Ascend: New Gods

From playing games, to watching movies, to listening to music, Microsoft’s all-in-one companion application, Xbox SmartGlass, continues to build a hefty catalog of ways to interact with your Xbox 360. For anyone still in the dark about inviting SmartGlass into their holy trinity of media consumption, or aren’t familiar with what exactly it does, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. His name’s Peter Orullian.

But first, what is Xbox SmartGlass? Consider SmartGlass the very best parts of a friendship without having to subscribe to that nagging social courtesy of considering their feelings. Too lazy to get up and grab your Xbox remote? No problem, SmartGlass loves being a remote. Need a quick tip about the game you’re playing? SmartGlass will show you in real time, and won’t ask to play or tell you what you’re doing wrong. Actually, consider Xbox SmartGlass to be like your personal virtual servant; a media genie that only likes what you like and never pesters you about freedom, or lamps.

In a series of tutorial videos released yesterday, Xbox SmartGlass Product Manager Peter Orullian has outlined the many possible ways you can enhance any experience with the SmartGlass application, including our favorite, Xbox Live Arcade. Giving us the first information on how we can expect to utilize SmartGlass with Signal Studios’ upcoming action-RPG Ascend: New Gods, Orullian demonstrates the newly unveiled Ascend: Oracle of the New Gods, which acts as an interactive compendium, realtime dungeon map and stat tracker. All this while showing off some much appreciated gameplay footage. Check out the video after the jump.

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If there’s one universal truth out there in the oft-quoted index of tidy idioms, it’s that, “there’s always a bigger fish.” The biggest kid on the block, shaking down …
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In an interview with IGN, Signal Studios founder and president D.R. Albright III outlined the future of his company’s upcoming free-to-play RPG Ascend: New Gods. One point of interest …
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[springboard type=”video” id=”658309″ player=”xbla001″ width=”640″ height=”400″ ]

Signal Studios President and Creative Director Douglass Robert Albright III was kind enough to take a break from eating dinner and making …
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We spent last week ringing off 40 of the year’s biggest upcoming XBLA games. It was a collaborative process that saw the whole XBLAFans team put together a varied list of many of the top titles headed to Microsoft’s downloadable platform in 2013. Today we’re capping off our look forward with our staff members’ picks for the game each of them is aching to play most in the months ahead. You don’t have to agree with any of us, of course, so make sure you jump into the comments and let us know the game you think should be at the top of everyone’s list.

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Here we are once again at the start of what’s sure to be another fantastic year of XBLA releases. Each day this week XBLA Fans will be rolling out a list of eight of our most anticipated Xbox Live Arcade releases of 2013. While we can’t possibly cover every single XBLA game planned for this year, we’ll be giving you a varied list of 40 of the most promising titles we expect to release on XBLA in 2013. Once it’s all done, be sure to check back in next Monday when each staff member makes his/her picks for the game he/she is most looking forward to.

Alien Fear

Developer: City Interactive

Alien Fear is an Unreal Engine 3-powered sci-fi first person shooter headed to XBLA, presumably at some point in 2013. Though we’re assuming that the above image is a target screen rather than an actual in-game image, developer City Interactive is promising that the use of Epic Games’ ubiquitous engine is allowing them to create an Xbox Live Arcade title that boasts “visually stunning, large-scale environments with impressive long-range vistas and expressionistic lighting.” The co-op shooter has yet to be shown in action, but XBLAFans is looking forward to finding out if the game lives up to the promise shown in the above image whenever we get our first real look at it.

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• The Xbox Community Ambassadors program is expanding. Ambassadors are regular community members who provide community support in exchange for some cool gifts, the higher end of which includes XBLA games. Are you knowledgeable? Apply today.
• The Verge reports that the ESPN Xbox Live app will be getting SmartGlass support some time this month.
• PlayXBLA revealed one of the new gods in  Ascend: New Gods, the Titan. See a screenshot after the jump.
• SmartGlass is now available for your iPhone or iPad–that is if you’re trendy lucky enough to have one. Pick it up here.
• Xbox Live apps Rhapsody, Blip.TV, LOVEFiLM Deutschland, RTL XL, and TOU.TV recently launched in their respective regions, and the IGN app is now available in Canada. For full descriptions, hit the jump.
• The Blinding of Isaac is coming to consoles. Super Meat Boy‘s Edmund McMillen announced the information via his blog earlier this month. No word yet if that includes the Xbox 360 and XBLA.
• Happy Wars has been updated with additional weapons, including a mailbox and a winged staff. No word on whether these are free or microtransactional.

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Signal Studios recently gave its forum users the opportunity to ask developers questions about the studio’s upcoming action-RPG Ascend: New Gods. The community jumped at the opportunity and got some …
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Last Friday it was announced that Toylogic’s 15 v 15 multiplayer game Happy Wars will be free for all Xbox Live Gold members. In an interview with OXM, a …
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Action game Ascend: New Gods will be ported over to the PC, developer Signal Studios has informed Co-Optimus. The PC version’s content is said to mirror that of …
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