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Ready Up » Ms. ‘Splosion Man Review

Ready Up reviews the sequel to the brilliant 2009 smash hit Xbox Live Arcade title 'Splosion Man, but is Twisted Pixel's latest offering a dud, or does it give you plenty of bang for your buck?

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ready-up.net
60°

Meta has closed several studios, including studio Twisted Pixel and Sanzaru Games

Developers have started reporting they have been laid off from the company.

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videogameschronicle.com
italiangamer140d ago

And they killed Ready at Dawn too 2 years ago, fucking lizard Zuckerberg.

ReelBigMike140d ago

Twisted Pixel was one of my favorite developers before they got bought by Oculus and went VR only. That run of 'splosion Man, Comic Jumper, Gunstringer, and Lococycle was legendary.

Miacosa140d ago

This stinks but they knew who they were getting in bed with when they took the bag of cash.

lodossrage140d ago

That's the reality.

When these dev studios allowed themselves to be purchased it was well documented what Facebook/ Meta were all about. I don't advocate anyone losing employment, but they knew who they were dealing with.

badz149140d ago

bummer about Sanzaru. Sony should have acquired them after Sly 4 but I guess sales weren't that good for that and there was no real incentives to buy back then and the series ended on a cliffhanger. I love Sly4. something was amiss in their effort to introduce their own ideas on the IP but I still love it regardless. a 7.5/10 for me and I was excited for the sequel that never came!

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260°

Microsoft Appoints Former Forza Boss As New Xbox Game Studios Head

Pure Xbox writes: "Microsoft has appointed Alan Hartman as the new Head of Xbox Game Studios. If you're not familiar with Hartman, he's been part of Forza Motorsport team at Turn 10 Studios since 2005.

Over the past couple of years he's led as Corporate Vice President of Forza and Fable, and before this was the Forza Studio Head at Turn 10."

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purexbox.com
Berenger935d ago

Seems like a solid choice considering Forza and FH have been the only high quality studio, consistently for Microsoft.

Berenger935d ago

*Forza and FH are the most consistent high quality and this guy ran Turn 10. Playground did FH but still high quality. Let's see if he can get some quality production out of the rest

Obscure_Observer935d ago

He´s been doing an excellent job ahead of both Forza franchises integrating those studios to work together by sharing knowledge, technology and manpower.

The new ForzaTech is amazing and I can´t wait to see what it can do for the new Fable.

Phil Spencer has been promoting a huge shake up at Xbox with new leadership hopefully full of fresh ideas!

I hope Alan Hartman as head of XGS to keep the focus on single player games and RPGs. Fable looks absolutely stunning, so we can expect Forza Horizon´s level of excellence for Playground´s first RPG.

I can´t wait!

Futureshark935d ago

What a nice reward for the latest Forza, which is probably the most mediocre of the lot so far.

amazinglover935d ago

That game was using a new engine and had to be rebuilt from the ground up.

Redgrave935d ago

So that gives it a pass to be a lesser entry than those before it?

amazinglover917d ago

@redgrave not an excuse an explanation for why this game has less features. Not my problem you don't understand how game development works or development in general. When you move to a knew platform some things need to be rebuilt from the ground up.

I am currently migrating one of our services we provide to our customers to the cloud version and having to rebuild a lot of the add-ons we had built for them over the years.

But go ahead and keep criticizing devs when no one here has any clue what it actually takes.

Disccordia935d ago

Still think Rod Fergusson would have been a good shout. He's got a track record of fixing stuff and I assume he's still at Blizzard.

Not heard of this guy but I feel like anyone is better than Matt Booty

I thought Dan Greenawalt was head of Turn10 though (although I noticed he didn't do the on stage stuff at e3 this year). Is he not there anymore?

Barlos935d ago (Edited 935d ago )

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! This is the best news I've heard since the last piece of xbox news!

Go team xbox! Xbox will rule the world!

Lightning77935d ago

He's over overlooked The Forza games which have been consistently good through our the years. Hopefully he has the same eye for quality for the rest if the studios going forward.

babadivad935d ago (Edited 935d ago )

How can anyone deny that Forza has been a quality franchise for almost two decades?

Lightning77935d ago

They just downvote just to downvote they have no reason.

Jin_Sakai935d ago

“How can anyone deny that Forza has been a quality franchise for almost two decades?“

Forza Motorsport declined after FM4. And this release was one of the worst in the series.

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180°

Meta Acquires Twisted Pixel, Armature Studio, and Camouflaj

Meta announced it has acquired developers Twisted Pixel, Armature Studio, and Camouflaj.Twisted Pixel is known for The Maw,‘Splosion Man,Ms. Splosion Man, Comic Jumper, LocoCycle, and Wilson's Heart. Armature Studio developed the virtual reality version of Resident Evil 4. They also recently released Where the Heart Leads. Camouflaj is the studio that developed Marvel's Iron Man VR and Republique.

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vgchartz.com
gangsta_red1330d ago

I always said that MS should have purchased Twisted Pixel way back when they made MS Splosion Man.

Not sure what they have been up to lately, but I loved the humor found in their games.

Vits1330d ago

They have been basically a VR studio for the last half a decade or so.

coolbeans1330d ago (Edited 1330d ago )

But MS actually *DID* purchase them close to Ms. Splosion Man's release. Later, both parties came to a mutual split around the mid-2010s and Twisted Pixel moved their attention to VR.

gangsta_red1330d ago

I believe you're right! I vaguely recall a story a while back of them parting ways. I probably left a comment here on N4G way back of how disappointed I was to hear it.

darthv721330d ago

Meta is getting kind of serious about ramping up their gaming division it seems.

crxss1330d ago

that's literally every business right now

Christopher1329d ago

@crxss: yeah.... The article says that too. But doing this sort of adjustment isn't at all good and especially in the specific arena of Meta's VR teams.

Star511330d ago

Oh they mean business. This should be interesting

Outside_ofthe_Box1330d ago

Oh no. We need Microsoft to look at what Meta is aiming to purchase so that they can buy 'em before Meta can so that they can save us from Facebook.

ApocalypseShadow1330d ago (Edited 1330d ago )

Lol. But in all seriousness. Companies better start looking, or should I say, should have been looking years ago in getting VR developers that are already knowledgeable in VR. I always thought Sony should have been looking at Survios. They can crank out multiple types of games at a decent quality. With help and more time to cook, they could really be a great catch. And not rush things.

Camouflaj did well in working around PS Moves lack of 360 tracking. Shows initiative and creativity. Twisted is a good catch too. Armature did what Capcom is already capable of doing. So, I'm not as impressed with that one.

But it took Facebook long enough. Pushing music DLC and Ready at Dawn not making anything yet for Quest wasn't going to work for long. The race is on and let the competition begin.

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