Exclusive Interview: Up-and-Coming XBLA Developers Halfbrick Studios

Ryan Rigney of Cinemablend.com's games blog interviews the next big Xbox Live Arcade developers, Halfbrick Studios. Will their upcoming exclusive, Raskulls, be the next Castle Crashers. It's likely.

[Foxtail]

I was waiting for this game ever since I started reading those character profiles. Instead of going down to the local EB or something to check new games, it's far more fun to check the newest available XBLA games. Raskulls is right at the top of the radar, same with Trials HD and Shadow Complex (all new games unlike MVC2). Nice interview!

[RKRigney]

er... what does MVC2 stand for?

[Foxtail]

Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Old, sweet fighting game (reminds me of classic Ken v. Wolverine battles), but XBLA is getting way better with the original games, so there's not nearly as much need for ports. Out of all the high ranking games on XBLA, Braid and Castle Crashers are among the best, both original. Hoopefully Raskulls is 2009's equivalent.

[RKRigney]

Yeah it doesn't look anything like Braid but I could totally see how it could be this year's Castle Crashers :) I'm looking forward to it

[KingKionic]

Cant belive you didnt know what the best fighting game was...

*coughs*

One of the best fighting games.

Raskulls could be just as hit as was the successor. Could be just as addicting.

[Foxtail]

Slightly understandable - MVC2 was hard to pick out for a newbie amongst the gazillion iterations of Street Fighter that were coming out around that time. I do vividly remember MVC2 though, which i guess is a testament to how good it was. Of course, 360 controls suck for fighting games to the point of them almsot being broken. Need an arcade stick.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know if you can control regular games with arcade sticks? I remember playing various platformers in the old arcades with sticks, so it might be cool with Raskulls. Or even any XBLA game that isn't a dual stick shooter :)

[KingKionic]

There was a 16 way dpad....it was a limited time one

http://www.gamespot.com/new...

:(

Xbox 360 arcade stick

http://www.gamestop.com/Cat...

[Foxtail]

16 way d-pad isn't necessary, just a d-pad where you can actually tell which direction you are pressing. Unlike the 360 one.

I love Nintendo's d-pads, but the surrounding controllers aren't quite suitable for fighting games.

[KingKionic]

Well the main problem for fighting games is the xbox 36o dpad.

Most time just end up getting a fighting pad like street fighter`s

[cherrypie]

You have to check-out "Game #3" from Behemoth.

Looks like a CoOp platformer.
http://devblog.thebehemoth....

[KingKionic]

That looks interesting.
thx for heads up.

[hombrehambre]

This game looks wicked. I want.

[tinydancer]

Yeah I can't wait for the demo to drop

[RKRigney]

er... what's the price? Hopefully 800 points...

[Mo0eY]

I do admit as a PS3 owner, I am quite envious of this game. It looks nice.

[coolirisGB]

I'm getting jealous

[DelbertGrady]

Can't wait to play this on my Xbox 360!

[The Master Chief]

Raskulls looks awesome! There is a serious amount of 360 material building up. I just hope they announce Mistwalkers RPG's, Rare's games and Gears of War 3 in not too long. Then we will completely be in a 360 game overload. =P

[KingKionic]

You sound pumped...

Let`s take it a step at a time. All this glory might kill someone here.

lol

[Stryfeno2]

Looks good...Day one buy.

[da720izcumin]

looks nice, buy.