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#skullgirls You just know the team at Reverge Games have been giggling to themselves for the past week in anticipation of today's reveal of Nurse Valentine, the Skullgirls fighter with a prescription for pain. More »

Skulls of the Shogun has been teasing us with cartoonish, captivating strategy since 2010, and as its previous release window of "early 2012" is rapidly passing us by, we can finally take heart in some solid news. Developer Haunted Temple Studios says it's "pretty confident" that Skulls of the Shogun will launch on XBLA in the fall.

Haunted Temple has been busy adding "a couple very cool features" and "a new platform," it says in response to a fan's inquiry on Facebook, and we can expect an official announcement with more information in the coming weeks.

When Alan Wake makes his second appearance on the Xbox 360 this year in Alan Wake's American Nightmare, he's bringing more than just his flair for writing and a new set of clothes to the fight. He'll have ... umm ... a nail gun, too!

Sanctum 2, the sequel to Coffee Stain Studios' hybrid tower defense and first-person co-op shooter, is expected to launch sometime next year Joystiq can exclusively reveal. The first Sanctum, which has sold over 300,000 units on Steam, was a PC-exclusive title. The sequel is planned for PC and "digital console platforms," with Xbox Live and PSN specifically mentioned.

"Sanctum has been a huge success on Steam for Coffee Stain Studios, and bringing the next version to console players as well as the PC market is a great next step to share this unique experience," said Ted Lange, executive producer for Reverb Publishing. "We all have logged quite a few hours with Sanctum and can definitively say that what Coffee Stain has in store for Sanctum 2 will blow the minds of Sanctum fans and new gamers alike."

Beyond revealing the title to us, along with a release year, details are still tight on Sanctum 2. Doug Kennedy, CEO of Reverb Publishing, told us, "The team is diligently working to get the title ready."

Update: After receiving new information, altered 2012 launch window to 2013. That may be a "delay" record.

Sanctum 2, the sequel to Coffee Stain Studios' hybrid tower defense and first-person co-op shooter, is expected to launch sometime this year Joystiq can exclusively reveal. The first Sanctum, which has sold over 300,000 units on Steam, was a PC-exclusive title. The sequel is planned for PC and "digital console platforms," with Xbox Live and PSN specifically mentioned.

"Sanctum has been a huge success on Steam for Coffee Stain Studios, and bringing the next version to console players as well as the PC market is a great next step to share this unique experience," said Ted Lange, executive producer for Reverb Publishing. "We all have logged quite a few hours with Sanctum and can definitively say that what Coffee Stain has in store for Sanctum 2 will blow the minds of Sanctum fans and new gamers alike."

Beyond revealing the title to us, along with a release year, details are still tight on Sanctum 2. Doug Kennedy, CEO of Reverb Publishing, told us, "The team is diligently working to get the title ready."

XBLA Fans has done an exhaustive analysis of Xbox Live Arcade sales, Metacritic scores, and trends over the past few years in a four-part writeup. The most interesting finding in the article, in our estimation, is how the perception of rising prices squares with reality. Yes, there are more 1200 point ($15) games being released on the service as compared to previous years, but there are more 800 point ($10) games coming out as well, and there are more of those than $15 games. The average is rising overall, but it hasn't yet reached the 1200 point mark, even if that price is being assigned to some of the more high profile (and high quality) games on the service.

The quality of the Summer of Arcade, on the other hand, is dropping overall, according to the average price and Metacritic score. In 2008, the first year the promotion existed, the games had an average Metacritic score of 84.8, with an average price of 960 points. This past year, however, the Metacritic score dropped to 78.8 (which still isn't too bad), but the average price was at 1120. This is purely mathematical, remember: The games are probably more complex these days, which allows Microsoft to set a higher price, and reviews on any site are subjective.

Finally, XBLA Fans found 73% of titles on XBLA have gone on sale within their first year, though many of the games on XBLA were only on sale for a day or so. That means that patient XBLA buyers can save a lot of money, if they pay attention and move quickly. There are a few other interesting conclusions in the analysis as a whole, and lots of insight on how Microsoft's Arcade has developed over the past few years.

Gotham City Impostors is launching February 7 on North American PSN and PCs everywhere, and on February 8 for Xbox Live and PSNs across the globe. If you can't play it on the first release day, don't feel too bad -- it just means those systems and regions are better at lying, cheating and ensnaring the Batman.

Given the joyous nature of Double Fine's latest, we figured a friendly reminder was in order. Happy Action Theater is now available on Xbox Live, reining in 18 different Kinect mini-games and supporting up to six simultaneous players. You can pick up your ticket (it's a theater, get it?) for $10.

After pushing back its crazy shooter concept, Hybrid, to a 2012 launch window, Scrriblenauts dev 5th Cell is once more ready to talk about the forthcoming Xbox Live Arcade game. First things first: Hybrid is now scheduled for a summer 2012 launch window. Hooray!

Moreover, 5th Cell is promising a variety of major updates as a result of the delay time. Said promises include locking the shooter's framerate at 60FPS, a redesigned look, and a new twist on the in-air movement. Take a look at the improvements with the latest media straight from 5th Cell, above and below.

#trials PC games leak all the time. Even console games eventually turn up on torrent sites once their discs are pressed. But an Xbox Live Arcade game getting out, and one which isn't that close to release, that's a little stranger. More »

We've read the books, we've seen the TV shows and celebrated the films. Whether it's a skirmish with the neighborhood bullies or full-on worldwide war, everyone knows that you need to have a Keanu Reeves-type person on your side if you hope to win.

Yes, that's from South Park, but it doesn't make it any less true. And in the Xbox Live Arcade port of Anomaly Warzone Earth, everything rests on the shoulders of one man: the commander.

The Silent Hill HD Collection is set to launch for retailers on March 6, containing remastered versions of Silent Hill 2 and 3 on a single disc, in the same distribution pattern as the Metal Gear Solid and Zone of the Enders collections -- that much we knew. But new PEGI ratings suggest Konami also plans to release Silent Hill 2 HD and Silent Hill 3 HD separately, most likely through XBLA and PSN, just as it did with the previous collections.

March is Silent Hill madness month, with the HD Collection hitting March 6, Silent Hill: Downpour on March 13, and the Vita's Book of Memories on March 27.

One thing we know Dead Island is extraordinarily good at is its trailers. The latest undead reel, seen above, explains the coming military-based, accented Ryder White DLC, hitting North America's XBLA and PSN January 31 for $9.99 (800 MS Points), and Europe on February 1 for £7.99.

1986 marked a legendary era in humanity's astronomical focus. Russia launched the Mir space station, Halley's Comet lit up Earth's February skies, the Antarctic ozone hole came under intense scrutiny, and America's Challenger space shuttle exploded in a fiery cloud 73 seconds after launch, killing all seven of the astronauts on board in clear view of their family, friends and the world.

1986 is also the era that Tequila Works' chose for its upcoming horror-puzzle platformer (coming to XBLA this summer), Deadlight. The two aspects could be completely unrelated, of course, if Tequila Works CEO and creative director Raul Rubio hadn't gone out of his way to mention the astronomical significance of the year to Deadlight's larger, seemingly robust story in an interview with Joystiq.

"The choice of the time frame was not random at all," Rubio said. "If you think about it, 1986 was the year that had a lot of lunar events. And if you put that with movies like First Blood or Day of the Dead, it's a strange mix and you can get a unique visual."

Rambo: First Blood and Day of the Dead both came out in the '80s, one as a hyperbolic action film and the other a zombie cult classic, and Deadlight draws on both of these tropes in a unique way, Rubio told us.

We knew that Warp, Alan Wake's American Nightmare, Nexuiz, and I Am Alive would be participating in Microsoft's 2012 Xbox Live Arcade House Party promo, and we knew that the party would start on February 15, but we didn't have a clue as to how the specifics of the boogeying would progress. Today, Microsoft revealed that Warp will be the party's first attendee, arriving on February 15 for the nice price of 800 MS Points ($10), followed up in the proceeding three weeks by Alan Wake's American sojourn, the almost-but-not-quite-Quake multiplayer shooter Nexuiz, and one man's journey through the depths of human survival in I Am Alive.

Like Warp, Nexuiz will only cost 800 MS Points ($10), while the other two titles will run 1200 MS Points a pop ($15). As always with these XBLA promos, Microsoft is offering an extra 800 free MS Points to anyone who grabs all four games within a defined time period (between Feb. 15 and Mar. 13 in this case). As for what to do with those extra points ... well, might we suggest hanging onto it for the upcoming launch of Fez? 'Cause that's totally what we're doing.

Wondering how Trials Evolution's multiplayer mode plays out? Based on the latest gameplay video from developer RedLynx and publisher Microsoft Studios, it's not the disaster of physics we envisioned.

What is Deadlight? That's a good question. And other than telling you it's an Xbox Live Arcade game being published my Microsoft Studios and developed by Tequila Works, we wouldn't be able to do much in the way of answering said question.

Well, that's not entirely true. Tequila Works' website also includes a blurb describing the game as an "original cinematic puzzle platformer." It stars a lone man named Randall Wayne who's stumbling around the American West Coast in 1986 after a pandemic has killed off the rest of the population. We've yet to see the game in action, but it sounds to be puzzle rather than combat-focused.

The XBLA title is set to arrive sometime this coming summer, and we're certainly hoping to learn a bit more about it before then.

There has to a be a Yakov Smirnoff joke here, we just can't figure out what it is. "Rise of the Martian Bear" still remains without an official release date.

GameTrailers has posted a handful of new videos on Alan Wake's American Nightmare. In the first video (embedded above), Remedy's Oskari Häkinnen discusses the game and its creation. One of the more interesting tidbits he revealed is that the average run through the campaign should last around four to five hours, depending on how much of the optional content you choose to pursue.

You'll find two more videos after the break. The first is a walkthrough of Ghost Town, one of American Nightmare's 'Fight till Dawn" (i.e. Horde Mode) maps. The second is a campaign walkthrough which we refuse to watch because, frankly, we don't want to spoil a single moment before the game launches during Microsoft's Xbox Live House Party event.

GameTrailers has posted a handful of new videos on Alan Wake's American Nightmare. In the first video (embedded above), Remedy's Oskari Häkinnen discusses the game and its creation. One of the more interesting tidbits he revealed is that the average run through the campaign should last around four to five hours, depending on how much of the optional content a player chooses to pursue.

After the break, find two more videos. The first is a walkthrough of Ghost Town, one of American Nightmare's 'Fight till Dawn" (i.e. Horde Mode) maps. The second is a campaign walkthrough which we refuse to watch because, frankly, we don't want to spoil a single moment before the game launches during Microsoft's Xbox Live House Party event.

Nostalgia is, to use the vernacular of Rick James, a helluva drug. We're all addicted to it -- whether it's an old movie, your old stomping grounds or any number of things from your past, we all don the rose-colored glasses from time to time and, on occasion, suffer disappointment.

Video games are no stranger to nostalgia, and the disappointment of discovering that something isn't as good as you remember is most bountiful when revisiting classic titles. Often times when we revisit an older game we've always cherished, we find it just doesn't hold up. NFL Blitz is EA's successful attempt to prove that the classic arcade football experience originally created by Midway is as fun today as it was back in 1997.

Choplifter HD, the remake of the hostage-saving helicopter action classic, will begin its landing next week. The game will hit PC and PSN on January 10, while the XBLA release will follow on January 11.

Interested virtual pilots (or people really obsessed with Duke Nukem or Super Meat Boy) will be able to snag Choplifter HD for $15.

In Haunt, Parappa the Rapper developer Nana-OnSha's upcoming Xbox Live Arcade game, players will use Kinect to direct a main NPC voiced by Tim Schafer around a spooky, and somewhat goofy, haunted house -- that much we knew. And in a recent interview with Gamasutra, executive producer Masaya Matsuura and producer Dewi Tanner revealed how the main character came to be voiced by the Double Fine head and well-known goofy gentleman.

"He's very, very interesting for it," Masaya said when asked about Schafer's participation. Apparently the main character's voice had already been recorded, but after hearing Schafer's speech at a GDC "Choice Awards" ceremony, the Nana-OnSha folks reconsidered. "We talked about 'maybe something is missed,' still," Matsuura said. "And one day you told me about how Tim would be a good voiceover actor," he added to Tanner.

Tanner said that Tim's time was understandably constrained, being the head of another game studio and all, but the team "managed to squeeze him in nonetheless ... a couple of afternoons and we were pretty much done." Tanner also pointed out that Haunt isn't exactly a serious endeavor, and Schafer's "passé humor" was perfect for the role. The game is still absent a solid launch date, but it's probably safe to say it's gonna miss its previously scheduled 2011 release window. Tanner teased in the interview that, "We're just winding up the game right now; things are looking clean right now, so it should be a smooth submission." So, uh, soon-ish!

Update: This piece originally listed Tim Schafer as the main character in Haunt, rather than the main NPC. It also listed Masaya Matsuura as the creative lead, rather than executive producer. Our apologies!

[Image credit: 'skwathill']

In Haunt, Parappa the Rapper developer Nana-OnSha's upcoming Xbox Live Arcade game, players will use Kinect to direct a main character voiced by Tim Schafer around a spooky, and somewhat goofy, haunted house -- that much we knew. And in a recent interview with Gamasutra, creative lead Masaya Matsuura and producer Dewi Tanner revealed how the main character came to be voiced by the Double Fine head and well-known goofy gentleman.

"He's very, very interesting for it," Masaya said when asked about Schafer's participation. Apparently the main character's voice had already been recorded, but after hearing Schafer's speech at the GDC "Choice Awards," the Nana-OnSha folks reconsidered. "We talked about 'maybe something is missed,' still," Matsuura said. "And one day you told me about how Tim would be a good voiceover actor," he added to Tanner.

Tanner said that Tim's time was understandably constrained, being the head of another game studio and all, but the team "managed to squeeze him in nonetheless ... a couple of afternoons and were pretty much done." Tanner also pointed out that Haunt isn't exactly a serious endeavor, and Schafer's "passé humor" was perfect for the role. The game is still absent a solid launch date, but it's probably safe to say it's gonna miss its previously scheduled 2011 release window. Tanner teased in the interview that, "We're just winding up the game right now; things are looking clean right now, so it should be a smooth submission." So, uh, soon-ish!

[Image credit: 'skwathill']

Joe Danger may be new to the Xbox, but that won't stop him from giving Xbox Live users a Christmas present this year. Starting next week on December 21, players can download the Santa DLC for Joe Danger: Special Edition, which adds Chris Kringle himself and a Christmas QuadBike.

The DLC will be free, only available through December 25.

Anomaly: Warzone Earth, the reverse tower-defense game from 11 Bit Studios, is coming to Xbox Live Arcade in Spring 2012. This version of the strategy game, which sees you assembling convoys of destructive vehicles and plotting their path through hostile cityscapes, is exclusively outfitted with six puzzle-ish "Tactical Trials."

Anomaly: Warzone Earth originally launched for the PC and Mac back in April, followed by a widely praised iOS version. You can get a sneak peek of the new XBLA outing -- now "designed to be played with a gamepad" -- in the gallery below.

#tonyhawkproskater You can keep your Command & Conquer Generals 2 and The Last of Us, for me the biggest news out of the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards wasn't a new game but the return of something old: Tony Hawk. More »

The beefed up, sanded down version of Joe Danger coming to Xbox Live Arcade (the "Special Edition") will apparently arrive on December 14 for 1200 MS Points ($15). Developer Hello Games revealed the date via Microsoft Studio's own "playXBLA" blog, where the dev team further cemented what has been added (and subtracted) to the upcoming re-release.

Beyond the launch date announcement, Hello Games also gave out a brand new launch trailer and a whole variety of new screens. For those of you who have yet to check out Joe Danger, you're in for a real treat. For the rest of us, well, hey, more Joe Danger! Alright!

We're suckers for artsy platformers, so when Beefy Media's Adam Boyes took to Giant Bomb's livestream this evening with a debut trailer for Might & Delight's latest offering, "Pid," and the game was a gorgeous hand-drawn platformer, we were pretty excited to tell you all about it. In Pid, you'll control what appears to be a little boy in a colorful and mysterious world of platforms and robots -- like Limbo and Machinarium had a digital baby, if you will.

The trailer showed off a bit of co-op play, as well as a variety of different environments through which to romp. Pid is being built using the Unity engine (like that mystery Square Enix game, among many others), thus making its ubiquity across platforms all the easier.

While Boyes admitted the M&D folks don't have a publisher for the game yet, he said they've been actively speaking with publishers and are looking at an Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, and PC release in "the back half of 2012." Expect more details and the trailer tomorrow, on Joystiq, when the game gets announced "officially. Head past the break for a quick snap of the game in action.

We're kind of suckers for artsy platformers, so when Beefy Media's Adam Boyes took to Giant Bomb's livestream this evening with a debut trailer for Might & Delight's latest offering, "Pid," and the game was a gorgeous hand drawn platformer, we were pretty excited to tell you all about it. In Pid, you'll control what appears to be a little boy in a colorful and mysterious world of platforms and robots -- like Limbo and Machinarium had a digital baby, if you will.

The trailer also showed off a bit of co-op play, as well as a variety of different environments through which to romp through. Pid is being built using the Unity engine (like that mystery Square Enix game, among many others), thus making its ubiquity across platforms all the easier.

While Boyes admitted the M&D folks don't have a publisher for the game yet, he said they've been actively speaking with pubs and are looking at an Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, and PC release in "the back half of 2012." Expect more details and the trailer tomorrow on Joystiq when the game gets "officially" announced, and head past the break for a quick snap we grabbed of the game in action.