Archive

Arcade: Alan Wake’s American Nightmare

Content: Alan Wake’s American Nightmare
Price: 1200 Microsoft Points
Availability: Check availability in your Xbox LIVE region
Dash Text: In this brand new standalone experience, Alan Wake fights the herald of darkness, the evil Mr. Scratch! A thrilling new storyline, hordes of creepy enemies, serious firepower and beautiful Arizona locations, combined with a fun and challenging new game mode make this a must for Alan Wake veterans, and the perfect jumping on point for new players! Play the full-fledged Story Mode, and you’ll be on the edge of your seat as you fight to stop your murderous evil double to take back your life… and change reality itself! But there’s more to this nightmare – in the action-packed Arcade Mode, you’ll need to master the Fight with Light mechanic to stay alive until dawn and beat your friends on the Leaderboards. Can you survive until sunrise?

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Want more Alan Wake? Play the original game

February 22nd 2012 at 6:00 am | Arcade, Marketplace | 17 comments

Content coming soon to the Xbox LIVE Marketplace

Here is a look at some of the upcoming content scheduled for the Xbox LIVE Marketplace.*

See the blog post I’ll make for many of these for pricing and/or regional availability and follow me on Twitter for updates.

*As with all game related releases, dates, prices and availability are subject to change and vary by region.

February 21st 2012 at 6:00 am | Arcade, Avatar Marketplace, Deal, Demo, Game Add-on, Marketplace, Xbox 360 Games On Demand | 51 comments

Arcade: Warp

The Xbox LIVE Arcade House Party kicks off today with the release of Warp.

Content: Warp
Price: 800 Microsoft Points
Availability: Check availability in your Xbox LIVE region
Dash Text: Warp™ is a puzzle based stealth action game where gamers play as Zero, a loveable yet lethal, little orange alien with a big score to settle. Abducted by a villainous General from his home world and taken to an underwater research facility, Zero must plan his ultimate escape by relying on his arsenal of special abilities.

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February 15th 2012 at 6:08 am | Arcade, Marketplace | 18 comments

Arcade: Gotham City Imposters

Content: Gotham City Imposters
Price: 1200 Microsoft Points
Availability: Check availability in your Xbox LIVE region
Dash Text: A 6 vs. 6 first person shooter, Gotham City Impostors is a multiplayer game unlike any other, giving players the opportunity to rebel against conformity as they customize their own characters. Posing as amateur vigilantes or villains, gamers create their own Bats and The Jokerz characters using unprecedented customization options including insane costumes, homebrewed gadgets and a wide range of traditional and imagined weapons.

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February 8th 2012 at 6:40 am | Arcade | 50 comments

Arcade: Shank 2

Content: Shank 2
Price: 800 Microsoft Points
Availability: Check availability in your Xbox LIVE region
Dash Text: The fan-favorite 2D brawler is back in action with Shank™2. Shank is forced on the offensive wielding his trusty arsenal of weapons and combo moves to protect those close to him. Shank™2 raises the bar from the original, creating an amazing comic book visual style and combat system which redefines the 2D side-scrolling brawler.

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February 8th 2012 at 6:33 am | Arcade | 7 comments

Content coming soon to the Xbox LIVE Marketplace

Here is a look at some of the upcoming content scheduled for the Xbox LIVE Marketplace.*

See the blog post I’ll make for many of these for pricing and/or regional availability and follow me on Twitter for updates.

*As with all game related releases, dates, prices and availability are subject to change and vary by region.

February 7th 2012 at 6:00 am | Arcade, Avatar Marketplace, Deal, Demo, Game Add-on, Xbox 360 Games On Demand | 54 comments

Arcade: The Simpsons Arcade Game

Content: The Simpsons Arcade Game
Price: 800 Microsoft Points
Availability: Check availability in your Xbox LIVE region
Dash Text: The long-awaited home console port of the classic Simpsons arcade game is finally here! Join three of your friends as you chase down Smithers and Mr. Burns on the epic quest to save Maggie. Battle your way through 8 classic Springfield locations in this hilarious blast from the past!

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February 1st 2012 at 7:30 pm | Arcade, Marketplace | 78 comments

Arcade: Double Fine Happy Action Theater

Content: Double Fine Happy Action Theater
Price: 800 Microsoft Points
Availability: Check availability in your Xbox LIVE region
Dash Text: Are you annoyed at how little magic you are able to shoot from your fingers? Have you ever tried to get grandma to do the worm, but all she would do is just stand there? Have you ever noticed how your living room doesn’t have any hot lava in it? And who designed this living room anyway?! It doesn’t even have any buildings to smash! Well, Double Fine Happy Action Theater can solve all of these problems and more! You will also be able to clone yourself or hang out in a plate of jelly if you want. And when you’re done with that, maybe you will want to feed some pigeons or have a snowball fight. There are 18 amazing ways that Double Fine Action Theater will enhance your life! And up to 5 of your friends’ lives too! (ages 2 to 102)

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Note: You’ll need Kinect to enjoy this game

February 1st 2012 at 6:07 am | Arcade, Marketplace | 27 comments

Arcade: Rhythm Party

Content: Rhythm Party
Price: 800 Microsoft Points
Availability: Check availability in your Xbox LIVE region
Dash Text: "Rhythm Party" is a rhythm action game developed exclusively for Kinect on Xbox LIVE Arcade! Brought to you by the "Dance Masters" development team, it transforms your entire body into a controller. No need for choreography anymore. You’re the choreographer and the dancer! When your body appears at the center of the screen, just dance! Game play is simple: Use your arms and legs to hit the Ripples in time with the rhythm while you create an original performance. Your performance skills are the key! With a soundtrack recorded largely in collaboration with top international artists, and different special effects for every song, this game is guaranteed to get your body moving and your blood pumping!

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Note: You’ll need Kinect to enjoy this game

February 1st 2012 at 6:04 am | Arcade, Marketplace | 4 comments

Arcade: Quarrel

Content: Quarrel
Price: 400 Microsoft Points
Availability: Check availability in your Xbox LIVE region
Dash Text: QUARREL is the most novel word game ever made. But don’t just take our word for it – grab it now and enter a universe where WORDS (11 points) literally speak louder than ACTIONS (8 points). Use a cool combination of word power and strategic cunning to crush your opponents and reign supreme. Come settle your differences with wordplay rather than swordplay; make verbal not chemical weapons; load up with letters not bullets and use chatter to batter your enemies into submission and rule the world. Compete to use your troops to make the highest-scoring word from the letters given then capture territories and conquer islands in this wholly original virtual board game.

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January 25th 2012 at 6:12 am | Arcade, Marketplace | 15 comments

Arcade: Puddle

Content: Puddle
Price: 800 Microsoft Points
Availability: Check availability in your Xbox LIVE region
Dash Text: What began as a student project that won a Student Showcase prize at Independent Gaming Festival at GDC 2010 is now a full-fledged downloadable game experience like nothing you’ve ever played before. Guide puddles of fluid through a variety of novel, themed environments (the human body, a garden, a foundry, and more). But to do so, you must tilt the environment, balancing each fluid’s unique properties with the environmental factors of gravity, friction, and each course’s obstacles.

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January 25th 2012 at 6:08 am | Arcade, Marketplace | 8 comments

Content coming soon to the Xbox LIVE Marketplace

Here is a look at some of the upcoming content scheduled for the Xbox LIVE Marketplace.*

See the blog post I’ll make for many of these for pricing and/or regional availability and follow me on Twitter for updates.

*As with all game related releases, dates, prices and availability are subject to change and vary by region.

January 24th 2012 at 6:00 am | Arcade, Deal, Demo, Game Add-on, Xbox 360 Games On Demand | 66 comments

Xbox LIVE Arcade House Party Dates and Prices

Earlier this month at  CES, we announced the line up of House Party titles and today I am happy to share with you the full release schedule and prices.*

PLUS To make the most of your blockbuster game bash, all party goers will receive 800 Microsoft Points when you buy all four participating House Party games from February 15 – March 13.**

Title	Release Date	Price
	February 15, 2012	800 Points
	February 22, 2012	1200 Points
	February 29, 2012	800 Points
	March 7, 2012	1200 Points

*This is the current release schedule for House Party titles. As with everything game release related, dates and prices are subject to change.

**Not valid in Japan, Korea or Italy

January 23rd 2012 at 10:00 am | Arcade | 45 comments

Arcade: Haunt

Content: Haunt
Price: 800 Microsoft Points
Availability: Check availability in your Xbox LIVE region
Dash Text: Welcome to Benjy’s Mansion – a spooky haunted house where you are the first visitor for a generation! Haunt leverages the power of Kinect to enable you to freely explore the house using just your body as the controller – you’ll need to stay on your toes in order to outsmart the mansion’s host of fiendish ghosts and unravel the sinister secrets that shroud the mansion in mystery!

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Note: You’ll need Kinect to enjoy this game

January 18th 2012 at 6:48 am | Arcade, Marketplace | 19 comments

Arcade: Scarygirl

Content: Scarygirl
Price: 1200 Microsoft Points
Availability: Check availability in your Xbox LIVE region
Dash Text: Scarygirl is a wondrous adventure through a beautifully-bizarre world based on the Scarygirl graphic novel created by acclaimed artist Nathan Jurevicius. Scarygirl, an abandoned girl, dressed like a pirate, with a tentacle arm, is sent on a quest to discover what happened to the Tree of Knowledge. Along the way, she’ll be aided by a giant octopus, a mystical kung-fu rabbit, and vendors who sell new attacks. She can also enter a shadowy version of the world to unleash truly wicked attacks.

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January 18th 2012 at 6:48 am | Arcade, Marketplace | 37 comments

Arcade: Choplifter HD

Content: Choplifter HD
Price: 1200 Microsoft Points
Availability: Check availability in your Xbox LIVE region
Dash Text: In Choplifter HD, players take on the role of an up and coming rescue pilot asked to join the elite, international helicopter rescue team. Pilots will be trained to command a variety of helicopters with offensive capabilities including missiles and mini-guns, as well as a very vocal co-pilot. Combining reality with elements of fantasy, the more than 30 rescue missions will range from captured military prisoner extraction to saving survivors of viral outbreaks

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January 11th 2012 at 6:00 am | Arcade, Marketplace | 26 comments

Arcade: AMY

Content: AMY
Price: 800 Microsoft Points
Availability: Check availability in your Xbox LIVE region
Dash Text: The city is infected! Walking corpses sniff the air, flaring out anything still alive. There is only one thing keeping you from running for your life. A special little girl holds your hand… You’re not going anywhere without her. AMY offers you a tense, innovative and immersive experience in survival horror gaming. Play two original characters who alone are desperately fragile, but united become a force capable of confronting the denizens of a living hell. Get ready to become infected.

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January 11th 2012 at 5:59 am | Arcade, Marketplace | 46 comments

House Party & Must Have Games Details

Building on a legacy of the best downloadable games for your console and smartphone, Xbox LIVE Arcade House Party and Xbox LIVE Must Have Games are both back by popular demand and will launch this February. If you’re at CES, you can check out these games in the Microsoft booth, although you’ll have to wait just a bit longer for the full experience.

Xbox LIVE Arcade House Party

Beginning Feb. 15, Xbox LIVE will deliver four back-to-back releases of the best downloadable games, with one new title a week. Xbox LIVE Arcade House Party provides ongoing fun for you and your friends, in your living room and across the globe, bringing four more of the most highly anticipated titles to your Xbox 360 console. The latest House Party title line-up includes:

Alan Wake’s American Nightmare (Microsoft Studios): In this brand-new stand-alone experience, Alan Wake fights the herald of darkness, the evil Mr. Scratch. A thrilling new storyline, hordes of creepy enemies, serious firepower and beautiful Arizona locations, combined with a fun and challenging new game mode, make this a must for Alan Wake veterans, and the perfect jumping-on point for new players. Can you survive until sunrise?

I Am Alive (Ubisoft): One year after a worldwide cataclysmic event has wiped out most of human civilization, a man struggles for survival. Faced with an insecure, decaying and hazardous world, he scours a desolated city, searching for his long-lost wife and daughter. Survive the suffocating, murky streets covered in dust. Climb the teetering remains of last-standing skyscrapers to reach breathable air and find untouched resources. Explore the crumbling ruins of a once-thriving metropolis. Discover a changed human condition, punctuated by distrustful survivors, dangerous armed gangs and victims in need.

Nexuiz (THQ): For centuries, the Kavussari and the Forsellians have waged war. They have a fragile truce but, because of their seething disgust of each other, still pit warriors against each other in arenas rather than on the fields of war. These episodes of lethal combat are broadcast throughout the galaxy as entertainment — a spectacle known as The Nexuiz Competition — an arena-based first-person shooter where you can alter the rules of the match and the laws of physics while dominating opponents in ever-changing hostile environments.

· Warp (EA): “Warp” is a puzzle-based stealth action game where you play as Zero, a lovable-yet-lethal orange alien with a big score to settle! Captured by the villainous Commander and imprisoned in his underwater facility, Zero must plan his ultimate escape using his arsenal of alien abilities — warp, frag, echo, swap and launch.

Must Have Games for Xbox LIVE on Windows Phone

Once again, Must Have Games brings the biggest names in mobile games to Xbox LIVE for Windows Phone. Kicking off in early February, one smash title will be released each week, complete with Xbox LIVE Achievements, Leaderboards and more. The second wave of Must Have Games for gamers on-the go includes:

BulletAsylum (Microsoft Studios): Annihilate invaders with a wall of firepower in this insane arcade shooter. With an insane amount of firepower at your fingertips, vibrant graphics and an all-you-can-shoot buffet of alien hordes to destroy, “BulletAsylum” will blow you away!

Chickens Can’t Fly (Microsoft Studios): Join the ranks of our scientists and see what chickens are capable of! Countless hours of fun await you: fall down an experimental pit, avoid obstacles, use power-ups and power-downs, gather corn, and make it through to the end. Use the skills you learn to get a high score in Survival Mode and show off to your friends on the Xbox LIVE and global leaderboards.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (Electronic Arts): It’s time to fulfill your need for speed. Drive up to 20 precision-performance cars in adrenaline-fueled showdown across 24 day-and-night tracks. Take it to the limit in 48 total Cop and Racer Career Events, collect bounty, and rise to the top of the ranks.

Splinter Cell Conviction (Gameloft): Unleash the ferocious skills of renegade agent Sam Fisher, a highly skilled Special Forces operative, and fight a corrupted secret agency to get your daughter back. Run, jump, fight and shoot using a handgun, a shotgun, an AK-47 assault rifle and a bazooka, or maintain stealth by improvising with nearby objects. You are now a renegade spy agent; you don’t follow any orders except for your own rules of engagement.

Toy Soldiers: Boot Camp (Microsoft Studios): Wage war on a tiny scale in “Toy Soldiers: Boot Camp,” which brings the fun and addictive shooting gallery mini-games from Xbox 360’s “Toy Soldiers: Cold War” to your Windows Phone.

January 10th 2012 at 10:00 am | Arcade, Windows Phone | 50 comments

Arcade: NFL Blitz

Content: NFL Blitz
Price: 1200 Microsoft Points
Availability: North America
Dash Text: The big hits and stellar plays are back with all-new NFL Blitz. Featuring a combination of the arcade-style gameplay that made the original a hit and the deep, immersive game modes of today, NFL Blitz is recharged with an energetic, football gaming experience. Whether battling your rival in a 7-on-7 grudge match, fighting your way through a season of the Blitz Gauntlet, or taking over the online Battle Boards in Blitz Battles, Every Game Is a Two-Minute Drill with NFL Blitz!

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January 4th 2012 at 6:00 am | Arcade, Marketplace | 31 comments

Arcade: Zombies Must Die!

Content: Zombies Must Die!
Price: 800 Microsoft Points
Availability: Check availability in your Xbox LIVE region
Dash Text: Go on! Do it! Spend those points! Hurry up!: time is of the essence. Someone has to take care of all those zombies and who better to do that than a gifted gamer like yourself! Think – in a short while – you could be blasting your way through ranks of brain-hungry monsters, making bizarre weapons and completing crazy quests. All that could be yours if you just buy the game! Remember, All Zombies Must Die! We need you!

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December 28th 2011 at 10:16 am | Arcade, Marketplace | 10 comments