Microsoft will announce the game lineup for this year’s Summer of Arcade promotion, Phil Spencer has confirmed via Twitter. “SoA announce is a highlight for me at E3,” the …
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This week’s deals offer some Xbox Live Arcade favorites and a few retro classics at deeply discounted prices. Xbox Live Gold Members can snag the exclusive sales starting today, …
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A slew of new releases and deals have been revealed on Major Nelson’s blog. Included in new releases is the long anticipated Skulls of the Shogun, a game we have waited a long time for. Also finally joining the party is the all-new Scott Pilgrim online multiplayer mode, plus Wallace Wells as a playable character. Lastly, for all you deal headhunters, you might want to check out Hydrophobia available for a measly 160 MSP.

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As the countdown to 2013 continues on Xbox Live, today’s daily deal sees three games from this year’s Summer of Arcade promotion on offer:

Dust an Elysian Tail – …
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In a blog post he’s since deleted, Xbox Live Director of Programming, Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb, announced the “Countdown to 2013” sale for the marketplace. The sale, which begins on December 18 and runs through December 31, will see discounts for a raft of content from certain franchises and publishers on both XBLA and the wider marketplace.

Although the official page has been pulled, the folks over at NeoGAF managed to compile a reasonably comprehensive list of the titles to go on sale and the date their discounts will take effect. Unfortunately, Major Nelson never revealed the discounted prices at any stage. But if you hope to catch any of the games or DLC in the list below for cheap, it may pay to stock up on MSP!

However, the fact that the official page has been pulled (even though most of the details are out in the wild) has us at least a little concerned, so maybe try not to pin all your hopes and dreams on the “Countdown to 2013” sale.

The full list of currently known discounted XBLA items follows:

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XP-based multiplayer games are sometimes a tough sell. If you don’t get in early it’s difficult to really compete. Hybrid developer 5th Cell is remedying that for the month …
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If you didn’t get enough out of our Hybrid build guide or are simply curious about how the folks at 5th Cell play Hybrid, check out these tips and tricks from the QA team. If you need more, there’s even some level guides available now as well.

Attacking

Jump Jetting

• Dodging: Get used to moving around while you’re attacking to avoid enemy fire. Not only will this tactic make it hard for your enemy to shoot you but the bots won’t be able to hit you if you’re moving in a circular motion.
• Boost Timing: Use boost often, but make sure you have it ready when you need it. Boost right when you take off and a second before you land to get through the landing sequence faster. If you boost too late, you won’t be able to fire for a short time after landing.
• Retreat: Make sure to retreat if you’re low on heath or something unexpected occurs. If you’re low on heath, try not to land at a cover in the enemies view since the landing sequence is slow.
• Scanning: You can use your selection arrow to identify an enemy’s position even if they are obscured from view. Select a cover you think an enemy is hiding and jump jet to it. While jetting to the cover press the vault button (Y) to move your selection arrow to the far side of cover and move it from side to side. If your arrow gets displaced from one of the main 3 positions there is an enemy there. Read More

For those of you out there still fighting the good fight between Variants and Paladins, we’ve got some extra assets for the war effort. 5th Cell was kind enough to send us some full images of each map currently available in Hybrid. They’ve color-coded the maps and we’ve added IDs to each cover (they’re different from the ones in-game because these are easier) for your assistance. Orange cover areas are ground-based, purple ones are below ground/other cover, and green ones are on the walls. We’ve provided some simple tips for you to design map strategies around, but feel free to download the maps and work your own magic on them.

Airfield

• Combat tends to localize over N, N1 and N2, controlling N1 and N2 simultaneously leads to map domination
• There’s a route from R1 – R3 and B1 – B3 which is great for escapes and surprise attacks
• R and B are the most defensible positions on the map, artifact/overlord gameplay will almost always centralize around those two points
• Having people at both R1/R3 and B1/B3 respectively is the key to removing map dominance from N1/N2
• The B2/R2 and B4/R4 spots on the map are great hiding places for catching people off guard, waiting for regeneration or resetting cooldowns

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We’re more than halfway through our roundtable series looking at the Summer of Arcade 2012, which means it’s time to talk about 5th Cell’s take on the third person shooter, Hybrid. Though fun and unique, it’s not without it’s issues, some of which our EIC took issue with. Hit the jump to find out what he and our other staffers thought of the game in general.

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Update: We now have a section on general tips & tricks sent to us by the QA team at 5th cell as well as level guides coming soon.

Welcome to our Hybrid build guide! This guide will provide builds to use throughout each of Hybrid‘s modes and are designed to account, collectively, for a good 90% of the game. Hybrid is designed with a lot of variety, in fact it’s one of the things we liked in our review, so ultimately you and your team mates will deviate from builds, even the ones we have made for you here. However, it’s important to have a starting point, especially if you’re not familiar with Hybrid regarding what actually matters and what doesn’t. For instance, most shooters don’t subscribe to the idea of “suppression”, it’s usually not very effective, but it works in Hybrid and it works well.

Do enjoy the builds we’ve provided for you here, but keep in mind that these are starting points! Add your own flare or personal preference to really do well with them. If you have any suggestions, feel free to comment on the guide and in a few weeks we’ll add good ones to a community section at the bottom of the guide. While the builds we’ve created for you here are more general, feel free to get ridiculously specific- all the way down to map and mode.

Enjoy the guide, and enjoy the game!

P.S. Variants represent clan tag [XF] Read More