Warp Zoned Presents
Video Game Canon- Meet the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2025: Quake, GoldenEye 007, Defender, and Tamagotchi
- The BAFTA Games Awards Polled the Public and Shenmue is “The Most Influential Video Game of All Time”
- 2024 GOTY Scoreboard: Astro Bot, Balatro, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, More
- The Strong Museum of Play Acquires Prototypes and Development Documents from Volition’s 30-Year History
- Minecraft’s Volume Alpha Soundtrack Has Been Added to the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry
Warp Zoned Presents
- Video Game Research Library
- Inside the ‘Dragon Age’ Debacle That Gutted EA’s BioWare Studio – Bloomberg (2025)
- Fight Club, The Game David Fincher Didn’t Want You To Play – Time Extension (2025)
- It’s beginning to feel like gaming isn’t for everyone – Digital Trends (2025)
- 22 years later, modders are keeping SimCity 4 alive – The Verge (2025)
- The B-movies of Paul W.S. Anderson double as acts of devotion to his muse, Milla Jovovich – The AV Club (2025)
Monthly Archives: February 2016
Weekly Warp-Up: A New Pokemon Game is Coming This Fall…
No, that’s not a typo. Welcome to the Weekly Warp-Up, your weekly wrap-up of the biggest and the best articles posted at Warp Zoned this week…
Catch ’em all again this Fall as Nintendo and The Pokemon Company announced Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon for the 3DS earlier this week. We don’t know much about the next pair of Pokemon games, but we do they’ll be released this Fall.
In the more immediate future, Tom Clancy’s The Division will be available on store shelves in nine days, so we made sure to test the recent Open Beta.
Finally this week, the latest Kickstart This! column shines a spotlight on Need To Know, Essence: The Resurrection, and A Place for the Unwilling.
More news from the week that was can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in News
New Releases: Zelda: Twilight Princess HD, Mortal Kombat XL, Far Cry Primal (PC), More
It’s a big week for re-releases as Nintendo, NetherRealm, Ubisoft, and NIS America are all giving some of their biggest games a second shot at the spotlight.
Nintendo is likely on the verge of another console transition, but the jump from the GameCube to the Wii felt unique in that players were given two chances to experience latest Legend of Zelda game. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princes was available for both platforms back in 2006, but now it’s back for its tenth anniversary as The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD on the Wii U. In addition to the enhanced graphics implied by the “HD” branding, Twilight Princess HD will include a new Challenge Mode, a harder Hero Mode, and a beautiful Wolf Link Amiibo figure.
Another game getting an expanded re-release this week, though less than a year after its original launch, is Mortal Kombat X. Available this week for the PS4 and Xbox One, Mortal Kombat XL will add in all of the previously released downloadable content as well as the four new fighters from “Kombat Pack 2” (Alien‘s Xenomorph, Leatherface, Bo Rai Cho, and Tri-Borg).
NIS America will also jump onto the re-release train with The Witch and the Hundred Knight: Revival Edition, a PS4 remake of an action RPG originally released for the PS3.
And finally, after making its PS4 and Xbox One debut last week, Ubisoft’s Stone Age adventure, Far Cry: Primal, will be released for the PC this week.
The rest of this week’s new releases can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, News, PC, PS4, Wii U, Xbox One
Tagged Far Cry: Primal, Mortal Kombat X, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Escape from a procedurally-generated cult in The Church In the Darkness
Jonestown… Waco… Heaven’s Gate… Images and feelings associated with these events are still burned into the fabric of society many years later. The aptly-named Paranoid Productions will draw on these events for their debut game, The Church In the Darkness.
Set in the 1970s, The Church In the Darkness will ask players to take control of Vic, a former police officer who is searching for his nephew at Freedom Town, a commune formed by the fictional Collective Justice Mission. Freedom Town is run by Isaac and Rebecca Walker, a married couple who might be trying to make the world a better place. But their commune could be a cult and their motives could be a bit more sinister.
As Vic, players will explore Freedom Town in a new way every time as each playthrough will ascribe new motivations to the Walkers and the other residents of Freedom Town. Using an overhead style similar to Metal Gear, you’ll need to use stealth to investigate the camp, but you also might have to resort to violence to make your escape.
The Walkers should sound familiar to a huge number of people as Isaac will be voiced by John Patrick Lowrie (the Sniper from Team Fortress 2), while his real-life wife, Ellen McLain (GLaDOS from Portal), will portray Rebecca.
Another familiar name, Richard Rouse III, is the Creative Director at Paranoid Productions. Rouse has bounced around the game industry a lot in the last 20 years, but he’s probably best known for The Suffering, an absolutely underrated game from the PS2/Xbox era.
The Church In the Darkness will be released for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One in early 2017.
Xbox Store Today: Tiny Troopers Joint Ops, The Solus Project (Game Preview)
Two new titles have been added to the Xbox Games Store today, and they are… “bite-sized” arcade shooter Tiny Troopers: Joint Ops and first-person exploration game The Solus Project.
Tiny Troopers: Joint Ops has been available for the PS4 for a while now, but it’s been biggie-sized on the Xbox One with exclusive new content. And The Solus Project, which is available through the Xbox One’s Game Preview program, tasks players with surviving on a deserted alien planet and it sounds a bit like The Martian: The Game.
More details on both games can be found right here:
Xbox One Games
The Solus Project ($13.49)
Xbox One Game Preview
Humanity is on the verge of extinction. You are the last hope, tasked with finding a safe haven for a colony. But now you are stranded on a deserted alien planet and every other member of your crew is dead. The fate of humanity rests in your hands: you must survive… Plants grow and rot, weather changes from scorching heat to chilling storms, the wind and humidity are unforgiving…Tiny Troopers: Joint Ops ($9.99)
Tiny Troopers: Joint Ops is an epic bite-sized arcade shooter, filled to the brim with action-packed mini maps of mayhem and all new content exclusive to Xbox One! Take control of your tiny troopers as you battle evil adversaries from around the world with a multitude of weapons. Recruit specialist mercenaries such as Medics, Machine Gunners, and the Elite Delta Force to subdue enemy insurgents! Collect medals, dog tags, Intel and more during the course of each mission to ensure victory.
Neverending Nightmares will be released for the PS4 and Vita this Spring
Developer Matt Gilgenbach has announced (via the PlayStation Blog) that he’ll bring Neverending Nightmares to the PS4 and Vita very soon. Featuring a sketchbook art style inspired by Edward Gorey and a branching storyline that was “greatly influenced” by film director David Lynch, Neverending Nightmares is an atmospheric horror game that mirrors Gilgenbach’s own struggles with depression and OCD:
Neverending Nightmares is a very personal game for me because it’s meant to metaphorically express the experience I’ve had dealing with mental illness — specifically obsessive compulsive disorder and depression. It was a real challenge to develop a game to express those dark feelings, but my team and I have created a unique interactive experience. I know I called it a “game” up above, but I think “interactive experience” is a more apt description.
[…]
In the game, you play as Thomas, a weak young man with asthma who wakes up from a terrible nightmare. As you continue to progress through the game, you discover that he is trapped in a series of nightmares — each more hellish than the last. Your goal is to hide and flee from the terrifying apparitions that Thomas is defenseless against in order to finally “wake up” in the real world.
Neverending Nightmares will be available to download through the PlayStation Store sometime this Spring.
Posted in News, PS4, Vita
Tagged Neverending Nightmares
Pokemon Sun/Moon will be released for the 3DS this holiday season
Nintendo and The Pokemon Company have teamed up to announce the next pair of Pokemon games, which will be available this holiday season. Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon are currently in development for the 3DS, and they’ll give players the option to experience the adventure in nine different languages (English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese)
“The Pokemon core series games are the center of the Pokemon universe and provide some of the most memorable Pokemon moments for our fans,” said J.C. Smith, Senior Director of Consumer Marketing at The Pokemon Company. “I can’t wait to see what fans think of the new adventures they’ll find in Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon.”
Not much else was revealed about Pokemon Sun/Moon today, but we do know the games will use the Pokemon Bank application to transfer previously captured Pokemon from Pokemon Red, Pokemon Blue, Pokemon Yellow, Pokemon Omega Ruby, Pokemon Alpha Sapphire, Pokemon X, and Pokemon Y into your copy of Pokemon Sun or Pokemon Moon
Posted in 3DS, News
Tagged Pokemon Sun/Moon
Latest Dark Souls III trailer mixes together “True Colors” and grotesque demons
I’m not sure if Gears of War was the first game to marry a recycled 80s pop tune to a visually discordant trailer, but it’s certainly the most famous example of this mini-movement. And it’s still inspiring publishers and developers today, as Bandai Namco recently released a new Dark Souls III trailer soundtracked by “True Colors.”
Originally recorded by Cyndi Lauper for her album of the same name, a cover of “True Colors” is used in the trailer above to contrast the game’s grotesque menagerie of monsters against the hero’s inner feelings. Will he be consumed by darkness, or serve as a shining beacon to the land? We’ll all find out together when Dark Souls III is released for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One on April 12.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Dark Souls III
Take-Two CEO: “We will be at E3 2016 in a big way”
Take-Two Interactive’s two publishing labels (2K Games and Rockstar Games) didn’t release many new games in 2015, but CEO Strauss Zelnick wants to change that this year. The executive revealed that Take-Two plans to have a big presence at the 2016 E3 Expo during a recent conversation with MCV, when he admitted, “We will be there in a big way.”
Obviously, the specifics of Zelnick’s statement are still a big mystery at the moment. But with the recent PC-exclusive launch for XCOM 2, and a tentative 2016 schedule that also includes Battleborn, Mafia III, NBA 2K17, and WWE 2K17, the publisher can easily turn heads at the industry’s biggest showcase.
Hopefully we’ll even learn a bit more about Rockstar’s next project, which may or may not be Red Dead Redemption 2.