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
Guitar Hero Live goes to 110 as Activision adds ten more songs to the game
After a few weeks of radio silence, Activision announced today that ten more songs will be added to Guitar Hero Live‘s gargantuan setlist. Once again, the selections run the gamut from radio friendly pop (Passenger’s “Let Her Go”) to indie favorites (Haim, Wavves) to the hard stuff (Lamb of God’s “Ghost Walking”). If you’re looking for all ten new tracks, they can be found right here:
- 36 Crazyfists – “Also Am I”
- Gerard Way – “No Shows”
- Haim – “The Wire”
- Lamb of God – “Ghost Walking”
- Orianthi – “According to You”
- Passenger – “Let Her Go”
- Pearl Jam – “Sirens”
- Surfer Blood – “Demon Dance”
- Tonight Alive – “The Ocean”
- Wavves – “Demon to Lean On”
Guitar Hero Live will be released for the PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and mobile platforms on October 20.
Xbox Store Today: Castle Crashers Remastered, Lovers In A Dangerous Spacetime, ClusterPuck 99, more
Prepare to dive deep into a trio of new side-scrollers in this week’s Xbox Games Store update. Though one of the games should be very familiar to Xbox 360 owners.
This week, Castle Crashers jumps to the Xbox One in an enhanced Remastered edition. The Behemoth’s widely acclaimed hack and slash now features “hi-res visuals like nothing you’ve ever seen before” running at 60 frames per second. A number of other tweaks have also been made to the game and a new minigame (“Back Off Barbarian”) has been added. But thankfully, the Remastered edition includes all the same co-op opportunities (for up to four players) and its even available for free (until September 20) to owners of the Xbox 360 edition.
Also available for the Xbox One this week is Lovers In A Dangerous Spacetime, a two-player “couch co-op action space shooter.” A single-player option is available, but developer Asteroid Base designed the game with co-op in mind, saying, “Only through teamwork can you triumph over the evil forces of Anti-Love, rescue kidnapped space-bunnies, and avoid a vacuumy demise.”
This week’s third side-scroller is Aritana and the Harpy’s Feather, a colorful puzzle platformer for the Xbox One based on “the switching of postures.” According to the developer, “You must choose between these postures to overcome obstacles and fight the Spirits of the Forest in a fast, intuitive, and fun gameplay.”
Finally this week, ClusterPuck 99 is a wild hockey-like game for the Xbox One designed for eight players. Developer PHL Collective says that its “intense local multiplayer” is “built for parties.”
More information on all of these games can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, Xbox One
Tagged Castle Crashers, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime
PS Store Today: Tearaway Unfolded, Rugby World Cup 2015, Beyond Eyes, more
It’s a short week for Sony’s PlayStation Store as only a handful of titles were added to the online storefront today. However, one of this week’s new games is Tearaway Unfolded, Media Molecule’s PS4 adaptation (definitely don’t call it a port) of their handheld platformer. Tearaway didn’t find much of an audience on the Vita, but Media Molecule was quite proud of it. Hopefully, they find more success on the PS4.
A number of other titles are also available to download through the PlayStation Store this week:
- Rugby World Cup 2015 (PS4, PS3, Vita) is the latest Rugby simulation from HB Studios and Bigben Interactive.
- Beyond Eyes (PS4) asks players to help a blind girl journey through the world in search of her pet cat.
- Hyper Void (PS4 + PS3 Cross-Buy) is a wild space shooter.
- And Ascendant (PS4) is… believe it or not… a roguelike beat ’em up.
More information on all of these games (and a few others) can be found after the break. And a complete rundown of this week’s new game add-ons and discounts is available at the PlayStation Blog. (more…)
Wii U + Mario Kart 8 + Mario Kart 8 DLC Bundle races into stores today
Nintendo is upgrading their Mario Kart 8 Wii U Bundle by adding both of the game’s downloadable expansions. The Legend of Zelda X Mario Kart 8 Pack was released in 2014 to tremendous acclaim, while the Animal Crossing X Mario Kart 8 Pack crossed the finished line earlier this year to similar accolades. If you haven’t already, there’s really never been a better time than now to jump into the driver’s seat of Mario Kart 8.
The new Wii U + Mario Kart 8 Bundle will be available on store shelves beginning today. Priced at $299.99, the package will include a pre-installed version of Mario Kart 8 as well as a Nintendo eShop Download Card for the two DLC packs.
Posted in News, Wii U
Tagged Mario Kart 8
Prepare yourself for Destiny: The Taken King with this Cinematic Trailer
The launch of Bungie’s Destiny: The Taken King is exactly one week away, so Activision has released a new Cinematic Trailer to get players up to speed on the expansion’s story. The Taken King, Destiny’s third major expansion after The Dark Below and House of Wolves, serves as the finale to “Year One” of Destiny. Hoping to rule the galaxy as father and son, Oryx is none too happy about the death of Crota, the main baddie from Destiny:
Oryx is here. He’s hellbent on revenge, and he’s brought an army of Taken with him. Infiltrate his fortress, fight through his army, and Face The Taken King.
I’m not too well-versed in Destiny’s lore, but it all looks very Star Wars-y to me. Destiny: The Taken King will be available for the PS4, Xbox One, PS3, and Xbox 360 on September 15.
Video Game Release Calendar Changelog: September 2015 Update
Don’t Forget! This is just a changelog of recently announced release dates. Warp Zoned’s complete Video Game Release Calendar includes every title we could find that’s scheduled for release in 2015, 2016, 2017, or beyond.
We have officially turned the calendar over to September and that means the Fall gaming rush is right around the corner. Thankfully, that means a number of publishers have nailed down final release dates for many of their major releases. Nintendo has been especially busy filling in their monthly planner, announcing release dates for Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water (October 22), The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes (October 23), Yo-Kai Watch (November 6), Star Fox Zero (November 20), and Devil’s Third (December 11).
Looking beyond the end of the year, 2016’s Winter/Spring period is also filling up fast including a launch date for Lego Avengers in January (January 26) and a bevy of titles in February (XCOM 2 on February 5, Battleborn on February 9, and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided on February 23). A few weeks later, Nathan Drake makes his PS4 debut in Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End on March 18. Microsoft has also staked a Spring claim with the release of Quantum Break on April 5.
Finally, we circle back around to Nintendo with the announcement of an official launch window (“Spring 2016”) for the Wii U version of Pokken Tournament. We all knew it was happening, so I’m not sure what took them so long.
Even more new release dates from this edition of the Video Game Release Calendar Changelog can be found after the break. (more…)
Shigeru Miyamoto says Pikmin 4 is “very close to completion”
Nintendo (more specifically, series creator Shigeru Miyamoto) first revealed the existence of Pikmin 4 nearly a year ago during a Shareholders Q&A. Since then, the publisher has remained tight-lipped about the Wii U sequel, preferring to focus on this Fall’s major releases like Super Mario Maker, Star Fox Zero, and Xenoblade Chronicles X.
Today, the prolific developer returned with another Pikmin proclamation, this time revealing that development on the game is almost finished. “It’s actually very close to completion,” Miyamoto told Eurogamer. “Pikmin teams are always working on the next one.” Miyamoto’s claim was later substantiated by Nintendo in a separate statement.
Presumably, a splashy official announcement for Pikmin 4 will happen very soon.
Tetsuya Nomura says that development on Kingdom Hearts III’s “basic systems” is done
Kingdom Hearts III was officially announced more than two years ago and it doesn’t feel like it’s any closer to release now than it was then. However, Director Tetsuya Nomura recently sat down with Games Radar and revealed that the “basic systems” of the game are complete:
“For the most part we’ve established the ground foundations, like the basic systems and mechanics of what’s going to go in the game. Development of that is pretty much close to complete.
But don’t rush out to your favorite game store just yet, Nomura also said that creating the fine details of the game (environments, minigames, and other smaller items) will still take a considerable amount of time:
“But of course, since this is an HD title, it’s now building the resources, and development of the ‘mass’ elements of it, like mass production of the areas and the actual things that are going into the game. Other elements, including the mini-games and other various smaller items; their progress is very varied… some of them are polished and very close to final state, but at the same time some elements are still in the planning phases and I haven’t laid out the groundwork yet. But the basic structure of what’s going to go in the game is set, it’s now a matter of mass production of the different elements.”
Kingdom Hearts III is in development for the PS4 and Xbox One… and it’ll likely be a very long time before we get to play it.
Posted in News, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Kingdom Hearts III