RPG experience and what is sacred to it is, for the most part, set in stone. The isometric camera, stat increases on level up, new skills, tons of loot with each miniscule bonus making one item infinitely more worthwhile than another, all of that good stuff. Games like Diablo and Torchlight embody that experience, and The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing endeavors to join the diagonally-skewed club. You play as the great Van Helsing’s son, Van Helsing, in a world overflowing with the occult surrounded by the marriage of science and magic that could be considered fantasy steam punk.
As a bit of a disclaimer, developer Neocore Games is still rather early in the development process, so our hands-on is of pre-alpha gameplay. In fact, not only did we have to use a keyboard and mouse to play, they still haven’t decided on how to map the controls to the controller. This puts a shimmering asterisk on all of our experience with it seeing as the way a game controls is of grievous importance. That said, what we experienced hinted at something solid and enjoyable, albeit at the moment not particularly unique. Read More
Joy Ride Turbo review (XBLA)
Joy Ride Turbo was developed by BigPark and published by Microsoft Studios. It was released on May 23, 2012 for 800 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.
Mario Kart. Since its introduction in 1992 many other games have tried to dethrone it. None have truly succeeded. Nintendo has held their karting trophy high for 20 years now while characters like Sonic, Crash, and Lightning McQueen stand lower on the podium. Joy Ride Turbo seeks to put a boot in the overall-wearing plumber’s … err … pants by throwing aside the licensed franchise and offering great gameplay at a lower price. Joy Ride tosses aside the Kinect controller of its predecessor in hopes that a gamepad will help the game become the best value in karting games out there.
You know what? It succeeds.
Fez Cube Guide – Main Hub – Ruins Area
Welcome to the Ruins, called as such because there’s really no other distinguishing feature about them. Oh well. Let’s have at them, shall we?
First off, let’s go climb …
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