CEO of Twisted Pixel Games Mike Wilford was nice enough to let us play the heck out of his E3 demo of their newest platformer, Splosion Man, while he narrated and guided us through the entire experience.  And while our impressions speak for themselves, this video ought to be proof that we aren't kidding. There are two separate videos here; one's the single-player stuff and the other is multiplayer co-op.  Both are extremely interesting and should not be missed. Oh, yes, and before you go off telling me I suck thanks to my repeated deaths during a certain sequence fairly early on in the multiplayer footage, let me redirect your attention to the end of that video, wherein I bested (with the help of Mike) a sequence not unlike the types of things we used to see in games like Battletoads within just a few tries. ;) {seyret id="266"} {seyret id="271"} Watch for more on Splosion Man soon; odds are, we'll have our hands on an early copy before you can say "Sploda in my mouth."

Seriously, downloadable games just plain rock. While they’re obviously still attractive and the production values are often quite high, they’re much more reliant by design on great gameplay and solid concepts. In other words, in order to succeed, they need to be fun. Splosion Man is a perfect example of the reason I get so excited about new downloadable titles. It’s a game created by an indie developer—Twisted Pixel Games—who clearly knows their stuff. It’s also a very simple concept: you’re a strange being residing in a lab (escaping, really) where hordes of scientists seek to study you. Why, precisely, you might ask? Well, you see, because you’re made entirely of splosion, a volatile compound that results in your exploding and propelling yourself around the environments with associated debris in tow. And seeing as there are myriad scientists and sophisticated high-dollar equipment populating the labs (and Splosion Man is about as carefree and positively insane as volatile experimental living compounds come), that’s a recipe for disaster. Pressing A makes Splosion Man ‘splode, sending him flying upward (think of it as a jump) and annihilating anything near him in the process. Scientists are instantaneously turned into fragments of T-bone steak...

What would Excitebike be like if it featured explosive barrels and ragdoll physics? That’s the first thing that came to mind when I saw the indie Xbox Live Arcade title Trials HD on the show floor.  Originally a downloadable PC title under a different name, Trials puts you in control of a positively bone-headed stunt devil in a variety of downright insane situations. Most of these comprise some combination of ramps, rails, and seemingly-impossible jumps—and your only goal is to try and make it to the goal as quickly as possible and in one piece. The controls are pretty much precisely the same as Excitebike, in fact—right down to the tilting of the bike in mid-air to try and matching your landing angle. But that’s where the divergence begins. The tracks start off pretty simple, but quickly escalate into some purely wacky designs—loops, explosions, switches that activate preset events… it’s chaos, but in the sweetest sense of the word. Unlike Excitebike, at this point, the game adopts a selection of strategy and platforming elements which make “solving” the tracks as quickly as possible an infectious task. You’ve got to manage your speed to ensure you can make the jumps or...

Typically, before E3, I’ll watch a trailer and read some impressions of a game and, as a result always overhype my expectations so that I’m either (a) unsatisfied with what I’ve seen or, (b)puzzled that it didn’t blow me away. Trine, a game for which I hadn’t seen a trailer since early winter, managed to defy my expectations by default; I had no idea it was even going to be there. As it turns out, Atlus picked up the publishing rights (for 360 only) and plans on distributing the game over Live Arcade in the fall. And it’s unfortunate that we’re going to have to wait that long, because Trine was one of the best games I played at the show. A 2.5D aesthetic border s an action/platformer hybrid with a distinct twist; three classes are at your disposal, and you’re free to switch between them anytime. The Wizard has no direct attack, but can “draw” cube with his cursor, which can be dropped on enemies or use for additional platformers. Additionally, he can also interact with his environment, which typically meant holding platformers in place, or pulling things out of the way. The thief had a grappling hook that...

Project Cube controls Tucked away near the back of Square Enix’s booth this year was a little-known Xbox Live Arcade-bound title called Project Cube (at least, called that for the time being), which plays a little bit like Geometry Wars with robots. And everything’s better with robots, right? As you move your character around the playing field with the left analog stick and fire with the right stick, these little evil drones chase you endlessly. Rather quickly, they begin to pile up into some daunting numbers, so it’s important to use the resources at your disposal if you want to stick around for a while. As you can read in the controls summary above, those resources consist of dash maneuvers (which stun enemies within a certain radius of the dash point and leave a yellow silhouette behind for a couple of seconds which enemies chase, leaving you free to escape) and your shield (which can capture enemy fire and fling it back in their direction—or any direction, depending on when you release it). Combos trigger massive power-ups, like a massive laser which disposes of enemies quite effortlessly. Needless to say, it’s a thoroughly arcade-like package, though I have to admit,...

We were denied entry behind Square Enix’s closed doors (hooray scheduling confusion!), but the only game on the show floor we weren’t allowed to get video footage of was Project Cube, a work-in-progress for Live Arcade. Their first foray into the twin stick shooter genre, Project Cube did well to put its own spin on the genre. The fray took place on a large square, and the opposite for my tiny ship was a bunch of cubes with eyes on them. Blasting the cubes, oddly, caused a bloody explosion of epic proportions and, while it didn’t make any sense, the excessive carnage was reasonably rewarding. From there you could boost, which was quite traditional, but boosting near an enemy caused a state of mass confusion, which rendered the enemy temporarily incapacitated. Eventually a new humanoid enemy appeared, and I had to use a different power to “collect” the lasers it was shooting at me. After I collected enough lasers I could either shoot them back all at once, or kamikaze my opposition in a melee (of sorts) attack. It would have been nice to hang onto the shield forever, but unfortunately it only lasts a limited amount of time before...

So today, in case you missed it, Microsoft announced a positively revolutionary new gaming technology they’re dubbing Project Natal (working title). In short, it’s a motion-sensing system that requires no controller—think Eyetoy, except insanely accurate (or so it would seem from the demos, some of which were live), where your movements are tracked to a tee without you needing anything more than your own body. During the media briefing, the crowd was wowed by demonstrations of people playing games where your entire body was involved: stretching out to bat balls back to the distance from where they fly, painting by swiping your arms to and fro, race car driving by moving your arms as though you were holding a wheel and changing tires in the pit using only gestures… and that’s really just the beginning of it. Microsoft also touts voice and facial recognition, which allow the player to interact with the console almost as if it were a live person. In fact, near the end of the demo, that’s precisely what was shown: people interacting with a console-based character that sensed emotion in their voices and responded to them as if it were actually alive. No one’s sure...

If you haven't seen this yet, you absolutely owe it to yourself to watch this video now.  It's essentially Microsoft's answer to the Wii, and it's one heck of a concept. Our footage here is full high-definition, and it's truly some of the best around.  It's brought to you free on our dime, so if you like it, please do us the favor of sticking around and telling your friends.  We're independent, but we're serious about this stuff... and we want people like you following us. {seyret id="193"}

Here are some screenshots of the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled remake coming to XBox Live Arcade. Don't worry, we're salivating as much as you are.

Project Natal, as most of you no doubt know by now, is the code name Microsoft's new controller-free gaming and entertainment experience. As stated from the official fact sheet, the hardware of Natal is the world's first to combine an RGB camera, depth sensor, multiarray microphone, and custom processor running Microsoft's own proprietary software.  This enables Natal to recognize people's voices, faces, and full body movements, including those of the arms, legs, and torso. The goal and purpose of this project is to make gaming less difficult for newcomers to enjoy and get into, much like Nintendo's aims with the Wii, which have been successful, but is Natal set to raise the bar? It certainly looks promising, but there are still plenty of questions for Natal, like how much will it cost and how hard it is to develop for. As we've seen with the Wii, developers are able to shovel out dozens and dozens of titles, most of which use the motion sensing in weak, uninteresting ways. I just hope somehow that Natal is just hard enough to develop for that shovelware minded developers don't give it a bad name. One other question I had about the project was...

Epic Games' new one is for the XBLA, and it's looking slick.

Splosion Man shots! Enjoy :)

Enjoy these screenshots from the upcoming free XBLA game, Joyride...

And here is the box art for L4D2...

Left 4 Dead 2 is on its way to PCs and 360s this Fall. Check out these screenshots (click through to the article for the full-res versions).