Warp Zoned Presents
Video Game Canon- BAFTA Games Awards: All the Winners from 2003 to Today
- Clair Obscur Completes the Sweep by Winning “Best Game” at 2025-2026 BAFTA Games Awards
- Boss Fight Books to Get a New Look for Richard Moss’s “Age of Empires”
- GDC Awards: All the Winners from 1996 to Today
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Wins “Game of the Year” at 2025-2026 GDC Awards
Warp Zoned Presents
- Video Game Research Library
- We Pitched a Museum a 1993 Game Hint Line (And They Actually Said Yes) – Yarn Spinner (2026)
- The History Of The Word “Metroidvania” And How It Spread – A Critical Hit (2025)
- Creator of Hit Game Shovel Knight Is at a ‘Make or Break’ Moment – Bloomberg (2025)
- Shadow of the Colossus: An oral history – Design Room (2025)
- In 2005, games started rewiring our brains – The AV Club (2025)
Author: John Scalzo
Xbox Store Today: Nevermind, Acorn Assault: Rodent Revolution
Welcome to the first Xbox Games Store update of 2017. Microsoft is easing their way into the new year with two new releases… an “adventure thriller” from Flying Mollusk and a furry turned-based strategy game from High Tale Studios.
In Nevermind, players will “explore strange worlds and solve puzzles” as they try to solve the mystery lurking within the inner psyche of psychological trauma survivors. Just like in The Cell, this task involves entering the minds of comatose patients and helping them cope. Thankfully, players won’t have to deal with a nearly-naked Vincent D’Onofrio. Nevermind is now available to download for the Xbox One.
Also launching for the Xbox One today is Acorn Assault: Rodent Revolution, a turned-based strategy game where players must overthrow King Louis the Umpteenth with a squirrel army. Oh, and it’s also somehow a retelling of the French Revolution.
More information on both Nevermind and Acorn Assault: Rodent Revolution can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in News
The Video Game Canon – Tetris
Dig deeper into the Video Game Canon with a look at how moms helped Tetris become the gaming gargantuan it is today. Here’s a teaser…
In 1989, most mothers believed that video games were a childhood distraction that eventually would be brushed aside as their offspring grew into responsible adults. But something happened along the way that prevented this. Perhaps the Nintendo Entertainment System, the most popular console of its day, was just that much better than previous attempts to bring video games into the living room. But I have a different theory. I believe it was Tetris.
Tetris brought mothers and their children together to play video games for the first time. And then something magical happened. Instead of jerkily moonwalking Mario into a pit or being the most unrad racer on the planet, the mothers were good at Tetris. They were so good that brother and sister soon had to compete with mom for control of the television. And mom wasn’t going to be finished until she made the castle take off into the stratosphere.
Visit VideoGameCanon.com to continue reading this article and to explore the complete Top 1000.
Latest Horizon: Zero Dawn trailer offers a look at Aloy’s allies and enemies
We’re just a month-and-a-half away from the launch of Horizon: Zero Dawn, and developer Guerrilla Games is back with yet another look at the game’s story. We’re still no closer to figuring out the circumstances behind the mixture of primative humans and high technology found in Aloy’s world, but it does introduce us to some the other people that’ll populate it.
In this gameplay trailer, we meet the “Masked Men,” the mysterious force seemingly behind the techno-organic animals that roam the land, along with a few of Aloy’s friends and neighbors.
Horizon: Zero Dawn will be released exclusively for the PS4 on February 28.
Posted in News, PS4
Tagged Horizon: Zero Dawn
Earthlock: Festival of Magic will be released for PS4 on January 27
Snowcastle Games originally released Earthlock: Festival of Magic for the PC and Xbox One last year. Yesterday the Norwegian developer took over the PlayStation Blog and confirmed that their RPG will also be released for the PS4 on January 27.
Lead Artist Fredrik Dahl also shared a few secrets about how Snowcastle tried to “honor and exceed” old-school RPGs with Earthlock:
Strategy is key to survival, not the grind.
“In the traditional turn-based RPG, I don’t think it’s a big secret that there’s a lot of grinding going on — to level up in order to beat a boss, for example. We’ve tried to limit that by focusing more on a tactical experience. Usually you can get through the bosses in Earthlock by choosing the right strategy, getting your talent board set up, and having the right character pairings. Getting wiped out is more often than not a case of having the wrong party setup.”
Earthlock: Festival of Magic is also in development for the Wii U, but it’s currently unknown when, or even if, it’ll reach Nintendo’s console.
Posted in News, PS4
Tagged Earthlock: Festival of Magic
Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Future Tone, Fatal Fury, more added to PS Store
It’s the first PlayStation Store update of the year… so let’s kick things off with a big dance party!
Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Future Tone, the Virtual Diva’s latest starring role, is now available to download for the PS4. According to Sega, Future Tone is the biggest game in the series (if you download both expansion pack), and it’s amped up speed and energy will provide fans with the most intense rhythm game experience yet.
Also new this week is Fatal Fury, a PS4 recreation of the classic arcade game from 1991. As one of SNK’s earliest games, Fatal Fury helped lay the groundwork for the dozens of fighting games the developer would produce over the next two-and-a-half decades. Fatal Fury will be available to download through the PlayStation Store beginning tomorrow, January 12.
More information on all of this week’s new additions to the PlayStation Store can be found after the break. (more…)
You should watch this great Shovel Knight speedrun race from Awesome Games Done Quick 2017
Awesome Games Done Quick is hosting their first speedrunning marathon of the year this week, and some of the best players from all across the world have descended on the Washington D.C. area to play through a huge number of games as fast as they can. In addition to putting on an excellent show, the AGDQ2017 participants are also raising money for the Prevent Cancer Foundation.
It’s a pretty fun week of gaming, and for further proof, just look at this year’s Shovel Knight race. Not only is it an extremely competitive contest, but you can watch two experts masterfully pick apart the new side-scrolling classic. The two players going head-to-head are “Smaugy” and “Munchakoopas,” and they provide a great match featuring plenty of platforming acrobatics, multiple lead changes, and an amazing photo finish.
Yacht Club Games will release the next expansion for Shovel Knight, Specter of Torment, sometime this year.
Thunder Lotus’s Sundered will be released in July 2017
Thunder Lotus Games has announced that Sundered, their upcoming MetroidVania-style side-scroller, will be released for the PC and PS4 in July 2017. The developer also confirmed plans to launch a Kickstarter campaign on Monday, January 16, to help with development costs and to gather feedback from their fans.
Sundered will include a procedurally-generated world map and random monster placement to encourage replayability. And like Thunder Lotus’s last game, Jotun, it’ll feature hand-drawn art for both the characters and the environments.
In case you missed it, you can get a sneak peek at Sundered’s visuals by viewing its Announcement Trailer, which was first revealed by Thunder Lotus last September.
Tetsuya Nomura says we’ll have to wait “a little longer” for release of Final Fantasy VII Remake and Kingdom Hearts III
Like Valve and Blizzard, Square Enix is well-known for taking their sweet time with projects they have in development. Not surprisingly, the publisher is using the same deliberate pace to produce Kingdom Hearts III and Final Fantasy VII Remake, which have been in the works since 2013 and 2015, respectively.
Director Tetsuya Nomura recently offered an update on both titles to Famitsu (translated by Siliconera), and while progress is being made, it might be quite a while before either is released:
Famitsu: What’s the development status on Kingdom Hearts III?
Nomura: The production process is different than what we’ve had up until now, so I can’t just give you a general idea, but I can say that there are worlds that still remain untouched. We’ve advanced on the production of worlds that have yet to be announced, so we can’t show them for now. As far as development status goes, there’s still a ways to go.
Famitsu: What’s the development status on Final Fantasy VII Remake?
Nomura: We’re making steady progress on its production. While we are indeed working on it, I think we’ll have you guys wait a little longer for both Kingdom Hearts III and Final Fantasy VII Remake.
Nomura apologized for the delays, but assured fans that it takes time to create “something that will meet expectations.” Hopefully, we’ll get the chance to see how both games are progressing later this year, as the Director also said he’s looking forward to showcasing both games at at least one event in 2017.
It sounds unlikely that Kingdom Hearts III or Final Fantasy VII Remake will launch in 2017, especially after Nomura said, “[Square Enix has] many titles releasing this year,” implying that neither game will be available by the end of the year. Though he did say that fans should look forward to some “surprises.”
Posted in News, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Final Fantasy VII, Kingdom Hearts III