XBLA

The Summer of Arcade on Xbox 360 continues this week with Flashback HD, a high-def remake of the side-scrolling action-adventure game from the ’90s, also called Flashback. This past …
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On Wednesday of this past week, Bit.Trip released The Good Friends Character pack DLC for the Xbox 360 version of Runner 2. In atypical fashion, Xbox 360 users received this …
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Publisher Sega has confirmed on its blog that Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse will be launching on Xbox Live Arcade on September 4 for 1200 Microsoft Points. This reimagining …
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Kuno Interactive announced via Twitter this week that they’ll be releasing Defense Technica on XBLA and PSN on October 9th. Steam users can download the game on October 10th.

Who are Kuno Interactive? They are a new developer from Seoul South Korea and on their site it mentions that they either are working on or have released such games as Moro Moro Train and Mutant Defense; both titles are for the PSN. A quick search of the internet did not yield any results for either game.

Very little is out on the internet about Defense Technica. Below is a a short paragraph that was posted on Xbox.com and clearly written in broken English:

“New strong man Defense Technica high-quality 3D Tower Defense! Defense Technica you with a great balance and strategic system to protect the core with a rapidity judgment and beautiful graphics, It is a defense game of the best thing to defend the core effectively against the enemy coming to attack is an object.”

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Baron Dashforth, the Victorian demon-hunter, might not be a household name, yet, but all that is about to change come September. Mediatonic along with Mastertronic and Devolver Digital announced …
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Tragnarion Studios announced last Monday, August 5 that it plans to release an update for its Xbox LIVE Arcade title, Scourge: Outbreak. The update will roll out later this …
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Mark of the Ninja will sneak back onto your Xbox with the release of its first piece of downloadable content on August 16. The Special Edition DLC will include …
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XBLAFans stopped to chat with Sega Studios Australia’s Omar Woodley, producer on Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse during E3. We discovered that calling the new version of Castle of Illusion a “remake” or “rerelease” doesn’t do it justice. Unlike other modern ports of classic games, such as Ubisoft’s Prince of Persia Classic or Capcom’s soon-to-be-released Ducktales Remastered, Castle of Illusion was described to us by Woodley as “a full reimagining of the game.”

The biggest, most immediately noticeable change beyond updated graphics and sound (which includes a charming voiceover for Mickey during gameplay) is the addition of a hub world. In the original game, Mickey wandered the Castle of Illusion to introduce each new level. Here, the castle is envisioned along the lines of Super Mario 64, as a three-dimensional hub world by which all of the levels are accessed. It’s a fun change that makes the castle feel like an actual place, instead of merely a setpiece for the plot.

According to Woodley, Sega Studios Australia had lots of “creative freedom to redesign the levels… When we played the original and we tried translating that to the new 3D world, some of those levels weren’t as challenging as they were back in the day. They actually played out to be quite long in length to this contemporary feel so we had to compensate for that, and we also just wanted to challenge the player and keep that difficultly setting pretty high to what the classic was. So we added these various components and a few different puzzles and tricks here and there to keep the challenge intact.”

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Copenhagen-based development studio Press Play has announced that Max: The Curse of Brotherhood will keep it in the family by extending the adventure to the Xbox 360’s younger sibling, …
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Magic 2014: Duels of the Planeswalkers was developed by Stainless Games and Wizards of the Coast and published by Microsoft Studios. It retails for 800 MSP and was released on June 26, 2013. XBLA Fans awarded Magic 2014 a coveted Buy It! award in our recent review

Sealed play (which is perhaps the most exciting addition to this year’s Duels of the Planeswalkers title) is a real life Magic: The Gathering (MTG) staple that attracts casual, serious and professional players time and time again. The format is challenging because it relies upon each player’s ability to produce the best possible deck from a fixed pool of cards, but at the same time it is extremely rewarding to watch that handmade deck pull off a big victory or combo.

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