Source: videogamesblogger.com

Death Tank has been announced for Xbox Live Arcade by SnowBlind Studios.

The original Death Tank was a bonus game in the Sega Saturn version of PowerSlave. It was updated as a hidden game for the Sega Saturn version of Duke Nukem 3D, where it was dubbed Death Tank Zwei. The game is a 2D shooter that plays similarly to Worms or Scorched Earth, except it’s shooting action gameplay is real-time instead of turn-based.

And now it’s getting a revival for the Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade by the guy who made the original! Ezra Dreisbach created the original version for Lobotomy Software, and he now works at Snowblind Studios, where they have decided to release an upgraded version for Xbox Live Arcade! So now the game may finally get the recognition it deserves.

Death Tank is fast-paced, requiring quick reflexes and cunning strategy to master. It supports up to four-players locally (on the same Xbox 360) or up to 8 players online! The game is seen from a side-scrolling, 2D zoomed-out perspective as each players little tank battles it out in a largely static, hilly arena.

As you use your devastating weapons and unique items, the landscape will literally change shape before your eyes! Starting out hilly, it’ll be completely flat by the end as the weapons hit the landscape and it reacts! There are 8 different landscapes to play on and the game supports single-player as well as multiplayer for up to 8 tanks simultaneously. You can also play in exciting team battles or chaotic free-for-all! Featuring updated, modern-day crisp graphics and amazing effects, the addictive gameplay of Death Tank will surely make for a visceral experience for anyone willing to give it a shot.

Features of Death Tank are:

• Play on Xbox Live against your friends!
• Customize your tank with powerful upgrades!
• Find secret power-ups to obliterate your enemies!
• Learn new strategies and hone your skills!
• Claim your spot on the leaderboards TODAY!

Here’s a video of Death Tank Zwei.

Source: videogamesblogger.com

Classic side-scrolling gameplay is reporting back for duty with Bionic Commando Rearmed for Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and PC, it’s a remake of the classic NES game. 20 years after the 8-bit classic was released, Bionic Commando Rearmed recreates the world of the original with a complete “2.5D” visual revamp. Bionic Commando Rearmed preserves the original’s mix of swinging and shooting in an intense 2D side-scroller, all to the tune of a brand-new soundtrack based on the classic 8-bit music from the NES masterpiece.

But Rearmed is far more than just a remake - it features all-new modes such as the 2-player co-op play, smarter enemy AI, new bionic arm abilities, new weapons, bigger bosses, online rankings, a frenetic multiplayer mode for up to four players, and a series of over 50 devious challenge rooms to test your swinging skills. Faithfully sticking to the original story, Bionic Commando Rearmed tells the story of Nathan “R.A.D.” Spencer’s first mission, sent in to retrieve captured agent Super Joe from the hands of the Imperials. Fans of the original story can expect to see all the characters from the NES version, as well as the memorable moments that made the title so popular with fans.

Does the series swing back into the spotlight? Find out in this Bionic Commando Rearmed video review.


To quote the video review: “At $10, Bionic Commando Rearmed is a steal. It’s one of those games that feels organic to play. There are certainly some hangovers from the age the game was originally released in, but its stylized production values and challenging gameplay will get you hooked. It would’ve been great to play co-op online with friends but there’s so much content for the money that we’re not about to complain.”

Story — 8.0
Design — 8.7
Gameplay — 8.9
Presentation — 9.0
Overall — 8.8

Source: videogamesblogger.com

A Kingdom For Keflings is coming to Xbox Live Arcade this fall. The game is an all-new city-building title that stars “short, happy beings” known as Keflings, who become aimless without constant direction.

The game itself features “fun and light-hearted gameplay with vibrant graphics and original music to match what you’d come to expect from a game a game of short, happy people. And unlike in a lot of games of this ilk, you are actually represented on-screen as a “giant” human, and not a disembodied hand.

The Keflings are little people whom you pick up and move around to start buildings what your town needs. The goal is to build the best town possible (or eventually a castle) starting from scratch. There are various tech trees available for the different buildings and you can build things like schools for the little Kefling children to become smarter in their particular career. They wear cute hats that tell you what type of unit they are, but you can switch them in or out as you please. The game is quite standard, but has a cute charm all it’s own.

It is being developed by NinjaBee (developers behind Outpost Kaloki X, Band of Bugs and Cloning Clyde), who released a humorous press release acting as if their Kefling characters were actually real.

After stating that they had hired 20 Keflings to help out around the office, they had this to say, to quote: “I’ll be honest here, I went out to my car and ten of the little guys were wandering around, bumping into each other and wearing little sandwich boards reading ‘Will Work for Hats,’” said Steve Taylor, President of NinjaBee. “We couldn’t put them out on the streets after they worked so hard on our game, so we hired them to help around the office. They follow directions to the letter and are very friendly, but not too smart. The way I see it, what could go wrong? The Keflings are expected to work everywhere from the art department to the copy room and will surely remain happy and occupied.”

Watch what happens when the Keflings invade the NinjaBee offices.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

And here is a short gameplay video for the game.

Source: videogamesblogger.com

Bionic Commando: Rearmed has sold 130,000 downloadable copies in only 1 week says Capcom! That’s quite the achievement for a downloadable title and Capcom has to be quite pleased to see the remake of their classic NES game do so well.

The game is available for PC, Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network and sales were across all three platforms.

Producer Ben Judd was quite elated and had this to say:

“Holy fiddlesticks,” Judd proclaims in his post. “That may not seem impressive compared to package titles that sell in the millions but compared to other digital titles that is a friggin’ JUGGERNAUT!

“And while, it’s great to have my first title be not only a critically acclaimed one but also a financial success, there is a bigger picture at play here that we need to look at. Consumers voted with their dollars. They basically have sent the message loud and clear:

We are tired of meta-emulated crap.
We want the titles of yesteryear to be paid the proper respect.
We want them done right.
And if the price is right, we’ll buy.”

Personally I think it’s great to see Bionic Commando: Rearmed doing so well. Hopefully it’ll help to raise the bar for remakes of classic games even higher. And not only that, I hope it makes Nintendo and Capcom both realize that Bionic Commando SHOULD come to the Wii Virtual Console! Forget anything that’s already happened, it’s such a classic that the game simply MUST come!

Source: videogamesblogger.com

Meteos Wars has been announced by Q Entertainment as an all-new game in the Meteos brand that will be hitting Xbox Live Arcade this October at a price of 800 Microsoft Points.

In Meteos, you “slide, stack and ignite your blocks to blast away the world-ending meteors” as one of dozens of different characters as you defend the planet from ultimate annihilation in this highly addictive puzzle game.

As this is the debut of Meteos on the Xbox 360 (previously Q Entertainment released the very popular Lumines for Xbox Live Arcade) it is only natural that it will feature some enhancements over the previous DS versions of the game.

Meteos Wars features several gameplay modes and tons of unlockables with a focus on both single and multiplayer play in addition to an audio and visual facelift. The game has also picked up a few new features along the way, keeping the Meteos experience fresh and creating hours of excitement.

Here is the list of features in Meteos Wars:

* Planets galore: Defend over 20 planets, each with its own alien race, Meteos block styles, unique gravity effects and visual and audio style

* All-new special techniques: Master four of the “Planet Impact” special attacks - Armageddon, Gambit, Sentinel and Tempest.

* Massive modes: Test your quick-thinking action-puzzle skills in a variety of single-player modes, including Mission Mode, Attack Mode or Vs. Mode. Three challenges await you in Attack Mode – the 1-minute attack, 100-Meteo attack and the Challenge attack.

* Multiplayer: Blast away your opponents over Xbox LIVE in Matching Vs. Mode and become one of the best Meteos Wars players in the community! You can also go head-to-head with your friend in Local Vs. Mode.

* All-new accessories: Collect various accessories for your aliens by clearing certain objectives – accessorize your alien and give it some personality!

Source: videogamesblogger.com

Check out this hilarious Double Dragon skit from Barats & Bereta, the sketch comedy duo who has become an internet phenomenon with their highly creative and hilarious videos (one of the most popular being their Mother Day skit).

In one of their newest, the duo tackles another famous duo, brothers Billy and Jimmy Lee from the Double Dragon video game series that was extremely popular in the 80’s with the NES version (and got made into a movie).

Byline: “Do they have any formal martial arts training? NO. But do they have a deeply-rooted obsession with Double Dragon? YES!!! (Note: When dying your karate gi, don’t use the cheapest fabric dye available at WalMart. Your reds could come out strikingly pink, and your royal blues might get left a tad on the periwinkle side.)”

There is both an Xbox Live Arcade Double Dragon remake (that contains a online co-op mode) as well as the original Double Dragon on Wii Virtual Console for those that want to check out one of the earliest and most popular Beat ‘em Ups in the history of video games.

Source: videogamesblogger.com

Bejeweled has sold over 25 million copies announced EA and Popcap Games. Those includes sales of both Bejeweled 1 and Bejeweled 2 over all platforms.

Bejeweled has been released in various forms for: Xbox Live Arcade (original Xbox for Bejeweled 1, Xbox 360 for Bejeweled 2), Xbox 360 & PS2 (As part of PopCap Arcade Hits/Greatest Hits: Volume 1), PC (Windows, Mac OS X), Browser (Flash), PDA (Palm OS, PocketPC, Smartphone), J2ME, iPod and iPhone.

Bejeweled is the breakout hit puzzle game in which you swap two adjacent jewel pieces at a time to try and match up three or more of the same jewels going either vertically or horizontally. Unlike other puzzle games like Tetris, the playfield in Bejeweled is static (it doesn’t scroll up or down) and as you create combos of jewels other pieces fall to fill in their place. And just to give some perspective to that sales number, it amounts to 1 copy of the game per dozen people living in America!

Bejeweled 2 Gameplay Video

“Considering we tried to sell Bejeweled outright to more than one industry giant back in the early days of our company, and got no takers even after reducing our asking price to $60,000, this little game has done all right for itself,” said PopCap co-founder Jason Kapalka. “I vividly recall prospective buyers telling us ‘It’s not even a game,’ while showing us the door.”

Yeah . . . I’d hate to be those guys right about now.

Additionally, over 350 million copies of the game have been sold over the web, and all tallied the retail game has racked up about $300 million dollars, along with tens of millions more in ad revenue.

Just like with Tetris (a game that everyone and your mother knows), Bejeweled’s familiar interface has become the subject of imitation and even homage in the form of Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords (which is an RPG that features Bejeweled-style battles).

As the backbone of PopCap’s casual approach, Bejeweled has introduced plenty of people to videogames who wouldn’t play otherwise. And I have to agree with those who say, love or hate the casual game movement, there’s something to be said for expanding the market. You never know what other games those people who started off with Bejeweled might get into. And that’s a plus for everyone.

Besides have you ever played Bejeweled? It’s a heck of a lot of fun and highly addictive by anyone’s standards.

Source: videogamesblogger.com

Duke Nukem 3D is officially heading to Xbox Live Arcade for release “Soon”. That’s according to 3D Realms’ George Broussard who told Shacknews that the game passed the Microsoft certification process this past Friday (on its first try) and the price point is “about what you’d expect.” Which would make it 800 Microsoft Points (that’s US$10 / €9.60 / £6.80 / CAN$12.40 / AU$13.20).

It has already been revealed that the game will feature 12 Achievements combined to total the Xbox Live Arcade standard of 200 points. There are points for things you’d expect (easy ones) such as “Beat this level to get an Achievement”, but there also some that will make Duke Nukem fans happy. Such as an Achievement entitled “Shake It Baby” which is obtained by tipping an exotic dancer, something Duke fans know and love all too well. There’s also a “Looks Like a Cleanup On Aisle 4″ Achievement that is unlocked by . . . stepping in pile of poop. Awesome? Indeed.

It’s also been hinted a new option will be a saved-film feature, no details were given, but in Halo 3 this video recording feature is used to record single player victories and multiplayer feats. There’s even been a vague mention of an in-game time rewinding mechanic, perhaps similar to that found in Prince of Persia; Sands of Time?

Now that 3D Realms has satisfied a portion of the Duke Nukem masses, you have to once again ask yourself, WHEN WILL WE SEE DUKE NUKEM FOREVER? Come on, we’re dying here!

Source: videogamesblogger.com

Pre-Order Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts and receive a free code for the original Banjo-Kazoie Xbox Live Arcade remake that allows you to download the game before it releases to the public.

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts will be released on November 18th in North America at the cheap price of $40 (out on November 14th in Europe), with the original version of Banjo available for download that day to those who pre-order! For those counting, this will give pre-orderers a two-week head start on getting to play the remake before everyone else (though the exact date for the remake hasn’t yet been determined).

The biggest reason you will want to play the original Banjo-Kazooie (outside of course because of how awesome it is) is due to the addition of the “Stop ‘N’ Swap” feature. Stop N Swop was supposed to allow connectivity between Banjo Kazooie and it’s sequel, Banjo Tooie, in order to unlock special features in the original game by collecting colored eggs to unlock hidden areas and entering a code into a “Stop & Swop” menu, but the feature was never fully realized when Banjo Tooie continued on without the feature.

Now Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts will complete the legendary infamous Stop & Swop by allowing connectivity with the Xbox Live Arcade remake of Banjo Kazooie! By linking the two titles, it will “reward players’ accomplishments in the new game with extra content and features in the Xbox LIVE Arcade game.”

Additionally, Rare also revealed that the Nuts & Bolts game world formally known as “World of Sports” has been renamed Jiggoseum, and will feature Olympics-inspired challenges (one example being to transport a torch across a large body of water to light the Olympic Cauldron).

I don’t know about you, but I’m very intrigued by Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts and was a huge fan of the original. So I’m definitely looking forward to buying both of them and finally getting to complete the Stop & Swop! In my opinion Banjo-Kazooie is one of the best platformers ever made, and I hope this is only the beginning of much more classic Rare N64 games to come!

Here is an interview from E3 2008 explaining more about the game and how the vehicle-building works.

Source: videogamesblogger.com

Since Braid has no cheat codes a walkthrough will definitely come in handy in case your brain can’t handle all the time-manipulating madness that you will encounter in the new Xbox Live Arcade masterpiece from independent developer Jonathan Blow’s “Number None Inc.” and publisher Microsoft. And in case you don’t own a 360, the game will also be heading to PC “sometime in 2008″ according to the official Braid web-site.

Skip down to watch the Braid walkthrough videos!

Braid is an ingenious platformer staring a pudgy boy named Tim who’s on a quest to “rescue the princess”. Although it sounds simple, the game is anything but. Using an absolutely beautiful, drop-dead gorgeous hand-drawn/watercolor-like graphical style, the game pops out at you like a painting that has come to life. The game then bends your brain and shatters it to pieces by giving you the ability to rewind time to a multiple of 8 (both forwards and backwards) and using it to solve increasingly complex puzzles that test the very foundation of reality and shatter the notion that the game is “just another platformer”.

If you haven’t played the Braid demo then you are doing yourself a disservice. I can guarantee that once you give the game a try, you will have no qualms with it’s $15 price point. The game is quite simply a work of art that begs to be played by anyone that considers them a fan of video games. Not only does the game parody classic Nintendo games and poke fun at itself and the cliche gaming conventions we’re all used to, it wraps itself up with an intelligent, touching and poetic story and music that belongs in a motion picture of The Lord of the Rings-calibur, managing to whisk you away to a strange whimsical land where anything is possible.

Although Braid was built from the ground as a game where players learn from their mistakes until they achieve their goal (thus you can never die or fail, you just rewind and try again!) it can still test that noggin to the Nth degree and as such, you may want a visual aid to help you out in your adventure through this strange and wonderful land.

Give a look at these walkthrough videos from Earthbound12, MorrowJ, EatMoreHippo’s & SoulblitzJ below to help you out. Just keep in mind to only use them once you’ve given it your all in trying to solve a specific puzzle.

Braid Video Introduction

Braid Level 2 & 3 “Time & Mystery” Walkthrough


Braid Level 4 “Time & Place” Walkthrough

Braid Level 5 “Time & Decision” Walkthrough Part 1


Braid Level 5 “Time & Decision” Walkthrough Part 2


Braid Level 6 “Hesistance” Walkthrough Part 1

Braid Level 6 “Hesistance” Walkthrough Part 2

Key features of Braid:

* Forgiving yet challenging gameplay: Braid is a 2-D platform game where you can never die and never lose. Despite this, Braid is challenging—but the challenge is about solving puzzles, rather than forcing you to replay tricky jumps.
* Rich puzzle environment: Travel through a series of worlds searching for puzzle pieces, then solving puzzles by manipulating time: rewinding, creating parallel universes, setting up pockets of dilated time. The gameplay feels fresh and new; the puzzles are meant to inspire new ways of thinking.
* Aesthetic design: A painterly art style and lush, organic soundtrack complement the unique gameplay.
* Nonlinear story: A nonlinear fiction links the various worlds and provides real-world metaphors for your time manipulations; in turn, your time manipulations are projections of the real-world themes into playful “what-if” universes where consequences can be explored.
* Nonlinear gameplay: The game doesn’t force you to solve puzzles in order to proceed. If you can’t figure something out, just play onward and return to that puzzle later.