Posts Tagged “XBLA”
Microsoft Rolls Out Winter Update With New Look, Bing, and WP7 Companion
The fateful day finally arrived earlier this week and Microsoft’s new interface for the Xbox 360 has finally hit the wild. This new update features a design very reminiscent of the Windows Phone 7 interface which uses tile groups instead of the old NXE (New Xbox Experience) interface which was more of a series of rows divided by a menu. It also has a simplified and streamlined design where both the controller and Kinect device use the same interface instead of the separate, bland interface that was shoehorned in for Kinect to be used with the older version. But how does it really perform?
Crimson Alliance DLC Slashing its Way to XBLA this October!
Certain Affinity is releasing a new DLC pack for their Summer of Arcade’s finale dungeon-crawler, Crimson Alliance, on October 12th!
According to Max Hoberman, President of Certain Affinity, “From the start we wanted to keep the adventure going by giving players new places to explore with their friends. When we finished the game back in May we had a few months to wait before the Summer of Arcade was over. So we devoted ourselves to building the kind of maps that we wanted to play: fiendishly difficult ones that are perfect for co-op.”
Developer Profile – ZEN Studios
Wanderson75.net’s very own Will Anderson corresponds with Zen Studios’ Mel Kirk; Gamer, PR guy, and all around friendly dude. Zen Studios has has some great success with their Xbox Live Arcade Game, Pinball FX2 and most recently released a new Ms. Splosion Man themed table.
Take a look as they discuss Pinball FX2, how they landed the Ms. Splosion Man deal, and how developing an Xbox Live Arcade game really won’t kill you. Read On »
Ms. Splosion Man Coming to Pinball FX2 on Xbox Live
While we don’t normally cover press releases, this one most certainly grabbed our attention. Being big fans of ZEN Studios Pinball FX2 and Twisted Pixel’s Splosion Man/Ms. Splosion Man franchises, just about everyone here at Wanderson75.net melted when this news came out.
ZEN Studios and Twisted Pixel have partnered up to make ‘sploding even better with a Ms. Splosion Man themed pinball table! According to Mel Kirk, VP of Marketing and Public Relations at ZEN Studios, “We told the Twisted Pixel crew we were going to break in and steal all the Ms. Splosion Man stuff so we could make a pinball table for them. We put our super stealth ZEN sniper on the project and what can I say, mission accomplished.” However, Twisted Pixel retaliated by boosting some of PFX2’s assets for their own pinball machine in the arcade area of Ms. Splosion Man. Read On »
Indie Developer – Red Crest Studios
Xbox Live Indie Games gives smaller developers and even lone programmers the opportunity to build their own creations and share them with the world. This has led to some extremely creative games being released on Xbox Live at a very low cost to its consumers. One of the genres that is becoming increasingly popular is Role Playing Games.
Indie developer Red Crest Studios is set to release Bonded Realities, an RPG coming to Xbox Live Indie Games this week. Being a huge fan of the old school RPG, I decided to contact Michael Ventnor at Red Crest for a brief Q&A via email regarding Bonded Realities, and what’s coming next from this new indie developer. Here’s what he had to say:
So tell me a little bit about Red Crest Studios. How long have you been in operation? How large is your team?
I officially started the Red Crest brand on 9th December last year. So Bonded Realities predates the studio that made it! My original plan was to release the game under my name and, if successful, then set up the studio name and continue making games. However, the interest in Bonded Realities grew quite sharply and people were asking for an official studio name, so I fast tracked its creation. I had the name and logo in mind since the beginning. Red Crest is made of just me.
Do you have plans for the mobile market as well? Or are you concentrating on Xbox Live Indie Games for now?
Xbox for the moment. I do have game designs on hand that I can develop when I decide to try the mobile market, but that will happen later when I’m (hopefully) more successful.
Your latest creation, Bonded Realities, is a Role Playing Game for Xbox Live Indie Games. What made you decide to do an RPG?
There were many reasons why:
a) There aren’t enough RPGs in the old-fashioned style I like. While there are a couple on the Indie service, there should be more.
b) I grew up on whimsical RPGs, and always enjoyed the number-based turn-based strategy mechanics, and the funny settings and stories.
c) I thought making an RPG would be easy. “It’s just logic and state machines”, I said. “Programming languages do this kind of thing best”, I said. That old, arrogant, incorrect self is now dead, buried and cremated after numerous development delays. But I still persevered to finish, because I didn’t want to waste the work I did so far.
Can you tell us what is Bonded Realities about?
A lot of people who’ve played the game already were surprised at how the game opens. You are a toddler, being dropped off at child care by your mum. Like your typical day at child care, you go outside to play with your three best friends, Liam, Josh and Maria. But then a bright flash of light happens, and the next thing you know, you’re in a totally different place, separated from everyone else, and transformed into a new body. Your goal, therefore, is to find your friends and get home. Bonded Realities’ story is designed such that it unfolds as you play. It may sound scant with how I described it above, but that’s because you know nothing about what happens or how to fix it at the start. I deliberately made the story like that because I enjoyed stories that didn’t reveal your end goal or how to achieve it at the start, rather it is revealed in several plot twists later on. There is a big boss fight at the end, so don’t worry 🙂
How long do you expect it will take the average gamer to complete Bonded Realities?
I’d say around 4 or 5 hours. More if you want to do 100% completion, since that involves finding all the treasure chests and some of them are very well hidden (but contain very powerful items and equipment!).
Are there any particular RPGs that have influenced the gameplay that we’ll find in Bonded Realities?
As I said before, the RPGs I enjoyed the most had good mechanics and a funny setting. Earthbound being the obvious candidate, most indie RPGs are compared to that because of its quirky nature. Others I’ve played include Pokemon, Paper Mario, Mario & Luigi and others. I tried to recreate what I liked, and fix what I hated, whilst adding in a lot of my own ideas and style. As a result, I worked hard on interesting combat, jokes everywhere, and a clean and unique interface.
What were the biggest hurdles you encountered while creating an RPG for XBLIG?
Mostly just the shock with how much work is needed to make a decent RPG from scratch. I used no middleware (except XNA, of course) because I really enjoy engine programming, thus the Bonded Realities engine was written entirely by me, and all the art was done by me (I’m not a particularly good drawer, it’s taken years of practice just to get where I am now). The music was licensed since I have no musical knack whatsoever. But again, I enjoy things that others would hate, like writing code, and thinking up ways to make certain parts of the game more fun without too much implementation effort.
Can you give us a preview of what we might see on the horizon from Red Crest now that Bonded Realities is getting ready to release?
I’ll be entering this year’s Dream Build Play with a completely different kind of game. It won’t be an RPG, or even resemble anything like that. It involves an experimental game mechanic I thought up, so the biggest trouble for me right now is trying to make it fun.
A Game That Shows Promise
Looking at Bonded Realities’ trailers and screenshots, this game shows a lot of potential. Having enjoyed Role Playing Games since the original Final Fantasy for the Nintendo Entertainment System, I’m looking forward to grabbing this one and spending a few hours satisfying my hunger for some good old-fashion RPG’ing.
~W75
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For more news, reviews, and articles on Science, Technology, and Videogames, visit the rest of the team at http://pnosker.com.
Square Enix – Halo: Reach Action Figures Now In The UK
To all of my good friends in the UK, you can now get your Squenix Halo:Reach action figures without having to buy them in the States and have them shipped over.
For those of you who don’t know, these action figures are larger, and far more detailed than the McFarlane Toys figures. They are fully articulated and come with interchangeable hands. Series I was released with Jun, Noble Six, and Emile, with Series II containing Kat, Jorge, and Carter to be released some time in 2011.
Gamingzap.com has acquired a small quantity of these collectibles ahead of the currently unannounced UK release date. Who knows how many or how few they have available, so you may want to get ordering right away!
Console News For Monday, December 20
Only a week left until Christmas. Have you gotten your shopping done? Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation Coming To A DS Near You Dragon Quest fans rejoice! The 1995 continuation of the Dragon Quest series is finally coming to the States on the Nintendo DS handheld console. Originally released on the Super Famicom (Japanese Version of the SNES), DQVI was never brought over to the US for commercial release. No release date yet however,… Read On »
A Parent’s Guide To Video Games For Your Kids
This story never gets old. A few weeks ago, I was at BestBuy picking up some goodies for my wife. While I was in line, a mother walks up with her son that had to be no more than eight or ten years old, and clutched in his hot little hands was a copy of Call Of Duty: Black Ops. I’ve seen this more than once this holiday season mind you. But for some reason,… Read On »
Kinect May Be The Hot Item This Christmas Season
Now I have to admit, I chuckled a little bit when Kudo Tsunoda said that Kinect sales would, “blow away any of the sales you’ve seen with iPad.” But, you have to admit that selling over 2.5 million units in 25 days is extremely impressive. Moreover, it looks to be on track to actually be a good contender to blow out Apple’s impressive record with the motion controller. Furthermore, there appears to be a shortage… Read On »
Kinect’ing For The Holidays
Well, it’s officially winter in Southeastern Michigan. The flurries are coming down. My car is grumbling on the slick roads since I’ve effectively doubled it’s horsepower. No fast driving for me for the next three months. What to do…
In previous years, this has usually been the season where I stay indoors as much as possible, crawl under a blanket, and gain an extra 15-20 pounds from all of the holiday turkey and ham and fixins’. Of course there’s also the holiday shopping, which I try to get done as early as possible to stay away from the hordes of last minute shoppers.
But this year is a little different. Since I received my Kinect sensor, there’s been quite a bit less time on the couch, and much more moving around. Unfortunately, I’m on a spending freeze for personal goodies since it is the holiday after all, and being married means that I have to leave something for my spouse to purchase for that wonderful day, December 25th.
So right now all I can do is dream. And what am I looking forward to?
Video Games
Dance Central – Yes. I’m looking forward to playing this one. Behind closed doors and with the windows shut, of course. But this looks to be a very fun game.
Kinect Sports – This is an exceptionally fun game. I could see myself spending many hours playing Table Tennis, Soccer, Boxing, And Volleyball.
Assassin’s Creed II – Yeah, I know. It’s been out for a while. But with a pile of other games topping my list this last year, I just haven’t had time to sit down with it. But now it’s on the top of the stack. And as soon as I get done playing Mass Effect 2 for the billionth time (this time with all the DLC), I’ll be popping that in the tray.
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood – As soon as I get done with ACII, this’ll be next on my pile.
Halo: Reach – Of course! With the new Noble Map Pack out, I’ll be sprinkling some death from my DMR here and there throughout the winter.
Movies
Tron: Legacy – This is definitely my holiday topper. I feel like I’ve been waiting 25 years for this movie to come out!
MegaMind – Going to see this on Saturday actually. Can’t wait!
The Tourist – I’m intrigued by this one. I’m a huge fan of Johnny Depp and I’m hoping this one is better for Angelina Jolie than Salt was. Such a disappointment…
DVD/Blu-Ray
Despicable Me – releases on December 14th. I saw this twice in the theatres and I still want more. I’ll probably watch this a few hundred times over the next couple of months.
Red Vs. Blue: The Recollection – If you don’t know of Red Vs. Blue, then you don’t know what you’ve been missing. Reliving the last three seasons is certainly going to be a treat. Unfortunatley, there’s no Blu-Ray option yet, but I’ll still be enjoying this in all it’s DVD glory.
Back To The Future Box Set – Yeah. It’s kind of nostalgic. But hey, that’s me.
And of course, planning the next car project to make it better, stronger, and faster.
