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
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare “Story” trailer needs more Spacey
This “Campaign Story” trailer for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare lays out all the little details the fuel the game’s narrative… There’s a terrible terrorist attack. A private military contractor named Atlas leads the rebuilding effort and wins government contracts all over the world. And then Kevin Spacey goes mad with power. But I was promised a madder Spacey. A Spacey that chews the digital scenery with reckless abandon. Maybe even Keyser Soze in space!
But we don’t get any of that. There’s very little Spacey in this trailer. I have to admit, I feel a little like Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park. Tapping the screen and hoping a Spaceysaurus jumps out and has a nice lunch with his lawyer.
Still, the trailer is pretty impressive. There’s jet packs and mech-suited soldiers and walking tanks and a surveillance bug that is literally a tiny flying bug with a camera mounted to its face. And the trailer ends with a promise that the “Multiplayer Reveal” will be available on August 11. That’s nice to know.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare will launch (with more Spacey) on November 4 for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.
Tetsuya Nomura-designed Batman figure was originally created for a canceled game
Square Enix launched their Play Arts Kai line of figures a few years ago, creating figures for famous franchises such as Final Fantasy, Mass Effect, and Halo. Recently, they’ve delved into creating DC Comics Variant figures such as this awesome Batman design that debuted at this past weekend’s San Diego Comic Con. This version of the Caped Crusader looks to be influenced by the futuristic stylings of Batman Beyond, but it also features a more heavily armored look as well as a cape that closely resembles bat wings.
It was also originally designed by Tetsuya Nomura (the Director behind the Kingdom Hearts series and the upcoming Final Fantasy XV) for use in a now-canceled Batman game.
Siliconera caught up with the prolific producer to ask him about the history of the figure and the game it was originally connected to. It turns out that the game was in development more than a decade ago, and never moved past the concept stage. It was actually canceled before development began on Kingdom Hearts, and Nomura revealed that this Batman design influenced the look of the armor in the first Square Enix/Disney crossover. Beyond that, he’s not allowed to say much about the project, though he did confirm that he’s working on a way to publish the “backstory” of this Batman variant.
So we’ve got a PS2-era Batman game with a funky art style that would have been overseen by Tetsuya Nomura. I am truly sorry I never got to see the finished product and I doubt I’m alone.
Posted in Etcetera, News
Tagged Comic-Con 2014
Beatbuddy swims onto iOS devices in September
Threaks has announced that Beatbuddy, their musical underseas action-adventure game, will soon make the jump from PCs to mobile devices. Beginning in September, the game will be available to download for the iPad and iPhone.
Beatbuddy’s controls have been completely redesigned to work with touchscreen devices, but the graphics and music (composed by such luminaries as Austin Wintory, Parov Stelar, and Sabrepulse) are being brought over exactly as they were on the PC. And speaking of music, the game’s great soundtrack will be available to purchase through iTunes as well as through an in-app store.
Threaks plans to support the iOS version of Beatbuddy with new songs that will be released monthly. Best of all, this DLC will be free.
Posted in Mobile, News
Tagged Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians
PAX Prime 2014 PAX 10 selections announced
PAX Prime 2014 is exactly a month away, so now’s the perfect time to announce the PAX 10, a hand-picked group of indie games that the Penny Arcade (and over 50 judges) choose to highlight at the big show.
Duet, a great iOS game where players have to navigate two dots through an obstacle course, and Framed, an interactive comic where players rearrange the panels to rearrange the story, are both holdovers from this Spring’s PAX East Indie Showcase. Other PAX 10 selections include:
- Duet (Developed by Kumobius)
- Flickers (Developed by DigiPen’s Neat Snake)
- Framed (Developed by LoveShack Entertainment)
- Life Goes On (Developed by Infinite Monkeys Entertainment)
- Mushroom 11 (Developed by Untame)
- Nova-111 (Developed by Funktronic Labs)
- Poof vs The Cursed Kitty (Developed by Arkedo Studio/Neko Entertainment)
- Skullduggery! (Developed by ClutchPlay Games)
- Stikbold! (Developed by Reign Bros)
- The Counting Kingdom (Developed by Little Worlds Interactive)
Head over to the official PAX Site for a more detailed description of each title. And be sure to check out every PAX 10 selection on the show floor at this year’s PAX Prime convention.
Posted in Mobile, News, PC
Tagged PAX Prime 2014
Shovel Knight Review: An Ace (of Spades) Retro-Styled Platformer
Even though we’re in the middle of a second golden age of side-scrolling platformers, very few of them attempt to recreate what was so great about the graphical look of games in the 8-bit and 16-bit eras. Most of them (Mega Man 9 and 10, Contra ReBirth, Gradius ReBirth) just serve as distant sequels to some NES favorites. So it’s amazing that something like Shovel Knight, a wholly original game from Yacht Club Games, was able to perfectly capture the mood of late 80s game design. It feels more like a lost cartridge rediscovered in the modern day as opposed to a modern game created with modern gamers in mind. Yacht Club’s Sean Velasco told us last year that the company’s goal is to create “really awesome retro/modern fusion games.” I’m glad they got the chance and I’m not sure I’d want it any other way. (more…)
First The Last of Us movie details explode out of Comic-Con 2014
Back in March, we learned that Sony Pictures would be producing a Last of Us movie adaptation through their Screen Gems subsidiary. During this weekend’s San Diego Comic-Con, the studio revealed a bit more about their plans for the film, including this awesome teaser poster.
Sam Raimi, who will be producing the film, spoke to the gathered crowd alongside Naughty Dog Creative Director Neil Druckmann. Druckmann is also writing the screenplay, which Raimi believes will be “very true” to the game. The pair revealed that they’re currently in the process of whittling down a 15-hour game into a feature-length movie. And one of the things that may be changed is the ending.
The producers haven’t signed anyone to the cast yet, however they did say they’ve talked to Maisie Williams (Ayra Stark from Game of Thrones) about playing Ellie. The crowd roared its approval and even started up a “Bruce Campbell For Joel” campaign, but Raimi said that was unlikely. However, everyone’s favorite Evil Dead star will have “a place” in the film.
Finally, Raimi announced that the movie is still “years away” and that he won’t be directing. Instead, Druckmann is the person who is in charge of choosing the director. I wonder if Fede Alvarez (the director of the 2013 Evil Dead reboor/sequel) is available?
[Source: ComingSoon.net]
Posted in Etcetera, News, PS3
Tagged Comic-Con 2014, The Last of Us
Street Fighter producer promises new announcement at Comic-Con 2015
The Series Producer for the Street Fighter franchise, Yoshinori Ono, held court during this year’s San Diego Comic-Con to talk, not surprisingly, about all things Street Fighter. But much of what Ono had to say was familiar to the mega fans that made up the crowd. Sensing that the fans wanted to hear something juicy, Ono promised that a new announcement concerning the Street Fighter franchise would be made during next year’s Comic-Con.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t have anything to announce today. But next year I will, so please wait,” Ono said.
It’s unknown what Ono has planned for next year, but he did confirm that pre-production work had begun on Street Fighter 5 at this year’s E3 Expo. While a Street Fighter 5 announcement seems likely, earlier in the day, Bandai Namco’s Katsuhiro Harada confirmed that Tekken X Street Fighter is still in development, so who knows what will happen at Comic-Con 2015.
[Source: GameSpot]
Posted in News
Tagged Comic-Con 2014, Comic-Con 2015, Street Fighter V
See the first trailer for the Atari: Game Over documentary
Spoiler Alert! When Microsoft went digging in the desert this past April, they found the fabled resting place of thousands of Atari 2600 cartridges (including hundreds of copies of E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial). Over the years, many people tried to pass off the mass burial as some kind of hoax or urban legend. But the truth was never really in doubt. Atari had trouble selling their games during the Christmas season of 1983 and trucked their unsold stock to a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico.
So instead of focusing solely on the dig, Zak Penn’s documentary, Atari: Game Over, also looked into the culture of the company at the time and how the then biggest movie of all time could produce such a lousy tie-in game. This includes conversations with Atari executives, local politicians from the Alamogordo area, game historians, and the developer behind the infamous game, Howard Warshaw.
If you were in attendance at San Diego Comic-Con this weekend, you had a chance to see the premiere screening of Atari: Game Over for yourself. The rest of us will have to wait until this Fall, when it debuts on Xbox Live as one of the first (and last) Xbox Entertainment Studios offerings. For now, we’ll have to content ourselves with the trailer embedded above.
Posted in Etcetera, News, Retro, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Comic-Con 2014, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial