‘Tis the season of free games, whether it’s No Code’s Stories Untold being free on the Epic Games Store or this recent freebie being given away on the Humble Store. Head here and you can claim a free copy of Guacamelee: Super Turbo Championship Edition, DrinkBox Studios’ Metroidvania luchador extravaganza. The offer is valid until May 19th and will provide a key that can be redeemed on Steam.

Guacamelee: Super Turbo Championship Edition contains the base game, all of the DLC, and some new locations and bosses. The title offers some pretty solid action for Metroidvania fans, along with a dash of humour and fighting game-like combos. It even received a sequel, Guacamelee 2, which you can read our review for here.

The Humble Store is currently running a Spring Sale, which ends on May 23rd. A number of titles are currently discounted, so you might find something else worthwhile if Guacamelee isn’t your thing. Stay tuned for more information on other deals and sales coming up in the next few weeks (particularly the next Steam sale).

Drinkbox Studios’ Guacamelee! 2 may be the new big indie hit, but sadly, it’s not available for Nintendo Switch. Not yet, at least. While the developer is promising a Switch release later this year for the Metroidvania title, it does have something to tide fans over in the meantime. Guacamelee!: Super Turbo Championship Edition is now available for the Nintendo Switch and costs $14.99.

Those who purchase the game can avail of a 30 percent discount on Guacamelee! 2 when it launches for Switch. As for Guacamelee: Super Turbo Championship Edition, it includes the same amazing combat and platforming inherent in the sequel. Four player co-op, custom outfits, previously launched downloadable content, and even some new levels are also included.

If you have even a passing inclination toward quality Metroidvania titles, it’s definitely worth picking up. You don’t have to experience the original to enjoy the sequel, but it’s certainly worth it. As for Guacamelee! 2, you can check out GamingBolt’s official review here for more information.

Microsoft noted earlier that Xbox Game Pass, its subscription-based service for Xbox One that would offer access to over 100 Xbox One and Xbox 360 titles at a time, would add new games on the first day of each month. July is nearly here and the company has announced the six games that will be available.

On July 1st, Xbox Game Pass subscribers will get Resident Evil 6, Dead Island: Definitive Edition, Guacamelee: Super Turbo Championship Edition, The Flame in the Flood, F1 2015, Bard’s Gold and Monaco: What’s Yours is Mine.

It should be noted that some Xbox Game Pass games would be cycled out each month. Microsoft hasn’t indicated which games will be removed to make room for the above but it did say that Game Pass titles would be up for a long time. Regardless, take advantage of what interests you when July 1st rolls around.

Xbox Game Pass currently costs $10 per month and doesn’t require Xbox Live Gold (except for multiplayer titles that require it).

Sony has revealed its free games to be added to the Instant Game Collection for PlayStation Plus from May 5th onwards and there’s quite the selection on offer.

PS4 players will receive Ether One – a first person adventure puzzle game that sees you reconstructing the minds of the mentally ill – and Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition – a 2D side scrolling puzzle brawler influenced by Mexican culture with a Lucha Libre masked protagonist.

Multi-platform free games are quite extensive this month. For PS3, PS4 and PS Vita users, there’s The Unfinished Swan, Race the Sun and Hohokum, each renowned in their own right. The Unfinished Swan is our recommendation due to its beautiful art style and story-telling. Meanwhile, PS Vita users will get their hands on Murasaki Baby, a puzzle game with a bizarrely endearing art style.

What are your thoughts on May’s Instant Game Collection? Let us know in the comments below and stay tuned for more information in the coming weeks.

Now, wanting to capitalize on the launch of the new consoles, the developers, Drinkbox, have ported it to pretty much every other gaming platform as well- the hilariously titled Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition has come to the PS4, Xbox One, and the Wii U, and in the process, they’ve gone back to the drawing board and made this new edition a bit, well, more of everything it was that made the original game so good. There’s enough new stuff here to warrant a playthrough even if you have already seen all that Guacamelee had to offer before this. If you haven’t had a chance to play the game yet, well, this new edition is the best place for you to jump in.

"Fundamentally, Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition remains the same game that we fell in love with last year. So everything that we enjoyed about the older game is back here in full force, and it's as good as ever."

Fundamentally, Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition remains the same game that we fell in love with last year. So everything that we enjoyed about the older game- the the great soundtrack, the witty dialog, replete with references to Nintendo classics such as Metroid and The Legend of Zelda, and the tight if slightly forgiving platforming- is back here, and in full force, and it’s as good as ever. If you want to learn more about exactly what kind of game Guacamelee is, I direct you to my review for the Gold Edition on Steam (linked above), or to GamingBolt’s review for the original release on the Vita and PS3 (also linked above). Both will tell you a whole lot about the game Guacamelee! is, and will save me the trouble retreading old ground again. For the purposes of this review, suffice it to say that the game is a Metroidvania, an excellent Metroidvania, with some dashes of Zelda thrown in.

What I will focus on here are the differences from the original game. Like the Gold Edition on Steam, Super Turbo Championship Edition comes with all of the DLC that the original game had included in the package right off the bat. That right there provides some great value and some neat new platforming fun, but this edition also includes the El Infierno DLC pack, that was made available for the original game in the form of post launch paid content. El Infierno adds a series of challenge rooms that present the player with various platforming challenges to overcome, and is a substantial dose of additional content to the base package here.

Guacamelee doesn’t stop there, either. It adds some all new areas and levels within the core game campaign itself, which are at least as high quality as the original content, if not even better. The new areas see you take on a whole host of platforming challenges and new enemies, which weren’t actually available in the original game, as well as a new boss, who is probably the hardest boss in the entire game so far (and, in some ingenious and witty retconning, actually manages to work his way into the main overall story as well).

But that’s still not all Guacamelee adds to the overall package. it also includes several smaller, quality of life enhancements, such as health bars over enemies (so you know how close you are to taking them out), and an all new Intenso mode, which is basically a mode that grants you fill invincibility for a while. To go ‘Intenso’ you need to fill out a bar- once filled, you essentially go nuts, and are able to dispatch enemies with ease. The Intenso bar can be upgraded by finding secret collectibles hidden all over the world, and while Intenso mode makes the game’s easy combat even easier, it also addresses a key issue that we felt the original game had- the combat eventually devolved into repetitive button mashing, things became rote, and the fighting tended to drag the rest of the admittedly excellent game down a bit. Here, thanks to the Intenso mode adding some variation and spice to the combat (and also a new risk/reward dynamic- do you want to go out of your way to fill up the bar, but risk danger along the way?), that problem is no longer a consideration.

"Guacamelee! is a fun, high quality, surreal romp, and it showcases some of the best flexibility that its genre has to offer."

An unexpected downside of this all, however, tends to be sped up combat. People familiar with the original game will probably recognize why this is an issue, but to specify- Guacamelee! is a short game. Combat tended to drag things out, yes, but it also slowed things down. Nonetheless, this was an artificial lengthening of the game, it amounted to padding of the worst kind, so it’s kind of nice that that issue’s been addressed to an extent. That, in conjunction with the fact that there are now so many extra additions that all add to the meat of the package, do address one of the other major flaws that both the releases of this game last year had- they fix the issue of this game’s longevity and length. You will now get even more bang for your buck with Guacamelee! than you previously did.

Ultimately, this is a very heavily recommended purchase. Guacamelee! is a fun, high quality, surreal romp, and it showcases some of the best flexibility that its genre has to offer. If you haven’t yet played the game already, this new release is the best place to jump in. If you have either a PS4, Xbox One, or Wii U, and are looking for a high quality game to play, look no further than Guacamelee! If you already played through the original release, Super Championship Turbo Edition is still highly recommended, simply because it enhances the original’s experience so much.

This game was reviewed on PlayStation 4.

GamingBolt caught up with Greg Lesky who is the Lead Designer at DrinkBox Studios to know more about the game. Check out his response below.

Ravi Sinha: Guacamelee! has seen nothing but positive support, both commercially and critically since it released. How much of that contributed to the Super Turbo Championship Edition which will be releasing on Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii U and PS4? Did you ever expect support for the game to grow beyond the confines of the Vita and PS3?

Greg Lesky: The positive support from the community really had everything to do with it. We wanted to bring the game over to the next generation of consoles with something new, not just a port, and get it to a wider audience. I think we just made the game that we wanted to make and are happy people liked it as much as they did.

Ravi Sinha: What kind of additional content can we expect in the Super Turbo Championship Edition? Previous DLC will be attached along some new bosses and levels. What can you tell us about them?

Greg Lesky: In addition to two new levels, a new boss and a new class of “elite” enemies we’re also introducing two new moves. The first is INTENSO that you charge through doing combos. Activating it doubles both your attack and movement speed as well as your attack power for a short period of time, which you can use to get out of tough situations or speed through a level. The other is for Chicken Mode, Egg Bomb. Aside from being just fun to blow things up with exploding eggs it will open up new secret areas. We also had time to go back and tune the game, as well as address some of the feedback from the community.

"Nintendo has been helpful and easy to work with. Whenever we've reached out to Nintendo they've always been helpful and responsive, and you can't ask for more than that."

Ravi Sinha: Will you be taking advantage of the additional power that the PS4 and Xbox One offer to visually improve the game or even revamp it significantly from the initial release?

Greg Lesky: Now that we don’t have to worry as much about memory and overdraw issues, our Art Director was able to put in all the extra details and effects he always wanted to shove into the original release but couldn’t. We didn’t completely redo the art as much as we wanted, but we finally got the game polished to the level it was meant to be. This includes better lighting, better antialiasing, more particles and effects on screen at once, extra layers of foreground and background props, water distortion effects, and most noticeable of all; real-time cast shadows that add much more depth and life to the environments of Guacamelee.

Ravi Sinha: Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition will also be out on the Wii U, which has been a negative rap in the past year due to limited sales and games selection. How was the development process for the console and your dealings with Nintendo?

Greg Lesky: Nintendo has been helpful and easy to work with. Whenever we’ve reached out to Nintendo they’ve always been helpful and responsive, and you can’t ask for more than that. As for development, the initial port took a little while to get working, but once that was done things went smoothly.

Ravi Sinha: How will the game take advantage of the Wii U GamePad? Will it allow for significantly different gameplay than the PS4 and Xbox One?

Greg Lesky: Being a smaller team we focused more on getting the game to the new consoles rather than building console-specific features. However the GamePad will allow players to either mirror the game screen or display the world map.

"We are supporting the TouchPad, which will allow players to bring up the world map."

Ravi Sinha: Will the PS4 and Xbox One versions support the DualShock 4 Touchpad and Kinect respectively?

Greg Lesky: We are supporting the TouchPad, which will allow players to bring up the world map.

Ravi Sinha: Can we expect a proper sequel to the original game in the coming year? Even if not, what kind of criticisms from the first game will you be looking to improve on with your next project?

Greg Lesky: Right now we’re working on finishing Super Turbo Championship Edition and on a new title called Severed, a first person exploration non-linear dungeon-crawler where you play a girl who’s unraveling the mystery of what happened in an even more mysterious world. I think our biggest criticism on the first game was difficulty spikes in the game, and with Super Turbo Championship Edition we had a chance to go back and smooth those out. For Severed, we still like to really challenge the player so that element will still be there.

Ravi Sinha: Lost in the buzz of the Xbox One and PS4 is Valve’s Steam Box. What are your thoughts on the console at this point and will you be bringing Guacamelee!: Super Turbo Championship Edition to SteamOS at some point?

Greg Lesky: It’s still unclear how widespread the Steam Box will be, and I think a lot may depend on the success of the Steam Controller. I’m not yet sure how usable the controller will be for all the different kinds of games out on Steam. If the controller *really* works, then the Steam Box may take off. Valve seems to use a process of slow incremental improvement, and it sounds like that may happen with SteamOS too, so it could be a few years before the picture becomes clear on Steam Box.

As for releasing Guacamelee! STCE, the original Guacamelee! already runs on SteamOS, which is really just a consequence of it running on Linux. If/when Guacamelee! STCE is released on Steam I think it’s quite likely it will appear on Steam OS too.

"The port was pretty smooth. We had the game engine working with DX11 before we got devkits, so the number of changes required to get going on XB1 was pretty small."

Ravi Sinha: As someone working on the PC side of things, what kind of benefits DX12 will bring to indie games development?

Greg Lesky: Hmmm. I’m not sure there are big benefits to indies. Small studios aren’t focused on the latest and greatest tech – they’re more interested in having a stable, portable, and easy-to-use tech base so they can focus on making the game. That’s why you see a lot of indie devs using Unity, OpenGL and GameMaker.

Upgrading to a new API that’s Windows-only where a lot of the benefits are on the performance side (something small games aren’t usually constrained by) doesn’t sound like something indies will get excited about. Having said all that, I’m personally excited about the reduced CPU overhead and the improvements to multithreading. Having worked on consoles, I like anything that brings the API closer to the hardware, and DX12 sounds like it’s doing that.

Ravi Sinha: Did you faced any issues while working on the Xbox One, specifically the eSRAM?

Greg Lesky: The port was pretty smooth. We had the game engine working with DX11 before we got devkits, so the number of changes required to get going on XB1 was pretty small. On top of that, the new consoles have so much more power than the previous generation (and remember we shipped Guacamelee on Vita!) that using the eSRAM wasn’t actually necessary for us. We *are* using the eSRAM, but because we’re a small game we’re not really limited by it.

I can imagine a AAA game using MRTs having some challenges, but for us managing the memory wasn’t too difficult. That work was doubly useful as well, because the WiiU’s memory architecture is surprisingly similar, and we were able to share our engine changes between the two platforms.

Ravi Sinha: Can you please confirm the resolution and frame rate of the PS4 and Xbox One versions?

Greg Lesky: 60 FPS and 1080p.

Microsoft has announced its Xbox Live Games With Gold titles for July. These include Drinkbox Studios’ Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition for the Xbox One while the Xbox 360 will be receiving Gotham City Impostors and BattleBlock Theater.

Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition is one of the cooler brawling platformers to arrive in a long time as you take the role of a masked luchador Juan Aguacate who must rescue the Mexican president’s daughty. This means much brawling, many elbow drops and tons of secrets to uncover. You can pick up Guacamelee! on July 2nd – it will be replacing Halo: Spartan Assault.

Meanwhile, for Xbox 360 players, there will be Gotham City Impostors, which sees two six player teams fighting using Batman and Joker-inspired weapons. It will be available on July 1st to 15th. From July 16th to 31st, you’ll have a chance to pick up The Behemoth’s BattleBlock Theater. The puzzle platformer sees you jumping, fighting and trying to survive against some seriously demented and intelligent cats.

What are thoughts on this month’s releases? Let us know in the comments.

DrinkBox Studios will be releasing the Guacamelee: Super Turbo Championship Edition across the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and Wii U. The content of this game will be similar to the Gold Edition that was released on the PC with all the extra goodies like DLC and boss fights.

GamingBolt recently got in touch with Greg Lesky, Lead Designer at DrinkBox Studios and since the studio has already worked on PC games before we decided ask his take on Microsoft’s latest API that is due for release next year. Given that the API will help the AAA studios in pushing games with even more better graphics, but what about the indies? Greg believes that he is unsure how DX12 can help indies as those small studios are more focused on improving gameplay mechanics.

“Hmmm. I’m not sure there are big benefits to indies,” he says. “Small studios aren’t focused on the latest and greatest tech – they’re more interested in having a stable, portable, and easy-to-use tech base so they can focus on making the game. That’s why you see a lot of indie devs using Unity, OpenGL and GameMaker. Upgrading to a new API that’s Windows-only where a lot of the benefits are on the performance side (something small games aren’t usually constrained by) doesn’t sound like something indies will get excited about.”

However he is personally excited about it since it will allow coding closer to the metal. “Having said all that, I’m personally excited about the reduced CPU overhead and the improvements to multithreading. Having worked on consoles, I like anything that brings the API closer to the hardware, and DX12 sounds like it’s doing that.”

Guacamelee: Super Turbo Championship Edition is expected to release sometime later this year.

This is just a snippet of our interview with DrinkBox Studios and we will have more in the coming days.

Guacamelee! was one of the best games released last year and now DrinkBox Studios will be releasing the Guacamelee: Super Turbo Championship Edition across the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and Wii U. This version will be similar to the Gold Edition that was released on the PC with all the DLC, new levels, abilities and boss battles.

GamingBolt was able to get in touch with Greg Lesky, Lead Designer at DrinkBox Studios. The game is coming out on the Xbox One and it’s obvious that the developer might have faced issues due to eSRAM. However this does not seem to be the case with DrinkBox Studios.

“The port was pretty smooth,” Greg told us. “We had the game engine working with DX11 before we got devkits, so the number of changes required to get going on XB1 was pretty small. On top of that, the new consoles have so much more power than the previous generation (and remember we shipped Guacamelee on Vita!) that using the eSRAM wasn’t actually necessary for us. We *are* using the eSRAM, but because we’re a small game we’re not really limited by it.”

However he believes that a AAA game might face some challenges. “I can imagine a AAA game using MRTs having some challenges, but for us managing the memory wasn’t too difficult. That work was doubly useful as well, because the Wii U’s memory architecture is surprisingly similar, and we were able to share our engine changes between the two platforms,” he further explained.

Guacamelee: Super Turbo Championship Edition is expected to release sometime later this year.

This is just a snippet of our interview with DrinkBox Studios and we will have more in the coming days.