Twisted Pixel attended PAX East once again, this year, and this time, it demonstrated its newest upcoming title for Xbox Live Arcade, LocoCycle. We got to grab footage from one of these romps through the Canyon stage, and you can see that splendor above.
LocoCycle has players assume control of the sentient, super-powered motorcycle weapon I.R.I.S. which, after being struck by lightning, decides to no longer be a weapon. With the unwilling help of her mechanic Pablo, she rushes off into the desert, and it is there that her creator Big Arms decides to put an end to her existence, much to Pablo's chagrin on the whole matter. Over time, she will face off against multiple operatives from Big Arms and eventually the dark motorbike S.P.I.K.E. to impede her escape.
From the gameplay demo we saw, the game primarily plays like Spy Hunter, as players drive I.R.I.S. swiftly through the landscape. On occasion, players will have to shoot down the oncoming opposition, and if shooting them does not work, I.R.I.S. can leap up into the air and beat up the enemies with melee attacks, including the use of Pablo as a bludgeon or boomerang. Furthermore, there are times in the missions where QTEs dictate the action within the sequence. All the while, the game ranks your performance with each section, like a true action game. Not to mention that the game is filled to the brim with Twisted Pixel's patented humor. Looks to be quite an intense and equally hilarious game when it finally releases.
LocoCycle will be released for Xbox Live Arcade in the coming months.
Some of you may remember an indie title involving a young boy named Max and a magic marker. Well, he is back, but this time, developer Press Play is making it exclusive to Xbox Live Arcade in: Max: The Curse of Brotherhood.
In The Curse of Brotherhood, Max comes home one day to find his little brother, Felix,
playing with HIS stuff in HIS room. Frustrated, Max looks online to find a way
to get rid of his brother and finds a strange poem on a website. After
reading it aloud, a vortex opens, and a large claw reaches into the room, grabs
Felix, and pulls him into the void. Without hesitation, Max leaps after his
brother and begins his journey to save him from a world filled with evil.
Luckily, Max has the power of a magical marker which can manipulate the world around him.
With the mystical marker, will he be able to save his brother from before its too late?
Max: The Curse of Brotherhood plays like a 2D
platformer with 3D graphics and physics. While Max can jump and climb, those actions will not be enough to avoid deadly spikes and raging monsters. Using the power of
the magic marker, Max can change the environment in multiple ways such as creating vines to swing on
or jets of water to push Max forward. At one point in the demo, Max used the
marker to manipulate the vines, join them together making it one large vine,
and then cut it so the player could swing Max over a wide chasm. Another part had Max
raising up the ground with the marker so he could create more vines that would help him
avoid a spike trap. Obviously manipulating the environment is the major focus
of the game as well as running form massive monsters sent to squish the young
boy.
With a variety of environments and creative manipulation puzzles, Max: The Curse of the Brotherhood is an Xbox Live Arcade title that people should
keep an eye out for. Max: The Curse of the Brotherhood is due sometime in Q2
2013.
Over a decade ago, Microsoft
entered the gaming industry with the Xbox, and in that generation of gaming,
the company attempted to create a variety of new IPs with the help of multiple
developers worldwide.While Halo was providing a great base for
first person shooter fans and western gamers, Microsoft needed to create a
mascot that would be seen as less violent and more marketable.Where Nintendo had Mario, Sega had Sonic, and
Namco had Pac-Man, Microsoft would have Blinx:
The Time Sweeper.
Blinx: The Time Sweeper was developed by Japanese company Artoon, headed by Naoto Oshima, one of
the founders of Sonic the Hedgehog.Oshima started development within Sega as far back as 1988 with Kujaku-O (known as Spellcaster in the US),
an adventure title based on the manga Spirit Warrior.After designing The Last Battle and Phantasy
Star II, Oshima, along with Hirokazu Yasuhara and Yuji Naka, would produce
Sega’s big mascot adventure: Sonic the Hedgehog.While Oshima worked on the character design,
Yasuhara worked on the game design and Naka developed the programming behind
it.After Sonic became a big hit, Naka
and Yasuhara left to work on Sonic the
Hedgehog 2 with Sega Technical
Institute, and Oshima remained with Sega’s Japanese Sonic Team to work on a new
title for the Sega CD: Sonic CD.Under Sonic Team, Oshima continued to direct
while Naka led as Producer, spanning across such games as NiGHTS into Dreams and Burning
Rangers for the Sega Saturn.By
1999, however, Oshima was finding himself disinterested in Sonic Team’s
direction, and after his roles in Sonic
Adventure, he left the company to form Artoon on August 27, 1999.
Artoon would begin its development history with Pinobee: Wings of Adventure (published
by Activision) for the GameBoy
Advance in 2001.Pinobee is a robotic
bee built to protect the world, and his dash attacks and other abilities are
all upgradable within the game’s multiple worlds.Pinobee
would see a rerelease on PlayStation in 2002, and a Japan-only sequel was
developed, Pinobee and Phoebee.While Artoon was working on advancing the
Pinobee franchise, it was working alongside Microsoft on developing Blinx: The
Time Sweeper.
Microsoft Game Studios
was the game publisher branding for Microsoft as of July 2002.Microsoft itself was founded by Paul Allen
and Bill Gates in 1975, initially selling BASIC interpreters for the Altair
8800.Microsoft would become famous for
the development of MS-DOS and subsequently the development of Windows, which
debuted November 1984.Over time,
Windows and Microsoft Office have held a majority share in both OS and office
software markets.Microsoft’s first
published PC title (from MobyGames) would be 1979’s Microsoft Adventure, a Softwin
Associates-developed computer port of the adventure game Colossal Cave.Other major titles include the Microsoft Flight Simulator series
debuted in 1982, the hit puzzle game Minesweeper,
released in 1992, and Ensemble Studios’Age of Empires in 1997.
Microsoft began its venture into console development with
the creation of the Xbox, which launched stateside in 2001.Development began in 1998 when Kevin Bachus,
Seamus Blackley, Ted Hase and Otto Berkes from the DirectX team began to
develop a video game console based on PC equipment.With the help of Ed Fries, head of
Microsoft’s game publishing division, the “DirectX Box,” later renamed to Xbox,
would be developed and eventually unveiled at GDC 2000.In order to bring more attention to the
high-end console, Microsoft acquired Bungie
Software in June that year.At the
same time, Microsoft would move on to publish games exclusive to the Xbox from
multiple software developers.These include
Oddworld: Munch’s Odyssey by Oddworld Inhabitants, Project Gotham Racing by Bizarre Creations, Amped: Freestyle Snowboard by Indie
Built, Fusion Frenzy by Blitz Games, and Azurik: Rise of Perathia by Adrenium
Games.
In 2002, while Blinx and other major titles were in
development, Microsoft formed Microsoft Game Studios.From here, Microsoft Game Studios would
handle all publishing and distribution for the Xbox.
Blinx is a cat on a mission to fix glitches in time. With
the aid of his trusty and powerful Time Sweeper, Blinx must recover lost time
crystals, fight Time Monsters, and ultimately rescue a kidnapped princess.
Visit nearly 40 levels in warped-reality worlds inspired by Venice, canyons, caves, ancient ruins, and
even the works of artist MC Escher. You can also buy gear and power-ups, which
enhance gameplay performance, or you can purchase enhanced versions of the Time
Sweeper.
~Description
What's most important is gameplay. Gameplay, gameplay,
gameplay. It all starts with the gameplay and the game design. Once we have
that where we have the basic concept of what sort of play is going to be
involved, from there comes the character design, the world design and the
environment….With Blinx when I first created the character, I was looking for a
character that would appeal to the Japanese market. At that point, we still had
a lot of hopes for the Japanese market. While Blinx isn't totally American, in
Blinx 1, the character is very, very cute. The way I made the character appeal
to the Japanese market was by adding lots and lots of detail. With Blinx 1, the
fur was super detailed.
Blinx: The Time Sweeper is a platforming adventure title
with time-manipulation elements playing a major role.Players assume the role of Blinx, and cat who
lives in the Time Factory, a land existing outside of the realm of time.In fact, the Time Factory and its inhabitants
are tasked with providing time crystals to multiple worlds across the universe
to allow their occupants to live on happily.When things go awry, the time crystals can become monsters, but thankfully
Time Sweepers can work at defeating said monsters and maintaining order in
every world.When dimension B1Q64 is
attacked by the pig Tom-Tom gang, however, things go terribly wrong; as the
gang proceeds to gather as many time crystals as they can, monsters grow and
emerge en masse, threatening to destroy the land and spread to other
worlds.Before the Time Sweepers can cut
off the link to the Time Factory, Blinx jumps into B1Q64’s warp tunnel, aimed
to save the world and earn the world's Princess’ affection in the process.
The game is a slow-paced platformer with time-based puzzles
incorporated into each level.The
purposes of each stage is for Blinx to defeat each of the monsters present in
the area before exiting through a portal at the end.At times, members of the Tom-Tom gang will
emerge to attack Blinx, as well.In
order for Blinx to harm either Tom-Tom or monster, he has to suck in random
items into his vacuum, the TS-1000, and shoot the debris back at them to cause
damage.While traversing around each
level, there may be landmarks which collapse or shift out of reach for Blinx to
reach, and sometimes enemies or markers may be too hard to defeat in
real-time.Thankfully, Blinx can acquire
Time Powers by obtaining at least three similar Time Crystals out of four
collected at a time.These powers range
from rewinding the world around Blinx to recording a copy of himself to assist
him in puzzles and battles alike.At the
end of each level, what Blinx has collected gives him money to spend in a Shop
for upgrades later in the game, and players are graded based on time
performance, with each level limited to ten minutes.There are no lives, but rather, Blinx has a
set number of Retries which can be increased by gathering three heart Time
Crystals in a set of four.At the end of
each Round, Blinx will face off against a large monster reminiscent of smaller
monsters fought in the adventure.
After Blinx, Artoon would develop a sequel, Blinx2: Masters of Time and Space in 2004.In this sequel, players assume the role of
either a Time Sweeper or a Tom Tom, and Blinx and other characters from the
predecessor act as secondary characters, assisting players as they attempt to
piece together the legendary Big Crystal.Despite the attempts made to make Blinx a formidable mascot for the Xbox
branding, the character failed to garner much clout outside of Japan, where he
remained the mascot throughout the lifecycle of the Xbox.Instead, many adopted Master Chief as the
unofficial mascot of Microsoft, and as the company moved forward, he would
become Microsoft’s biggest character.
Besides working on Blinx’s sequel, Artoon would begin its
development history with Nintendo.In 2004, the developer created Yoshi: Topsy Turvy, a platforming
adventure title in which players can tilt the GameBoy Advance to help Yoshi
traverse the world and complete the levels’ special goals.The game did well enough that a couple years
later Artoon would develop another Yoshi title for Nintendo, Yoshi’s Island DS.The company’s last major title developed for
Nintendo was the Wii Remote Plus arcade game FlingSmash which released in 2010.
Artoon’s collaborations expanded beyond just Nintendo and
Microsoft.Artoon would work with Sony on Echoshift, a PSP spinoff of the Game
Yarouze-developed Echochrome.The company also developed Club Penguin: Game Day! on Wii for Disney in 2010.One of Artoon’s biggest collaborations would
come with Mistwalker, the design
company headed by Final Fantasy-creator
Hironobu Sakaguchi.These projects
include Blue Dragon (published by
Microsoft) and Away: Shuffle Dungeon
(published by Majesco).
Artoon was busily developing a few more projects when, in
2011, parent company AQ Interactive
announced that it would be absorbing Artoon and other development subsidiaries feelplus and Cavia.While not credited as
Artoon-developed, the Nintendo-published and Mistwalker-collaboration project The Last Story was developed by what
was mostly Artoon.Also, while there is
no definite proof right now, there is speculation that Artoon was working on
the 3DS platformer Cubic Ninja,
published by Ubisoft, before being
merged into AQ Interactive.
After the merger, AQ Interactive would itself go through a
merger with Marvelous Interactive and
Liveware to create Marvelous AQL.Since the merger in October 2011, Marvelous
AQL has had one game release in the US – the Nintendo-published and Square Enix-co-developed board game Fortune Street on Wii.In Japan, the company has developed
other games including the female ninja side-scrolling action series Senran Kagura.Currently, Marvelous AQL project Harvest Moon: A New Beginning will be
releasing this November and Rune Factory
4 (developed by Neverland Co.) is
expected for a US
release at some time, as well.MAQL is
notably working with Keiji Inafune, known for Mega Man and Onimusha,
on a number of projects, too, including Soul
Sacrifice on the PlayStation Vita and Kaio:
King of Pirates for the Nintendo 3DS.
But where was Naoto Oshima in all of this?Before the merger into AQ Interactive was
complete, Oshima left the company with other developers of Artoon to create a
new company: Arzest Corporation.Arzest has worked predominantly with Nintendo
since its inception, but the company has yet to release a major release since 2010.The company’s first works were three games in
Wii Play: Motion: Spooky Search, Jump Park,
and Cone Zone.After that, Arzest was
behind the development of the 2011 StreetPass
Mii Plaza update, including the addition of Find Mii II and improvements to
Puzzle Swap and StreetPass Map sections of the program.We have no information as to what else Arzest
is working on.
Microsoft Game Studios has since released a vast library of
titles for Xbox, its successor the Xbox 360, Games for Windows, Windows Phone,
and downloadable platforms such as Xbox Live Arcade.Shortly after the release of Blinx, Microsoft
acquired Nintendo developer Rareware,
and from that developer, Microsoft has published such games as Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Conker: Live and Reloaded, Perfect Dark Zero, Kameo: Elements of Power, the Viva
Piñata series, and Banjo Kazooie:
Nuts and Bolts.More recently, Rare
has been behind the development of Avatars and the Kinect Sports series.
More major franchises published my Microsoft include Fable (started in 2004 by Lionhead Studios), Forza Motorsport (started in 2005 by Turn 10 Studios), and Gears
of War (started in 2006, an Epic
Games property).As for more
specific projects, Microsoft Game Studios has released Kung-Fu Chaos (developed by Just
Add Monsters, now Ninja Theory), Voodoo Vince (developed by Beep Industries), MechAssault (developed by Day
1 Studios), Jade Empire and Mass Effect with BioWare, Crackdown
(developed by Real Time Worlds,
sequel by Ruffian Games), Lips (developed by iNiS), and Kinect Joy Ride
(developed by BigPark).Any independent game released on XBLA and
Windows Phone will also be stated as published by Microsoft if they themselves
do not have publishing power.
Currently, Microsoft is working heavily on producing new Xbox
360 projects, including Xbox SmartGlass, a multi-device program which allows
data from the Xbox 360 to stream onto mobile devices to provide insight on
particular game or movie content in real-time.As for game software, Microsoft Game Studios (now named Microsoft
Studios) is headed to publish 343
Industries’ Halo 4, Sumo Digital’s Nike+ Kinect Training, Lionhead Studios’ Fable: The Journey, and Turn 10 and Playground Games’ Forza
Horizon this year.As for future
plans, Microsoft Studios is working with Crytek
on Kinect action title Ryse, and People Can Fly (as part of Epic Games)
is working on Gears of War: Judgment
for early 2013.Smaller titles to emerge
on XBLA by Microsoft include Twisted
Pixel’sLocoCycle, Signal Studios’Ascend: New Gods, and Blind
Wink Games’Matter.No Blinx sequel has been discussed and with
the absorption of Artoon and failure of its first sequel, it can be assumed the
series is over.
Having never played many games for Xbox outside of a handful
of titles, a good portion of which had Halo in the title, we decided to take a
look at the older Xbox catalog, particularly those games which could run on
an Xbox 360.We had seen videos of
Blinx: The Time Sweeper, and curiosity got to us…but would it kill us much like
the cat?
After having played through two Rounds of Blinx, it is easy
to see where it may have lost appeal in the mainstream view.Blinx is slower in all ways than Mario,
whether by gameplay design or technical issues; framerate specifically became a
problem throughout the recording.Meanwhile, the game’s platforming element was not as heavily-focused as
in other mascot platformers.In fact,
the game appeared to rely more on attacking monsters rather than making
difficult jumps.The Time Crystal
mechanics were used well enough in the rounds we played, but outside of a
couple specific moments, the game did not really need time manipulation to
complete.Still, when the time
manipulation was used, the effects were acceptable, considering it was an Xbox
original.
The style was solid, and the music was active and poppy,
which further emphasized the style.The
biggest issue the game had from my perspective was the framerate, which pulled
the game into a slow crawl.Either way,
we enjoyed what part of the game we played.
We actually recorded this game back in 2010, just as we were
receiving our HD PVR capture device.We
would not receive a full widescreen TV for HD recording for a while longer, so
the quality is not exactly the best it could be.Meanwhile, as we recorded it twice, you might
notice an attempt or two to make a joke which did not turn out exactly as
anticipated.It should be mentioned that
the first time playing the game, we had issues fighting the second boss for one
reason or another.This was rectified in
the recording you see here, thank goodness!
Will we continue Blinx: The Time Sweeper in the future?If fans are willing to ask us, we will.The biggest issue in getting it is that
Gamefly has such a low supply of the game, it may very well be impossible to
obtain again.Perhaps we will need to
acquire it permanently or have it lent to us or something.Either way, we appreciate any feedback!
3RM Says: So much work to sweep so much time...should
At the end of E3 (which, by the way, was fairly lacking of megatons), the two of us sat down and decided to provide our thoughts around all six of the show's main conferences. On this post, we cover the first three: a combination of Konami and GameTrailersTV's Pre-E3 events, Microsoft's Press Conference, and EA's Press Conference. What did we think about these events?
Konami
Few surprises and many of the same games from 2011
Microsoft
Good games interrupted by constant media content and SmartGlass
EA
A standard conference with a large focus on sports communities
Check back in a day or so for the remaining three videos!
The winner of DreamBuildPlay in 2009, Dust: An Elysian Tail has
been in development for some time and has kept most of its features a secret.
At PAX East 2012, we had a chance to play this game at Microsoft’s Xbox Live
Arcade booth and speak with the man behind the game, Dean Dodrill. Check after the break for the impressions!
At the Xbox booth at PAX East, Microsoft got to show off its upcoming showcase titles for Xbox Live Arcade, and among them stood one of the most recognized PC games of recent days, the ultimate sand-box game, Minecraft. Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition was playable at the showfloor, and I got to get a quick spin with the title. We also got a short but sweet interview with Josh Mulanax from Microsoft to give us some of the lo-down on 4J and Mojang's collaborative XBLA effort. [See after the break for my brief impressions]
Our adventure into this year's New York Comic Con was not exactly as peachy as we would have liked, but when is a convention not stressful? We were only able to attend the Thursday and Friday events for both economical and physical reasons, but we got a handful of videos and impressions to make for you all.
---
Just under a month after New York Comic Con 2011 finished, we are winding down with a few more videos to finish off the event and look out into 2011's holiday season (which has already started, thank you, Modern Warfare 3).
This video is dedicated to the remainder of game footage we took over the course of the day-and-change we were at the convention. We talk about our impressions or thoughts on the games while we show clips of our scraps. We felt the footage shown here was not up to par with fitting into individual videos and put them together right here!
The games covered are as follows: Resident Evil: Revelations Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 Final Fantasy XIII-2 Rayman Origins (with some Just Dance 3) Fusion: Genesis (out now on XBLA!) Prototype 2
Stay tuned for our postmortem, in which we discuss final impressions and the games we did not even cover this year!
Unfortunately, these couple weeks were full of things for us here at Third Rate Minion, and as a result, releasing these videos seems late. However, I also follow the rule of "Better Late than Never," and besides, E3 is still fresh in our minds.
So if you'd like to hear recaps and commentary on each of the big three's press conferences from this year's E3, indulge in our video goodness.
We will have a look at what predictions went well soon!
Turn 10 and Microsoft Game Studios announced Forza Motorsport 4 at this year's VGA awards on Spike TV.
The Forza Motorsport series is Microsoft's answer to the sim racing series Gran Turismo. Developed by in-house developer Turn 10, the series has grown since its inception in 2005. Forza Motorsport 4 was originally demonstrated at E3 2010 as part of the hardcore titles for Microsoft's Kinect-focused press conference. At the press conference, a developer showed how you could physically walk around and examine each car from outside and inside the driver's seat. According to reports, the game will still feature these elements.
The trailer did not fully demonstrate what the game would have, merging both in-game and real-life footage together. One could predict that the game will feature more environmental aspects including weather conditions and muddy terrain to affect the controls and graphical effects within each realistic race.
While no specific date was given, the game is expected for release in the holiday season for 2011.
Today, Major Nelson broke news that Xbox LIVE Gold subscription prices would be increasing from $50 to $60 a year, starting November 1, 2010.
Major Nelson's blog spilled the beans on a unique price hike for the special online services Microsoft provides to Xbox LIVE users who pay a premium on a yearly or smaller periodic basis.
This image describes the changes as follows:
The price hike will be effective in November, so Major Nelson states that it would be a good idea to lock in the cheaper price before November in order to save the ten-dollar increase. Certain places, including Japan, will not have price hikes.
There is no actual explanation to the increase, other than that the content has gotten better since it started. The lack of a worldwide increase dictates some behind-the-scenes activity.
Xbox LIVE Gold memberships allow those with Xbox 360 to download demos earlier than those with Silver. It also adds the ability to use Netflix and other online services directly from the console. The biggest perk to Gold memberships is the ability to play online multiplayer games at any time; Silver members have specific free periods of use but are otherwise restricted to LAN and single-console gaming.
