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
Xbox Store Today: Shadow of Mordor, Forza Horizon 2, Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, more
It’s a big week for the Xbox Games Store as several of this Fall’s biggest releases are now available for Microsoft consoles.
WB Games has released Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor on the Xbox One and players will once again get to explore that unwritten time between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring. Microsoft themselves have released the latest game in their Forza racing franchise, Forza Horizon 2, for the Xbox One and Xbox 360.
In smaller releases, Atlus has teamed up with Arc System Works once again to bring Persona 4 Arena Ultimax to the Xbox 360. And Focus Interactive has published yet another Sherlock Holmes detective game, Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments, which is available for both the Xbox One and Xbox 360.
More information on all of these games (as well as a few more new releases) can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Forza Horizon 2, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, Persona 4 Arena Ultimax
Thomas Was Alone will come to PS4, Xbox One, Wii U in November
Thomas Was Alone used simple rectangular shapes, and a mesmerizing voice-over performance from Danny Wallace, to captivate players on the PC in 2012 and the PS3/Vita in 2013. Next month, Mike Bithell’s award-winning game will make the jump to the PS4, Wii U, and Xbox One.
Curve Studios will once again handle the console port, which will carry a $9.99 price tag on all three platforms. However, the PlayStation version of the game will be part of Sony’s Cross-Buy initiative, so if you’ve purchased the game for the PS3 or the Vita, the PS4 version can be yours for free.
Curve Digital Managing Director, Jason Perkins said: “Thomas Was Alone came to PlayStation right at the start of their campaign to make console development more appealing to smaller developers. Since then, indie games have become a much larger part of the landscape for all major platform holders. It’s exciting to be working with Mike [Bithell] again and to be able to bring the title to even more gamers while offering a free copy for original PlayStation fans.”
And if you need a little mid-day entertainment, Curve and Bithell created a “behind-the-scenes” mockumentary detailing the porting process of Thomas Was Alone. The video is embedded after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, PS4, Wii U, Xbox One
Tagged Thomas Was Alone
Shadow of Mordor, Pier Solar HD, Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, more added to PS Store
Are you ready to fill your digital cart with new games for the PS4, PS3, and Vita? I hope so, as Sony dropped another massive update onto the PlayStation Store yesterday.
WB Games leads things off with the latest attempt at an original game in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings saga, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor. It is available for the PS4 in a standard edition and a Digital Deluxe Edition.
Also available this week is Pier Solar and the Great Architects (PS3/PS4 Cross-Buy), a retro-style RPG; Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments (PS3, PS4), another crime-solving game starring the great detective; Natural Doctrine (PS3, PS4, Vita), a strategy game from NIS America; and Persona 4 Arena Ultimax (PS3), another Persona fighter from Atlus and Arc System Works.
Finally this week, all five volumes of the Namco Museum compilation series is now available to download from the PSone Classics section of the store.
The full list of this week’s new releases can be found after the break and a complete rundown of this week’s new game add-ons can be found at the PlayStation Blog. (more…)
Posted in News, PS3, PS4, Vita
Tagged Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, Persona 4 Arena Ultimax
Oh my god… somebody is making a Tetris movie
And that somebody is Larry Kasanoff, the same producer behind 1995’s Mortal Kombat and 1997’s less-impressive Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. Kasanoff told The Wall Street Journal that his production studio, Threshold Entertainment, has signed a deal with The Tetris Company to produce the film as a theatrical release.
There’s no word yet on who will star in the film or when it’ll open in theaters, but Kasanoff believes that Tetris: The Movie should take the form of a massive sci-fi blockbuster:
“It’s a very big, epic sci-fi movie,” Threshold’s CEO Larry Kasanoff tells Speakeasy [a WSJ blog] exclusively. “This isn’t a movie with a bunch of lines running around the page. We’re not giving feet to the geometric shapes.”
Kasanoff’s sci-fi take on the game’s story isn’t the first time Tetris has looked to the stars for inspiration. The “plot” of 2002’s Tetris Worlds involved rescuing a race of intelligent machines from a dying planet through the power of “Tetrion Gates.” Each gate was unlocked once the player lined up a series of Minos (Tetris pieces) along the bottom of the well.
Personally, I hope it’s like the Captain N episode, “The Trouble With Tetris.”
Harmonix shares first gameplay video of Amplitude HD
Four months after the completion of their wildly successful Kickstarter campaign, Harmonix is ready to give gamers their first look at the upcoming Amplitude reboot.
The video was unveiled within the game’s latest Kickstarter update and it is definitely an early look. Things are so preliminary that the levels don’t even have backgrounds yet. But for Amplitude fans, it’s an exciting look into the future of the franchise on the PS3 and PS4.
If all goes well, the Amplitude reboot should be released in Spring 2015.
Pokemon Trading Card Game Online now available on iOS App Store
If you’ve ever wanted to play a Pokemon game on your iPad, now’s your chance. As of today, Pokemon Trading Card Game Online is now available through the iOS App Store as a free download.
Pokemon TCG Online includes everyone you’ll need to get started with the game. Players will be able to compete in player-versus-computer and player-versus-player battles as well as deal with deck building, card trading, avatar customization, and more. For those who are completely new to the card game, Pokemon TCG Online also features an extensive tutorial. New cards can be earned after winning battles and they can also be unlocked with the purchase of “physical theme decks, booster packs, and other Pokemon TCG products.”
“The iPad version of Pokemon TCG Online makes it even easier for fans to pick up the game and begin playing immediately,” said J.C. Smith, director of Consumer Marketing at The Pokemon Company International. “We want to provide players with various access points to play and enjoy the Pokemon TCG, whether it’s the traditional tabletop game, PC and Mac version, or the iPad and iPad mini app.”
F.E.A.R. Online will be released on October 17
Aeria Games and WB Games have announced that F.E.A.R. Online will be available to download through Steam on October 17. Interested players can also sign up for an open beta, which begins October 8, on the game’s official website.
F.E.A.R. Online is a free-to-play shooter set within the F.E.A.R. universe where players will cooperatively do battle with the “unsettling experiments” created by Armacham Technology Corporation:
In F.E.A.R. Online, tensions reach a boiling point as the F.E.A.R. task force investigates Armacham Technology Corporation’s unsettling experiments. With several team combat modes spanning more than ten ominous maps, the game is packed with chilling details. The storyline continues in cooperative scenarios that detail the terrifying occurrences surrounding the F.E.A.R. team, in parallel to the events of F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin. Up to four players can team up and fight for their lives against both hostile Armacham personnel and hideous monsters lurking around every corner.
F.E.A.R. 3, released in 2011, was the last game in the F.E.A.R. franchise.
Joe Madureira and other ex-Vigil developers form Airship Syndicate
Joe “Joe Mad” Madureira is a pretty big name in the comics industry, having worked on multiple titles in the Marvel universe such as Deadpool, Uncanny X-Men, Avenging Spider-Man, The Ultimates, and Savage Wolverine. He was also one of the founders of Vigil Games, which developed Darksiders and Darksiders II for THQ before the publisher closed its doors in 2013. Since then, many of Vigil’s developers have found homes at Gunfire Games and the now defunct Crytek USA. Madureira himself (along with Ryan Stefanelli, Steve Madureira, and other ex-Vigil employees) has also set sail for new pastures… specifically that of Airship Syndicate.
Airship Syndicate is located in Austin, Texas and is currently gearing up to begin work on their first project. Details are pretty sparse right now, but the developer did say on their official website: “RPG? Metroidvania? Battle Chasers Open World Kart Racer? You never know. Any way you shake it, adventure is the name of the game.”
Howwever, Stefanelli told Game Informer that the team will be small, and that they plan to create, “classic experiences with a modern edge.” That’s a common refrain for indie teams these days. Stefanelli added that Airship’s first game is currently in development for the PC and consoles with Madureira chiming in to say, “the game we’re working on now isn’t [Darksiders III].”
Posted in News, PC
Tagged Battle Chasers: Nightwar