Warp Zoned Presents
Video Game Canon- Clair Obscur Completes the Sweep by Winning “Best Game” at 2025-2026 BAFTA Games Awards
- Boss Fight Books Gets 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
- Silent Hill, Dragon Quest, Skyrim, and More Announced as Finalists for the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026
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
Insert Quarter: Video Game Titles Have Gotten Ridiculous
Insert Quarter is our showcase for some of the best and most interesting writing about video games on the Internet.
Video game titles have gotten ridiculous. I think I really noticed it earlier this year when Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix decided use Rise of the Tomb Raider as the title of the next game in the series. I’d gotten my fill of the word “rise” (and its variants) after being subjected to The Dark Knight Rises, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Hannibal Rising, and many others at the movie theater. Especially because very few of the people or groups who are supposed to rise in those movies actually do!
Destructoid’s Steven Hansen shares my pain and has put together his own list of words that need to be stricken from game titles. Unsurprisingly, it all loops back to Call of Duty:
Lords of the Fallen and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare just came out and they should be laughed out the damn building for their horrible, generic videogames names.
I originally typed “Armored Warfare” and was confused when Google failed to bring up results for our “Call of Duty: Armored Warfare” review. Then I realized it was “Advanced Warfare” after remembering I kept getting it confused with Advance Wars originally.
DO YOU SEE THE PROBLEM?
You can read the rest of the article at Destructoid.
GTA5, Far Cry 4, Dragon Age: Inquisition, and many many more added to PS Store
Another double digit explosion of new releases hit the PlayStation Store yesterday, but four titles stand head and shoulders above the rest. Care to take a guess what they are? Trust me, it shouldn’t be too difficult…
- Rockstar has released Grand Theft Auto V for the PS4, adding a first-person mode, extra missions, a graphical upgrade, and a few other tweaks.
- Ubisoft dives back into the Far Cry franchise with Far Cry 4 (PS3, PS4), another whacked out first person shooter that takes the action to the Himalayas. And as the trailers keep reminding us, you can wreak havoc while riding on the back of an elephant.
- BioWare brings back the Dragon Age series with Dragon Age: Inquisition (PS3, PS4), a huge new RPG that looks like it’ll dwarf the much smaller Dragon Age II.
- And finally, Sony has pushed out LittleBigPlanet 3 (PS3, PS4), the latest game in their game-building franchise and the first solely developed by Sumo Digital.
If you’re looking for additional details on even more new releases (including Escape Dead Island, Samurai Warriors 4, Hatsune Miku: Project Diva F 2nd, and many others), you can find them after the break. And for a complete rundown of this week’s discounts and new game add-ons, plan a visit to the PlayStation Blog. (more…)
Posted in News, PS3, PS4, Vita
Tagged Dragon Age: Inquisition, Far Cry 4, Grand Theft Auto V, LittleBigPlanet 3
Get a lesson in “Puzzles 101” in new Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris dev diary
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light was one of 2010’s biggest surprises and I was shocked a second time when Square Enix announced that a sequel was being prepped for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One this Fall. With the December 9 launch of Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris just a few weeks away, developer Crystal Dynamics has released a new Developer Diary delving into the game’s intricate puzzle mechanics.
Executive Producer Scot Amos and Lead Level Designer Jeff Wajcs discuss all the environmental hazards like boulders, floor spikes, and falling platforms while also focusing on the new challenges present in creating a puzzle fit for four players.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris
Geometry Wars 3 is out next week and here’s a new gameplay trailer
Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions is not a game I ever expected to play. After the dissolution of Bizarre Creations, the original developer behind the game, it looked like Activision would let the franchise rot for the foreseeable future. Instead, they recruited Lucid Games (which was founded by several ex-Bizarre employees) and set about making another sequel in the twin-stick shooter franchise. And the newly released gameplay trailer gives us our best look at the game in action yet.
Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions will be available for the PC, PS3, and PS4 on November 25 and on the Xbox 360 and Xbox One on November 26. I can’t wait, can you?
See some of Evolve’s design changes in latest behind-the-scenes video
Evolve has changed quite a bit over the years and Turtle Rock Studios wants to share part of this process with us in their latest behind-the-scenes video: “The Iterative Process of Turtle Rock Studios.” The video includes early looks at the Hunters as well as Goliath’s initial appearance as a crab monster. Adam Sessler is your host once again and he gets the Turtle Rock team (who are all sporting some hefty beards) to open about those topics and the rest of the design process.
Evolve will be released for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One on February 10.
Insert Quarter: Should Games Have All Content Unlocked From the Outset?
Insert Quarter is our showcase for some of the best and most interesting writing about video games on the Internet.
Back in the NES era, many games included cheats or Game Genie codes to unlock some of the more difficult levels or fill our coffers with 1-Ups. How else were we supposed to beat Battletoads? But today’s games don’t do that, opting instead to lock much of their advanced content behind a scavenger hunt for baubles or a seemingly impossible boss fight. Most games, but not all. Halo: The Master Chief Collection is a rather notable exception. Ars Technica’s Kyle Orland writes that Microsoft’s decision to unlock every campaign level and multiplayer match type was a master stroke:
It doesn’t have to be this way, as Halo: The Master Chief Collection and its immediate unlocks show. Original campaigns aren’t going anywhere, and we’re not about to start skipping content by default. But there’s no reason to prevent players from deciding how and when they can access whatever content is in a game—from levels and items to weapons and costumes—at the moment they first launch it.
You can read the rest of the article at Ars Technica.
Posted in Insert Quarter, Xbox One
Tagged Halo: The Master Chief Collection
Weekly Warp-Up: The Game Awards Cometh Edition
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…
Geoff Keighley spent the last decade building up the Spike TV VGX Awards (formerly the Video Game Awards) from a show that was completely embarrassing to a show that’s now mostly tolerable. But the famed game presenter has decided to jump ship and start his own end-of-year awards show, The Game Awards. Keighley has sought out the help of Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, and Valve to produce his show, which will also include a collection of clips from some of 2015’s most-anticipated games.
Personally, I hope Spike TV chooses to continue the VGX Awards so we can have two chances to watch awkward game executives and bored Hollywood types hand out awards to developers who aren’t sure how they’re supposed to react. Plus, it might lead to more drunken development deals.
Are you looking for more news from this past week? Then I suggest you look for it after the break where we delve into a bunch of new game announcements (Yay!) and a few delays (Oh no!). (more…)
Posted in News
New Releases: Super Smash Bros Wii U, Far Cry 4, Grand Theft Auto V PS4/Xbox One, More
After years of revealing screenshots and teasing trailers (including one 35-minute “Extravganza“), Nintendo is finally ready to release Super Smash Bros. For Wii U this week. It’s a big week for Nintendo in general as the publisher will also release Pokemon: Alpha Sapphire and Pokemon: Omega Ruby for the 3DS along with their first wave of Amiibo figures.
What can the rest of the publishing world do to compete? A lot, actually. Rockstar will bring Grand Theft Auto V to the PS4 and Xbox One for the first time while Ubisoft will release the Himalayan-set Far Cry 4 (PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One) too. Those are both massive open-world games… though only one lets you ride an elephant. Also available this week is BioWare’s latest RPG, Dragon Age: Inquisition (PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One); Sony’s latest LittleBigPlanet game, LittleBigPlanet 3 (PS3, PS4); and Deep Silver’s Dead Island spinoff, Escape Dead Island (PC, PS3, Xbox 360).
And if you’re looking to pick up some previously released major releases on new platforms, now’s your chance. WWE 2K15 makes the jump to the PS4 and Xbox One, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor downgrades to the PS3 and Xbox 360, and Watch Dogs finally makes its way to the Wii U.
And you can find even more new releases after the break. (more…)