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
Atlus will also release Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir in a special Storybook Edition
Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir is a side-scrolling RPG with a tale that unfolds through chapters in a magical storybook. So it seems rather fitting that Atlus will also release a special Storybook Edition of the remake. Available exclusively for the PS4, Leifthrasir’s Storybook Edition will be available in Spring 2016 for $79.99.
The Storybook Edition will include:
- Premium Outer Box – All the contents in the premium edition will be packaged in a large, sturdy outer box.
- Collector’s Metal Slipcase – The PS4 game will come nestled in a special metal slipcase with the game’s key art on the front, and a not-yet-revealed image on the reverse.
- 64-Page Hardcover Art Book – Filled with the original drawings from the legendary George Kamitani and Vanillaware.
- Potion Recipe T-Shirt – This large-size t-shirt is emblazoned with a helpful reminder of one of the more common uses of Alchemy in Odin Sphere Leifthrasir: turning the living Mandragora plant creatures (Habaneristos, in this case) into potions vital for survival.
- Art Print – Also included with the game will be a high-quality art print with another not-yet-revealed (but different) design.
A softcover version of the Art Book will be bundled with the PS3 and Vita editions of Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir, which will also be available next Spring.
Posted in News, PS3, PS4, Vita
Tagged Odin Sphere
Brett Ratner is making a movie about Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov’s life
Alexey Pajitnov’s creation of Tetris is going to get the Social Network treatment courtesy of Brett Ratner’s RatPac Entertainment.
According to Tracking Board, the film will portray Pajitnov’s early days at the Soviet Academy of Sciences and his programming work with Dmitry Pavlovsky and Vadim Gerasimov. The film will also focus on the court case that eventually awarded a publishing license for the game to Nintendo. The Tracking Board article even hints at the possibility of some international intrigue as the court case is said to have “threatened to destabilize relationships between governments.”
RatPac Entertainment is currently seeking a screenwriter for the film.
Beyond: Two Souls will be released for PS4 next week; Heavy Rain delayed to March 1, 2016
Sony has announced (via the PlayStation Blog) that Quantic Dream’s Beyond: Two Souls will make its PS4 debut on the PlayStation Store next Tuesday, November 24. The supernatural adventure game, which stars Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe, was originally released for the PS3 in 2013.
Quantic Dream has made a number of changes to the PS4 re-release, including:
- Enhanced 1080p graphics including motion blur, bloom, and depth of field effects, as well as improved lighting and shadows. The game also makes use of the DualShock 4 speaker to improve immersion when playing as the Entity.
- Decisions are highlighted at the end of each scene and compared with those made by other players.
- You can now play the game in chronological order right from the start.
- Increased difficulty in certain fight scenes, combined with improved controls for action sequences.
- Includes the “Enhanced Experiments” downloadable expansion.
In the same post, Sony confirmed that Heavy Rain‘s PS4 re-release has suffered a slight delay. Originally expected to be available by the end of the year, Heavy Rain will now be released through the PlayStation Store on March 1, 2016. A retail release containing both titles will be available in the European region on the same day, but it’s currently unknown if Sony will make the same deal available to North American PS4 owners.
Posted in News, PS4
Tagged Beyond: Two Souls, Heavy Rain
Minecraft: Story Mode Episode 3 will be released on November 24
Telltale and Mojang are putting the pedal to the metal on Minecraft: Story Mode. Today, they announced that Episode 3, “The Last Place You Look,” will be available to download for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and mobile devices on November 24. The search for the legendary Order of the Stone continues for Jesse and his/her friends in Episode 3, but is it too late…
Trapped and running out of time, Jesse and crew must discover a means to locate Soren, the final member of the Order of the Stone. They’ll see sights and wonders beyond belief, including the horrors lurking beneath the starless sky of The End. Only Soren’s knowledge can help push back the all-consuming Witherstorm, but will it be enough to save the world?
A new trailer for Minecraft: Story Mode – The Last Place You Look has been embedded above. Watch out for those Endermen!
Nintendo Download: Mario Tennis Ultra Smash, Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon, Typoman, more
Two games from Nintendo themselves highlight this week’s Nintendo Download.
Tennis anyone? Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash will be available to download tomorrow through the Wii U eShop. Players will be able to serve it up with Mario and all his pals once more with brand new moves (the Jump Shot), new powerups (the Mega Mushroom), and new modes (the randomness of Mega Battle).
Over on the 3DS eShop, players will be able to download Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon, a new entry in the dungeon-crawling franchise, beginning tomorrow. The roguelike game will include 20 playable Pokemon, and all 720 Pokemon will play a role in the story.
Finally this week, two other interesting retro-style games are now available to download on the Wii U. Super Street Fighter II Turbo Revival is a Virtual Console re-release of the Game Boy Advance remake of the Super NES port of the arcade classic. That’s a mouthful, but it’s also a pretty good version of one of the best one-on-one fighting games of all time. Also available today is Typoman, a side-scrolling adventure that requires players to lift and shift letters to advance.
More information on all of these games (and a few other new releases) can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, News, Wii U
Tagged Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash, Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon, Typoman
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Shang Tsung) said filming on Mortal Kombat: Legacy 3 is already complete
It has (maybe) begun (filming)!
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa might not be a household name, but he is very familiar to fans of Mortal Kombat, as Tagawa memorably portrayed the sinister Shang Tusng in both 1995’s Mortal Kombat and the second season of Mortal Kombat: Legacy. Recently, the veteran actor sat down with The AV Club to discuss his entire career as part of their popular “Random Roles” series.
Tagawa was thrilled to discuss his involvement in Mortal Kombat with interviewer Will Harris, especially his delight at being able to go completely over-the-top with Shang Tsung: “[I]t turned out to be a real film highlight for a lot of kids who are now 35.” As one of those aforementioned kids, I was extremely happy when Tagawa also said that Mortal Kombat: Legacy 3 is a go… and he’ll be reprising his role as Shang Tsung… and that filming is already complete:
But, anyway, I was in [Mortal Kombat: Legacy 2], and I just finished the third, and… I think it just gives me an opportunity to refresh it for this new generation. And the game keeps getting bigger, so I think it’ll go on. It’s definitely a huge part of my career. But so are so many of these films I’ve been in. I’ve been in a lot of cult movies, but I’ve been very fortunate to have been involved in projects that people remember.
Though Tagawa calls it “the third” series, it’s possible that the next Mortal Kombat webseries won’t be released under the Legacy banner at all. Last year, WB Games announced that Mortal Kombat X would be adapted as a live-action series known as Mortal Kombat X: Generations, so it’s possible this announcement is related to that. We’ve contacted WB Games for comment, and hopefully they’ll be able to fill in the blanks with some flawless information.
Posted in Etcetera, News
Tagged Mortal Kombat X, Mortal Kombat: Legacy
EA’s Jorgensen says Star Wars: Battlefront 2 is already in the planning stages
Massive franchises are very important to business side of Electronic Arts, so it seemed like a natural fit when the megapublisher signed a deal with Disney to create multiple games that take place in that far, far away galaxy. In addition to Star Wars: Battlefront, which was released earlier this week, EA’s Visceral Games is hard at work on another Star Wars game that’ll likely launch sometime next year.
But we might not have to wait that long for Star Wars: Battlefront 2 to be released. Or Battlefront 3, for that matter. Speaking at the UBS Global Technology Conference in San Francisco earlier this week, EA CFO Blake Jorgensen said the publisher will likely release multiple Battlefront games as part of the Disney deal:
“It’s a big effort for us, and I don’t think there’s a human being in the world who hasn’t heard of the Star Wars movie coming. And so, [it’s a] great opportunity. We struck a licensing deal with Disney a few years back that’s almost ten years in length. The game that comes out tomorrow, Star Wars: Battlefront, is a traditional first-person style shooter game. Our goal is to make future Battlefront games as well as other style games around the Star Wars franchise, both on mobile as well as console and PC. It’s a huge opportunity for us.”
Jorgensen later reiterated that EA still isn’t interested in creating adaptations of the upcoming Star Wars films:
“The beauty of the Star Wars franchise is it’s almost unlimited in what you can do with it. We know Disney has done a great job with other franchises and we believe they’ll do the same with Star Wars over time in delivering new worlds, new characters, new vehicles, all the things that make great video games. Our goal is not to make video games directly about the movies, it’s to use the IP in the movie to make great, exciting games.”
While we don’t when Star Wars: Battlefront 2 will make its debut, it’s widely believed that Visceral’s Star Wars game will star Han Solo.
[Source: GameSpot]
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Star Wars: Battlefront
Square Enix augments a six-month delay onto Deus Ex: Mankind Divided’s release date
“Huge Upcoming Game Gets Delayed” has been a common headline over the last few months. Today, Square Enix and Eidos Montreal added another one onto the pile with the announcement of a six-month delay for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Previously scheduled to launch on February 23, the futuristic first-person shooter will now be available for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One on August 23, 2016.
David Anfossi, Eidos Montreal’s Studio Head, apologized to fans for the delay, citing a need for time for “refinement”:
As you may have already seen by reading and watching the many previews for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided our aim is for it to be a worthy successor to Human Revolution and to improve upon that game in every way possible. I know that expectations are extremely high and we not only want to meet those expectations but exceed them.
We’re confident and proud of the game so far. However, as we are now playing through the game in full we can see that it will require more time in post-production for tuning, iterations, and refinement to meet our high standards. In order to achieve this we need to move the release of the game to August 23rd, 2016.
With this delay, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided will be released exactly five years to the day after the release of Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Deus Ex: Mankind Divided