Castlevania: Harmony of Despair is being featured as XBLA’s Deal of the Week this week. Select Harmony of Despair content will be discounted by 50%, today through May 9th. On top of that, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night will also be dropped by 50% for this promotion. Castlevania: Harmony of Despair is best played as a multiplayer game, in my opinion, so now is the perfect time for you and your friends to grab some of your favorite Castlevania characters and kick some Dracula ass. Read the full story

There’s not really a lot to say about SEGA’s latest “trailer” for Virtua Tennis 4. There’s not a lot of new information (and by not a lot, I think I mean there’s actually no new information at all), and it’s quite short. The gameplay portions are not actual gameplay footage, so I have no idea if the two human players who seem to be taking the game so seriously are actually playing against each other, together, or if it’s just for show. Read the full story

You know how I feel about Portal 2. It’s the only game I’ve given a perfect score (and may, in fact, be the only game that we, as a whole, have given a perfect score to, though some others have come tantalizingly close). The only imperfect thing about it is that there weren’t more test chambers, gameplay modes, or leaderboards. If ONLY there were some way to add those features post-release…wait, what? DLC for Portal 2 has been announced? Read the full story

I remember when Outland was announced at last year’s PAX. I instantly fell in love with both the visual feel of the game and the game’s expected polarity-platforming mechanics; I believe my exact phrasing was, “Unfortunately, Outland is not due out until next year, so I can’t make sweet, sweet gamer love to it quite yet.” Well, it is now the aforementioned “next year,” and I have had many hours over the last two days to make that sweet, sweet gamer love to Outland…and there was much rejoicing. Read the full story

I’m generally not a fan of XBLA shooters. I’m generally even less a fan of XBLA shooters that poorly attempt to emulate the gameplay or design of full price retail release shooters. With those particular prejudices (hurr-hurr, see what I did there?) already in place, it would seem that I would be an odd fit to review Section 8: Prejudice, a first-person shooter based on a full price retail release shooter but released as an XBLA shooter. Fortunately, Section 8: Prejudice doesn’t fall into the category of a “poor attempt.” It is, in fact, an excellent example of a great XBLA game. Read the full story

It’s been another month since our last look at Anarchy Reigns, and today SEGA has released the seventh character bio. So far we’ve seen ninja, ice queens, mechanical bulls (with JET HAMMERS.), a super pimp, and more. What new oddity have we received today? Well, while he may not end up being my favorite character to play as (due to the lack of a fragging JET. HAMMER.), he will probably end up being one of my favorite characters in general. Read the full story

I spent the latter half of this past Saturday humming random bars from Jonathan Coulton’s brilliantly written ending credits song for the original Portal, Still Alive (We do what we must, because we can…)* After a handful of bars, my wife turned to me and asked, with more than a hint of exasperation, “Am I going to have to listen to you humming that all weekend?” I regretfully informed her that, in the words of the Magic 8-ball, all signs pointed to yes, and apologized before breaking into a particularly stunning rendition (if I do say so myself) of the song from the beginning. Why was I in such rare form this weekend? Portal 2 was in my 360, and my controller was in my hands. Read the full story

When I first heard of Swarm, I figured it would simply be a twist on classic Lemmings gameplay. I kept that in the back of my mind all the way until I played the first level of the game, at which point I realized that Swarm is the closest thing to an antithesis to Lemmings as anything could possibly be. I loved Lemmings, but I think Swarm has taken the gold medal away for sheer unexpected brutality and replayability. Every time I load it up to play, I get stuck for minutes on end on the damnable menu screen. Read the full story

Rush’N Attack: Ex-Patriot is a bad 80′s action movie; the dialogue isn’t great, the story is thin and feeble, and you’re fighting Russians (see what they did there with the game title?). You are part of an elite knife-fighting assassin unit for the U.S. military. You are to infiltrate a Russian base and rescue the long-suffering American prisoner who failed in his (similar) mission years past. Of course, you’re captured and thrown in prison before you even begin playing the game, so you begin with escape! Along the way, you learn about what the Russians are doing, and if you’re lucky, you learn a little about yourself, and life (not really). Read the full story

So far, it’s been nothing from the SEGA Virtua Tennis 4 camp but PS3, PS3, PS3. Today, for the rest of us, we are treated to a trailer for the 360/Kinect! Granted, the first portion of the Kinect trailer shows them using…conventional controllers. But patience pays off, as Kinect play eventually appears! Read the full story