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
Batman: Arkham Origins “Cold, Cold Heart” DLC available April 22
After a New Year’s tease, WB Games has announced that the first downloadable campaign content for Batman: Arkham Origins will reveal the story of the first time Batman and Mr. Freeze met. The DLC expansion will be known as “Cold, Cold Heart” and it’ll thaw your heart this Spring.
Priced at $9.99, and available for free to Season Pass subscribers) the “Cold, Cold Heart” add-on will take place within the walls of Wayne Manor during an awards banquet that Mr. Freeze decides to crash. Batman will be able to use a variety of new toys including the new Extreme Environment (XE) suit, as well as Thermal Gloves and Thermocharged Batarangs. Maybe this is a stupid question, but if “Cold, Cold Heart” is the first time Batman will tangle with Mr. Freeze, why does he even have Thermal Gloves and Thermocharged Batarangs?
The “Cold, Cold Heart” DLC will be available for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 on April 22.
Posted in News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Batman: Arkham Origins
XBL Store Today: Thief, Castlevania: LoS2, PvZ: Garden Warfare, Pac-Man Museum
The Xbox Live Game Store is now home to four new games, and two of them will be available for the Xbox One in addition to the Xbox 360.
Thief, for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One, marks the return of the stealthy Garrett. The adventures of the titular thief have been rebooted by Eidos Montreal, the developer that gave the Deus Ex franchise a similar makeover in 2011 with Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, the conclusion to Mercury Steam’s Lords of Shadow 2 saga, has also been added to the Xbox 360 section of the store today. And if getting bloody with Dracula isn’t your thing, there’s also PopCap’s cartoony shooter, Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare, which is available on both the Xbox 360 and Xbox One.
Finally, Bandai Namco has compiled many of Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man’s earliest adventures in Pac-Man Museum for the Xbox Live Arcade. But the collection doesn’t just highlight their 80s heyday, the pack also includes newer releases such as Pac-Man Championship Edition and the never-been-released Pac-Man: Battle Royale. (more…)
Posted in News, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, Pac-Man Museum, Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare, Thief
Beatbuddy will be swimming onto consoles and tablets soon
Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians, one of our favorite games from 2013, won’t be confined to the PC for much longer. The game’s developer, Threaks, has exclusively told us that Beatbuddy will soon be swimming onto “tablets and consoles.” Which tablets? Which consoles? Threaks’ Wolf Lang wouldn’t say, but I’m hoping the answer will eventually be “all of them.”
Lang would go on to say that the tablet version will appear first as development on the console edition continues. Threaks is very proud of the touch controls they’ve developed for Beatbuddy as he also said, “The touch controls we developed almost play better then the game pad!”
If you want to see what all the fuss is about right now, Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians was recently added to Humble Indie Bundle 11 and it can be yours if you pay more than the average (currently $4.64). In addition to Beatbuddy, the bundle includes a ridiculous number of great games including Dust: An Elysian Tail, Fez, Monaco, Guacamelee, and many others.
More details on the tablet edition of Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians will be released ahead of this year’s GDC conference.
Posted in Mobile, News, PC
Tagged Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians, GDC 2014
Thief, Tales of Symphonia, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, more added to PS Store
Sony updated the PlayStation Store last night and added almost all of February’s biggest releases to their digital storefront.
Leading the way are the PS4 titles Thief and Basement Crawl. One is the reboot of a beloved franchise and the other is a Bomberman-inspired in the scariest basement this side of The Evil Dead. Thief is also available to download on the PS3.
Also available on the PS3 this week is Konami’s conclusion to the Lords of Shadow saga, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2. Dracula’s modern day adventure is joined by Tales of Symphonia Chronicles, a high definition remake of the popular action RPGs. Bandai Namco has also released the two games in the compilation, Tales of Symphonia and Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, as individual downloads. Finally, the publisher is compiling several games from another of its favorite franchises with this week’s Pac-Man Museum.
More details about all of these games (and a few others) can be found after the break and a full rundown of this week’s new game add-ons can be found at the PlayStation Blog. (more…)
Posted in News, PS3, PS4, Vita
Tagged Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, Pac-Man Museum, Tales of Symphonia, Thief
Someone is making an Oculus Rift version of The Legend of Zelda
Did you ever want to play The Legend of Zelda with a first person viewpoint? I’m sure a few people are saying to themselves, “that could be fun,” while a few others are nodding their heads in vigorous fashion. If you’re one of the latter, then ZeldaVR is for you.
What is ZeldaVR? It’s a first person conversion of the NES adventure that uses the Oculus Rift to drop players into Link’s pointy elf shoes:
This is a VR clone of The Legend of Zelda for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The gameplay and artwork are virtually identical to the original NES classic, however in this version you see the world through Link’s eyes, in all of it’s virtual 3D 8-bit glory. Explore the world, find weapons, kill enemies, collect items, discover secrets, buy upgrades, delve into dungeons, defeat bosses, restore the Triforce, and rescue Princess Zelda from the evil Ganon.
ZeldaVR, which was created by a developer known as “Ubiquitron,” definitely gives off a strong Minecraft vibe to me. If you want to try it out for yourself, the game is currently available as a beta release with the full version set to be released next month at VirtualReality.io.
Posted in News, PC
Tagged The Legend of Zelda
Harold Ramis, the man who gave the world Ghostbusters, has died
This is only tangentially related to video games, but it would be a huge disservice for Warp Zoned to ignore today’s passing of one of the greatest comedic minds of the 1980s and 1990s: Harold Ramis. Ramis died this morning due to complications from autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis, a rare disease that affects the blood vessels. He was 69.
Ramis is best known to film fans for his appearance in 1984’s Ghostbusters as Dr. Egon Spengler. He also co-wrote the film and reprised the role in 1989’s Ghostbusters II. In 2009, he and writing partner Dan Aykroyd would team up again to resurrect the paranormal scientists in Atari’s Ghostbusters: The Video Game. Once again slipping into the character’s signature deadpan delivery, Ramis provided vocals for Egon in the game.
In addition to the Ghostbusters franchise, Ramis was responsible for more than a few movies you may have heard of. He wrote and starred in Stripes, wrote National Lampoon’s Animal House, directed National Lampoon’s Vacation, and wrote and directed Caddyshack and Groundhog Day. If you took a regular Twinkie and said that it represented the career of your average writer/director/actor, Harold Ramis’ Twinkie would be 35 feet long and weigh approximately 600 pounds. In other words, that’s a big Twinkie.
Our thoughts go out to the Ramis family.
Gearbox suing 3D Realms over Duke Nukem: Mass Destruction
3D Realms famously sold the franchise rights to Duke Nukem to Gearbox Software in 2010. And yet, earlier this month, a teaser website promoting a new Duke Nukem game co-developed by 3D Realms and Interceptor Entertainment began counting down to a reveal planned for February 25. The game, an action RPG for the PC and PS4, is expected to be called Duke Nukem: Mass Destruction. So what’s Gearbox’s connection to all of this?
It looks like they’re suing 3D Realms for attempting to make a new Duke Nukem game without their permission. The complaint reads:
“Apparently, after selling its Duke Nukem IP rights to Gearbox in 2010, 3DR sought to privately convince others that the sale never happened. The result is the unauthorized development effort that reportedly exists between 3DR and Interceptor.”
In addition to the copyright infringement claim, Gearbox also released a signed declaration from 3D Realms’ George Broussard and Scott Miller stating that they are aware that Gearbox is the rightful owner of all intellectual property related to Duke Nukem.
So with all this evidence (again, the Duke Nukem IP sale in 2010 was very public), it makes you wonder exactly what 3D Realms and Interceptor were thinking. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when the Duke Nukem: Mass Destruction countdown expires tomorrow…
Xbox One + TitanFall Bundle will be available on March 11
TitanFall is, without question, this Spring’s most anticipated new game. All apologies to the glorious platforming found in Shovel Knight or the majestic difficulty of Dark Souls II, but it’s true. Microsoft, naturally, wants to promote the Xbox One’s big exclusive and they plan to do that by offering a special Xbox One Console + TitanFall Bundle.
Available on March 11, the Xbox One console in the bundle won’t feature a TitanFall-themed paint job, but it will be priced at $499.99 and include a free Xbox Live download code for the game. The Xbox One Console + TitanFall Bundle will be available in limited quantities, and pre-orders are now open at Amazon.
The most interesting thing about this announcement is that it confirms a rumor that began floating around at the end of last month. The TitanFall bundle was mentioned alongside white, 1TB, and discless consoles. So we might be in for a few more of these announcements before the end of the year. And a part of me is very interested in what a discless Xbox One would be like.