With all this bloody good talk about Bloody Good Time being released, today Ubisoft has released a cinematic for their insane FPS, starring none other than the man who’s responsible for this massacre, Director X. Take a look below to see the violent (but rather funny) cinematic for Ubisoft’s latest FPS, coming to XBLA and Steam.

(more…)

Posted via Major Nelson’s blog is a large round-up of incoming deals and marketplace goodies, some of which look more or less  promising. Hydrophobia, particularly, is an XBLA title that caught my eye and has since held it for quite sometime now. Hydrophobia is a survival adventure game developed by Dark Energy Digital featuring a female heroine, Kate Wilson, defending her ocean vessel utopia from Malthusian terrorists during the Great Population Flood. Just FYI, It’s already made a name for itself and has received multiple awards, including Best Downloadable Game from GameTrailers at E3 2010. According Rob Hewson, it’s all about player versus environment interaction and, well, the imagery featuring Dark Engery Digital’s “HydroEngine” is fairly impressive. Ooh, just look at the pretty, flowing water. Check out the entire list of updates scheduled to hit the Marketplace in the coming weeks.

(more…)

Summer is almost over, and fall is just around the corner… So what does that mean? Another XBLA promo! As we heard yesterday, Super Meat Boy was going to be the main course for Microsoft’s “Game Feast.” Microsoft has officially announced the feast, and also listed the appetizer-games going along with it. From the looks of it, we’re in for some good eatin’ this fall.

(more…)

According to Team Meat’s Twitter, their highly anticipated sequel to their cult classic game Meat Boy is coming out this fall. While many of the Meat Boy fans may know that already, here’s some good news for all of you 360 owners: it’s coming to XBLA! Yep; along with the PC and Wii, Xbox will be sharing everybody’s desire for their favorite boy of meat. According to Team Meat, Super Meat Boy is supposed to go with one of XBLA’s new promos called “Game Feast,” and they seem very excited about it.

(more…)

Getting your game on Xbox Live’s Summer of Arcade can be great for game sales but for Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, it might not be worth the early release date. Confirmed today via Joystiq, the upcoming Lara Croft title from Crystal Dynamics will not include online co-op. Gamers can still play this title via offline co-op but the online functionality won’t arrive until the title releases on PlayStation Network and Steam on September 28.

(more…)

The Summer of Arcade returns to Xbox Live with a little known title called Limbo. If you are not aware of Playdead’s side-scrolling platformer, allow me to summarize it: direction-controlling parasites, giant spiders with piercing legs, and motion-detecting machine guns threaten to kill a young boy in search of his sister as he solves complicated puzzles across bleak, dreary landscapes. That sentence describes Limbo in a nutshell, although it is much more than that. It is a well-crafted masterpiece that leaves you feeling incredibly accomplished with every obstacle overcome. Although its brevity and disappointing conclusion detract from the experience, Limbo earns its spot as one of the best Xbox Live Arcade titles.

(more…)

Konami today announced the release date for Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, the first Castlevania title to appear exclusively on Xbox Live Arcade. The new XBLA title features levels inspired by previous titles which include Portrait of Ruin and online co-op play. Castlevania: Harmony of Despair will be releasing on August 4^th and to go along with the announcement of the release date, Konami has also released some new screens.

(more…)

Sonic Adventure is headed to Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network, which is awesome news, but unfortunately the game will remain in the original’s 4:3 aspect ratio. This means that when gamers are playing Sonic Adventure on an HDTV, vertical bars will appear on the sides of the screen to maintain the aspect ratio. A Sega representative informed Joystiq that Sonic Adventure’s code could not be easily modified for widescreen support.

Still, this is better than Crazy Taxi’s lack of a licensed soundtrack and lack of licensed locations, which means our beloved The Offspring and Bad Religion tracks won’t accompany our drives through the city now devoid of Pizza Hut, Levi’s, and KFC. This is also what happened to the PSP port of Crazy Taxi and Crazy Taxi 2.

If you are still interested (and you should be!) in getting these titles, they will be available on XBLA and PSN later this fall.

[Source: Joystiq]

Zeno Clash: Ultimate Edition is an Xbox Live Arcade re-release of the PC game Zeno Clash. Playing as a strange young man named Ghat, you will engage in a completely bizarre world full of monsters and bi-pedal mutants that all want to kill you. Your main weapons throughout the game are your fists, though other weapons such as… fish guns and other fine projectile weapons appear frequently.

(more…)

The Sonic franchise is no stranger to heralding the latest game as a return to form, only to fail hard upon it’s release.  But Sonic 4 is looking to change all of that by taking the series back to it’s roots.

And of course, by roots, I mean 2D gameplay, with nothing but running fast and collecting rings.  Sans the upgraded graphics, this could have easily been released some 15 years ago.

(more…)

Konami gifted us with a few new screens for upcoming 2.5 platforming throwback, Rocket Knight, as well as a price point and release date for all three platforms.  The new screens show off Sparkster, resident possum hero, invading a third flight stage, what looks to be an underwater level (something everyone loves), and a giant dirigible?  Whatever!  Looks fun to me.

(more…)

There are two types of bears: cute bears and real bears. Cute bears can be found in cartoons and in stuffed animal collections and are great at giving hugs. Real bears can be found in forests eating fish and sometimes getting drunk. They also don’t hug people unless it’s a hug to crush bones and bite faces. But with Naughty Bear, developer Artificial Mind and Movement, the team behind the not-so-well-received WET, have created a third type of bear; the scarred, psychopathic bear. He’s not cute, but there’s a remnant upon him that suggests that maybe he once was. His friends are cute, until he decides to stick a knife in their eye or dump them in a boiling vat of liquid.

See, Naughty Bear wasn’t invited to a party.  This caused him to curdle with murderous rage.  We’ve all been there.  Who hasn’t been the outcast at some point in their lives?  I mean, I haven’t, but you certainly have.  Thus you can sympathize with Naughty Bear’s predicament.  And if you truly can sympathize, then you’ll want to take control of him as he enacts his rejected revenge.  Just how this is done is yet somewhat of a mystery.  A2M has been fairly tight-lipped with most of their gameplay footage.  The few videos out there show mostly cut scenes.  It seems like it might be an adventure game, and it’s touted to have multiple paths to take in a decidedly Heavy Rain feel.

What I do know is that this game is simply not on enough radars, and this little heads up is my own attempt at generating some hype.  Both as a critic and as a gamer, I want to see Naughty Bear succeed.  There are not enough games about psychopathic childhood memories.  So check out the sadistic video below and the few screenshots underneath.  If you find yourself cackling maniacally, as I did, then spread the word!  Naughty Bear should be hitting our Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on June 8, 2010 at a crisp $49.99.   

If there’s anything I love to see combined, it’s flashy animation and gratuitous violence. Happy Tree Friends makes me giggle like a schoolgirl. There’s nothing quite like the juxtaposition of kid-friendly caricatures rife with color and oozing style, wacky personalities, and copious amounts of blood. Entrails do an animated character good. The upcoming 2D side-scrolling Xbox Live Arcade/PSN/PC title Shank, brought to us by the good fellows at Klei Entertainment, delivers all of this and more in full force. If Quentin Tarantino, Penny Arcade, and slasher film junkies had a meeting of the minds, they’d likely submit this game for our gaming pleasure. Forget the delicate worlds of Braid or P.B. Winterbottom. Shank is hardcore. And if you don’t believe it, he’s got a Head-On chainsaw — to be applied directly to your forehead.

(more…)

Twisted Pixel has been damn good to the XBLA.  The Maw set the stage and quickly became a favorite of many, and Splosion Man remains probably my fondest Xbox 360 memory to date.  When their plans for Comic Jumper were announced oh the many moons ago, it was not difficult to perk up and take notice.  The premise seemed cool:  a wacky superhero jumping between the panels of a comic book in true brawler fashion.  It promised a style and humor we can almost expect from Twisted Pixel even in their short time on the scene.  At PAX East I was able to sit down and preview the first ten minutes of the game, which was being showcased at Twisted Pixel’s booth, and I found myself both very impressed yet slightly let down.

(more…)

The PC indie hit is coming to Xbox 360 Live Arcade!  Enjoy exciting first-person brawling action, brought to you by the folks at Atlus.  The game will be available for XBLA March 31, 2010.

While you wait, why don’t you check out the fresh new screenshots, posted in the gallery below?  Or, you can check out a video in case you missed it.

(more…)