As one of the premier developers of shooters for the past two decades, it’s no surprise that Treasure has taken advantage of the opportunity that Xbox Live Arcade presents to offer their games to a much wider audience than ever before. Unlike Ikaruga and Radiant Silvergun, Treasure has worked on sequels to Dreamcast cult hit Bangai-O with the latest iteration coming to XBLA soon. We got a chance to talk to Tim Ramage, Executive Producer on Bangai-O HD: ..read more

Developed by feelplus, this addition to Square Enix’s growing DLC library has received a fair amount of attention namely for being dubbed the “Strider of the 21st century.”  After quite a bit of time with the game, such a statement might need some revising even with Strider’s great Koichi Yotsui at the director’s chair.

What Is It About?

Originally known as Necromachina, Moon Diver is an action-packed sidescrolling beat-em-up that is just about as forgiving as a dictator enforcing stupid rules.  The ..read more

After releasing Ghostbusters: The Video Game in June 2009, Atari is back with the follow-up effort Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime on the XBLA and PSN. An arcade “shooter”, it offers an original story. However, with no Ghostbusters movie release or anniversary to provide a reason for this game’s release, does it have enough to stand out on its own? What’s It About? Sanctum of Slime’s story follows a group of rookie Ghostbusters instead of the characters from the movies. So instead of ..read more

The sequel to the acclaimed remake of Bionic Commando finally adds the ability to jump.

What’s It About?

While Grin’s 3D Bionic Commando may not have done well as Capcom would have liked, their 2.5D remake of the original NES Bionic Commando struck a chord with players the year before and sold really well as a result. Though Grin may be gone, a number of former Grin employees came to Fatshark to work on the follow-up that gives it some ..read more

EA’s latest downloadable title for XBLA and PSN takes the dual-stick shooter genre to some very tiny places that you haven’t seen before.

What’s It About?

MicroBot begins with the microscopic robot under your control being injected into a subject’s body at MicroHexen Research, where previous iterations of this revolutionary medical technology have turned against their makers and are working with the viruses they were created to fight. You’re tasked with ridding this body of those ..read more

Atomic Games is bringing their expertise with wargames to Xbox Live Arcade with Breach, their new online multiplayer first-person shooter.

What’s It About?

With multiplayer first-person shooters being all the rage right now, it’s no surprise to see some of them coming to the downloadable realm. Breach attempts to differentiate itself from the Call of Duty and Battlefield games that dominate the genre by taking more of a realistic approach to the way you play the game. That approach includes ..read more

The original Dead Space was an uncharacteristic risk for EA to take, but it paid dividends. The IP is now a successful, multi-million dollar franchise. Dead Space’s fresh take on survival horror led to many awards as well as a prequel and apparently a movie is in the works. With the hotly anticipated Dead Space 2 launching early in 2011, EA has teamed up with Visceral Games and Sumo Digital to deliver Ignition as a holdover in the ..read more

Twisted Pixel Games is back with Comic Jumper, their latest XBLA game that is a side-scrolling shooter about a superhero whose comic has been canceled and must be earned back by jumping into other comics to deserve the return of his own series.

What’s It About?

Comic Jumper’s origins come from the middle school doodles of Twisted Pixel developer Josh Bear, who came up with the Captain Smiley superhero and sidekick Star, a talking star on his chest that resents ..read more

When the Sega Dreamcast launched on September 9th 1999 it did so with a handful of games. Some of them were excellent arcade translations like Soul Calibur and Hydro Thunder, and others were less than stellar, like TrickStyle. The one game everyone seems to remember is Sonic Adventure. Eleven years later Sonic Adventure is now available for download via Xbox Live and PlayStation Network. Is it a good reminder of times past?

What’s It About?

Dr. Eggman (Robotnik) ..read more

PopCap Games’ latest addictive game made a big splash on the PC last summer, as Plants vs. Zombies became a hugely successful tower defense game that took a new approach to the genre. Now PopCap has brought the popular PC game to Xbox Live Arcade with some new features while trying to keep the same addictive experience intact. What’s It About?

The title may give the intricate plot away as you’re trying to prevent hordes of zombies from getting into ..read more

To give some background on Dead Rising 2, Capcom and Blue Castle Games has been working on an XBLA prologue for their upcoming sequel to the popular zombie sandbox game. Dead Rising 2: Case Zero offers a quick look into what you should expect from Dead Rising 2 as you get to explore a remote desert town that is infested with zombies, which is a good proof of concept and is well worth the $5 for this XBLA ..read more

We always like to see developers reward their fans with free things, even before their latest game has even come out. Shank developer Klei Entertainment spread word earlier today that they would release the soundtrack for their upcoming XBLA and PSN brawler once the amount of fans on their Facebook page surpassed 1500 fans. The only problem is that Klei underestimated the response they would get, so the soundtrack was not ready for release when they passed 1500 fans. While you ..read more

When we first heard of a multiplayer-focused Castlevania game slated to come out as an XBLA game during this year’s Summer of Arcade, we were skeptical to see whether or not the tried and true action/adventure style could work as a multiplayer game. For the most part, Castlevania: Harmony of Despair works, though the game does have a few rough edges.

First and foremost, we need to establish that this game really doesn’t have much of a story ..read more

As the hack-and-slash loot RPG genre is getting a revival on the PC with the release of Torchlight and the upcoming Diablo 3, the consoles haven’t seen much of the genre lately outside of some hybrids like Patapon and Borderlands. Hothead Games and Ron Gilbert are bringing the genre to XBLA and PSN with the kind of humorous spin that you’d expect from the creator of the Monkey Island series.

DeathSpank stars a hero named DeathSpank who is ..read more

Before the silhouette platformer becomes a crowded subgenre, it’s nice to have one game that sets the bar extremely high for the followers that are inevitably on the way. Limbo features a mix of platforming, puzzles, style, tension, and brutality that is a rare sight these days on XBLA or any platform these days. Limbo kicks off Summer of Arcade in style with a great game that manages to pack in equal parts style and substance into one ..read more

Microsoft announced last week that Destination Arcade would be released for everyone in the US to download when Summer of Arcade started next week, but Major Nelson has announced today that it would only be available to until Summer of Arcade ends on August 18. We really don’t understand this either.

Destination Arcade is the newest app for the Xbox 360 dashboard that was supposed to make the growing library of Xbox Live Arcade games a lot easier to ..read more

Ah, spring. We’re bordering on summer. It’s the perfect time for… football. Yes, in the thick of NBA and NHL playoff runs, and with baseball picking up steam, Tecmo has released Tecmo Bowl Throwback for Xbox Live (PlayStation Network has to deal with waiting for a bit). Note the “throwback” portion of the title. It signifies it’s not a straight port of Tecmo Super Bowl and is instead a slightly updated version.

What you’ll be getting is essentially what you got ..read more

Mommy’s Best Games is an indie development studio consisting of a handful of gaming enthusiasts with plenty of industry experience, and Shoot  1UP is a product of their unique mix of talents from the Ratchet & Clank, and controversial Postal series. Don’t let the fact that you won’t be able to up your gamerscore with this game (as Xbox Live Indie games lack achievements), Shoot  1UP is undoubtedly worth your time, and it will only cost you $1.

Opening ..read more