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
Nintendo Download: Art Academy Home Studio, Star Fox Command, Mario & Luigi Partners in Time, more
Indulge your artistic side this week on the Wii U eShop with Art Academy: Home Studio, which offers 30 new art lessons to paint and draw with the Wii U GamePad. Players will be able to share their masterworks through the Miiverse, and even upload time-lapse videos to YouTube. Elsewhere in this week’s Nintendo Download (but still sticking with the Wii U) is Never Alone, an “atmospheric puzzle platformer” developed in collaboration with an Alaska Native people.
Also available the Wii U eShop this week are a pair of DS re-releases. Star Fox Command adds a touch of strategic plotting to the space shooting, while Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time adds time travel to the plumbing duo’s portable RPG series.
More information on all these games (and a bevy of new DSiWare titles) can be found after the break. (more…)
DriveClub: PlayStation Plus Edition is finally available on the PlayStation Store
After a ridiculous number of delays, Sony is finally ready to release the DriveClub: PlayStation Plus Edition on the PlayStation Store today. However, Shuhei Yoshida, the President of SCE Worldwide Studios, posted a warning on the PlayStation Blog that not all features will be available to all players right away:
We’ve spent a long time preparing for this launch after some difficult and unexpected set-backs. To make absolutely certain that all players have the smoothest and most stable experience possible we are going to be duly cautious about how we release the game this time around.
Starting today, all players will have access to the game’s Offline Mode. But Sony and Evolution Studios plan to soft launch the game’s Online Mode with a small number of players that will slowly grow as long as all game systems continue to operate smoothly. Yoshida apologized for this new delay, but asked fans to be patient as the Online Mode of DriveClub is actually very demanding:
We know that this might be frustrating after your extra wait already, but hope you can understand that we are taking extra precautions to protect your experience when you do get online. We want to make sure we don’t overload the servers as we invite millions of PS Plus members to download the game tomorrow.
We have to take this precaution because DriveClub connectivity is demanding for a multiplayer game, with countless ever-growing social connections across clubs, challenges, multiplayer, and hundreds of thousands of dynamic leaderboards and activity feeds.
Players will be able to monitor the status of DriveClub’s online component at the game’s official website.
Blizzard has released five more gameplay videos from Overwatch
Blizzard is at it again, releasing five more gameplay videos for Overwatch, their upcoming free-to-play arena shooter.
This time out, the developer has shone a spotlight on a “super-intelligent, genetically engineered” battle gorilla named Winston, a deadly assassin (appropriately) named Widowmaker, a soldier with a specialization in heavy weaponry named Pharah, a hulking German brawler named Reinhardt, and a defensive robot named Bastion.
Wilson’s trailer has been embedded above because he is literally the 800-pound gorilla in the room. The other four can be found after the break. All together, Blizzard has released 13 gameplay trailers for Overwatch totaling more than two hours. If you’ve been putting it off, it’s time to get watching. (more…)
WB Games suspends future sales of Batman: Arkham Knight’s PC version while a patch can be created
PS4 and Xbox One owners have been enjoying Batman: Arkham Knight since its release yesterday, but PC players were given a game that was more riddled with bugs than Poison Ivy’s lair. WB Games has been trying to quickly issue a patch to fix the performance issues and graphical glitches, but they’ve also taken the very drastic step of suspending future sales of the PC version until everything can be fixed.
News of the suspension was posted to the game’s official forums a few hours ago:
We want to apologize to those of you who are experiencing performance issues with Batman: Arkham Knight on PC. We take these issues very seriously and have therefore decided to suspend future game sales of the PC version while we work to address these issues to satisfy our quality standards. We greatly value our customers and know that while there are a significant amount of players who are enjoying the game on PC, we want to do whatever we can to make the experience better for PC players overall.
Thank you to those players who have already given valuable feedback. We are continuously monitoring all threads posted in the Official Batman: Arkham Knight Community and Steam forums, as well as any issues logged with our Customer Support (support.wbgames.com). If you purchased your copy of the game and are not satisfied with your experience, then we ask for your patience while these issues are resolved. If desired, you can request a refund at help.steampowered.com (Steam refund policies can be found here: store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds) or the retail location where you purchased the game.
The Batman: Arkham fans have continually supported the franchise to its current height of success, and we want to thank you for your patience as we work to deliver an updated version of Batman: Arkham Knight on PC so you can all enjoy the final chapter of the Batman: Arkham series as it was meant to be played.
I’d make a “WB Games wasn’t prepared” joke, but this situation is a very serious breach of trust between the publisher and their fans. An apology is nice, and the sales suspension protects WB Games from future complaints, but it’s very clear the PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight wasn’t ready to be released this past Tuesday, June 23.
Posted in News, PC
Tagged Batman: Arkham Knight
Xbox Store Today: Batman Arkham Knight, Devil May Cry 4, Tales From Borderlands Ep3
Three new games are now available on the Xbox Games Store, and all three involve rather unorthodox heroes.
Batman: Arkham Knight leads the way on the Xbox One with the finale of Rocksteady’s Arkham trilogy. While “The Batman” himself is possibly the most well-known superhero in the world, his methods often verge on madness. And in Arkham Knight, that includes taking on an army of supervillains by tearing through the streets of Gotham in a heavily-armed Batmobile. As the game’s trailers often say, this is war.
Capcom’s Dante is not quite as well known as Bruce Wayne, but his penchant for stylish demon slaying has made him a favorite among gamers. And Capcom has responded by remaking his fourth adventure for the Xbox One as Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition. The Special Edition includes additional playable characters, new game modes, and a sparkling 1080p/60FPS graphical upgrade.
Finally this week, Telltale Games released the third episode of their Borderlands spinoff, Tales From the Borderlands: Catch A Ride. It’s available for the Xbox One and Xbox 360, and it stars a pair of heroes who escaped “very-near-almost-certain-death” in the previous episode with the assistance of “statuesque buttocks.”
OK, there’s the unorthodoxy I’m looking for. More information on all of these games can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, Xbox One
Tagged Batman: Arkham Knight, Devil May Cry 4, Tales From the Borderlands
Treyarch will unveil Call of Duty: Black Ops III Zombies Mode at Comic-Con in July
A not-so-cryptic tweet from Treyarch has confirmed that we’ll get our first at the Zombies Mode in Call of Duty: Black Ops III at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, which takes place July 9 through July 12:
It's time to start writing the next chapter… pic.twitter.com/D31SOEw8vJ
— Treyarch Studios (@Treyarch) June 24, 2015
Call of Duty: Black Ops III will be released for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One on November 6. Activision revealed a ton of Black Ops III intel during last week’s E3 Expo, including a pair of trailers and the news that PS3/PS4 gamers will receive access to the game’s downloadable expansions a month earlier than everyone else.
Posted in News, PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Call of Duty: Black Ops III, Comic-Con 2015
Slightly Mad launches crowdfunding campaign for Project CARS 2
Slightly Mad Studios wanted feedback from the vast gaming community as they developed Project CARS, and they got it by releasing a series of early builds that players were able to evaluate as the game raced to completion. However, this process took its time and the game’s planned Fall 2013 release eventually morphed into a May 2015 launch. So I guess it’s a good thing Slightly Mad is already getting started on the sequel.
Announced on the game’s official website yesterday, Project CARS 2 will once again use community feedback to mold the game through the evaluation of early builds. Slightly Mad currently has £250,000 ($392,000) budgeted for the game and is seeking an additional £7 million ($11 million) through their World of Mass Development crowdfunding platform.
Sightly Mad Studios also shared their vision for Project CARS 2, which could turn out to be the biggest racing simulation ever:
- The Largest Track Roster Ever – 50 unique locations and 200+ courses including “loose surface racing” on dirt, gravel, mud, and snow. All will have dynamic time of day and weather allowing you to play anytime, anywhere.
- The Widest Variety of Motorsports – With eight different disciplines now including Rallycross, Hillclimbs, and Touge. 200+ cars from over 40 different vehicle classes including never-before-seen Concepts and Banned Race Cars.
- Co-Op Career – Play as the Teammate Driver, Spotter, Driver Swap, or Co-Pilot. More choices, more opportunities, more strategy, greater risks, and greater rewards.
- Seamlessly Connected – Socialize and compete via Online Track Days, have players from around the world take the place of AI-controlled drivers in your solo play, and get news updates on the Driver Network around you.
- Pro eSports Racing – Skill & Behavioural-based matchmaking, create your own Online Racing Leagues, and Live Broadcast and Spectator functionality.
- Your Home For Racing – Your own personal, customisable Test Track to tune and test your cars. Invite others to showcase your passion for racing and learn race craft and engineering with the Project CARS Academy.
Project CARS 2 is in development for the PC (Windows and SteamOS), PS4, and Xbox One.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Project CARS 2
Splatoon has sold more than one million copies according to Nintendo
Brace yourself, I think the next few months will eventually become known as the Summer of the Squid. This morning, Nintendo announced that more than one million copies of Splatoon have been sold since the game’s launch in late May. Counting both physical and digital sales, the publisher was even helpful enough to break it down by region…
- The Americas: 476,000+
- Japan: 368,000+
- Europe: 230,000+
- Australia and New Zealand: 20,000
“Ever since Splatoon launched on May 29 in the United States, we’ve seen thousands of people go online to have fun in this colorful, chaotic competition,” said Nintendo of America President and COO Reggie Fils-Aime.
Splatoon is already a very different game today than it was just three weeks ago. Nintendo has added a wide variety of new maps and weapons to the game, and plans are in place to release a major update (with new game modes) in August.