Summer of Arcade

UPDATE: Video’s here. Right there! Look! Click it! – Todd

As we come to a close on this year’s Summer of Arcade, it seems like we’ve saved the best …
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Ever since the dawn of time man has dreamed of flight.

Okay well that might be a bit hyperbolic, but certainly the popularity of science fiction and the curious mind of one Leonardo Da Vinci are why we are so in love with jetpacks. Strapping a super-powered engine to your back and floating around the sky, all the while hoping your butt doesn’t get singed, this must indeed be the pinnacle of mankind’s achievements, should we ever arrive there. In the mean time, Hybrid‘s got all the jetpackin-est action we could hope for and more, and it’s one of the best implementations of a jetpack in gaming history. No, that’s not hyperbolic.

Hybrid is a simple game, when you strip away some of the superficiality. It’s a third person shooter that’s one part cover-camper and one part on-rails bullet hell. Sound strange? It should. This three versus three competitive multiplayer (only) game mixes the strategy of locking to cover with the skill and reflex-reliance of strafing and shooting while flying through the air.

The whole game centers around this mechanic, wherein you select a location to travel to, rather than manually moving there and directing your character. Once in the air, you can speed up, strafe in all directions with your jetpack, return to your previous cover or select a new location. When in cover, you can move along the walls or hop over them, but that’s it. The game is loadout-based with a dense armory system which grants you an unlock for any weapons or abilities you’d like from a specific category every time you level up (like Gotham City Impostors).

On top of the actual gameplay during matches, there is also this massive global war meta game to account for. Five continents divided into 20 districts each must be fought over to gain dark matter for your faction. The Variant and Paladin factions contest these zones, completing matches in a zone they select to progress its capture; the better the team does, the more progress they make. The first faction to 100 dark matter wins the season and is awarded with a special helmet and achievement. Read More

Get ready for the zombie apocalypse in Deadlight, check out the latest Trials Evolution track and see what Sales and Specials there is!
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Zombie puzzle-platformer and third Summer of Arcade title Deadlight is out today. A new trailer has arrived just in time, showing the various accolades the game has received thus far. Between …
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While Hybrid may be a match-based multiplayer shooter, the newest trailer shows how the overarching game can be just as important as a single battle. When you start the game, …
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Deadlight was developed by Tequila Works and published by Microsoft Studios. It was released on August 1, 2012 for 1200 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.

Deadlight is a 2D platformer with a survival horror bent, at least in theory, but we’ll get to that shortly. You play as Randall Wayne, a survivor of some kind of apocalyptic event, which has caused the dead to rise. Though they act like zombies, these particular undead have been branded “Shadows”, represented in-game as silhouettes with glowing red or white eyes.

Randall is searching Seattle for his wife and daughter, who he’s been seperated from since the start of the disaster. When the game begins, Randall is with a group of survivors, but they quickly go their seperate ways as Randall begins the search for his family.
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This week on XBLA Wednesday we cover Wreckateer, the new Trials level, the Awesomenauts patch and this week’s sales & specials
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Next week will see the launch of Deadlight, the third game of Summer of Arcade. Set in an alternate 80s timeline, a zombie apocalypse has destroyed the world. The game …
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Summer of Arcade looks to start off with a bang. As of noon (Robomodo time) today the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD leaderboards broke 100k players. While not a …
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We’ve been doing XBLA Wednesday posts for quite some time (in fact, it was my idea) but originally each post was going to be accompanied by a quick video …
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