Tag: Xbla
Feature Game of the Year - Staff Lists
Another year bites the dust
With just a few days left in 2014, we thought it would be the perfect time for Pure Xbox to put a Game of the Year list out in the wild. Instead of featuring a single list of games voted on by our entire team of writers (like we did for our Most Wanted Games of 2015 article), we've instead decided to feature each writer's...
Partners in cute
Juju is a total surprise. When a platformer such as this comes out of nowhere with little to no promotion behind it, it’s tough not to expect that it will be another dud that deserves to disappear into the darkest corner of the Xbox Live Marketplace. But then we got our hands on it, and within minutes it was apparent that this is...
Exclusive Guess What? Your 100% Save File In Guacamelee: STCE Isn't Quite Complete
DrinkBox spills the beans about the "Super Secret Meme Room"
Sure, 100% completion status sounds like you've done and seen everything a game has to offer, does it not? But with Guacamelee: Super Turbo Championship Edition (STCE), that's just not the case. Since the launch of STCE, the game's Level Designer, Jason Canam, has been teasing this...
News Games With Gold Gets Refreshed Today With Two Free Games
Let's fight, shall we?
What's better than getting a free game? TWO free games, of course! Microsoft has refreshed Games With Gold on Xbox 360 today, replacing the punishing and challenging Dark Souls with two brawlers — Charlie Murder and Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition. Charlie Murder is a 4 player beat-em-up with a punk rock aesthetic,...
Review Blood of The Werewolf (Xbox 360)
Murder, she wrote
Blood of the Werewolf is a tough-as-nails action platformer that marries core genre conventions with modern mechanics and ideas. If you took the "try, die, repeat" appeal of Super Meat Boy, the gothic themes of Castlevania, and combat elements similar to those in Final Exam, you’d have a reasonable idea of what to expect here...
Feature Ways to Satisfy Your Thirst for Adrenaline While Waiting for Trials Fusion
10-ish games that certainly aren't caffeine-free
While Trials HD may have taught us about persistence and anguish – in the most feel-good, rewarding way possible – it was the sequel, Trials Evolution, that turned us into hardcore adrenaline junkies. Reset after reset, while learning the art of transforming trip-up into triumph, we found it...
Feature These Are The Xbox Games Coming In April
Will we be showered in greatness?
After a slow start to 2014, March showed up and had us putting in overtime with our Xbox consoles. It was all thanks to games like South Park: The Stick of Truth, Dark Souls II, Thief, Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes, and Titanfall — which were all either fantastic or, at the very least, good enough to be worth a...
Review Max: The Curse of Brotherhood (Xbox One)
Artful or awful?
Let’s get this out of the way first: prepare to die a lot in Max: The Curse of Brotherhood. Press Play’s latest puzzle platformer will test your patience with its “trial-and-error” approach and finicky controls — which often led to Max plunging to his death more times than we could count. With that being said, Max’s...
A point of view.
When it comes to ticking all the indie boxes, someone at intriguingly named developer Quantum Astrophysicists Guild seems to have had a long old list to run through when it comes to The Bridge. From furnishing the game with a black and white pencil sketch art style, via allowing you to fast-rewind time with a simple button press,...
No flunking here
Before playing Final Exam, we’d heard it be described as a sidescrolling Left 4 Dead, and, in all honesty, that’s a fairly apt comparison; it’s a 4-player zombie slayer with online co-op, a level set in a subway, and a massive, hulking enemy called a Tank. Superficial, skin-deep comparisons aside, Mighty Rocket Studio’s...
Psi-what?
You can safely bet from the cover art and screenshots to Girl Fight what sort of game you're getting yourself in to. Kung Fu Factory shows no shame in taking what gamers secretly wanted in Dead or Alive all along: remove all of the male fighters and put a strong emphasis on beautiful, digital vixens with odd fashion senses and a refusal to...
Review World Series of Poker: Full House Pro (Xbox 360)
Fold 'em.
When Full House Poker hit Xbox Live Arcade back in 2011, it had one thing that other play-money poker games did not – Texas Heat. For those who never played it, Texas Heat was a gameshow-style poker tournament, presented on a schedule. Each half-hour “show” consisted of three levels of play, with better (or luckier) players being...
Review Disney Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse (Xbox 360)
Mostly Magical
Castle of Illusion isn’t the straight remake of the 1990 Sega Genesis original that you may have expected it to be. While some levels are largely the same, others are completely retooled, with new illusions and tricks around every turn. But worry not, retro purists, the same wondrous environments and engulfing atmospheres remain...
Review Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of The Shadows (Xbox 360)
It's not a party, dude.
When Out of the Shadows was unveiled back in March of this year, fans were in an uproar about the new look of their beloved Turtles. Instead of going the cartoony route of the current TMNT series on Nickelodeon, developer Red Fly Studios was presenting something a bit more mature, with the Turtles faces actually resembling...
Review Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (Xbox 360)
Brotherly Love
The very definition of a “video game” has changed in recent years – evolved even – from the uprise and mass acceptance of indie development. We're seeing developers use video games as a new medium to tell evocative and intelligent narratives without normal, traditional gaming conventions. That exact sentiment can easily be...
Review Cloudberry Kingdom (Xbox 360)
Painfully Pleasing
Cloudberry Kingdom is platforming insanity, and it fully exposes itself for what it is before even allowing you to reach the main menu. Upon booting the game you’re welcomed to a video that shows the main character, Bob, traversing the most densely packed environments you’ll likely ever see in a side-scrolling platformer...
Review Charlie Murder (Xbox 360)
Hybrid Moments
Charlie Murder is unabashedly punk rock; it is what it wants to be, and doesn't care if you like it. That’s something we can commend, even if it doesn't always work out for the best. Charlie and his band of misfits are on a mission to stop a rival metal band, Gore Quaffer - and their army of minions - from being the most rockin'...
Review DuckTales Remastered (Xbox 360)
Rewriting History
Back in 1989, the original DuckTales was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System to great acclaim, and set a new standard for what could be expected of a licensed game. Even to this day, it's so highly regarded by many, that the retro-tastic people of WayForward and Capcom decided to give it a fresh coat of paint, and...
Space madness
Capsized is a 2D adventure-platformer with similarities to Super Metroid in its atmosphere and some of its mechanics, but at the same time retains a style and feel all of its own. Instead of a sprawling, interconnected world, you move from level to level completing various objectives; such as simply reaching an exit, destroying sacred...
Doom and gloom or a perfect storm?
Storm tries so desperately hard to be that soothing, relaxing gameplay experience. Something that can be picked up and played at someone's leisure after a stressful day at work. On paper, Storm has the makings of an indie hit and the folks at IndiePub do convey some rather interesting ideas. Unfortunately,...
Throw it into the flames.
Arcade racing games are tough to get right. For many years, they’ve been viewed as being something of a safe bet. Put some crazy characters in some even crazier vehicles, throw in some sort of apparently unique selling point, and the job is done. Or so you’d think, given the amount of titles that fit that description...
Review Aqua Kitty - Milk Mine Defender (Xbox 360)
Nearly Purrfect
Aqua Kitty is a game about cats harvesting milk from the floor of the ocean. Turns out, it’s the only place left to obtain the delectable drink, and these kitties are so dependent on it that they’ll overcome their fear of something they despise even more than dogs – mass amounts of water. Mining operations are now fully...
Review Telltale Games' Poker Night 2 (Xbox 360)
Hold 'em or fold 'em?
If you’re making a game about poker, you should really focus on the getting the features of the actual cardplaying right – or at least up to speed with your competition – before throwing in characters from a bunch of franchises, and a witty script. That doesn’t seem to be what’s gone here, though. Poker Night 2...
By the beard of Zeus!
Sometimes, it can be good to settle in with a game that attempts to do away with the hours of cutscenes and hundreds of pages of story scripts that most modern titles come bundled with, and just get down to the core of things. That’s what God Mode attempts to do, throwing the player directly into a third-person shooting fest...
Review Sacred Citadel (Xbox 360)
Old-school meets new-school.
Back when the excellent Castle Crashers released in 2008, the gameplay contained within the adorably-designed package was something of a revelation. You could have a number of characters on the go at a time, playing through the game as each of them in turn as you tried to get them all levelled up to the point of being...
Review Motocross Madness (Xbox 360)
Back once again...
Back in the day, Motocross Madness was a technically impressive, addictive PC game that did away with the narrow borders of conventional racing games, providing a relatively open world for the player to barrel through. The last entry in the series – Motocross Madness 3 for the original Xbox – was a bit of a stinker when...
News Telltale's "The Wolf Among Us" Coming This Summer
Episodic title based on Fables comic series.
Telltale Games has confirmed that they'll be bringing their game based on the Fables comic book series - The Wolf Among Us to Xbox Live Arcade this summer. The game revolves around the life of Bigby Wolf - a fairy tale character - and is set in New York City. Bigby's role is to keep other fairy tale...
News Kinect Party to be Free Until 2013
Double Fine by us!
Major Nelson has just dropped some knowledge on us that confirms that Double Fine's next Kinect title - Kinect Party will launch on December 18th on Xbox Live Arcade. Not only that, friends, but it'll be FREE up until December 31st. That's right! You'll be able to get your hands on the new game - which features eighteen...
