» Mike Wall

About Mike Wall

Mike grew up and lives near Philadelphia and has been intrigued with games ever since his parents preached that they rotted his brain. He studied journalism at Penn State and got his master's degree in secondary education before realizing that not even summers off would make that job palatable. He now works in marketing and is trying to find time to continue writing a book about zombies, aliens, vampires, the end of the world, and a talking cat.

Here are my most recent posts

The best XBLIG new releases for the week of June 5

Posted on by Mike Wall in Features, xblig | 4 Comments

It’s a wacky, music-fueled week of Xbox Live Indie Game releases with two new (not so hot) guitar games and a one with jetpack-propelled kittens. This weeks’s crop of newcomers also includes a few retro shooters and a game called Crazy Hobo. We’ll just let that last one sink in for a few minutes… We Recommend Insanity X – Mike Insanity X is an overhead action game where you have to guide your spurious Samus impersonator through a maze of …

TIC: Part 1 rolls onto the Indie Marketplace on June 21

Posted on by Mike Wall in News, xblig, XBLIG News | Leave a comment

After charming the audience at RPI GameFest, TIC: Part 1 will soon have the opportunity to bore its way deep into all of our callous hearts. RedCandy Games has announced that their highly touted unicycling platformer, TIC: Part 1, will arrive on the Xbox Live Indie Marketplace on June 21 for 240 MS points ($3). The series is broken into 4 parts, and Part 1 will include the first 3 chapters of the adventure. Apparently the sinister EvilCorp (what a PR …

Avatar Legends impressions: Redefining ‘legendary’

Posted on by Mike Wall in xblig, XBLIG Reviews | Leave a comment

Somehow I don’t think Microsoft envisioned Avatars singeing goblins with fireballs and hacking the arms off of ill-tempered skeletons when they first revealed the bobble-headed doppelgangers, but sure enough, my bell-bottomed stud has developed a bloodlust for the sweet nectar of ogre blood. Kinect might empower me to be the controller, but in Avatar Legends, I am the actual hero. My Avatar is a bona fide master of magic and people’s champ. It’s a bit surreal, wildly ambitious, and quite …

Perkunas’ Dragon flips out in new trailer

Posted on by Mike Wall in News, xblig, XBLIG News | Leave a comment

Ninjas have always been known to flip out and go crazy at a moment’s notice, but the new trailer for Perkunas’ Dragon proves that dragons are prone to outbursts of extreme flippage as well. Zithira the Dragoness has been sent by the gods to help a starving town deal with its famine, but apparently the fledgling dragoness took a wrong turn at Albuquerque. Now you have to guide the beast to the starving town, presumably to aid it in the harvest and not …

The best new XBLIG: May 29 – June 4

Posted on by Mike Wall in Features, xblig | Leave a comment

It’s Monday again, which means that the nine-to-fivers are back to the office, and we’re back with the latest batch of Xbox Live Indie Games new releases. This week’s crop includes some Avatar games, a Silver Dollar Games release and a few totally off-beat games; in other words, it’s a perfectly normal week for XBLIG. Read on to find out what’s worth playing and what will make your Avatar curse the day you molded it in your image. Game of …

Latest Fluffy: Operation Overkill trailer is the most gruesome yet

Posted on by Mike Wall in News, xblig, XBLIG News, XBLIG Previews | Leave a comment

If you’re a fan of teddy bears, you probably shouldn’t watch the above video. Too late? Did you see all those precious little cuddly bears being decapitated and blown into bloody bits by the mean ‘ol Fluffy? Did you notice how their intestines rocketed out of their midsections like they swallowed sticks of dynamite? Don’t worry, the bears were mutated freaks. They were actually zombie bears, so our crazed squirrel was actually doing civilization a favor. At least, that’s the …

New XBLIG release round-up: May 22 – 28

Posted on by Mike Wall in Features, xblig | 1 Comment

Look at that! Two Mondays in a row with a list of new releases! It’s like we’re an actual professional news outlet or something. This week was a little light on the new releases, but there were a pair of impressive online games that pulled away from the pack. Check out our picks for the best of the new releases and go play some indie games. Game of the Week – Avatar Legends After 200 nausea-inducing Avatar games, we were …

Blocks That Matter review: Blocktacular adventure

Posted on by Mike Wall in Reviews, xblig, XBLIG Reviews | 7 Comments

Mario may have been content to smash bricks with his thick skull and be on his merry way, but not the little robot in Blocks That Matter. Nosiree, that little bugger isn’t a fan of wasting all of that precious material, and his innovative ability to collect blocks and assemble them into useful structures is what makes Blocks That Matter so wildly enjoyable. The feisty little robot, which looks eerily like a washing machine with stick-figure limbs, is on a …