This week’s deal offers up the seminal adventures of Mega Man on Xbox Live Arcade. Capcom’s Mega Man 9 and Mega Man 10 are both available now, through February 4, for …
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We totally missed January, but the Monthly Recap is back for February! Yaaay. There’s an immense amount of news this month because for some reason February is XBLA month. There’s roughly a million game announcements and DLC as well. I suggest hitting CTRL + F and searching for the copious news about your favorite game. Or games. Or just read all the news, because that’s a good idea.

Beyond the “things that happened”, there’s also several Friday Top Fives and Most Wanted’s this month as we continue to beef up our feature repertoire. Our chief feature, A Year In Review (2011) is definitely worth checking out for some insight into the fluctuations in XBLA cost versus review scores. Lastly, amongst the five podcasts is our Music Special which showcases some of the best XBLA soundtrack tunes since its inception.

Without further ado, welcome to February all over again! Read More

Everything you need to slice your way through
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Klei Entertainment just recently released Shank 2 this past month and we really liked it but what’s next for the Vancouver studio? In an update today, they announced their brand new game Mark of the Ninja, a stealth based action game with a similar style to their previous games. They’ve pulled back the emphasis on hardcore action for stealth which you can see on their website. You can go through a text adventure with the end providing a teaser of some gameplay with the ninja utilizing the environment to trap a guard, catch the trailer after the break (thanks to Vox Games for that). Mark of the Ninja sneaks to XBLA this summer.

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After releasing Shank 2 last week, Klei Entertainment has released a free downloadable Shank comic. The comic occurs in the “period between the two Shank games” and features sixteen …
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It’s a bumper episode this week, with one of our longest ever. We kick it off by talking about last week’s release of Shank 2, which we pretty much universally enjoyed. Be sure to check out our character unlock guide if you decide to pick it up. Speaking of guides, after spending a lot of time with Rise of the Martian bear for the guide, Todd isn’t keen to play it again any time soon.

After discussing some of the other random games we’ve been playing Perry brings the news. Which includes some Kickstarter discussion and debate about Gotham City Impostors approach to DLC. Then Andrew poses @MizzouGaming‘s twitter question to us, which leads to a long discussion about our thoughts on the past and future of XBLA. He then challenges us all to play Assault Heroes, so check it out and let us know what you think on twitter or the comments.

Please subscribe, rate and review the podcast on iTunes. We appreciate it! Check us out on twitter (@XBLAFans) where you can win codes for games, give us feedback or just ask a question. We are also now on Stitcher, so you can stream the show on your smartphone, give it a go!

Big thanks to Chris Green for the awesome theme music, be sure to check out his site BlurredEdge and why not follow him on twitter too @BlurredEdge.

[podcast]https://xblafans.com/xblafancast/XBLAFancastEp49.mp3[/podcast]

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Shank 2 was developed by Klei Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts. It was released February 8, 2012 for 800 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.

In 2010, the original Shank was released under a curious industry eye. Side scrolling brawlers are a well-worn genre, but for some reason Klei Entertainment had piqued the interest of the XBLA community. Shank was fairly well received, but stumbled in areas where it counts most, mainly in gameplay. The aptly named main character, Shank, traverses shipyards, jungles, and ancient ruins in search of his enemies, in hopes that killing them will ensure the safety of the people that are important to him. He slices, dices, and shreds enemies to bits with many different types of weapons and kills them in the goriest of ways possible. It seems Klei has upped the ante with this sequel, but does it deliver?
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Shankin’ and Shootin’
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Shank Characters:

Our full Shank 2 Guide will be launching next week. In the meantime, please enjoy this guide to the unlockable character skins which we will be updating throughout the week. 

Shank

Pros

• +10% Health

Unlocked by default

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The original Shank was a hit and the sequel is now upon us with Shank 2. With a brand new campaign and a 2-player survival mode, expect more shanking …
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