Take note that End of Nations is a free-to-play title. However, unlike most of the competition out there in the free space, pouring money into the game does little to give players an advantage over other players. Unlocking upgrades and new unit types takes good ol’ fashion leveling up. Experience boosters and similar features can be earned with some extra cash; but Trion and Petroglyph are focusing on “Time vs. Money”, and time is the winner in this fight.

End of Nations story picks up after an organization known as Order of Nations takes control of most of the world after a large economic meltdown. Players can choose one of two factions where they can either play in PvP, PvE, or play the story campaign in fighting against the Order of Nations. The hub world is essentially a map of Earth with areas highlighted to indicate whether it’s a PvE, PvP, or campaign mission. Players will take control of one of two futuristic military powerhouses and use special weapons like mini nukes to decimate their opponents.

My first go around with End of Nations was a “horde” mode type level, where I faced off against another player to see who could last the longest. I was quickly introduced to the nature of the game. Its RTS roots show up right away, as you navigate units around the map to key locations. Players will have to capture control points that either unlock special attacks during the match like air strikes, or create a steady flow of resources. Resources play a different role than an RTS game like Starcraft. Instead of spending resources to build a base (which is not an integral element to any of the matches I played) and new units in real-time, players will use resources to call back downed units and use special attacks.

The match played exactly as you would expect to see in any “horde” mode. Waves of enemies constantly enter the ring as I made tactical decisions on where to navigate my units. Capturing points and playing defense in choke areas akin to modern FPS titles is what led to victory over my opponent. The map I faced off against my opponent on was filled with narrow streets, blown out buildings and roads that slowed my advancing army. Thankfully, the urban setting this map offered is only one of many environments players will see (not that I didn’t enjoy the urban map).

Before starting our next match, I had a chance to take a longer look around the armory, which is where players will customize their units and play style before every match. Players are given three companies to customize with units they purchase via points earned from matches and leveling up. There is a layer of depth here in the customization that reminds me of class load outs in modern first-person-shooters. Players can switch out their companies anytime during game modes other than the “horde” mode. This swapping of companies allows players to adapt to any given situation during the large 56-player matches; an interesting addition to End of Nations RTS elements.

Players can also choose a class, but unfortunately I did not get a chance to see the different class roles. The classes will determine the different units players can call to the front lines during battle. The different classes and different ways players can customize their three classes very much reminds me of the individualism found in MMO’s or any RPG for that matter. Guilds or clans will have a lot to consider when dealing with the depth in customization End of Nations gives to its players.

The next match I was thrown into was a 12 vs. 12 attack and defend style battle. In this particular match, both sides were tasked with destroying the opposite’s base. The map was much larger in scale compared to the previous map I played on; it featured open areas for large amount of units to fill the screen. Capturing control points was still an important factor for each team, and in this match, our team was split across the map to the point where I never saw a few members of my team, over even certain areas of the map.

I really enjoyed the pacing of the match. Thanks to not having to constantly farm resources to build bases or units, our team was only focused on capturing points and fighting our way to the enemy base. The match played out like many FPS team death matches or more appropriate, large battles in MMORPGs. The combat was both tactical and chaotic. My only concern here is that it was hard to find my own units amongst the chaos. Even though my own units were outlined with a green tint, I often found myself losing track of them. Hopefully the final build of the game can address this problem for players tracking their units in the large 56-players battles.

When can you get your hands on End of Nations for yourself you ask? Trion and Petroglyph are planning an open beta in the summer, featuring a selection of PvP maps. The game is scheduled for a fall launch, and the team is hoping by early next year, there will be a strong flow of content.

From what I’ve played so far, I’m optimistic that Trion and Petroglyph will deliver a social and persistent MMORTS title. The mechanics are clicking with just a few hiccups that the team will sure to tighten up by launch. The free-to-play model that favors time over money is attractive in the growing MMO market and will sure to bring in new players who are looking to save some cash.

The mechanics have not changed much in Mutant Blobs Attack, making it easier for those that played About A Blob to jump instantly into the action. Absorbing objects on each map makes the blob bigger, opening up sections of the level and allowing the character to take on tougher enemies like tanks and helicopters. However,the blob now auto absorbs and auto runs, allowing the team to strip away a few buttons in order to simplify the controls.

New features have been added in order to integrate the Vita’s touch screen and rear touch pad. Some objects will require sliding platforms via the touch screen and triggering a boost for the blob with the rear touch pad. The touch features are simple enough, and allow the developers to include more mechanics without assigning too many face buttons to the control layout for Mutant Blob Attacks.

Drinkbox Studios has added more levels in response to last year’s criticism of Tales From Space: About A Blob being too short. Mutant Blobs Attacks has 24 levels, plus five bonus levels meant to break up the flow of platforming and take a break from the story. All the bonus levels are tilt based, taking advantage of the Vita’s six-axis motion system. Each of the bonus levels offer a different art style, adding another layer of creativity and charm to Mutant Blobs Attack.

Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attacks releases exclusively for the PS Vita Feb. 21 on the PlayStation Store for $7.99. The title releases Feb. 22 in PAL territories.

“Fundamentally it’s the same foundation of gameplay that is in all of the DiRT games,” said Iain Smith, associate producer for Codemasters. “But in terms of tone, atmosphere, play style type of experience you can get from it, it’s more related to the action sports element.”

DiRT Showdown will revolve around three main elements: speed, style, and destruction. Each element will intertwine with one another, but will also feature game modes tailored to the specific element. For example, players can expect to find all their races within the speed category. However, don’t expect any rally races in Showdown; the race tracks are circuit based and tighter in design to force players into a hectic race environment where destruction is inevitable.

My hands-on time with Showdown included a three lap race on “8-Ball”, a figure eight track emphasizing the tighter track design Codemasters is focusing on for the speed portion of Showdown. The track is designed to give everyone a fair opportunity at winning the race and ensure that a wreck happens after every turn. “There’s always a chance that maybe player eight in last position can take out player one,” said Smith. “It’s adding that sort of random element that sort of keeps people involved right into that last corner.”

The destruction category in Showdown features demolition derby type events. One such event, “Rampage”, is a straight up demolition derby with one alteration to keep fans interested. “Rampage” is set up like a deathmatch in a first person shooter; players will respawn after their vehicle is destroyed and a winner is determined by the amount of points he or she earns throughout the match. “We wanted to make sure the players are just getting straight back into the action,” said Smith. The action is fast paced and hectic with cars and car parts flying everywhere while competitors scurry to rake in the most points by the end of the timed match.

Showdown will feature three classes of cars to match the three categories. Fans will only find licensed cars in the “Gymkhana” events while other vehicles are designed more as homage to real world cars. Doing away with a roster full of licensed vehicles allowed Codemasters to utilize their physics engine to optimize the racing and destruction experience in Showdown. “It’s really another level of destruction compared to what we’ve been able to do before,” said Adrian Lawton, communications manager for Codemasters.

DiRT Showdown will come packed with game modes for fans to sink their teeth into. Some modes make a return from previous titles in the DiRT series like “Domination” and “Elimination” in the race category and “Gymkhana” events in the “Hoonigan” (style) category. All game modes are included in Showdown’s multiplayer, as well as party modes similar to those in DiRT 3’s multiplayer.

Codemasters was quick to point out that they’re not abandoning the rally and simulated racing tone seen in previous titles. DiRT 4 is currently under development and will continue the series commitment to simulated rally and off road racing. Showdown is simply a branching out of the series to satisfy those looking for a destructive environment in the DiRT realm.

DiRT Showdown will release in May 2012, on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC.

Metal Gear Solid: Rising was undertaken by the younger staff at Kojima Productions after the development of Metal Gear Solid 4. Kojima, at the time, pursued the role as producer and mainly a hands-off role in order to focus his attention on the FOX Engine and Peace Walker. The premise for Rising was ambitious. The overall direction was guided by one focus: cut everything and everything. This, of course, led to development troubles when the younger staff could not find a unified vision for the game design, instead focusing on their own personal assignments. Kojima cited the Rising in an identity crisis trying to merge stealth with action and it ultimately brought the game development down. Two years of development hell had passed and it was clear for Kojima that the team would be in that perpetual circle of finding that perfect balance that would not be possible.

Rising’s woes came to a head at E3 where Kojima realized that while the story and character elements were SOLID, the game design was not there, and the overall package was not a cohesive whole. Kojima quietly cancelled Rising at the end of 2010 and it looked like all was finished for the Rising project. However, the team at Kojima Productions felt adamantly about Rising’s continuation and Kojima looked at external developers to outsource the project to. However, for Kojima, the idea of creating a Metal Gear ninja action game had to come from the Japanese development culture itself, although western developers were considered. It was then, at a holiday party, that Kojima approached his long time friend Tatsuya Minami (president of PLATINUMGAMES) and proposed that PLATINUMGAMES work on Metal Gear Rising. At first, Minami took this as a joke, but when Kojima repeated in a serious tone, the collaboration had come to fruition.

The PLATINUMGAMES collaboration took the task of building Metal Gear Rising from the ground up and it was not an easy time as it had to manage its own internal projects while working on the new Rising project with the demanding Kojima Productions. Atsushi Inaba, Platinum Games producer, constantly reiterated in the QA session that Kojima has set tight deadlines and ambitious expectations for the project that has constantly kept the team on its toes. However, for PLATINUMGAMES, the fast and energetic studio culture has ultimately worked in favor for Kojima Productions and the collaboration has fostered in several ways. The work ethic of PLATINUMGAMES seems to be displayed in the trailer of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, the heavy emphasis on action demonstrated through Platinum’s in-game engine (running at 60fps) and the crazy, over-the-top moments such as Raiden countering a huge Metal Gear Ray was in part due to PLATINUMGAMES involvement in the game. This even came as a shock to the Kojima Productions developers who were not used to the level of intensity that the studio brought for the action game.

This is not to leave out Kojima Productions fully as the studio has direct control over the story, characters, and the cut scenes. Of course, some elements were taken liberally under PLATINUMGAMES as Inaba noted that it has worked to spinoff Rising after the timeline of Metal Gear Solid 4 as a separate story, instead of between the events of Metal Gear Solid 2 and 4. Creatively, this has allowed Rising to have a definite beginning but more opportunities to leverage branching directions that would lend to future installments, if the project does succeed. Both Kojima and Inaba felt there is a lot on the line for the Rising project not solely for the studios involved but for the collective future of Japanese game development. Kojima, noted, the Spike Video Game Awards “world exclusive” premieres were 90% Western development and the showcase of Rising was a testament to the amount of pressure the video game world has for Japanese game developers. Kojima wants to bring back the reputation that Japan makes the best games in the world and Minami is fully in agreement.

There is still a lot to do for Rising to realize its completion as the reboot, subsequently its development, started early this year. However, Kojima and Inaba stressed that its relationship since then as held and there is a true collaboration found in Rising’s new direction, or Revengeance. While the story will focus on Raiden getting his revenge, for Kojima and PLATINUMGAMES, it’s also about avenging the failed development of Rising.

The dragon I encountered was the same one the 20 minute demo showcased, including the same field and watchtower. However, the fight was nowhere near easy than the one portrayed in the demo. The dragon’s scale greatly outnumbers your own, which gave me a sense of unease and panic as the dragon touched down on the surface. It was spectacular and frightening all at once, but I quickly jumped back in to my character’s shoes and tried different tactics to defeat this ferocious enemy.

My attempt at rushing the enemy proved useless, and for a lack of a better word, stupid. I quickly found myself engulfed in flames, or in the beasts mouth as he finished me off with one foul swoop. It was a lesson in trial and error as I hid away in a tower close to the action, and thought out several tactics in order to slay the beast. A combination of melee and ranged attacks worked well, but ultimately was not enough to win the battle.

I quickly realized that using the environment around me would be my only means of survival. Using the tower as cover while I fire arrows from my bow, mixed with a few rushing attacks with my sword, finally brought the Dragon down. Now of course grinding would have helped me in this situation, as in any RPG title you can think of, but what stuck out to me was the wide variety of tactics I came up with, and the trial and error that came with it.

The battle with the dragon never got old to me, and trust me, I fought the dragon for a while untill I was able to conquer it. It was not the intimidating scale, but the music and mood that Bethesda set for this encounter was the most astounding thing to me. Bethesda has packaged together a fantastic immersive experience that I am excited for all gamers to experience. To further explain my point, in my three-hour demo, my favorite thing to do was avoid conflict, and to just walk the country side and soak up the beautiful environments and amazing score. I don’t always find myself doing this in an action RPG title, but Bethesda has always manged to pull me into this nature appreciation mode, and Skyrim is no different.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim releases Nov, 11 on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

MDK2 was released in 2000 and is the sequel (duh) to MDK which came out in 1997. From what I gathered in the preview some aliens invaded and it’s my job to show them my sweet parachuting skills and killing them all. In MDK2 you play as Kurt Hectic (has a sniper rifle and can glide), Max, a six legged dog, and Dr. Fluke Hawkins, a scientist, in the full game.

Kurt has access to a basic machine gun, grenades, and a sniper rifle. The rifle is where things get a little interesting since you have a couple different types of bullets such as mortar, homing, bouncing, and more. He also has pickups that give effects such as creating a decoy, black hole grenades, and cloak. Kurt’s levels balance a bit of platforming with combat with some areas mixing them both. His boss fight involved sniping orbs to slowly open up the armor of a giant ship that’s firing at you.

The next level puts you in the paws of Max the dog, who enters an enemy ship by flying a torpedo and crashing it right into the ship. That section is an actual controllable sorta mini-game which was a nice bit of variety from the previous platform heavy stage. Max is definitely my favorite character to play as since he has a jetpack for some quick platforming sections, but the neat thing is that he can equip 4 guns at once to rain fire on those aliens. You’ll find Uzis, magnums, shotguns, missiles, and Gatling guns. His stages are a bit more action heavy, but the action is fun so it works. Dr. Fluke Hawkins plays quite a bit differently from Kurt and Max since he can’t really fight as well as those guys. With Hawkins you’ll go around levels collecting items to fix doors, create new paths, and kill enemies with. One spot has you collect a leaf blower so you can blow enemies into a giant Venus flytrap. You’ll switch between characters every so often so the game really keeps things fresh by switching it up with the characters.

From what I’ve seen of the original MDK2 the graphics have gotten quite a nice update (unlike the barely noticeable RE4 ‘HD’ update Capcom). Everything has a nice shiny look to it and the effects from the weapons look pretty nice. Also loved the bullet casings falling out when you shot your gun and the little particles that bounced on the floor when you shot things, I’m just a sucker for that kind of shit.

Overall MDK2 HD looks to be worth a quick purchase to relive some nostalgia or just to try an old classic for the first time. Personally I don’t see the Beamdog service competing majorly with Steam or GoG who is also known for offering classic games for sale and I don’t really want to have 4 different services with different game libraries. MDK2 HD IS exclusive to Beamdog though, so if you want it you’ll have to shell out the dosh over there.

You can expect MDK2 HD to be released exclusively on Beamdog on October 12th.

Dragon Commander is set in the same world as the Divinity series, in actual fact it’s a prequel set in a time when Dragon Knights were more common. But instead of being an RPG. Dragon Commander is more of an RTS and RPG hybrid with a bigger emphasis on aerial combat.

In many ways it works closer to a turn based board game. You have the map of the world with the different territories, which display who rules them and their armies power. In each turn you can do a variety of things. You have your main base which acts as a hub where you can interact with NPC’s, buy and train units and create strategies. In this case we talked to the princess we married and have on board. Though it turns out she is undead and is one of many possible princesses you can pick as your story progresses. She had a task she wanted completed, a land she can call her own. But she wants a specific city, a gnome city. This is where you can choose to help her or not. Each outcome will have a different effect in terms of story and in gameplay. If you side with the princess she will give you an undead army you can use in battle, or if you leave the gnome city alone it can open up new potential upgrades. Each choice is represented as combat cards. These can be picked before a battle starts to help give you the upper hand. The more quests you do with the princess the better and rarer cards you will receive but you will have to make hard decisions such as the one above. There is even an option to throw that princess overboard and find another one.

Once a territory has been picked a battle will occur. The game then turns into real time combat where you control a dragon (Yep, you guessed it with a jetpack) You are able to hone in on enemies using a supersonic dash and you also have the ability to slow down time to evade attacks. There are also fireballs and nuke like fireballs which can take out whole ships and a dragons roar to take out small ships within a certain radius. Also during combat you can control your generals to attack targets. This is where the strategy side comes in, tell them to attack so you can flank or other strategies to help make the battle easier. The enemies can be small infantry planes, big battle cruisers which require more firepower to take out and contain turrets as a defensive measure, there may even be other dragon knights. Once the battle is over the turns and therefore the day will end.

There will also be multiplayer for up to 4 players, where each person will control a faction and battle it out like they will in single player, only on a much larger scale.

Despite the game being in a very early stage of development and with the developer having the luxury to experiment with new mechanics and ideas, I’m sure the game will be constantly changing. Though this doesn’t stop the fact Dragon Commander is looking like a very promising game. It’s combination of genres in an non-linear fashion is an intriguing one and I’m looking forward to seeing how it will progress. Also it’s dragon’s with jetpacks, what’s not to like?

At last year’s E3, I was left impressed but I had doubts if it’s action RPG nature will be enough to break the mould and stand out. Now things have expanded upon, adding some very interesting aspects which MMO fans will want to check out.

This time we ditched the lush grassy mountains for a gritty dungeon. Our mission was to make our way to the and I quote “Big-ass monster” Kaidun in the Necromancy Cell. I played as a slayer, the damage dealer wielding a two-handed sword. The other 4 players on my party included a Berserker who wield a giant axe and also deal high damage only they have more finesse to them. A Warrior who are fast and nimble, sorcerer with magic and the most important class a Priest, who is the healer. This level was quite a high level dungeon, so enemies took a lot of damage to take down, even with 5 people in a party. I would dread to think how it will be on your own. It’s obvious TERA is best to be played in a party, and just like any RPG you will need a healer.

One thing I noticed this time around is how frantic and chaotic combat is. TERA’s main hook in combat is completely in real time, you can attack, dodge or block at will, add in more players and you have yourself a high octane battle. It was no surprise that the healer had to be controlled by one of the developers. I see the healer being one of the harder classes to master, but if you have a competent healer then your party will feel invincible. One new feature in combat I noticed was the combo-ing of skills. After using an attack skill you are given the option to press space bar to add another attack to deal even more damage. It’s only a little addition but it was something I abused.

However, there are 2 other main hooks to TERA that may get MMO fans interested. The first is the political system. The world is split into provinces and players themselves will govern them. Guilds will need to fight their way to the top and the leader of that guild will govern that area. They will be able to spend guild policy points that will change the area, whenever it’s financial changes or even how NPC’s will change. This will theoretically means the world of TERA will be constantly changing and always moving. I can see many great stories coming out of it when a certain guild overrules the other. The other hook under TERA’s sleeve is Server v Server battles. At the moment they are being low of details but later down the road more will be revealed and how this will work out. But at this time that idea has me rather excited. The games frantic enough in a 5 player party, just imagine how things will turn out when servers are facing each other.

TERA has bumped up my list of MMO’s to look out for. In an age where MMO’s are as common as Starbucks in a city I believe TERA is doing enough to stand itself out from the ground, if it’s ambitious ideas deliver. It may not be the first Action MMO RPG but it is definitely the most robust and is a title to look out for if you are getting bored of WoW or the countless Free to Play MMO’s. TERA is set for release in Spring 2012 for PC.

I played RAGE for an hour on the PC. As I’ve mentioned in the past, PC gaming isn’t my strong point. I’ve only really had a computer/laptop capable of running for the past 6 months so my experience with using a mouse and keyboard is limited. Thankfully what I go to play seemed to be almost a full build and I started straight from the beginning so I had the chance to get the grips of the controls and as the hour went on I got more and more competent. Then again this is a shooter so the controls aren’t as complicated as your typical PC RPG. However, starting from the beginning brings in another problem. Since RAGE is an open world game, you can’t get a great impression of what to expect. Especially if the bulk of my time were tutorial missions. Within an hour I got up to the part were I gain the main buggy and a sniper rifle. I was told after the sniper mission I can leave that starter area ,and then the game will really open up to me and can pick my main profession. What I really needed was another hour or 2 to really get a feel, and apparently I’m not alone in that assumption. As I was told that other journalists expressed similar remarks.

Still, I was able to get a good feel for what to expect and some of the quirks of the game. You start coming out of a cryogenic pod with little to no knowledge of why you are there only that you came from a place called ‘The Ark’ an underground shelter. As soon as you leave you encounter bandits, you are saved by a man named Dan Hagar who sends you back to his safehouse. He helps you get started, but of course for a price. Run a few errants for him, clear bandits from this, collect that. Your usual mission types. I did a lot of backtracking, as there were only a handful of areas on this part of the map. So mission variety wasn’t at it’s best, but I hope this is something that improves as the game goes on. You get to areas/safehouses via vehicles and this is where a good bulk of the game will take place. But during this part of the game it’s mainly exploring areas by foot. Vehicle controls feels fine, if a bit floaty. If you hit an object at high speed or simply roll it over, your character will come flying out rag doll style. I must say that first time it came off was rather humorous slapstick but at the same time felt a bit off.

The weapons on offer were pretty basic, but since this was the beginning, I can forgive it at this stage. I got a pistol, shotgun and a sniper rifle. Along with a weapon called Wingsticks which work similar to boomerangs. I personally didn’t see many uses for them at this stage, but it’s still nice to see something different at this early point in the game. You also have a crafting system in which you can make bandages, a machine that unlocks doors, among other things. So far I only encountered 2 enemy types, mutant bandits who charge you with melee weapons and your typical bandit who bombard you with gunfire. From what I could tell AI seemed pretty decent and each time I reloaded the enemy acted differently depending on what I did. Speaking of reloading, if you die you can use a defibrillator to revive yourself and shocks enemies within a certain radius of you. However, this needs to be recharged, so you can see this more like a second chance perk. There is one small thing that annoyed me during combat. When using a pistol a headshot didn’t always instantly kill an enemy. Not a big deal but something that is a little game breaking.

I’m glad I played this on PC, because the game looks stunning. Backgrounds and places in the distant just like amazing. The art direction is great giving a very less cartoony Borderlands feel. For such a good looking open world game you are going to get some technical issues. I didn’t find any bugs or glitches but there was the occasional frame rate drop. Despite this, RAGE is easily one of the best looking games I’ve played so far.

RAGE took me a little bit to get into, at first I wasn’t really feeling it. The opening mainly consists of backtracking and generic fetch quests. But as the hour went on I was having more and more fun. I was sad when I was told to stop, I could have easily carried on playing for a few more hours. Like I mentioned before, it’s hard to get a real gauge on how the game will progress from only an hour and in this case the opening hour of an open world game. What I was shown can only be the more boring linear part that slowly helps you get the grips of the world of RAGE. But I still had fun with what I got with RAGE. If you are a fan of open world shooters, you should give RAGE a chance.

RAGE is coming out October 4th for PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.

The XBLA library of games is about to add an action RPG into the mix. Crimson Alliance, developed by Certain Affinity, is hitting XBLA next week on September 7. We recently got a chance to talk to Tim Fields, Director of Business Development at Certain Affinity, about some of the team’s inspirations for Crimson Alliance and more insight into this action RPG.

Check out the interview below (interview conducted by William Saw):

How long has Crimson Alliance been in development and what stage are you currently towards completion?

We’ve been working on the game for more than a year now, and the engine and tools are a good bit older than that. But I’m happy to announce that we’re FINISHED! The game launches on September 7th!

What inspirations or sources did the writers at Certain Affinity draw upon to create the mythos of Crimson Alliance?

We’re inspired by a lot of classic dark-fantasy fiction, from games, from books, from movies, and from artwork. We love the old Howard Conan universe for example, as such a morally grey world, so brutal. More recently, we’re enchanted by the fiction of George Martin and Patrick Rothfuss. We love the Frazetta artwork, especially the stuff on the walls at Conan’s Pizza, a great oldschool local pizzeria in Austin, where a bunch of us grew up. Max, our President and Creative Director is draws heavily on his love of traditional Chinese fiction, as well as kung-fu films. I could keep going, but you get the idea. We’re into this kinda stuff. 

I read that you are experimenting from various previews that you are implementing microtransactions in-game, how will that work? Why was the reasoning in enabling that particular option for players?

We’ve not announced anything about microtransactions so far – but there are a few interesting pricing models that we’re probably going to offer on XBLA. The full game costs 1200 MSFT points though.

How is the difficulty/learning curve for players new to dungeon crawl type of adventures?

We’ve got a few different difficulty settings, so even if you’ve never held a controller before, you can learn to play the game, especially if you’ve got a friend or three to play alongside you! But don’t worry, if you grew up on Gauntlet, and played more Diablo than you care to remember… we’ve got the Ridonkulous difficulty setting specifically for you. There’s a challenge for people at every level.

In supporting four-player co-op, with three different classes at your disposal, will there be options to create say an entire team composed of wizards? Will that create a new difficulty dynamic for those that choose to go this route?

Oh yeah! You can create parties with whatever combination of characters you and your friends want. And since you can customize your character, and make them specialize in different things, you can assemble parties that will be really diverse and powerful. For example, maybe you and I both bring a wizard, fine, but yours is a master of ice, and I’m a master of lightning, and we’ll compliment each other nicely. Of course, some enemies and areas will be a lot harder than others if you don’t have a balanced party; but other areas will be easier too, so it’ll work out either way.

Is there an option for drop-in, drop-out co-op gameplay?

People can drop out of gameplay, but to join a game in progress, you have to all start up at the beginning of the level.

Since it’s a fairly new IP are you exploring other mediums i.e. comic books, novelization, to flesh out the world of Crimson Alliance or are is it primarily focused around this downloadable action RPG experience?
Oh, we’d love to explore something like that. For the moment, we’re focused on getting the game out, the website and forums looking great, and all that. But we’d love to do more in the world of Crimson Alliance.

Will Crimson Alliance be playable on PCs in the near future?

It’s exclusive on Xbox Live Arcade right now!