2011

It’s hard to believe the year is already half over. Gameastura has always delivered great analysis of XBLA monthly sales, but now we get a special one showing all …
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As anyone who plays XBLA games knows, Summer of Arcade is a big deal. It’s a spotlight of some of the season’s most promising games. Summer of …
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The AAA titles are continuing to look for ways to make the player feel that they have an effect on the game world. We have seen the continued success of games that feature choice, as well as multiple endings. The only issue is that many games still contiue to tell the story through in-game movies, to help move along the narrative, as well as captivate the player. Most players do not like the feeling of losing control. They hold a controller for a reason. With Bastion, it is not the cutscenes or trailers that are capturing people’s attention, it’s the narration. This isn’t just some voice walking your through a tutorial. The dynamic narration in Bastion is telling the story that you are creating. The narration in this game is designed to react tho the actions of the player, and tell the story the player is creating. Having only seen a demo at PAX, I cannot say how well this is implemented throughout, but the experience certainly stuck with me.

I reached out to Greg Kasavin, Creative Director at  SuperGiant Games to delve a little deeper into the concept of dynamic narration; from how it came to be, to how it’s turning out. Read More

Huge thanks to the entire team of writers who worked on this article: Andrew Crews, Cameron Titus, John Carson, Todd Schlickbernd, Tyler Cameron and Xeserox

We’ve spent the past week searching the internet and hounding our industry contacts in an effort to compile the ultimate 2011 XBLA Game Release List. We anticipated one heck of a year for Xbox Live Arcade. So epic we couldn’t even fit everything on one page. So without further ado, check out the list:

For detailed descriptions of each of the games and videos check the links below.
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Perspective is key in the long unreleased indie darling Fez. A new trailer released by developer Polytron Corporation has given us perspective as to where development has taken them …
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It appears that we all may have to wait a little bit longer to breach anything on XBLA.  The first-person shooter, Breach, was originally scheduled to release last June.  …
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Blacklight: Tango Down provided quite an impression following it’s release.  According to Majornelson.com, Blacklight topped the arcade sales last week without breaking a sweat.  With the PC version releasing …
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