Beyond Good & Evil HD, Torchlight Releasing on XBLA in February

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A press release just issued from Microsoft announced five kickass games to hit the Xbox Live Arcade in February, coinciding with an Xbox Live House Party. While details aren’t yet available for the House Party event, you can bet that it’ll involve some kind of Microsoft point kickback for purchasing a certain number of games.

And damn, what games they are. Beyond Good & Evil HD, the HD remake of the 2003 cult classic, will finally give you a chance to play the best game you should’ve bought but didn’t. In addition, the Diablo-like Torchlight will hit the Xbox Live Arcade with a number of bonuses and improvements over the PC version.

In addition to those we’ll get the Contra-esque Hard Corps Uprising from Konami, Bejeweled Blitz Live from Popcap Games, and Full House Poker from Krome Studios.

Only one release date is available at current — Hard Corps Uprising will launch on February 16, with the other four games following one per week in some unspecified order afterwards.

Some of the developers at Runic Games chatted a bit about the additions and changes to Torchlight on the XBLA in the company’s forums. Control is direct, and attacks will scoot you forward. The developer likens the game to PS2 action RPGs Dark Alliance and Champions or Norrath. All the skills are present, though secondary item sets have been removed for the sake of simplifying the inventory.

As you can see from the screenshots below, the UI has been completely reworked too. A tweet from a Runic employee even promises new armor sets, quests, weapons, and a new pet. No word on multiplayer, so assume it’s not included as that’s the banner feature for Torchlight II. I’ve already played the game on PC, but I know I’ll be getting this one for the pointssssss.

Goddamn 2011 is wasting no time in hitting the awesome is it? Click the screens for full size.

[via 1up, Runic Forums, Twitter]