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
Weekly Warp-Up: First Nintendo Direct of 2014 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…
Nintendo held their first Nintendo Direct presentation of the year yesterday and revealed a few nifty tidbits about their 2014 plans. First up, they confirmed that Mario Kart 8 will launch on May 30 and include all seven Koopalings as playable characters. In other roster addition news, the publisher added Little Mac to Super Smash Bros. 4 on the Wii U and 3DS.
In downloadable game news, Nintendo announced that Game Boy Advance games will be available on the Wii U’s Virtual Console beginning in April. They also revealed that Steel Diver: Sub Wars and Inazuma Eleven are both now available on the 3DS eShop and that Weapon Shop De Omasse, the final “Guild01” game, will be released next week.
Finally, Platinum Games has released a new trailer for Bayonetta 2.
In other Wii U news, we talked to Maximillian Kovtun of Space Enigma Studios about his company’s game, Space Pioneer. If you’re a space buff, it’s worth a read.
More news from the past week can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in News
New Releases: Donkey Kong Country: Tropcial Freeze, EDF 2025, NASCAR 14, More
While Mario and Sonic have already conquered the Winter Olympics, Nintendo is ready to send another one of its beloved characters out into the snow. The normally jungle-bound Donkey Kong will get to play in the powder this week with the release of Donkey Kong Country: Tropcial Freeze for the Wii U. Better pack your mittens, big guy.
A jungle of a different kind will need to be saved in D3 Publisher’s Earth Defense Force 2025. The big bugs are back and the Earth Defense Force must once again band together to save the urban jungle that is Tokyo. You can get it on the PS3 or the Xbox 360.
This week’s final new release is NASCAR 14 for the PS3 and the Xbox 360. The franchise has switched publishers from Activision to Deep Silver, but developer Eutechnyx is once again responsible for development on the racing simulation.
Finally, a pair of ports have found new homes this week. Ubisoft’s highly acclaimed Rayman Legends makes a next-generation leap to the PS4 and Xbox One. Meanwhile, WB’s Lego Marvel Super Heroes downgrades to the DS. Games for everybody!
Posted in DS, News, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Earth Defense Force 2025, NASCAR 14, Rayman Legends
TitanFall beta is now open to all on Xbox One, PC
After previously limiting the TitanFall Xbox One beta to a small pool of applicants and code giveaway winners, Respawn Entertainment has decided to open the flood gates today. Around midnight, the developer switched the beta’s status from “closed” to “open,” allowing everyone to jump in and give the next-generation shooter a shot ahead of its March 11 release.
The TitanFall beta is available in the “New Game Demos” section of the XBL Store and will remain available until 9:00 PM (Eastern Time) on Tuesday, February 18. So you’ve got two more days. Use them wisely… it’s probably best if you call in sick now instead of Monday morning.
UPDATE: Speaking of Monday morning, the TitanFall beta is now open to all on PC as well. To make sure everyone gets a chance to experience TitanFall to the fullest, Respawn has also extended the beta through Wednesday, February 19.
Gearbox: Borderlands 3 IS NOT in development
Randy Pitchford, the President and CEO of Gearbox Software, recently sat down with Polygon and confirmed every gamer’s worst fear: Borderlands 3 is not currently in development…
“We are not working on Borderlands 3,” he said during an interview last week. “That is unqualified. We have more to do in the franchise, but no there isn’t a Borderlands 3.”
So what is Gearbox working on? Pitchford fell back on the same speech he gave at last year’s PAX Prime show and reconfirmed that his company is working on the Homeworld 1 + 2 HD remakes, Homeworld: Shipbreakers, Furious 4, a new Brothers in Arms game, and two original games for next-generation systems.
Pitchford (and Gearbox) always have a big presence at PAX East, perhaps we’ll learn something new about their future plans in a few weeks.
Posted in News
Tagged Borderlands 3
MLB 14: The Show for PS3, Vita out on April 1; PS4 version slides into May
Sony has released a new trailer for MLB 14: The Show, the latest entry in their venerable baseball simulation series, as well as an April 1 release date for the PS3 and Vita versions of the game. Those of you holding out for the PS4 version will have to wait a little longer, as Sony has optioned the next-generation edition to extended Spring Training… um… I mean a May 2014 launch.
You also might want to slide over to the PlayStation Blog for a few details on some of MLB 14: The Show’s revamped modes as well as a look at the impressive beards that the PS4 version of the game can output.
Posted in News, PS3, PS4, Vita
Tagged MLB 14: The Show
Level-5’s Weapon Shop De Omasse will be available for 3DS next week
Level-5’s “Guild01” and “Guild02” collections have produced six quirky (and quirkily entertaining) 3DS titles that have helped make the 3DS eShop a very interesting place. On Thursday, Nintendo announced, finally, that the seventh “Guild” game, Weapon Shop De Omasse, would be released in America and Europe.
Like its predecessors, Weapon Shop De Omasse is a wacky new take on a familiar gaming trope. In this case, the weaponsmiths that populate every RPG produced in the last 25 years. In Omasse, this duty falls to an apprentice armorer that has to create a wide variety of monster-killing implements. Manning the shop counter, the apprentice also has to decide which heroes are worthy of the legendary weapons he creates. Always staying in his shop, the young apprentice proves that the hero of your favorite RPG didn’t slay the dragon on his own… he or she had lots of help. Weapon Shop De Omasse will be available to download from the 3DS eShop on February 20 for $7.99.
To prepare yourself for all the rhythm-based weaponsmithing it includes, you can watch the debut trailer above or you can avail yourself of a huge sale on the rest of the “Guild” series. From now through February 23, all six “Guild” games (Aero Porter, Crimson Shroud, Liberation Maiden, The Starship Damrey, Bugs vs Tanks!, and Attack of the Friday Monsters) are available to download for $2.99 apiece.
Posted in 3DS, News
Tagged Weapon Shop De Omasse
Nintendo will add GBA games to Wii U Virtual Console in April
With the Super Game Boy, Nintendo pioneered the concept of playing handheld games on a home console. Beginning in April, they’ll take the Super Game Boy concept to the next level.
During yesterday’s Nintendo Direct presentation, President Satoru Iwata confirmed that the first Game Boy Advance games will be added to the Virtual Console section of the Wii U eShop. April’s first wave of titles will include “fan favorites” such as Metroid Fusion, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, and Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3. More Game Boy Advance games will be added to the Wii U eShop every month thereafter.
So what’s on your Game Boy Advance-on-Wii U wish list?
XBL Store Today: LocoCycle for Xbox 360
Love is in the air, ladies and gentlemen. And if you are an Xbox Live Arcade connoisseur, that means the love between a sentient motorcycle out and her bewildered mechanic. I refer, of course, to Twisted Pixel’s LocoCycle. LocoCycle didn’t have the warmest reception when it was first released during the Xbox One’s launch, but the game will get a second chance now that Xbox 360 owners have a chance to download it:
Newly self-aware, I.R.I.S. the martial-arts wielding assassin motorcycle, has begun a cross-continent escape to freedom. I.R.I.S.’s only ally is her engineer Pablo, who gets conscripted into the quest after his pant leg gets caught in her chassis. Hunted by the psychopathic motorcycle S.P.I.K.E. and a multinational weapons cartel, I.R.I.S. and Pablo face long odds, but they are riding for ‘Murica and freedom – so how can they lose?
LocoCycle has been priced at $9.99 on the XBLA. And in the spirit of second chances, Microsoft has also permanently slashed the price of the Xbox One edition. Previously priced at $14.99, the next-gen version of LocoCycle is also now available to download for $9.99.