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Now Loading for the week of April 8, 2013: Viva la Raza Edition

by: Jeremy -
More On: Now Loading Halo 4 ShootMania Storm Guacamelee!
Don’t let the lack of major retail releases fool you, there is plenty to love in this week’s launch list. I, for one, am thankful that the list is primarily digital; that means that our wallets will at least get a little bit of a rest before the games start flowing again next week.

As for our picks of the week, you might want to consider the following titles:
  • Halo 4- Castle Map Pack: More Halo 4 maps is always a good thing, I don’t care who you are. The third map pack hits the Xbox Live Marketplace today. The new pack, which costs 800MSP adds 3 new maps to the multiplayer portion of the game: Daybreak, Outcast, and Perdition, as well as 9 new achievements to earn. If you have already purchased the War Games Map Pass, it won’t cost you anything. I guess it is time to pull out Halo 4 once again!
  • Shootmania Storm: Finally! Nadeo and ubisoft’s Shootmania Storm is moving out of the beta phase and becoming a “real” game. There has been a little bit of buzz around the game lately with a successful beta campaign on Steam, but now we move into the era of the official, retail release. The game will let you build and share your own maps similar to the Trackmania series and the gameplay resembles classics like Quake and Doom rather than modern, complicated shooters. I can see us booting this one up at a few lan parties in the near future!
  • Guacamelee!: Without a doubt, my top recommendation of the week goes to Drinkbox Studios’ Guacamelee! which will launch with tomorrow’s PlayStation Store update. As a masked luchador who is brought back from the dead to rescue the love of his life, this action-platformer pays a lot of homage to classic adventure games. The game plays a lot like Metroid and Castlevania; it’s all about exploration and expanding your characters abilities, along with an insanely responsive and fun combat system. The game is available on both the PS3 and Vita, featuring Cross Buy and Cross save capabilities, meaning you only have to buy the game once and you get it on both platforms and you can share your progress between the two. We’ll have our full review of the game tomorrow but trust me, keep an eye on this one!
Also, those of you in the WWCD listening area will want to tune in to Now Loading this week on Thursday morning (~7:45am) for your chance to win a free copy of Age of Empires II HD for Steam!

The full lineup for this week includes the following:
  • Age of Empires II HD for PC (Steam exclusive)
  • Age of Wushu for PC
  • Guacamelee! for PlayStation 3 and Vita (via PSN)
  • Halo 4: Castle Map  Pack for Xbox 360
  • Motocross Madness for Xbox Live Arcade
  • Shootmania Storm for PC
  • Table Mini Golf for Vita