As we have seen, some games go through extended development times and switch between studios to varying degrees of success. A poor example of this is 2011’s Duke Nukem Forever. Some games however find their strengths and weaknesses and adjust accordingly. One such game looks to be I Am Alive, currently under development from Ubisoft Shanghai.

Originally announced in 2008 under developer Darkworks, I Am Alive was announced to be a full retail release but has now been brought to a more manageable downloadable title.

I Am Alive takes place in a fictional city of Haventon one year after something referred only to as the Event, a cataclysmic occurrence that wipes out much of the world’s population. There is even a cloud of toxic gas surrounding much of the planet. The main character is on the search for supplies and other survivors while he tries to reunite with his wife and daughter.

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2011 was a huge year for gaming. One of the biggest both in terms of sales but in terms of the number of AAA titles and new up and comers that made their way to the big stage. We are hoping the same holds true for 2012. Over the next few weeks we will periodically bring you info, screens and trailers on some of the games to have on your radar over the next 12 months.

All the way back in 2010, Remedy released an XBox exclusive simply titled Alan Wake. After being shrouded in mystery for the early part of its development, players would eventually be introduced to Alan Wake, a writer, who ends up living through one of his own creations. The horror action game would go on to earn an 83 on Metacritic as well as win Time magazine’s Game of the Year for 2010.

In Q1 2012, Remedy will be releasing their followup to Alan Wake with Alan Wake’s American Nightmare. The game will take players out of the original Bright Falls lakeside township to the middle of Arizona where he encounters his alter-ego Mr. Scratch which was revealed in the final chapter of the original game.

Combat looks the same with the player using a light to weaken shadowy enemies before blowing them away with guns but the mechanics of the game look like they have changed. In the trailer below, you can notice a scoring system including a multiplier. It looks like combat will now award players points, most likely to introduce a leaderboard system for XBLA.

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Welcome back to another episode of The Bitcast, our very own video game only podcast hosted by JC and WallE. The boys hit lots of big news this week including the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 sales records, Activision’s multimillion dollar charity donation, Limbo hitting its millionth sale and discuss the upcoming Dead Island DLC.

In the Topic of the Week, the two discuss the ever decreasing distance of video games and reality and when that line is crossed. In their Now Playing Section, JC talks more about his experience with Modern Warfare 3 as well as his $0.99 download of Scribblenauts Remixed for the iOS.

WallE takes an unexpected turn and talks about the Flash “game” from PETA that tries to target Mario for the reintroduction of the Tanooki suit in Mario Bros. 3D Land for the Nintendo 3Ds.

Don’t forget to subcribe to The Flickcast’s iTunes feed to get your weekly dose of The Bitcast!

Since the genre began, tower defense games have always been downloadable titles with very few ever making it to full retail release. This has been an advantage for the genre as it has given more opportunity for innovation. For example, with Toy Soldiers and it’s sequel Toy Soldiers: Cold War, players were allowed to both roam the battlefield in various vehicles as well as take on the role of the towers themselves.

Now, Robot Entertainment, the makers of Age of Empires Online, releases their second title to the world with Orcs Must Die!.

Orcs Must Die! is another new take on the traditional tower defense formula. Instead of setting up towers throughout the enemies path, Orcs Must Die! focuses on the use of traps along with third person action mechanics such as shooting, melee and magic spells. The result is an incredibly addictive experience.

Gameplay:

Each level starts with a player in one of the many keeps of the Order where he must stop a horde of the Mob from reaching rift points. Players see the start locations of the Mob and the paths they will take in order to reach the rift points. Once enough of the Mob has reached the rift, the player loses. Players need to use a combination of an ever expanding assortment of traps along with their own combat skills to hold off the horde.

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Taking a break from our Gunstringer review, we at the Flickcast realized something. It comes with a download code for Fruit Ninja Kinect.  We at the Flickcast have already played and reviewed Fruit Ninja Kinect so why not pass it along to you guys?

If you remember when doing our Summer of Arcade reviews, we took a look at the iOS turned Kinect title Fruit Ninja. First off, the game is a workout and just a few play sessions will have you shedding the calories. On top of that, it makes excellent use of the Kinect technology.

The one-to-one motion is captured with amazing accuracy in Fruit Ninja Kinect. Our main qualm with the title was its 800 Microsoft ($10.00) price compared to .99 cents on the Apple App Store. Luckily since we are giving it away to you for free, you don’t have anything to worry about!

Make sure to follow us on Twitter @TheFlickcast tomorrow, September 22nd, to win a download code for Fruit Ninja Kinect. Please own an XBox 360 connected to XBox Live and a Kinect so this code doesn’t go to waste.

Two summers ago, the world was first introduced to ‘Splosion Man, an ADHD platforming antihero with a penchant for cake just trying to escape a spanning scientific lab where he was being held. And as much as we loved him, (**Spoiler**) he didn’t end up fully escaping at the end of ‘Splosion Man. The opening of Ms. Splosion Man shows the origin of this new breed of estrogen fueled insanity. Ms. Splosion Man takes the core concepts of the original title and, much in the way that Ms. Pac Man became a more challenging version of Pac Man, ups the ante for 2D platformers yet again.

Gameplay:

Ms. Splosion Man is one of the most complicated simple games of the last generation. In the same way that ‘Splosion Man and Super Meat Boy had incredibly simple mechanics, jump and blow stuff up and jump and don’t die (respectively), Ms. Splosion Man leaves players with a controller with a bunch of buttons that all do the same thing: ‘splode. What Ms. Splosion Man did do however was come up with new ways to ‘splode and objects to ‘splode into, out of and on to.

The treadmills have returned as well as the atomic green barrels that launch Ms. Splosion Man across levels. But new items have found their way in to the mad labs. Jetson like flying cars populate the world, giving moving (and crashing) platforms for Ms. Splosion Man to traverse.

There are also rotating cannons, much like those exploding barrels of Donkey Kong Country, requiring both timing and aiming of players to shoot their little pink lady across levels. Barrels sometimes descend slowly with propellers being added to them and floating, rotating atomic green platforms that sort of resemble an original metroid can be found throughout the game as well.

As a result of these and other new mechanics, levels feel fresh and new and have tons more challenge and replayability. The game also now includes a Ghost Mode where they can compete against their friends and leaderboard high scorers as well.

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When we first heard that Full House Poker would be at the tail end of XBLA’s spring showcase Block Party alongside the likes of Beyond Good and Evil HD, Torchlight and the spiritual successor to Contra, we were a bit skeptical. After all, how does a virtually unknown poker title fall in with blockbusters like these gems? To our pleasant surprise, the answer is very well.

Gameplay

The primary gameplay of Full House Poker isn’t very different from other standard Texas Hold ‘Em poker games. While the button layout differs, it feels pretty standard to real life poker tournaments. Players have the option to hit, hold and fold in normal play with the added bonus of fast forwarding once they have folded out instead of being forced to watch the rest of the hand play out.

One added feature is the ability to play with emotion. Using the left or right triggers, players can bluff their confidence or anxiety about the moves they make in hopes of both the computer or real life opponents may buy into. Using this creatively can give players an advantage if they properly taunt their competitors into bad plays to take the pot.

Added to Full House Poker however adds the concept of experience points and leveling to poker. Now, don’t worry. This isn’t an RPG-like system where going up levels will earn players perks or special abilities that make players better at poker. Instead, it works as a reward system. For every hand a player deals in on, they earn experience.

Winning hands earns further experience along with risky and smart plays that pan out in their favor. As levels increase, new titles, decks, tables, decor, avatar costumes and game rooms themselves unlock. Not counting in game avatar costumes, there are already 93 unlockable rewards for players to attain.

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In December, the Flickcast was happy to reveal that Twisted Pixel Games had announced a new member of the ‘Splosion family with Ms. ‘Splosion Man. Without seeing actual gameplay footage though, one major concern did come up. Would Ms ‘Splosion Man just be more of the same with a pink coat of paint? From what we can tell from the GDC demo (see below) this isn’t the case. While the core mechanics of ‘Splosion Man haven’t changed (i.e. blowing up), it looks like a whole new level of complexity has gone into the levels.

New traps, tactics and tools look like they await in the levels of Ms. Splosion Man. It does look like certain characters and bosses will be making their return as well alongside movie quotes and Twisted Pixel’s eccentric sense of humor.

Check out the full gallery and gameplay trailers after the jump.

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Sometimes players say they want something completely different to turn a franchise on its head. That’s when they wind up with Bomberman: Act Zero. Other times, players just want an upgraded version of the same game like they get with yearly iterations to the Madden franchise. That’s when they get Bomberman Battlefest. Sadly there are times when the minimalist approach don’t give a strong enough reason for old players to come back.

Gameplay:

The basics of Bomberman and why it has always been fun have not changed. Players start at various locations on a grid map where they set bombs that launch fire in up, down, left and right of the bomb’s location. At first, players are only able to set one bomb at a time which only spreads one tile in each direction and once a bomb is placed it is stuck there. If the fire hits a player, they die. Simplistic as this concept is, it quickly gets turned on its head with the inclusion of any of the myriad of powerups that expand the distance a bomb explodes, increases the number of bombs a player can set or changes the effect of a specific bomb being placed.

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There has been a definite theme of cute and quirky family friendly games with the releases of Games for the Holidays. The final game in this cross promotional trilogy is ilomilo. ilomilo is the story of two tiny friends who wake up every day at opposite ends of an ever changing park and spend much of their time making their way through obstacles to reach each other. This puzzler can be played with either one or two players and takes a simple concept and put its own imaginative spin on it.

Gameplay:

ilomilo starts off each level with ilo and milo on two opposite ends of a complex structure of interconnected blocks. Moving only one at a time, ilo and milo must alternate moving various objects in the environment around to aid the other in meeting at a center point.

A simple enough sounding concept right? Well the level designers took this and ran with it in a way that they were able to create some incredibly challenging puzzles along the game’s 49 levels.

Some blocks pop out and block the way while others can be picked up and moved, extending bridges or launching ilo and milo over gaps. Through the levels, ilo and milo are guided by their friend Sebastian as they not only attempt to reach each other, but collect hordes of, well, collectibles along the way. These collectibles unlock music and artwork as well as other stages and pieces of letters that help further explain the backstory of ilo and milo’s friendship.

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Raskulls has been one of those XBLA titles coming in just under the radar since its initial reaction at GDC 2010. With only an image of the game’s iconic King who is also featured prominently on the game’s artwork and the simple minded Dragon, Raskulls has made its way to consoles with an underground following, having been mostly promoted through trade shows such as E3 or PAX. It wasn’t until December when it was announced as a part of the cross promotional Games for the Holidays from XBox Live Arcade alongside ilomilo and World of Keflings that people found out that Halfbrick meant business when they were coming up with Raskulls.

Gameplay:

At first glance, Raskulls looks like a simple side-scrolling racing game. Even in the first seconds of the game, players will quickly realize this is far from the case. Similar to a game like DigDug, players are able to blast out bricks next to them to carve a path across maps. Unlike DigDug, Raskulls is an incredibly fast paced game where up to four players at a time are smashing through series of bricks while combating each other with special bonus item powers as bricks topple down around them at the same time.

The most basic modes of Raskulls revolve around racing. Players must either face off against single or multiple opponents or in a timed checkpoint race, hoping to earn the fastest time to success. These races can be compared to a platforming version of Mario Kart. A player is never really down and out as obstacles often impede whoever is in first place to give others a fighting chance. All the while, various weapons are deployed to help stun opponents or blow blocks out of the way faster.

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Last year, we took a more traditional approach with our Best Video Games of 2009 article with categories such as Best Music Game or Best Action Platformer. This year we are going to depart from the traditional and give what we think are categories that truly deserve to be rewarded their due.

Best Use of Zombies / Best Downloadable Content – Red Dead Redemption “Undead Nightmare”

The ultimate “What If” scenario brought forth to one of the best games of 2010, “What if the undead invaded the old west?” And the answer doesn’t just involve a lot of people dying. There are horses of the apocalypse, big foot, some hard choices to be made and people turning on or abandoning their fellow man left and right.

This awesome story told over the revamped look of Red Dead Redemption using characters players have already grown to know, love or despise makes Undead Nightmare not only the best zombie game of 2010 but also the best exmple of DLC for the entire year as well.

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