XBLA Summer of Arcade games dated, priced
By
Brendan Sinclair, Senior Editor
Five-week run kicks off July 20 with Bastion, wraps up August 17 with Toy Soldiers: Cold War; gamers who buy all five get Crimson Alliance free.
At the height of the Electronic Entertainment Expo this month, Microsoft revealed the lineup and starting date of its 2011 Summer of Arcade promotion. Today it detailed exactly when each game would arrive and how much players could expect to pay for them.
Kicking things off July 20 will be Supergiant Games' Bastion. The role-playing game relies heavily on storytelling, offering more than 40 hand-painted environments that gamers explore to uncover the origins of Calamity, a civilization-destroying event.
Ubisoft's From Dust will follow that up on July 27. Originally announced at Ubisoft's E3 2010 press conference, the game is a new take on the God game genre designed by Another World (Out of This World in the US) creator Eric Chahi. Players will control a tribe as it grapples with a primitive world, full of ancient artifacts and lost mystical powers.
August 3 will see the release of Fuelcell's Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet. The side-scrolling 2D action adventure offers an imaginative look at worlds that play home to surreal environments and deranged enemies.
Fruit Ninja Kinect is the penultimate release in the campaign, arriving August 10. A motion-control-enabled version of the popular title for mobile platforms, Halfbrick's latest version of Fruit Ninja challenges players to slice up airborne produce while avoiding bombs.
Bringing the summer promotion to a close on August 17 will be Signal Studios' Toy Soldiers: Cold War. A sequel to the 2010 Block Party hit Toy Soldiers, Cold War has players again controlling plastic army men in strategy-action hybrid gameplay set in the ironically heated geopolitical climate of the '80s. Cold War also includes a co-op campaign, as well as a Survival mode and minigames.
All of the Summer of Arcade games will sell for 1,200 Microsoft points ($15), except for Fruit Ninja Kinect. That game will be available for 800 Microsoft points ($10).
Additionally, Microsoft has said those who purchase all of the Summer of Arcade titles will receive a sixth game, Certainy Affinity's Crimson Alliance, for free. Set for release September 7, Crimson Alliance is an action-RPG that lets players work together in specific roles to take down a nefarious cult. For those who want to buy Crimson Alliance but aren't interested in the Summer of Arcade promotion, the game will sell on its own for 1,200 Microsoft points ($15).
By
Brendan Sinclair, Senior Editor
Brendan Sinclair has been a games journalist since 1999. His tastes are eclectic, though he has a definite affinity for games with arcade roots. He's Canadian, but has also been at home in Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, and San Francisco.
63 comments
@metalkid9 -- Read the article before you go insulting people: "Five-week run kicks off July 20 with Bastion, wraps up August 17 with Toy Soldiers: Cold War.
@-Saigo-, summer started 6 days ago. have you been living under a rock by any chance cuz you seem uncertain about what season we're in or you just don't have any knowledge about anything else other than gaming.
Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet is the only one Im wanting and its somthing iv been looking highly forward to :3
I know Trenched isnt on the list, but i just bought it the other day on XBLA and its awesome....Double Fine does it again.
From dust, creator of another world! BUYING DAY 1! I cannot believe I am reading this. Another world was my favorite game of all time!
I'm addicted to XBLA. I love all these games. Easy to pick up and put down to fill in some time... and some games just send me right back to being a kid. Getting Bastion for sure. Twisted and Dust possibly. Very very possibly. XBLA is the best thing to happen to games in a while for me. So many good titles in there.
Outland + Limbo = Insane Shadow Planet or w/e it's called. Hey, that's not a bad thing at all.
@jcbullen You, sir, make a very good point. I wouldn't have even noticed it if you hadn't said anything, but it doesn't seem right that in order to get the free game, you have to have a Kinect. Of course, you don't really have to buy all of the games, and you should only buy the ones you know you'll enjoy and play. If one or two of them look interesting and the rest look crappy, just get those two. And if you really want Crimson Alliance, buy that as well. @-Saigo- Good point. It feels like they could have already started offering us some Summer games already. Of course, that is more money to spend for that 'free' game. I heard at E3 that Microsoft uses the Summer of Arcade promotion to help pick up the slack during the months when big game releases are scarce. Perhaps some big game was released this past month and Microsoft wanted to hold off starting too early too avoid taking success from that?
the pricing is ridiculous on these titles. $10 for a good game, $15 for a Stellar title and $5 for games like Fruit Ninja. Come on.
Really wanna try out Bastion, it looks like buy material. I might check out a few of the other games as well, if they look interesting.
Can't wait for Bastion! Sad to see no release date yet for Guardian Heroes, hope it's still set for this summer.
Looks like a good line-up of games. Didn't do it last year, probably do to the fact that it was too much money and I was wallet-less, but this year looks good. From Dust looks really interesting, Fruit Ninja Kinect will get me back to my Kinect, and Toy Soldiers: Cold War looks unbelievably awesome. Bastion and the other one looks ok, but the one's I'm more interested in are the one's I listed. Plus, the action RPG for free looks cool.
This year's line up looks pretty solid--better than last year's IMO. Bastion looks awesome, and Toy Soldiers should be good too. Shadow Planet and From Dust seem like cool ideas, but I'll wait to see how they pan out. Not loving the Kinect game thrown in there though...
This year's summer of arcade seems to be lacking. Only game that looks good to me is Toy Soliders. Anyone knows when SFIII Third Strike release? I hope its before the summer of arcade.
Bastion and Twisted Shadow Planet are the only two that seem interesting to me. Ill have to look up some footage to see what they have to offer
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Bastion
- Publisher(s): Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
- Developer(s): Supergiant Games
- Genre: Role-Playing
- Release:
- ESRB: E10+
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