Guacamelee!

I don’t know what compelled me to review Guacamelee 2. Despite the critical acclaim I wasn’t a huge fan of the original. I found it rather forgettable, making the sequel …
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We’ve got four new indie games rounding out the week on Xbox One. First up is Mulletman and the Molemen from Stevemata, a side scrolling, puzzle platformer for up to …
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Thanks for joining us again for the weekly round up of the Deals with Gold. Please remember that all prices listed below require an Xbox Live Gold membership. Buying a …
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Thanks for joining us again for the weekly round up of the Deals with Gold. Please remember that all prices listed below require an Xbox Live Gold membership.

All sales …
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Thanks for joining us again for the weekly round up of the Deals with Gold. Please remember that most prices listed below require an Xbox Live Gold membership. This week’s …
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There was once a time we now call the “Good Old Days.” In those days, instant classics spewed forth from every developer’s spicket at such a torrid pace that there was nary an excuse to ever emerge from your parents’ basement and absorb so much as a single UV ray.

Ah yes, they were glorious, those days, weren’t they? Every game was a masterpiece of innovation and craftsmanship, and there wasn’t a single rushed sequel or licensed shovelware release in sight. Replay values were always near infinite, color palettes were consistently varied and vibrant and every single game featured stellar multiplayer and single-player modes.

There’s just one problem with the Good Old Days – they weren’t really that perfect. Certainly it was exciting to grow up during the days of gaming’s so-called Golden Age – sometime between the late ‘70s and mid ‘90s, depending on whom you ask. Everything was new and exciting back then, but not everything was necessarily better. There were good games and bad, just like today. One thing that was almost universally true, though, is that every game was much harder than modern games are. But that doesn’t mean today’s developers should rush to emulate that difficulty – at least not without providing some conceits.

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Guacamelee Super Turbo Championship Edition was developed and published by Drinkbox Studios. It was released on Xbox One for $14.99 on June 6, 2014. It is also available on Xbox 360 for $14.99. An Xbox One copy was provided for review purposes.

Guacamelee is an already well-reviewed and very fun game, so adding a dash of super, a bit of turbo, and a pinch of championship creates a slightly more delicious version. The folks at Drinkbox Studios have updated the title with a variety of new features, all of which are enjoyable for everyone, including Guacamelee veterans. The sense of humor involved with Guacamelee is great, and pays homage to Metroid, Mario, and Castlevania titles constantly. This is a classic side-scrolling experience and it really is one of the better titles to surface via the ID@Xbox program thus far.

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If you missed our livestream of Guacamelee: Super Turbo Championship Edition, we took the liberty of recording it for you to watch whenever you can! We jumped right into the …
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At Microsoft’s E3 press conference on Monday morning, there was a video montage of a lot of games that are coming to Xbox One through the ID@Xbox program. Over the next few days, XBLA Fans is bringing you a slightly longer glimpse of those titles than what the montage trailer allowed for. Our coverage of these titles will be in alphabetical order. Below is a look at the second set of seven of those games.

Earthlock: Festival of Magic

Earthlock features a world divided between those that prefer magic and those that prefer technology. In this turn-based RPG from Snowcastle Games, you will play as Amon who is trying to prevent a war from starting in his home planet Umbra. In your quest to save your planet you’ll encounter various terrains including oceans, deserts, and snow-buried lands. Throughout your journey you will try and obtain more allies to join your quest, solve environmental puzzles, and harvest seeds to grow your own ammo.

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It’s a shame that Xbox owners missed out on last year’s smash hit Guacamelee, but DrinkBox Studios is about that by bringing bring Guacamelee to all platforms with an expanded version called Super Turbo Championship Edition (STCE). XBLA Fans caught up with DrinkBox Co-founder Graham Smith at PAX East and spoke to Lead Designer Greg Lesky via email to find out more about what this new version of Guacamelee is all about, how it has evolved and why you should be excited.

For those not acquainted with Guacamelee, Lesky describes it as “a metroid-vania platformer where you play a farmer named Juan whose girlfriend gets kidnapped by a guy named Carlos Calaca bent on ruling both the Land of the Living and the Dead. He then kills Juan, who finds a mystical Luchador Mask that gives Juan the powers of a Mexican wrestler and [Juan returns] to the Land of the Living to stop him.” With these powers, the player fights, jumps and dimension-swaps to defeat Calaca’s undead hordes and save his girlfriend…and the world. The Super Turbo Championship Edition features all-new levels, enemies, upgrades, fixes and a boss fight, making this the definitive version of DrinkBox’s biggest game yet.

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