During their last community address, Ronimo Games teased a brand new character soon to join the ranks of the Awesomenauts crew. The new characters, (yes, plural,) will be showcased at the team’s studios in the Netherlands during an open invitation to players around the world. So if you’re in the neighborhood, visit the community forum for details.

Next week, the game’s catchy soundtrack, inspired by 80s Saturday morning cartoons will be available for download on bandcamp. Until then, you can always download the game’s catchy theme song free of charge.

Ronimo is also getting ready to dish out a balancing patch that it hopes to get in our hands “in a few short weeks.” Some of the changes include: ”Leon’s slow upgrades & tongue, Voltar’s drones & healing, Yuri’s timebubble and Froggy G’s whirlwind shield. Apart from tweaking existing values, we will also be replacing a couple of upgrades.”

Jet Set Radio first came out on Sega’s Dreamcast twelve years ago and gave players the chance to be Tokyo graffiti artists. The game is releasing digitally on Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and PC, and today Sega announced that it will also be releasing on PlayStation Vita.

The handheld version of the game will give players added gameplay options including touchscreen controls for faster graffiti tagging and Vita camera integration. Haruki Satomi, Senior Vice President of Digital Business at SEGA, said “As Jet Set Radio is focused on creativity, the touch capabilities of the PlayStation VITA are proving to be a perfect fit.”

We played the game’s XBLA version at PAX East this year, and it felt quite the same as it did playing it back on the Dreamcast, which is a good thing. We’ll see how this new Vita version compares to the original when we get our hands on it at E3 next week.

Having broken records for the most units sold in a single day and being the highest rated Xbox 360 game on Metacritic this year, it’s no wonder Trials Evolution has already been played by over 500,000 players a month after launch.

One of the reasons the game has drawn so much attention (aside from its great reviews,) is that the game offers an engaging sharing system called Track Central that lets players upload their own custom levels and download new ones. The game’s leaderboards have also been keeping players busy.

“To date, players have created more than 60,000 custom tracks and skill games, using the exact same editor we used to build our own levels within the game,” said Tero Virtala, Managing Director of RedLynx. “Those same players have recorded more than one million entries on custom Leaderboards associated with user-created tracks, they have given more than 800,000 reviews of UGC within Track Central.”

Trials Evolution is out on Xbox Live Arcade. Check out our review for the game and find out why this game’s so popular.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode I was a good attempt at giving players a continuation of the original Genesis titles, but its wonky physics and gimmicky stages kept it from achieving true potential. It looked like a classic 2D Sonic game, but the game lacked that special essence that made its 16-bit predecessors so much fun. Luckily, Episode II is the better of the two installments and gives fans a Sonic they’re more familiar with, even if does come with a few misses.

One of the biggest additions to Episode II is the inclusion of Tails, who now brings two-player co-op to the table. Like in the classic games, Tails can pick up and fly Sonic to places he can’t reach for a short amount of time, but players have a lot more control over him this time. By simply pressing a button, the action will pause, and Tails will teleport to where Sonic is and help him out. I found this too convenient sometimes because while it gets you out of sticky situations right away, after a while, it becomes too easy to press a button and save Sonic from a misstep. Tails and Sonic also have another combo ability that turns them into a giant ball, faster and stronger than the average spindash. The duo will always be joined by one another, so levels integrate these two abilities in unique ways that create a different experience. The game may feel like Sonic the Hedgehog 2, but this is a new game, after all.

Co-op mode lets two people play together offline or online, but it does come across a few problems, one of them due to the game’s fast-paced action. If you fall behind your friend, the game will respawn you right behind him, but you’ll need to press a button to pop out of your protective “bubble” like in New Super Mario Bros. The problem here, though, is that this happens a lot when going down slopes or slides, even when you don’t intend to leave someone behind. Another thing I noticed is that the person playing as Tails will have an advantage and can easily exploit certain situations by flying; this is especially evident during boss fights. Let’s just say, playing with someone else is easier than playing solo.

Controlling Sonic and dashing through the many colorful worlds feels quite good. Episode I’s physics engine has been overhauled, and the blue hedgehog runs a bit more like he did back during his Genesis years. Sonic’s homing attack is back, but aiming feels more accurate and is easier to pull off. He is also less shiny and doesn’t look out-of-place amid his colorful backdrops, which have layered textures that often give the game a great pseudo 3D effect. Considering the game is supposed to feel like Sonic 2, it’s great that controls and graphics don’t distract you from the game’s speed, a problem that often plagued Episode I.

Stages, too, are a lot more reminiscent of the original games and are designed to keep you always in motion. While it’s a bit apparent that the themes of past stages have been recycled into “new” zones – expect to see a sky fortress and a snowy amusement park, for example – the game does have its unique charm that is complemented by its soundtrack reminiscent of Sonic’s 16-bit days. There is, however, one section of an underwater level that requires you to swim past enemies that freeze the way forward. If you’re too slow or your aiming is off, you’ll be blocked from all sides, and all you can do is wait until Sonic and Tails drown to try again. Frustrated, I tried (in vain) to find a solution, and can only wonder why the developers wouldn’t provide one that doesn’t require losing a life.

Like classic Sonic titles, Episode II is great the first time you play it, but you may question playing through it several times. To extend playtime even further, the game includes chaos emeralds and red rings to collect in each act. As expected, collecting these emeralds lets you turn into Super Sonic, but it doesn’t really affect the game’s ending that much. Also, while finding each act’s red ring is supposed to provide a challenge, they are simply in areas you’ll explore anyway, and their presence simply serves to unlock an achievement. The developers did include a score attack and time trial mode for each act, so players can at least compete with each other via the game’s leaderboards.

While I didn’t particularly enjoy Episode I that much, Episode II rewards players who played the first game and unlocks Episode I stages playable as Metal Sonic. This feels almost like an apologetic thank you to fans that played through the first game, but this expansion gives you some backstory to the character and lets you play through the first game in a whole new way. Plus, it’s great to see Sega implement a similar lock-on technology it did back when Sonic & Knuckles came out.

Episode II has some obvious gameplay issues and provides a lackluster ending, but the experience playing through each stage is very nostalgic of the fun I had playing through the Genesis games. I also appreciate the improvements the developers made to the game and that they listened to and fixed what fans disliked about the first one. At this rate, let’s hope Episode III is made and becomes something truly worth raving about.

Yes, we know Max Payne and Diablo III are out today, but Sega wants you to put down your AK-47 and gaming keyboard for a bit and take a minute to relive your childhood with Sonic the Hedgehog: Episode 2, which spindashes its way onto consoles and mobile devices this week.

Sega has been listening to fan feedback following the release of Episode 1, so expect to see some enhanced gameplay features such as two-player co-op, better physics, and the addition of the challenging red rings introduced in Sonic Colors.

Also, those who currently own Episode 1 will be able to replay the original game from the perspective of Metal Sonic and learn more about his backstory and how he survived the events at the end of Sonic CD.

Sonic the Hedgehog: Episode 2 is out today on PlayStation and Steam and will be out on Xbox 360 tomorrow. The game will also be available for iOS devices on May 17. Be sure to check out our upcoming review of the game once it posts!

Despite encountering some problems with its German publisher, Awesomenauts was released to great reviews. Since its launch last week, over half a million games have already been played.

Listening to its fans, Ronimo will be releasing a patch next week that will address some of its balancing issues. While we didn’t encounter much of an unbalance during our review, some characters like the game’s healer could get overpowered in the hands of skilled players. Ronimo is also looking into communication issues that prevent some players from joining matches. The developer recommends resetting your console and router until they work on solving this issue.

Ronimo is also working on new character DLC and gave us a sneak peek at the game’s first female Awesomenaut coming soon. Get excited!

Any PC gamer out there can tell you that multiplayer online battle arena games are taking the online gaming scene by storm. In just the past year, giants like League of Legends and Defense of the Ancients have seen favorable success with players eager to experience their fusion of RPG and competitive real time strategy mechanics. Console players, however, have yet to get a title that lets them experience what this hype is all about. That is, until now.

Despite being an obvious portmanteau, Awesomenauts is also a blend of different elements that lets it work effectively on consoles. Instead of teams of five, you get teams of three. Instead of an overhead map, you get a 2D scrolling arena. While at first glance it may seem the game is a watered down version of the other MOBA games out there, players need to realize Awesomenauts isn’t trying to emulate the big boys on the PC. It’s simply trying to give console players a taste of what a MOBA game feels like. And, boy is it tasty.

The game offers both online and split-screen matches and also lets up to three local players take on another team online. Matches consist of two teams of three trying to take down their enemy’s base while also defending theirs from attack. Each team has its own set of powerful turrets that also provide barriers for the other team, so once these turrets are down, the opposing team can easily waltz into an enemy base and take it down. Each team is also assisted by friendly bots that are constantly making their way to each turret, but without the help of the Awesomenauts, they will quickly get shot down.

A lot of the game’s charm comes from its colorful cast – the Awesomenauts themselves. While the core of the game consists of winning as many matches as you can, there isn’t much room for character development. This didn’t stop Ronimo Games from giving each Awesomenaut his own personality, clearly evident after watching the opening cutscene and listening to their witty lines of dialogue during matches. Each character even has his own unique theme song that plays when you select him, and like any MOBA title, each one has his own unique bag of tricks.

During matches, your characters can pick up in-game currency called Solar that lets them purchase power-ups and abilities. Everyone starts with the bare minimum, and as matches progress, the more Solar a character picks up, the more powerful he can become. Before a match begins, you can change the loadout of your characters, furthering creating an element of strategy to the abilities you choose to upgrade. Sheriff Lonestar, for example, has both a dynamite throw attack that does splash damage and a ramming bull attack that helps clear the area by pushing enemies away. You can choose to level up both of these to give you a well-rounded character or focus on one to prioritize your role on your team. These simple choices make each gameplay session a unique experience since players can customize their characters to their liking.

Starting a match in Awesomenauts is also a painless procedure, and the game never lets you wait to get into a match. If a match doesn’t have enough human players, the computer will control any remaining teammates and continue to search for incoming players. These bots actually do a pretty good job, and I often found myself in hot water after underestimating them. Players who start a match already in progress are given extra Solar to catch up to everyone else. While I did like the ease in starting a match, I wish there had been an option to let players wait until they had a full team of people as I often ended up in matches that were close to finishing and on teams nearing defeat.

Every match you play through, even the ones you lose, will get you experience points that levels up your Awesomenauts account and unlocks more characters and abilities to buy during matches. The game starts you off with three characters, but three more elaborate classes such as the tank and healer get unlocked later on. I found that because of this, lower leveled teams may be at a disadvantage. Maybe this is why even a loss gets you lots of experience points. Of course, your account’s level has nothing to do with your in-game level that always resets with each match, so even if you’ve maxed out your experience points, you still need to use your plethora of abilities effectively to win.

Players can jump, shoot in eight directions, and do things you normally don’t do in other MOBA titles, so Awesomenauts may look more like a 2D platformer than a game like League of Legends, but Ronimo’s approach to creating a MOBA experience on the consoles actually works. Some matches can last up to thirty minutes, and are as engaging and addicting as those in other PC titles. The success of an online game is also measured by how big its online community is, and because the game is accessible to even the most casual of console gamers out there and because Ronimo plans to release more content and characters in the future, I’d say the fun won’t be over anytime soon.

Is The Avengers the best superhero movie of all time? (Read our reviewand find out!) Does the same hold true for The Avengers pinball table?

Zen Pinball is releasing Marvel’s The Avengers, a unique pinball table based on the film, and will be included as part of Marvel Pinball: Avengers Chronicles, a brand new four-table pack for Pinball FX2 on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network.

This unique table features digital assets and events taken directly from the film as well as pinballs that are unique to each Avenger. Black Widow, Captain America, Hawkeye, Hulk, Iron Man and Thor are all aboard the Hellicarrier with Nick Fury leading the charge into battle!

Following reports about German publisher dtp Entertainment’s insolvency filing this weekend, it seemed like Awesomenauts would see issues launching on time. Today, however, developer Ronimo Games has confirmed that its game is releasing right on time.

Awesomenauts will makes it way onto both Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network  on May 2.

The game can be best described as an outer space version of League of Legends with 2D shooter and RPG elements thrown in. Both teams must try to destroy their enemy’s bases before theirs gets destroyed as well. Featuring a colorful cast of unique characters and settings, Awesomenauts definitely got our attention.

Read our preview for more on this indie title, and get ready to launch into space battles this Wednesday.

dtp Entertainment, German publisher of the upcoming Awesomenauts downloadable game, has filed for insolvency. In an email sent to us this morning, developer Ronimo Games said it is “unsure of what this means for the game” but is working hard on resolving this issue.

Insolvency occurs when a company cannot meet its debt obligations on time. These issues can be fixed and restorative measure can be taken to prevent it from ultimately going bankrupt.

Awesomenauts has a release date of May 2 for both Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network, but after today’s announcement, there is no news whether this will change or not. We’ve contacted the developer for more details.

The game can be best described as an outer space version of League of Legends with 2D shooter and RPG elements thrown in. Both teams must try to destroy their enemy’s bases before theirs gets destroyed as well. Featuring a colorful cast of unique characters and settings, Awesomenauts definitely got our attention. Read our preview for more on this indie title.

The original Trials game was an online phenomenon, occupying any decent procrastinator’s tab at work or school. A couple of years back, Trials HD brought the much adored franchise to Xbox 360 with enhanced graphics, realistic physics and a level of difficulty rarely seen in modern games. When Trials Evolution released last week, it broke XBLA records for most units sold in a single day. The demand for the game is more than present and thankfully, the addicting gameplay that made the original so memorable is back, and it is better than ever.

Simple to pick up, impossible to master is the absolute core of the Trials series. You control a motorcycle rider on a linear path. The only thing you are allowed to do is adjust the throttle and adjust your lean forwards or backwards. The physics in play here can make or break a game, with a lucky bounce pushing you in the right angle or too much weight on one side making you slam on to the pavement. Checkpoints are gracefully placed before any obstacle on the track, letting you snap back to a safe spot instantly when you tumble off your bike.

What was arguably the only problem with Trials HD were the repetitive warehouse environments. Thankfully developer Red Lynx took that to heart and made every level in Trials Evolution stand out with unique environments. Some tracks will take place on a traditional dirt bike trail, while others will take top a mountain or into a warzone, replacing small hills with walls of explosives. This makes unlocking new levels an absolute joy. The line the rider follows will also swerve every once in a while, allowing for a new mix of challenges for new players. Throw in some sweet special levels like the 15 minute marathon that is the Gigatrack and the awesome nod to Limbo and the visual variety does not disappoint.

Multiplayer has been added in both local and online game modes. Every game mode is a variation of racing and time trials with each track being played twice in a two track “championship.” Crashes will cause you to lose points while a successful finish will earn you points depending on the position. Despite some long matchmaking times, it is a fun distraction and can be even more competitive locally.

The quirky skills circus from the last game has been expanded, this time providing ridiculous challenges such as finishing a level without letting go of the throttle and replacing your motorcycle with skis.

Another nice touch is the level editor the designers used to create the game. The basic editor lets players post tracks online for others to try, but the advanced editor lets players rewrite the script of the game, allowing for different styles of genres to be explored. Bring back Marvel Madness? Create a 3D Angry Birds? The possibilities in store are ridiculous and a strong community is sure to keep the content coming.

As far as bang for your buck, you cannot go wrong with Trials Evolution. Sixty single player levels, a fully-fledged level editor and a strong multiplayer suite are more content than some retail games offer. Trying to break gold in every level is a mad man’s task, especially when you reach the devilish “Extreme” difficulty, but the sense of progression is always present, with new gear for your bike or rider being constantly unlocked. When it comes down to it, if you ever spent time on Addictinggames.com while you were supposed to be writing a ten page paper, you owe it to yourself to get Trials Evolution.

Xbox Live Arcade is filled with ridiculous puzzle games trying to garner your hard earned dollars. It can be difficult to sift through the hundreds of games available to try and find one that will suit you. Luckily, The Splatters is quirky and imaginative enough that anyone who picks it up is likely to enjoy their time with it.

The premise is simple. You control these little blobs of jelly that are used to explode bombs placed across a single screen level. The challenge comes from the fact that you can only launch the blobs once (almost like Angry Birds) and they will not destroy the bombs unless they are “popped” by running into something sharp or hitting a surface with enough force that they explode. Once popped they turn into uncontrollable liquid, so you need to be careful where you are aiming. The liquid physics are really impressive and the game has a quirky art style that gives every aspect of it an undeniable character.

The real fun comes from trying to link together combos by breaking the different bombs in style. Dozens of combos are at your disposal, anything from a slide to make your goo travel faster and further to a special move called the flip that changes the direction of every object in the world. As you progress through the game, you unlock more moves such as the air bomb that allows you to change the direction of the blob in mid-air. Mastering all of the different combinations and trying to link them together can be addicting, and the online leaderboards do not help with trying to put this game down.

Unfortunately there are only about 30 levels in the game, each taking less than 5 minutes to finish, so if you pick up on the controls and ability to link combos together quickly, you can earn every star in a couple of hours. Separate scoring modes such as combo multipliers and a unique one where you have to use specified combos to beat the level are available, but it does not make the game too much longer.

Nonetheless, for only ten dollars this is a really fun downloadable title that is sure to impress anyone with a penchant for stylish physics based puzzle games.

There was a small indie booth at PAX East that players kept revisiting throughout the weekend. That booth belonged to the team at Ronimo Games who had flown all the way from the Netherlands to showcase Awesomenauts, their newest title that can best be described as an outer space version of League of Legends with 2D shooter and RPG elements thrown in.

The core of Awesomenauts is its deathmatch multiplayer that puts teams of three players against one another. Each team’s goal is to make its way across the other side of the map destroying the opponent’s defense turrets and ultimately its base. You’ll also need to be mindful of your own base’s defenses and juggle offense and defensive strategies to survive.

You can choose from six different colorful characters, each one having a specialized set of talents and skills. Froggy G excels at moving quickly, Leon is a stealthy backstabber, Sherrif Clunk is the game’s tank, Yuri kills from a distance, Voltar is the healer, and Sherrif Lonestar is great at crowd control. Once your team selects its characters, you can then choose their load-outs and abilities they will have at their disposal.

Once the match starts, your goal is to destroy the opposite colored turrets and enemy robots coming from your enemy’s base. Each robot or human player you kill will also drop currency you can use to purchase those abilities you chose for your character at the start of the match. They’re not automatically unlocked until you buy or upgrade them, so the more enemies you kill, the more your character can “level up” and get stronger.

Awesomenauts’ seamless matchmaking system also means you won’t have to wait too long to enjoy matches as computer controlled robots will take over slots on your team until you find another human player. Of course, these robots aren’t as smart as human players, so the game continues to search for teammates while you play. The game lets you go online with up to two local buddies or play local multiplayer split-screen matches too.

Matches can truly last a long time if both teams know what they are doing. I noticed a few players kept coming back to play several times and while their first few matches only lasted mere minutes, their third match must have lasted at least fifteen minutes. The game really promotes replayability and I can tell its painless drop-in drop-out system will make finding matches a breeze.

Look for Awesomenauts next month when it launches on PlayStation Network May 1 and on Xbox Live Arcade May 2.

Aside from being a clever portmanteau that makes me think of brawling avocados, Guacamelee is an incredibly charming platformer by Drinkbox Studios that was as much of a joy to play as it was to just watch. What really drew me into the game, aside from its tried-and-true “Metroidvania” genre, was its colorful art style and the fact that the game is inspired by Mexican folklore.

The game’s main character is Juan Aguacate, an agave field worker who gets killed and finds a magical luchador mask in the world of the dead that not only brings him back to life but also grants him the wrestling powers he needs to stop his killer from uniting the world of the dead with the living. One of the animators working on the game is himself Mexican, and serves as the team’s go-to person for reference questions. Of course, the team has taken liberties with its game, but you should definitely expect to see various motifs and cultural allusions as you play.

Combat in the game revolves around, appropriately enough, melee moves that you can expand. Juan can do basic punching combos, but he can also grab and throw enemies onto each other and roll to dodge attacks. Common wrestling moves like pile-drivers and uppercuts also appear in the game, but these moves are unlocked with the story and make Juan not only stronger, but also let him explore areas that are initially blocked off. Other moves like turning into chickens to explore small areas are as funny as they are helpful.

My time with the game let me explore a large part of the world that included as much wall jumping as it did combat, but it also introduced a unique ability that let me switch between the world of the living and the world of the dead in an instant. Once Juan gets this ability, you can press a button and dimensions will change causing lava, for example, to turn into water or an invisible platform to appear. This feature reminded me a lot of Mighty Switch Force since you sometimes had to time your jumps with the dimensional shifts. Not only does this set the stage for puzzles and exploration, but it also affects combat since some enemies will also escape into the other dimension during fights.

I played through the demo with the game’s technical director via local co-cop who took on the role of the game’s female protagonist. As we were individually fighting our own targets, he told me his team is working on implementing more co-op moves that let players combine and link attacks more dynamically.

Drinkbox hopes to release the game on all consoles by the end of the year and is working on finishing up the game by building their world even further. If the demo is any indication, Guacamelee is another great example of how studios can expand on a genre and still keep their games feeling fresh. (After all, the best guacamole is, in fact, made with fresh avocados)

Hell Yeah! is a game about a rabbit named Ash, the prince of Hell who had some racy photos of him and his rubber ducky spread all over the internet. He also happens to have a short temper and could be considered clinically insane because his way of restoring his reputation is to simply kill everyone.

Developed by Arkedo Studios and published by Sega, Hell Yeah! is a colorful, gory, and energetic platformer that shares similarities to games that encourage exploration and backtracking, a genre often referred to as “Metroidvania.” As you make your way through the game, you’ll encounter areas you simply cannot pass through until you find a new weapon, power-up, or simply trigger a reaction in another area of your map.

As I played through the demo, Ash eventually picks up a rotary drill that not only serves as his main weapon, but also gives him the ability to “spin-dash” his way through the stage and off walls and ledges. I was instantly reminded of Sonic the Hedgehog. When I brought this up with Camille Guermonprez, Arkedo’s co-founder, he nodded and verified that this was in fact a reference to his studio’s relationship with Sega and, in a way, makes Ash out to be a “a bad Sonic with anger management issues.”

Once I got my rotary drill, Ash was also able to drill through pink crystals that blocked pathways and also held gems, the game’s currency, which I could later use to purchase missiles to defeat enemies that took no damage from my drill’s attacks. Guermonprez told me the game has 100 unique enemies, each with its own weakness and attack style. Some of these enemies also can’t simply be killed by running them over or shooting them with missiles so when you try to kill them, a mini-game will pop up on screen for you to play. Succeed in these game, whether it’s tapping buttons quickly, pressing them at a specific time, or hitting them in a specific order, and Ash will completely massacre his foes and gore will spew all over your screen. It’s quite colorful and also very graphic.

But that’s what also caught my attention about Hell Yeah! While the game may deal with sensitive topics, not every player will get its potty humor. Guermonprez compared this to Pixar movies where parents laugh at the subtle humor while kids may simply miss it altogether. His daughter for, example, has an innocent viewpoint as to why Ash is not happy that people saw him with his ducky. For her, he is simply angry. Still, the game will be rated M in the US but PEGI 12 in the UK. Localizing some of the game’s jokes has also proven difficult, he mentioned, as the subtle punch lines are often lost in translation.

My brief demo with the game took me a while to complete simply because there was so much to explore and many areas that would require revisiting. There were a few instances of trial-and-error, and I was constantly looking at my map to see where I had to go next because there were so many interconnecting paths. When I defeated a monster, more paths opened up for me to discover. This, coupled with the various weapons you unlock, provided for a much layered experience.  Guermonprez promises Hell Yeah!’s single player mode is so huge and full of customization that he did not see a need for it to have a multiplayer mode.

While Guermonprez told me he literally finished the game on Thursday, the same day he left France to head to Boston, Hell Yeah! doesn’t have a definite release date yet. Expect the game to come out sometime this summer on both Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network and expect to experience Hell in a whole new light.

Good news for fighting game fans: Skullgirls has just passed Microsoft certification and will be available on Xbox Live Arcade on April 11 for 1200 Microsoft Points.

Reverge Labs community manager David Barthlow posted the news on NeoGaf forums and also stated that the game’s PSN release date was yet to be determined but would most likely be April 10. The PSN version will be $14.99.

Ronimo Games announced today that Awesomenauts will hit consoles next month. The game will launch on May 1 on PlayStation Network in the US and on May 2 on Xbox Live Arcade everywhere else.

Awesomenauts is a 2D combat online shooter that puts teams of players against each other in a massive online multiplayer experience, combining 2D gameplay with 80s-inspired cartoon humor.

The game will also be available to try out during PAX East, so if you’re going, be sure to stop by and experience the awesomeness that is Awesomenauts.

If you’re one of those people who love achievements, get ready – Microsoft announced this morning that the cap for Xbox Live Arcade games will be doubling next month.

“Starting next month (April 2012) all new Xbox LIVE Arcade games will have the option to increase from 200 to 400 Gamerscore points, with the addition of up to 30 Achievements,” Xbox Live’s Major Nelson wrote on his blog. Even better, this Gamerscore increase will be required in all new Xbox LIVE Arcade games starting in June 2012.”

The announcement comes on the heels of a report this morning on Xbox360Achievements.org

Perhaps it’s fitting that Alan Wake’s titular character is a writer because the original game often felt like it was lost in the exposition of the story. For the Xbox Live followup though, the folks at Remedy Games have gone a completely different route — and the result is Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, a slightly beefed up and better paced adventure title than what came before it. It may not convince those who weren’t fans of the first game, but Alan Wake’s American Nightmare is pulp adventure at it’s finest, and worth a night with the lights off.

First things first, American Nightmare is not a sequel. This is not the Alan Wake 2 you’ve all been waiting for. It’s merely a continuation of the original story — it makes sense if you don’t think about it too hard. The story picks up after the original game and after it’s two DLC chapters with Alan Wake in the middle of the Arizona dessert trying to chase his evil doppleganger Mr. Scratch, who has been causing trouble and growing even more powerful. What does that mean for you? Well, a lot of flashlights and bullets for one.

The whole thing is presented as an episode of Night Springs, a Twilight Zone esque show, complete with Rod Sterling like narrator. This new style gives American Nightmare a cool, pulp style reminiscent of shows like the Twilight Zone and Outer Limits. It becomes apparent through the narrations that the developers know that while their game is full of tension, it’s also a bit silly (early on in the game, you’re chased by a diner sign possessed by a poltergeist). Alan Wake’s American Nightmare strikes the right chord in between camp and thriller that keeps it interesting throughout most of it.

American Nightmare wastes almost no time getting you into the action, a definite change from the last go-round. It won’t be long after the intro movie that you’ll be taking part in the game’s trademark mechanic — weakening enemies with your flashlight and doing away with them with your weaponry. Mechanically speaking, American Nightmare is almost identical to its predecessor, but everything feels a lot tighter and more responsive this go-round. It feels a lot smoother to do everything from switching between weapons to running through open fields in fear of your life.

All of it comes together to form a surprisingly well paced tale. It may be silly at times, but Alan Wake’s American Nightmare is not to be taken lightly. It’s one of those games that’s at its best when played with the lights off, as there are times when you’re running for dear life through an open field as enemies form out of the darkness all around you. Wake gains health when staying in well light areas, and they’re few and far between during most of the game.

One of the new mechanics in American Nightmare is the ability to rewrite events so they’re different than the way Mr. Scratch originally planned them. In theory, it’s a cool idea, but in practice, it never fully reaches it’s potential. The mechanic gives you the illusion that you’ll have some sort of control over your destiny, but in reality, you’re just going to be following along with a scripted series of events that move the story on in the only direction it can.

There are other small nitpicks through the game, like a few continuity issues that pop up throughout certain sections of the game. Take one section for instance where you find an entire ring of keys to the diner, but apparently not all of them. So you’ll only be able to get into certain rooms. There are also smaller mechanical and visual issues, but they’re few and far between.

The Blast factor:Alan Wake’s second adventure is a much more focused and action driven experience than it’s predecessor, but that doesn’t mean everything has changed. American Nightmare is still chock full of what made the original so inventive to begin with. Alan Wake fans will love American Nightmare, but much like the first game, there will be plenty who just don’t get it.

The jury is still out on the new Xbox 360 dashboard. Some love it, others hate it. Me, I don’t mind it. You know who doesn’t like it? Nathan Foults of mommy’s best games. Foults hates it so much in fact that he’s created an indie game mocking the new update.

Game Type, available now for 80 MS points starts off with users having to find the game through a satirical version of the new dash; complete with obtrusive ads. Once you fin the game, it’s a side scrolling shooter where the content of the ads has come to life. Yep. Really. The best part? The main character is the “hoodie girl” Microsoft has chosen as the logo for the games section of the new dashboard.

Like most games from the studio,its actually fairly good, and for 80 MS points..you really can’t go wrong.

After years of being in a public beta, Minecraft for PC is finally out, so what does MineCon turn its attention to? The Xbox Live arcade version of the game set to hit…soon..ish. Take a look at the trailer for the game, outlining some of the new features.

In their second installment of the series, Signal Studios made their best attempt at successfully translating a popular online game genre into the console business. If you’re a fan of “defend the castle” gaming genres and you are looking for a few hours of entertainment then this game could be for you. If you are looking for a game you could play repeatedly both by yourself and with friends until your thumbs blister, then steer clear.

The short campaign, which roughly took 5 hours to complete, is repetitive and rather boring. The poor attempt at a storyline is based off the cold war between Russia and the United States, taking a fictional approach to the physical combat that could have been. The storyline is virtually non-existent and you don’t even follow a unit or soldier through the campaign.  Besides the short briefings before each level, which in many instances is shown too quickly to actually read in their entirety, there is little continuity in the game. While the game focuses primarily on a single player option, a multi-player option is also available, although not developed anywhere near its’ full potential.

Like every other of its kind, as you successfully progress through the levels, both the computers and your own units increase in strength, although the layouts of the levels remain relatively unchanged. The overall game experience doesn’t change much other than the upgrade in units you achieve. There is the occasional boss but they don’t offer much of a challenge or any inventive twist.  They have a big gun or two and spout troops like they would if you weren’t playing a boss.

The graphics are acceptable, but nothing to rave about. The levels themselves are relatively small when compared to games like Halo wars and Civilizations for xbox 360, but they fit the necessary size for the game style. They could have been bigger in order to give you more turrets and the computer more insertion points. This could provide the need to be more strategic and increase difficulty or fun. While they do incorporate some physical items, such as other dolls and children’s toys to make it feel like you are playing in toy world, the overall experience differs only slightly from a traditional cartoon-like battle game. When the units are destroyed, they break apart into plastic pieces with no blood, which along with the toy theme makes this war game a little more kid friendly.

There are a few positives to this game. Unlike its online counterparts, you are able to control the turrets individually and vehicles such as tanks, helicopters, and a fighter jet. This allows you to make the difference in battle instead of depending on the AI to fight your battle. Since the AI is only a moderate help, it is necessary for you to assist in the victory.  This feature is one of the few saving graces of the game, but again a flaw arises as vehicles run out of power, limiting your ability to use them successfully for the duration of each round of attacks. The turret control is quite an entertaining feature.  Mortars and artillery can be pretty difficult to control due to terrible view options, but the rest of the turrets can actually be pretty fun.  Another non-unique feature are the bonus kill streak awards.  These involve bomber runs, nuclear missiles, and a special forces GI (which dominates all). These are both useful and rather entertaining when you are able to achieve them.

Aside from the main campaign, you can also sharpen skills and spend a little time playing mini games.  These also leave something to be desired. Though it is fun to have unlimited ammo and countless enemies to shoot at, without the worry of your base getting destroyed, the short time limit of 30-60 seconds fails to give you enough time to really enjoy it.  The Survival mode can provide at least 20 – 30 minutes of fun, although with the same premise as the main campaign, can lose its’ entertainment factor quickly.

Blast Factor: At $10, I don’t consider Toy Soldiers to be a waste of money; however, buyers beware, you are getting a game worth $10 and not much more.  I do consider it to be a great way to pass a snowed-in winter afternoon, without having to dish out $60 for many other mainstream games.  Although this genre can be found scattered through the virtual bins of Internet free gaming websites, the Xbox controls and mediocre graphics add a little something extra that cannot be obtained in the PC realm. The fun wore off too quick to even spend the $10, but the hours playing Toy Soldiers can serve as an excellent placeholder waiting for the newest release of your favorite game. My advice is to spend $1 on a bin of toy soldiers, gather up some of your friends and host your own Cold War fictional combat reenactment.

Twisted Pixel and Kinect. Do I have your attention?

The Austin, TX based indie developer and Blast Games favorite has announced that their next game will be The Gunstringer, a Kinect title that follows a skeleton marionette looking for justice and vengeance. The gameplay is reminiscent of the on-rails section of Twisted Pixel’s latest game Comic Jumper.

No release date has been given, but check out the debut trailer below!

Tecmo today whispered in our ear telling us “Tecmo Bowl Throwback” will arrive on the Xbox Live Arcade next week.

The game will officially arrive on XBLA April 28 and on the PlayStation Network “soon.”

The nostalgic gridiron game will set you back 800 MS Points or $10 for those of us who appreciate real, non-confusing methods of counting money.

You think you know, but you have no idea.

Uber Entertainment brought its debut effort to PAX East last weekend and it was one popular attraction. Lines of gamers crowded around some sixteen screens awaiting their turn to play the intriguing, artsy shooter.

What’s it all about? Look for our hands-on preview thoughts later this week. But, to get you excited for it, check out what Uber showed at the show, embedded below. Suffice to say, get excited for this game.

Hop, skip or jump over t Uber’s Web site for tons more details on the intriguing game.

Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet,  a game featured at the this year’s Independent Games Festival and created by acclaimed artist Michael Gagne, has been announced to be making its way to XBLA sometime in the future.

One look at the trailer and I think you’ll be sufficiently intrigued. The art is amazing. It certainly looks like something completely original and cool. It reminds me of Patapon with a really bad attitude.

Download games are just getting better and better every day. Behold:

Via: G4

Developer of the Battlefield series, DICE, announced today that their recent downloadable offering, 1943, has sold 1 million units on XBLA in just 8 months. This makes1943 the fastest to reach the 1 million mark in the service’s history. Thanks to some ingenious marketing and a proven shooter experience that skips many of the bells and whistles typically incorporated with a box title, 1943 has set a very high mark for what can be accomplished in a $15 game. This one lets you fight in 24 player battles on land, at sea and through intense aerial dogfights. It does only have 3 maps, though more are on the way.

Here’s to more awesome shooters on the cheap. Sometimes less is more. 1943 is also available for PSN and soon for PC.

Perfect Dark, the widely-praised and critically-acclaimed Nintendo 64 shooter from Rare Ltd. is coming to the Xbox Live Arcade in just a few weeks and we chatted with Nick Ferguson, a producer on the project to shed some light on the re-release.

Marc Normandin: The original Perfect Dark was a hit with gamers and critics alike when it released nearly 10 years ago on the Nintendo 64. First-person shooters have come a long way since then, as far as level-design and immersion goes: everyone has their own opinion on this, but let’s hear why you think the design is timeless enough to work for gamers today, in 2010.

Nick Ferguson: Perfect Dark plays very differently to recent shooters like Call of Duty and Halo. Whereas COD is a tightly scripted rollercoaster ride, Perfect Dark gives players a huge amount of freedom in how they choose to navigate the levels and complete mission objectives. The visuals may not be as spectacular, but the mission design is very smart and the system of level objectives that change based on difficulty has never been bettered.

Halo introduced the concept of limiting players to use of two highly focused weapons at a time and built great, strategic gameplay decisions around that. Perfect Dark works at the opposite end of the spectrum – players can start levels with access to an incredible toolkit of weapons and equipment, including a gun that can fire through walls (Farsight), a laptop that doubles up as both a machine gun and remote sentry post (Laptop Gun) and a weapon that turns enemy characters into allies (Psychosis Gun).

Like both Halo and Call of Duty, Perfect Dark on Xbox LIVE Arcade also has a deep and engrossing multiplayer mode that rolls all the great content from the single player into competitive online play!

MN: Obviously the Xbox 360 controller is a different beast than the N64 pad, and not just because it doesn’t resemble a Star Wars space fighter. How will the game control, two generations later? Has anything significant been added or subtracted from the controls in order to make this work (or work more effectively?)

NF: We’ve worked really hard to preserve the original "feel" of Perfect Dark on a twin-stick controller, and we’re really happy with the results. The original game made ingenious use of the N64 controller, but there was a lot of advanced functionality that required buttons to double-up for actions like cycling weapons backwards or even reloading. We’ve put those functions on their own buttons on Xbox 360.

We’ve adapted the feel of Perfect Dark onto the dual analog layout that modern gamers are familiar with so if you never played shooters on N64, you’ll be able to pick up and play Perfect Dark with ease. We’ve even included control schemes based on Halo ("Spartan") and Call of Duty ("Duty Calls") so players familiar with those titles can dive right in. Having said all that, if you played Perfect Dark on N64 for hours and hours back in the day I think you’ll find the new controls will fit you like a glove.

MN: One of the things that kept people playing Perfect Dark for countless hours, even before online play, were the various game modes. There was a single-player campaign, a co-op campaign, a wealth of multiplayer modes and options, a shooting gallery, as well as challenge levels that were worthy of their name. Is all of this being retained? Has it been modified? Has anything else been added to this for the XBLA release?

NF: Everything players remember from the original game has been retained in Perfect Dark for XBLA. This includes the Firing Range and Device Training in the Carrington Institute to the use of bots (Simulants) in multiplayer. The biggest change that drags Perfect Dark roaring into 2010 is the fact we’ve plumbed LIVE functionality into every aspect of the game — from Co-op and Counter-Op modes which can be played online, to the Combat Simulator multiplayer modes which now support 8 players over Xbox LIVE.

Players who remember the glory days of couch multiplayer will be pleased to hear we’re retained all the split-screen game functionality from the original, too! In fact, players can even compete via split screen over Xbox LIVE. On top of LIVE multiplayer, we’ve added all the things players have come to expect from their XBLA games including Leaderboards, Achievements and a ton of unlockable content including Avatar Awards and an exclusive free Premium Theme.

MN: What tech benefits will we see by switching from our dusty cartridge to a download-title in 2010? The framerate in the original, for instance, was notoriously poor in multiplayer.

NF: Xbox 360 lets us run Perfect Dark at full 1080p HD resolutions at a solid 60 frames per second. The game has never looked better, and that silky smooth framerate also applies to the multiplayer mode — even when we’re running in 4-player split screen. We’ve updated every texture and remodeled all the characters and weapons to make them look great in HD. Locations have all had a lick of paint, from new skyboxes to updated geometry and level objects. Pipes that used to be flat polygons on N64 are now fully-rounded 3D objects. Finally, the game makes great use of 5.1 surround sound and original master recordings have been used to update the soundtrack without compression!

MN: Perfect Dark is known for its weaponry. Confession time: what is your favorite gun, and why? Favorite secondary function?

NF: love the Laptop Gun, not just because of the awesome sentry gun secondary function but because of the way it kicks off the action on Carrington Villa’s Perfect Agent difficulty setting. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I won’t spoil the surprise! A close second would be the Psychosis Gun. A weapon that turns your enemies into allies – what more can you possibly want!?

MN: Finally, not everyone has played Perfect Dark, so why don’t you tell the readers why they need to own this updated classic. The floor is yours.

NF: Perfect Dark is an incredible game that just got the tune-up of the decade. Some classic games don’t age well, and even when they do it can be hard to look past blurry graphics, outdated controls and a sluggish framerate without a healthy dose of nostalgia for the original release. We’re incredibly proud and privileged to be bringing a top-notch update of a legendary game design — one that was years ahead of its time – to Xbox LIVE Arcade in 2010 where a new generation of players will get to discover its unique charms all over again.

Perfect Dark comes to the Xbox Live Arcade March 17.

Perfect Dark, even in its original form, is worth playing today. The level design was (and still is) top notch, the array of weapons was as varied and imaginative as anything that has come to be since, and the game was stuffed with more game modes than most of today’s gamers would know what to do with. What does this mean for the repackaged version that released on Xbox Live Arcade? It means that a Rare classic is getting a second chance, now with a shinier coat of paint and online features.

If you played Perfect Dark Zero when it released for the Xbox 360, but haven’t played the original, please don’t judge the Nintendo 64 classic by its prequel’s attributes—this game is the reason Zero was such a letdown to many. Plus, for just 800 points, you’ll be picking up a game with more to do than many of today’s retail releases, never mind the fact that it towers over every single XBLA game—even Shadow Complex—in terms of depth and the hours you will sink into it.

Perfect Dark stars Joanna Dark, a British secret agent with gadgetry and weaponry at her disposal in a sci-fi themed future. She works for the Carrington Institute, who at present are investigating dataDyne, a wealthy corporation with their hands in some shady business. What starts as a simple romp through a near-future world turns into a race to save the president, shut down super weapons and end an alien threat in space. The voice acting is what you would expect from a game released originally in 2000, and the script is as corny (in an enjoyable way) as you would expect from a Rare release. Characters don’t open their hands, but flail fat looking fists around when they talk to let you know it’s their turn to speak—character’s lips don’t move with the words, so some kind of indicator was necessary.

That’s about the only thing that hasn’t aged well over the past 10 years though. The campaign is a bit short, but there are four difficulties—the first, Agent, is meant to familiarize you with the story and the levels. Special Agent adds additional enemies, moves some weaponry and shields around, and gives you more tasks to accomplish within each stage as well. This makes each playthrough a bit different, especially since the final difficulty does more of what Special Agent did, only harder. The game is also designed with speed runs in mind, thanks to some generous auto-aim, fast walking speeds and online leaderboards that can track your progress. Once you complete the game on Perfect Agent, a Perfect Dark difficulty unlocks as well, and you can unlock bonus levels through some of the other game’s modes in order to use previously non-playable characters.

Graphically, while not stunning by any means, Perfect Dark has cleaned up very well. The textures are highly detailed, the game was originally meant to run in 16:9 widescreen, meaning there is no weird transition issue, and the game’s art itself is also well done. This game was too ambitious for the system it was on—it required the expansion pack for the N64 just to play, and despite that still chugged along at an inconsistent 24 frames per second. Now it sits at not only 60 frames per second, but 1080p, full HD.

There are two areas where Perfect Dark shines as bright as any other first-person shooter on the Xbox 360, and that’s in the weaponry and the additional game modes. There are 32 weapons for you to choose from—the Carrington Institute weapons, which range from standard issue shotguns and pistols to sci-fi rifles, the dataDyne weapons, as well as an array of alien weapons from both the Maian and the Skedar. At their most basic, these are standard weapons, but each gun holds a nifty surprise—a secondary fire mode. Your AR34 assault rifle has a scope you can walk around with. Your Callisto NTG fires high impact shells rather than at an assault rifle rate. Your shotgun can have a double blast. The K7 Avenger becomes  a threat detector for locating mines, defense turrets and enemies. The Devastator, a grenade launcher, shoots sticky grenades. The Slayer rocket launcher has a camera-guided missile that you control to ram into targets. Most famously, the Laptop Gun becomes a turret that you can place anywhere, and it will fire until it runs out of bullets or enemies to kill. The thrill of experimenting with these guns will keep newcomers glued to their televisions, and veterans will do the same in order to excel with old friends and tactics.

As for game modes, there’s seemingly no end to them. You have multiplayer, which consists of six different game modes: Combat (death match), Hold the Briefcase, Hacker Central, Pop a Cap, King of the Hill, and Capture the Case. Capture the Case is basically capture the flag, Hold the Briefcase has you scoring points for holding onto a case the longest before losing it via a bullet to the head, Hacker Central has you invading enemy territory to hack into their computers, King of the Hill and Death Match are self-explanatory, and Pop a Cap has everyone targeting a specific person at a time. You can customize these matches to include stimulants (bots) as well, and these can be tailored to your preferences. Use the JudgeSim, whose only goal is to kill the current leader in order to keep the score even. The VengeSim wants nothing other than to attack the last person to kill them. The TurtleSim has a ridiculous shield to fire through. There are many others, and there are also difficulty levels for all of these sims—Meat, Easy, Normal, Hard, Perfect, and Dark. The Perfect and Dark sims are meant to move faster than you are capable of—you will find yourself shot at without ever seeing who did it, despite them being in front of you.

You can play these modes online now in eight-player multiplayer, but there is also four-player local, a godsend for those of us who want to revisit the days when we played nothing but Perfect Dark with friends at home. My one complaint in regards to multiplayer is that instead of eight simulants you can now use just four—this was most likely done to keep things streamlined so the game always maxed out at eight players, on or offline, but the original, despite its jarring frame rate issues in multiplayer, supported up to 12 players at a time thanks to the eight stimulants and four humans. [Edit: This is untrue--after completing the first eight Challenges, you unlock the ability to use eight bots in multiplayer  alongside up to four human players.]

The original game had maps from Goldeneye in addition to the Perfect Dark ones, as well as some unlockable Goldeneye weapons—these have returned, and are now available from the start. You can’t get Goldeneye on your 360 (or your Wii, for that matter), but you can play Goldeneye maps and use its weapons while playing the better game.

Perfect Dark also features 29 Challenges, which can be played with 1-4 players. These range from the simple (kill enemy bots with standard weaponry) to the slightly ridiculous (kill enemy Dark sims in a level without radar), but you unlock additional content for the game as well as a higher ranking for your profile by completing them. You can’t unlock things like the Dark sims in multiplayer until you have completed a certain number of challenges, so it’s worth your time to explore this portion of the game.

Additionally, there is a firing range for you to test out all of the game’s weaponry. There are bronze, silver and gold level challenges within the firing range, and you will find yourself sinking time in here in order to earn the best scores possible as well as unlock bonus levels. It’s also a great place to test out the secondary fire modes and capabilities of weapons without having to worry about someone trying to shoot back at you.

There’s still, amazingly, more to do: there is a co-operative campaign mode, as well as a counter-operative mode. Co-op is self-explanatory—I couldn’t care less that it doesn’t make sense from a story point of view to have two characters at once, because including co-op is a win. Counter-operative has one player take on the role of Agent Dark, while the second player uses a guard within the level—if the guard is killed, you simply take on the role of another guard until there aren’t any left.

One last thing—there are three control schemes. 4J Studios translated the N64 pad’s controls to the 360′s very well in the classic style. If you’ve played a lot of Perfect Dark, this is what you will want to use. If you’re more of a Halo guy, go with “Spartan”, and for Call of Duty fanatics, there’s “Duty Calls”.

Blast Factor: One of the most critically acclaimed shooters in gaming history is available once again with a new coat of paint, multiple control schemes, as well as all of the things that made the original great and then some. If you have played this before, go get it. If you have never played it, go get it. If the cartridge is sitting in your Nintendo 64 that’s kept in your bedroom on your other television (guilty), go get it.

Perfect Dark is available for 800 Perfect Dark is available for 800 Microsoft Points on Xbox Live Arcade. A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

The recently announced non-Tomb Radier game, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, has a new First Look at Gamespot. In addition to this subtle re-branding with the game’s name, the upcoming download-only title for XBLA, PSN, and PC will feature a top-down, fixed camera, rather than the 3rd person camera that was the standard for the Tomb Raider series.

The new screens look really amazing and I can only imagine that the elevated camera position will lend itself to some very acrobatic platforming fun – but, you know, with guns and stuff.  Lara has no release date yet, but we will certainly let you know when she gets one.  Catch all 6 screens and the full preview over at Gamespot.

Visceral Games, the studio once named EA Redwood Shores, and the team responsible for “Dead Space” and “Dante’s Inferno” expressed interest in developing for the Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network in a recent GamaSutra interview.

Visceral Games general manager Nick Earl sees the digital space as a venue the studio can suceed in.

“Our express purpose is to make the sort of AAA hits that are just naturally found on 360 and PS3. We also do some PC work as well. That’s not to say that we don’t have smaller efforts under way and direct-to-consumer efforts on XBLA and PSN.”

“We had really, really strong results with Battlefield 1943, which was created in a studio even bigger than Visceral and had to pay for its share of infrastructure.”

But when it comes down to it, Earl believes it’s all about the final, polished product a studio puts out.

“It comes down to quality and innovation and being able to bring something that’s interesting to the gamer. I think we’ll have some interesting offerings over this year and next that show our confidence in the space,” he said.

No idea what Visceral may or may not be working on at the moment, but color me interested. What about you? Interested in a bite-sized offering from a big studio like Visceral?

Source: Destructoid

If you somehow missed this summer’s hugely popular Battlefield: 1943, today’s the day you’ve been waiting for, as the game’s price point has been hacked and slashed down to a very approachable $10.

So.Much.Fun.

The savings are only for the Xbox Live Arcade version (sorry PS3 gamers), and is this week’s Xbox Live Deal of the Week.

If you’re looking for something to hold you over between today and March 2, when Battlefield: Bad Company 2 releases, we can’t think of anything better (besides this).

Hop, skip or jump over to the game’s Xbox Live Marketplace page to get going.

Microsoft Games Studios owns Rare, the development studio famous for smash-hit N64 games Goldeneye 007, Banjo-Kazooie and Perfect Dark.

Goldeneye 007 will likely never make its way to the Xbox Live Arcade, or any other download spot for that matter, but Perfect Dark, a game that plays very similarly to it has been officially dated for release on the XBLA sometime in March for $10.

A trailer for the game surfaced today and truly makes me with it was the 90s again. Four-player splitscreen multiplayer? Yeah, it’s got that. How many current Xbox 360 games can say that?

1080p, 4 player split-screen, 8 online and 60 frames-per-second. Bring it.

Here’s the trailer.

Capcom’s earnest attempt to rekindle the flames of the Mega Man series will be tested next month when the publisher unleashes Mega Man 10 on digital platforms across the board, but it’ll hit Wii first, before Xbox 360 and PS3.

Mega Man 10 arrives on WiiWare March 1, PlayStation Network March 11 and the Xbox Live Arcade March 31. The game will be available for $9.99 across the board.

As for the game itself; it’s a continuation of the 8-bit style of Mega Man 9 and will feature all the weapons, special weapons,power-ups, game-modes and side-scrolling bliss you can wrap your head around.

Take a look at the Capcom blog for tons more about the soon-to-be-released project.

Some say Earth was created in seven days…

…How many will it take to save it?

The folks at Square Enix aim to creatively answer that question with their new release 0 Day Attack On Earth.  In this un-railed Raiden-esque title, players must defeat a horde of aliens in 3 different major cities around the globe before everything is left in rubble.  At your disposal: a large variety of customizable aircrafts including jets, planes and helicopters; each complete with their own unique strengths, weaknesses and power-ups.

Each level in 0 Day Attack On Earth is represented by a day in which the squid-like, seemingly half-organic half-machine aliens are attempting to take over one of the cities.  In these levels, players will not only have to take out the massive hostiles, but they will have to halt the destruction within a certain amount of time.  Along with the most dangerous of the enemies, which are complete with fire-fuel ammunition and uber-quick tentacles, are slightly small and slightly less hazardous foes.  While these enemies are considerably less treacherous, the loot they drop (in the form of translucent green cubes and balls) can help you regenerate health or gain powerful upgrades for your ship (including shields, heat-seeking missiles and multiple-stream blasts).  Players will have to decide how much time they will dedicate to upgrading their ship and how much they will spend actually trying to clear the level.

Visually, 0 Day Attack On Earth looks pretty dang good.  Similar to Raiden, which this game seems to draw a lot of inspiration, 0 Day Attack On Earth features both 2-demensional backdrops with 3-demensional character models.  However, unlike Raiden, 0 Day Attack On Earth is unrailed and contains fairly large maps (a detail that I loved).  Background settings are vast, but lackluster in aesthetics.  While indeed the background images are 2D, it seems that there was no major effort to make the buildings and parks pop out or look interesting.  Sure, they had a few buildings enter the 3D realm, but it was mostly a miss for me.  Conversely, the enemies look very good in the game with their accompanying tentacle motion, flame-based weaponry and postmortem explosions.   Furthermore, the gameplay in 0 Day Attack On Earth is pleasantly intense at peak moments of chaos.

Another thing that separates 0 Day Attack On Earth from Raiden is the level of camaraderie players will experience.  Instead of a simple two player co-op, 0 Day Attack On Earth players will be able to enjoy a 4 player co-op experience or even two different 8 person versus modes, which include Capture the Flag and Control Point.  Unfortunately, 0 Day Attack On Earth doesn’t have many players, so actually joining a "quick match" is pretty much impossible.  However, if you and a group of friends purchase the game together, getting one of these multiplayer matches started should be no problem.

Also, the camaraderie theme continues within the gameplay.  Certain enemies will attach to your ship during parts of the campaign that one will not be able to save themselves from.  Instead, players will need to rely on their friends shoot off these attached foes and continue the purging of the aliens.  In fact, the camaraderie is pushed so persistently that, when you save a teammate, two voice bubbles pop up from the ships that fall victim and perform the rescue that say "Welcome!" and "Thanks!"

The controls in 0 Day Attack On Earth are heavily focused on the two joysticks on the Xbox 360 controller.  The left stick is used primarily for steering and forward motion while the left stick, when pointed in an outward position, is used a firing control, replacing both of the triggers on the controller which would be the most intuitive for that function.  Needless to say, for those who are not well versed in these controls will have a bit of learning to do.  Luckily, even the most challenge gamers (myself included) will not take much time to adapt to these odd controls.

Blast Factor: Overall, 0 Day Attack On Earth is a solid game.  For the relatively low bar many XBLA titles have set, 0 Day Attack On Earth is one of the good ones.  This Square Enix title brings a classic style back for a reboot and it is quite exciting.  While the multiplayer is ambitious, I was a little disappointed with the inability to actually join a game and try them out.  Given a good enough following, I can see 0 Day Attack On Earth becoming a very good overall game.  However, until we can actually try out some of the multiplayer, were just going to have to be patient.

0 Day Attack on Earth is available on 0 Day Attack on Earth is available on XBox Live Arcade for 1,200 points ($15). A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

I’ll just lay a smidgen of bias out on the table before I proceed.

I love Rare-developed games, and so today’s news brightens my smile and gladdens my soul, or something like that.

*Drool*

The studio today said that after Perfect Dark releases on the Xbox Live Arcade next month, the hits won’t stop coming, and is all about re-releasing its games in the future.

Here’s what Rare boss Mark Betteridge said:

“There’s nothing to announce yet after Perfect Dark, but we’ve got over 25 years of IP to dip into so there’s no shortage of possibilities.”

Now, I know it’s extremely hopeful to even wish for, but I’m still holding out for 007 Goldeneye to come to XBLA. With online multiplayer and re-done visuals, how could you not want it?

Source: Destructoid

D3 Publishers side-scrolling, sarcastic, kind-of-hates-himself Matt Hazard returns to the Xbox 360 in their Xbox Live Arcade game, Matt Hazard: Blood Bath and Beyond. The game costs 1200 Microsoft points, and is available for download. Many of us (or at least a few of us) remember Matt from the October 2008 release of Eat Lead: the Return of Matt Hazard, a third-person shooter similar in style to that of Gears of War. Even fewer of us remember him from his original side-scrolling arcade games.

Much like its predecessor, Blood Bath does an excellent job of satirizing the gaming culture of the next-gen, poking fun at countless genres, even pointing out that you can find Eat Lead in the bargain bin at your local retail store. ("Budget cuts, bad reviews… but that’s besides the point." claims your command buddy right at the beginning of the game.) While the writing is charming, there isn’t much story to be found; essentially you’re thrown into a side-scrolling shoot em’ up with the threat of having your past-self be deleted by your nemesis, Neutronov. D3 cuts out voice acting and replaces it with standard text boxes, so unfortunately, Neil Patrick Harris and Will Arnett won’t be repeating their performances from Eat Lead. Unfortunately Blood Bath never quite takes full advantage of the parodies that it creates throughout the game, and the player is left with one-liners that never actually go anywhere.

Graphically, Blood Bath is well-made for an arcade game. 3-D character design and levels make this game pop, and the gore that will amass on your screen as you plow down wave after wave of enemies is incredibly satisfying. You are rewarded for killing enemies with showers of blood. Smooth and polished, Blood Bath’s art style stands out from other 3-D and 2-D side-scrollers. D3 offers 8-levels of walking left to right while spraying bullets in random directions until you hit something. Eventually, the gameplay gets repetitive, but between levels there are different bosses that you will face to break the monotony. But once those battles are over… back to the horde. What D3 does do for this okay 1-player game is the addition of 2-player co-op, which is definitely one of its stronger selling points. Because lets admit it; blood baths are more fun with friends and 2-player has been around since Contra.

Here's Matt Hazard, accidentrally trapped in Wii's de Blob

Mechanically, the controls all work generally the way they should. However, there are tedious occurrences that happen far too often during play. Matt can jump, shoot, throw grenades, and even shoot into the background at approaching enemies, but what he can’t do is stop and shoot. A lot of the enemies you face are above you, and you have to jump and maneuver up and down obstacles to progress through the level. More often than naught, Matt would aim his gun up to attack… and then run into death water. Or cannon fire. Or a spiked wall. Or a piranha. Yeah, you get the drift. It gets almost impossible in the harder difficulties to actual control your fire, especially because of the amount of enemies that are thrown at you. But if facing a challenge is appealing to you, these harder modes will definitely present one.

[Editor's Note] You can stop to shoot if you hold down the right bumper, which allows you to fire at a 360 degree angle while stationary.

Blast Factor: Regular story mode lasts from 2-4 hours, but there is always second run-throughs with your friends waiting to happen. With a little more effort and focus, this game could have been a lot cooler, and ultimately a lot more fun to play. Unfortunately for Matt Hazard, his second appearance seems about as lack-luster as his first, but hey, he really is trying his hardest to stay alive.

Matt Hazard: Blood Bath and Beyond is available for the XBLA and PSN at a cost of $15 or 1200 Microsoft Points. A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

Today’s the day you’ve been waiting for, as both The Ballad of Gay Tony and Episodes from Liberty City are available for Grand Theft Auto fans that own an Xbox 360. You can pick up the brand new DLC for one of our Game’s of the Year from 2008, Grand Theft Auto IV, over Xbox Live; you’ll be fabulous in no time as you enter the world of Gay Tony and the club scene of Liberty City. Don’t own Grand Theft Auto IV? Or maybe you missed out on the first expansion, The Lost and the Damned? Rockstar has you covered on that note too, as Episodes from Liberty City is a standalone Grand Theft Auto experience, with its own multiplayer component and no GTA IV requirements whatsoever.

We’ll have a full review of the new packaged title, Episodes from Liberty City, in the near future. Personally, I’m looking forward to it for the same reason I love Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars: it looks completely over the top and like Rockstar pulled out all of the stops on both a humor and action level.

"We’re thrilled to share the final chapter of this epic Liberty City tale," said Sam Houser, Founder of Rockstar Games. "The team at Rockstar North has exceeded every expectation with The Ballad of Gay Tony, creating an explosive conclusion to the Grand Theft Auto IV saga."

See, explosive. Explosive is good.

You can pick up Episodes from Liberty City for $39.99 at retail, or The Ballad of Gay Tony for 1600 MS points.

Bust-A-Move, Puzzle Bobble, whatever you want to call it, is a time-tested, addicting and fun puzzler from Taito. It has appeared on various consoles over the past 15+ years, and has now made its way to Xbox Live Arcade, following the release of Bubble Bobble Neo a few weeks ago. There seem to be two camps when it comes to re-releases of classics on newer console hardware: either the game is clearly tossed out for a quick buck based on reputation, or the developers add something to the title to make your second, third, or whatever the count is purchase of the game worth your while. Luckily, Bust-A-Move Live! is much more of the latter than the former, making it a fun puzzler you should pay attention to on the XBLA service.

Here are the basics: there are various colored orbs hanging from the ceiling, and you shoot them down by blasting more of these colored balls from below. Chances are good you have played Bust-A-Move or one of its variants in the past (Snood, perhaps?) so most people should be familiar with the concept. Three of the same color orbs touching means you’ve cleared those from the puzzle–continue to do this to clear the entire puzzle in single-player, or do this as much as you can to stave off losing and outlast your opponent in multiplayer.

There are different orbs with different powers as well–the flame burns away whatever pieces it touches, while the rainbow turns into the color of the object it was touching when they are cleared–and they are simple to use, as you just shoot them like any other orb. The most useful may be the crystal, which when shot eliminates every ball of that color along with it–this is also a great piece for multiplayer, since your cleared pieces make their way over to your opponent’s screen.

There’s plenty of single-player fun to be had here. Start with one of a few puzzles (named A, B, C, and so on) which then branch off into different options, and continues that way until you reach the end of the alphabet. You can replay this mode a few times without repeating puzzles, but even repeating them is worthwhile as you can improve upon your scores and times–the game tracks this information for you, and as any puzzle addict can tell you, things like that add a lot of replay value.

Multiplayer is also great, as you can play locally with a friend or over Xbox Live. There are various game modes here–different object sets, different ways of attacking your opponent with cleared pieces (traditionally from the top, more annoyingly from the bottom)–and matches are not one off events either, so don’t be discouraged if you get wrecked online or have a bad match the first time around, as there’s another chance for you right around the corner.

The music can at times become a little annoying, though there are parts of the song that plays again and again I enjoy–these parts sound like they belong in Chrono Trigger rather than Bust-A-Move, but it’s appreciated just the same. Like the music, the graphics can be hit-or-miss; they are bright and colorful as they should be, but the menus are bland with giant, ugly font, and the inclusion of avatars in multiplayer is just a bad decision–their fat, exaggerated heads get in the way when you’re trying to make shots down in the corners. You know, in some of the most important areas for accuracy in an entire Bust-A-Move match.

Blast Factor: It’s hard not to like this game, as it is Bust-A-Move. The next-gen additions don’t add a ton to the title–as stated, avatar inclusion is more annoying than fun, and the bland presentation takes away from some of the graphical high points–but you’ve got a time-tested puzzler available for you with online and local play, and chances are good that some people out there have not experienced the addiction that is Bust-A-Move as of yet. Now’s your chance to fix that issue.

Bust-A-Move Live! is available exclusively on the Xbox 360′s Xbox Live Arcade service for 800 Microsoft Points. A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

The Bubble Bobble series, born in 1986 as an arcade title, has since been ported to everything from the Commodore 64 to the Sega Game Gear to even the TI-86 line of graphing calculators. Taito, the Japanese developer of the franchise since day one brewed a most delectable game formula that to this day has fans crying out for more. The simple recipe of jumping, pushing, and popping bubbles to defeat your enemies has proven to be timeless and always enjoyable.

Enter Bubble Bobble Neo for the Xbox Live Arcade. In this remake, the gameplay remains solidly intact but its updated graphics, four-player support and newly three dimensionally animated character models really make it a desirable download for fans of the series and lovers of casual games alike.

The first thing you’ll notice in Neo is its full sensory overload of a main-screen. You’ve got a wondrous reprisal of the original’s soundtrack (which will be stuck in your head), as well as bright and popping colors to enjoy every time you fire up the game.

And when you actually start playing you’ll find three game modes, but they basically boil down to either single or multiplayer. Once you’re in the game your job is to kill every bad guy on the particular single-screen stage,in the same way you did 20 years ago. Playing as one of the dragon brothers Bob or Bub, you’re able to shoot bubbles out of your mouth and trap enemies.‚  Next you can either vault off the bubbles or pop them. The former allows you to reach higher heights, necessary on some levels, and the latter kills the baddie and earns you point multipliers in the form of anything from gems to bananas. Once you’ve mastered the art of jumping, bubble shooting, and popping, you know all you need to beat the game; it never gets more advanced in the control-department. That said however, there are over 100 levels in the game, and the latter stages are tricky, finger busting toughies to say the least.

This is where cooperative play becomes not only more practical, but a lot more fun too. As enemies soon become far more belligerent and starting shooting fireballs, someone in the room can quickly and simply tap the A button and jump in with you right then and there. What I did was say, “hey, I don’t really need you until level 15 or so, mind waiting?”

The other two game-modes are Arrange Mode and Versus Mode. In Arrange Mode the mayhem balloons to four players at a time, and even though I was only able to muster up two more to play with me for a total of 3, we had a blast and adding the fourth player would have been even better.

And the Versus Mode, my personal favorite, pits four players against each other in a game of survival. Basically, hordes of enemies overflow the screen and you’re tasked with surviving as long as possible while attempting to rack up the most points. And, as an added level of awesomeness, you can also trap those you’re playing with in a stream of bubbles to keep them from scoring.

There’s no online multiplayer support in Bubble Bobble Neo, and yes, that would have been nice. But the franchise has always been rooted in local multiplayer. I know I had one hell of a good time playing with friends on the same screen and fully expect you to as well!

Once you’ve exhausted the hundred levels, clobbered your friends in versus mode, and posted your highest score to the leaderboards, you might still want more. And if you do, you’re in luck. Taito released two additional maps as DLC for the game and each bring 50 more stages for a total of 100. Now, they’ll set you back 240 MS Points each, but you can’t put a price on nostalgic happiness can you?

Blast Factor: Bubble Bobble Neo is a quickly addictive XBLA title that will please followers of the franchise and entertain newcomers. Co-op and four-player modes are added benefits that will keep you playing for hours and hours. Updated graphics that pop and sizzle are great, but the core gameplay is what defines the title and everything feels great in that department.

Bubble Bobble Neo is available today on Xbox Live for 800 MS Points.