The recent earthquake in Haiti has brought such devastation and loss of life that everyone is doing their best to try and give help to the country and to Haitians who are suffering so much right now.

The gaming community is joining in on this humanitarian effort in their own different ways. For example, The Behemoth announced that it is going to donate 100 percent of the revenue it will get from the downloadable content of two of its games on the XBLA – Castle Crashers and Alien Hominid HD. The gaming company said that all purchases of the DLCs made until the end of January will all be funneled to the Haiti disaster relief. What’s more, the company also said that it will match the total amount generated by the DLC downloads, effectively doubling the money that they will donate. The donation will be funneled through the American Red Cross Haiti Relief and Development.
With Castle Crashers being declared as Xbox Live Arcades Game of the Year, it’s expected that a lot of people will be downloading its DLCs. In fact, Castle Crashers is one of the largest games on Xbox Live Arcade’s roster of games.

EA Play Label, which is a part of Electronic Arts, Inc., is going to bring one of the most recognizable board games in the world to the Xbox Live Arcade.

Hasbro’s Risk, one of the most popular strategy games of all time, will be coming to the Xbox this 2010. Risk will feature different warring factions and a very distinctive art style that will set it apart from other games. There will be new gameplay changes that will make seasoned Risk players interested enough to give it a try. This new Risk iteration will surely attract both new players and veteran Risk players. The XBLA style gameplay is surely one of the best come-ons for this new game. It’s going to be refreshing to play on a new medium. I myself am quite intrigued as to how the Risk game will translate into a video game. We’ll find out soon enough though.

Risk: Factions will feature both objective based and world conquest modes and will offer five different factions that have different strengths and weaknesses. A cool feature of the game is that when engagingin in the combat missions, enemis can trigger “overkill” moments, which will unlock new avatar awards.

There are still no information on the exact game release and how much it will cost. We’ll keep you updated as soon as information is released.

Microsoft has officially announced another addition to the XBLA experience that will surely hook fans.

The Game Room is being described as a modern and virtual take on classic video game arcades. The Game Room will seek to replicate the look, sound and feel of a video game arcade. It will be virtual place that your avatar can visit and play in.

At launch, the Game Room will feature a library of 30 arcade and console classics, among them Centipede and Asteroids Deluxe. The games will be shown in their original arcade cabinets. You can the games yourself or challenge friends in beating your high score. The Game Room can be personalized — you can move and rearrange the cabinets, decorate the room with carious themes and icons from classic video games. And every week, a new title will be released to add to your Game Room experience. What’s more You can enjoy the Game Room not only on the Xbox 360 but also on your Windows PC. Yes, the Game Room is a cross platform virtual room where you can play the games your purchase on either platform.

Microsoft has been playing with the Game Room idea since early last year so it’s a good thing that they have finally pushed through with the project. I think this will be a great way to make the kids today better appreciate the history of gaming by giving them the opportunity to play classic games where gameplay is the most important aspect of a game and not the graphics. Although PS3’s Home also offers free games, I think the Game Room is a much more fully realized concept. It will be interesting to see how Sony will react to the Game Room announcement.

NinjaBee, an independent video game developer, is kicking off 2010 with a new game that it is developing for the Xbox Live Arcade. And to mark this event, the developer is going to allot each Tuesday in the month of January to show off new art from the game in development. The artworks can be seen on the company’s blog at www.ninjabee.com/blog. The teasers all lead up to a more detailed and announcement of the project by the end of the month.

Ninjabee’s management is quite excited about 2010, saying that this is the year where things will get big for them. And a lot is riding on the as-yet-secret game. But there are some details of the game that are already made available to the public. First, it is a game that will be based on avatar experience. It will allow gamers to actually play the game as their avatar. This game mechanic is nothing new to Ninjabee, as it has already developed other avatar-based games for the XBLA, among them A Kingdom for Keflings and Band of Bugs. Add that to the fact that some of the developers currently working at Ninjabee had a hand in making the free Xbox Live Indie games Dunk Tank, Football Toss, Snawball Fight and Fireworks, and you’ve got a team that has the know-how and experience to really deliver on their promsie.