Microsoft « Gamesugar

August 19, 2011

The View From X’11

Filed under: Features — Tags: 2K Games, Batman: Arkham City, Darkness II, Media Event, Microsoft, Preview, Radiant Silvergun, Rayman Origins, Renegade Ops, Rise of Nightmares, Sega, Toronto, Treasure, Ubisoft, Warner Bros., X'11 — Jamie Love @ 2:23 pm

X11 Toronto
Microsoft’s annual Toronto holiday showcase of all things 360 took place yesterday, and I was fortunate enough to make the event with other members of Team Sugar to check in on upcoming releases for the system.

This year’s showing was undoubtedly the largest one in recent memory, with a slew of publishers showing so many titles that the mind boggled at how to break down and digest so much content. It’s not often companies like Square-Enix, Bethesda, 2K Games, and Sega come to town, and the result was a never-ending sea of screens that left me feeling a bit dizzy by the end of the day.

With that said, I’m going to stay true to form and simply tell you what caught my eye.

(more…)

Comments (0)

January 6, 2011

Hard Corps: Uprising In February

Filed under: News Feed — Tags: 360, Arc System Works, Contra, Hard Corps Uprising, Konami, Microsoft, Release Date, Xbox Live Arcade — Jamie Love @ 12:46 am

Hard Corps Uprising
Late night CES emails from Microsoft catch my eye when they appear to out Konami dates, and so here we are. In an announcement regarding a lineup of titles for an Xbox Live Arcade House Party, Microsoft has ARC System Works’ Hard Corps: Uprising set for release on February 16th.

Additional titles for the five week house party include Beyond Good and Evil HD, Bejeweled Blitz Live, and Torchlight.

Comments (4)

December 17, 2010

Your Holiday Dose of Xbox LIVE Arcade

Filed under: News Feed — Tags: Digital, Download, ilo milo, ilomilo, Microsoft, Raskulls, World of Keflings, XBLA, Xbox Live Arcade — Jamie Love @ 11:14 am

Xbox LIVE Arcade Holidays
As if scoring another exclusive chapter to the Dead Rising saga wasn’t enough, Microsoft has three other titles hitting LIVE between December 22 and January 5 at 800 points a piece, complete with some character crossover to loosely tie all three together for the holiday push – not exactly breaking news, but I figure it’s worth a reminder.

Kingdom building returns when A World of Keflings hits on December 22, Half Brick Studio’s Raskulls arrives on December 29, and ilomilo rounds out the list on January 5 – assuming you haven’t already gotten your mitts on that last one via super secret early promotion, which still seems to be generating codes, though they don’t seem to work anymore.

Catch a trailer for all three after the break.

(more…)

Comments (0)

November 25, 2010

Q&A – Remedy Talks Alan Wake

Filed under: Features — Tags: Alan Wake, Feature, interview, Microsoft, Q&A, Questions and Answers, Remedy, The Signal, The Writer, Xbox 360 — Jamie Love @ 1:32 pm

On my list of most significant games of 2010, it shouldn’t surprise regular readers and sugarfiends if I give a nod to Alan Wake – though even after reviewing the game and two installments of DLC, I still feel as if I haven’t captured the essence of the “why” behind that. Remedy’s work with Wake has left a lingering impression on me, a game I’m certain to remember for many years to come, which increasingly seems like one of the most significant accomplishments a videogame can achieve.

Despite my trouble of always putting exact words to that experience, I did cobble together some questions about the game and specifically about the DLC chapters that followed, which Remedy writer Mikko Rautalahti was good enough to take the time to answer.

Catch it after the break.

(more…)

Comments (0)

November 10, 2010

Review – Fable III

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: 360, Fable, Fable III, Lionhead, Microsoft, Review, XBOX, Xbox 360 — Brad Johnson @ 9:02 am

The design imperative represented in most games on the market is simple, and nigh-universal: give the player one thing to do, and develop and fortify this mechanic until it is strong enough to engage the player for the bulk of the experience. The addition of the odd mini-game (driving a tank in Gears of War, for example) serves to break up the action, but the focus of the design is still to provide a mechanic that can be successfully repeated for the entire game without becoming tedious.

Fable III represents the opposite extreme, and an entirely alternative design philosophy. Here is a game that provides a myriad of game options, with the caveat that each is relatively simplistic. The effect is that Fable III feels like a game made up of mini-games; an exploration mini-game, a finance mini-game, a combat mini-game, a social mini-game, and so on. The dilemma lies in whether players will find the sheer number of these mini-games to be sufficiently engaging as to offset the fundamental simplicity of the mechanics.

(more…)

Comments (0)

October 13, 2010

Review – Alan Wake: The Writer

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: 360, Alan Wake, Author, Departure, Microsoft, Remedy, The Return, The Signal, The Writer, XBOX — Jamie Love @ 1:53 pm

Alan Wake The Writer
As the second piece of DLC for Remedy’s psychological action thriller, “The Writer” continues Alan’s journey through the darkest of night via the exploration of Wake’s internal state of mind. Picking up where “The Signal” left off, Wake navigates a path through the fractured self exposed by the retail release.

By film or book or videogame, subject matter opens as many possibilities as it does the potential to fall into cliche, and I’ll suggest that once again Alan Wake manages to work within the trappings of the horror genre rather deftly considering how much of a tightrope that proposition creates – my investment in the character of both Wake and the world he is fighting to understand keeps psychological exploration from dipping into cheese.

That doesn’t mean that Wake’s latest outing cuts the fresh path the series seems capable of trailblazing however. But “The Writer” does cut a circular path through the events of the game to date to reach a rather inevitable conclusion, offering players a carnival ride through familiar memories, concerned with finding the significance in character relationships and happenings established by the game proper.

(more…)

Comments (0)

October 11, 2010

Review – Left 4 Dead 2: The Sacrifice

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: DLC, l4d, l4d2, left 4 dead, left 4 dead 2, Microsoft, PC, Review, Steam, the sacrifice, Valve, windows, XBOX, Xbox 360, Xbox LIVE — Brad Johnson @ 8:33 pm

This past week saw the release of “The Sacrifice,” Valve’s latest add-on for the Left 4 Dead games. This new campaign serves as a prequel to Valve’s previous DLC, “The Passing” which featured an appearance from the original survivors of Left 4 Dead—one man short. “The Sacrifice” gives players the opportunity to experience the events leading to “The Passing,” and the loss of one of their comrades—and not the kind of loss where you pick him up from a hero closet a few minutes later.

To avoid any confusion, “The Sacrifice” is available for both Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2—but the package is slightly different. The version for the original L4D includes only the new campaign, “The Sacrifice,” played with the standard enemies and equipment of that game. Alternatively, the L4D2 version includes the new campaign and an updated version of the “No Mercy” campaign from the original game, with both taking advantage of L4D2’s expanded arsenal and enemies. Regardless of which game you play, you’ll be playing these campaigns as the original survivors.

Considering that the release of Left 4 Dead 2 was not universally supported by fans of the original game, the decision to release this add-on for both products was a pretty sound strategy, likely good for business while also appeasing those who were not supportive of the release of L4D2.

(more…)

Comments (1)

« Newer Posts — Older Posts »